Counsellor and disclosing historic rape - experiences?

[namechangefaila]

I'm thinking of talking to a. Counsellor about a traumatic sexual "relationship" I had with a man a few years ago

I've come to think of this as rape (lack of consent given, behaviours of him, details of the incidents) but I'm concerned that they may almost cross examine about what happened to me to test if it's really rape or if it's my anxiety expressing itself

I don't think this is based on the counsellor themself but more about my concern about telling anyone and them having this reaction

I'd be interested to know what others experiences are in discussing this sort of thing and if it was validating or if they felt more exposed as a result

Validating to the point i went to the police. Which was not a nice or validating experience.
Keep it with the counsellow and it should help. X

Find a specialist counsellor.
Call Rape Crisis and they can advise you of therapists in your area.

@sanssherif sorry to hear that about the police - I'm glad you found the counsellor helpful though

@hellsbellsmelons rape crisis themselves have a really long time waiting list - would it be a specialist counsellor or a trauma specialist I need?

Sorry I should have said if they don't think it was rape I'd be interested to hear that - I'm not looking for someone to just agree with me - but I'm feeling quite fragile and concerned that I'll find the process quite invasive in itself

I have no intention of ever going to the police with it as I simply couldn't (not in their jurisdiction)

I spoke to my counsellor about a rape last week. It was hard to do as i'd not admitted it to anyone for many years. It helped me to understand a lot of my anger about various people in my life though.

It's personal to you, you may need specialist therapy, but I found my person centred counsellor useful on this.

The counsellor does need to carefully explain what details they record as potentially if it were to go to court they could be called as a witness and their notes disclosed.

For this reason they may record very little in terms of details you share. But you need to know just in case.

And they absolutely should not I would hope do anything other than listen to your experiences not judge or question you on this. Good luck I hope it helps to talk

@Mayhemmumma that's good to know- I had no idea about court. Presumably that's to do with disclosure? It's really not going to be relevant in my case in any case

@chemicalworld glad you found it a positive experience- sounds like talking helped

I'm not sure why I'm thinking about this like it's a big thing. It's just some shit that happened to me - for which there is no redress and which no one can do anything now to change