This blog comes with a very strong TRIGGER WARNING. It covers details of rape, PTSD and suicidal
thoughts. It’s also longer than the
typical blog, but I’m grateful for you taking the time to read it. Reading it may trouble you, especially if you
know me. I’m still here, and I’m
planning on staying here. This is an
account of what happened, how it impacted me at its worst, and doesn’t
represent all of me. I know that I’m
feeling especially low at the moment, simply because it’s the 5 year
anniversary. The nightmares have
re-started. I’m feeling very jumpy and
on edge. I know that after Wednesday, I’ll
start getting better again. I know these
things. But I wanted to write this. It’s my truth and I wanted to get it out of
me. Getting it out of me seems to help,
if only temporarily. But, please don’t
worry. My friends, you are one of the
main reasons why I’m still here, why I’ll stay here; thank you.
Wednesday, 10th April 2013 marks five years since
it happened. It was a Thursday then.
I wasn’t entirely well before it happened. I had gotten divorced a few months before,
well, left him a year before, after 10 years of marriage. I was suffering from depression, actually on
anti-depressants, I’d seen a therapist and done some CBT to stop the cutting I
had started in adult life, and I was using coke ‘recreationally’ – which was a
bit more like habitually. I was drinking
a lot and controlling my food. But, for
the first time in years, I was skinny, and felt sexy. Whilst, looking back, I wasn’t well, at the
time, despite the evident problems, I did feel invincible. I felt free, liberated, like my life could
become anything I wanted it to be.
But, well, I wasn’t well.
I have to remember that even before the rape, I wasn’t entirely well. The way I am now, it’s not entirely to do
with that one night. It makes me worry
that if I ever do recover from the PTSD my new psychiatrist says I have, and
that she can possibly cure using the new EMDR approach, it makes me worry that
I won’t be well, that there are bigger problems in my psyche. But I need to hope I can get better, because
I cannot live another five years in this abyss.
I simply won’t.
There is something about it being five years now, that seems
harder to cope with than when it was four years, or three years, or two… I feel
like after this length of time I should be over it, or used to it. The fact that it still dominates my life, it
makes me feel so useless, so broken.
Five years feels like a milestone that is also a millstone.
That night I did mostly everything wrong. I have no memory of what I was wearing, but
knowing me, it probably showed my best asset, which is my cleavage. I probably wasn’t wearing heels, because I
just hardly ever do, and if I was, they would only have been an inch or so,
kitten heels. I was probably wearing
jeans, but maybe it was a skirt. We met
at a restaurant in Southwark, one I’d been to before and had suggested because
I liked it. We’d spoken on the phone a
couple of times, flirty, getting to know each other, he seemed nice. We had a drink first, I had a vodka based
cocktail. We both smoked and chatted in
the smoking area. We ordered. We ordered vodka for the table, it was the
way the restaurant did it, being a Polish restaurant. I remember between the starter and the main
course, at the smoking area, telling him that he seemed good company but I
didn’t fancy him; we could be friends but that was all. I don’t remember much else until I was home. I’ve wondered if that’s when he decided to do
it, because I’d rejected him. Or maybe,
he was going to do it anyway.
I suppose I drank far too much. The police later said that according to the
bill at the restaurant (which was apparently paid by cash) if I’d even consumed
only a third of the vodka that was charged to our table I would have been way
past the point of consent. With that
knowledge, I’ve always wondered why the CPS didn’t prosecute. But my apparent drinking was one of the
reasons they decided not to. I won’t
ever know if I drank too much, or if I was drugged, or both. The police did take a sample of my hair when
I reported it a month later, and for months I was explaining why I had a big
chunk of my hair cut out, but they never actually sent it off to be
analysed. They said it wouldn’t work and
was very expensive. I wish they’d never
taken it if it wasn’t going to work, would have saved so much humiliation in
the months afterwards. I know now it
doesn’t matter if I was drugged or not, the vodka didn’t rape me. But for a long time, I needed to feel that I
was drugged because then it would be proof that it wasn’t my fault, that he had
planned it. Because for a long time, I
blamed myself, for drinking, for dropping my guard, for trusting. It took a long time for me to realise that
what happened that night is that I went to dinner with a rapist and what
happened was not my fault.
I don’t remember the end of the meal. I don’t remember getting home. I think I must have told him my address
because I was no longer carrying my driving licence with my address on it in my
handbag since I’d had my bag stolen the previous Xmas and my identity stolen
along with it. So, yes, I must have told
him where I lived. The first thing I
remember is waking up to discover him fucking me. And all I could think to say was, you’re not
wearing a condom.
Before it happened, I never thought rape could happen to
me. First of all, I naively assumed that
most, if not all, rapes would be reported in the papers. In fact, when I reported the rape later I
half expected the local journo’s to come knocking for the story. I also thought most rapes were stranger
rapes, and if date rapes happened it was to drunk cheerleader types. Not well brought up professional women like
me. I’d been drunk with men before, they
hadn’t raped me. I’d even taken a guy
home with me only a couple of weeks previously, changed my mind half way through,
and he’d been quite happy to sleep on the sofa. (OK, maybe not exactly happy,
but he hadn’t pressured me in any way). I
thought rape was rare, and I never thought it would happen to me.
But, it was happening.
I’m very murky about the details, I was slipping in and out of
consciousness, but it was happening.
When the police interviewed me they forced me to try to tell the story
in a chronological way, with specific detail, who was on top, what position was
I in, what position was he in. At the
time, I was still having flashbacks and remembering things through flashbacks. Having to do that just increased the
flashbacks and the detail of my memory but thankfully a lot of that has faded
now, although I suppose it would make me a terrible witness now to my own rape. I say thankfully a lot has faded, although
there’s a part of me that wonders if some of my troubles about it, why it’s on
my mind every day, is because I can’t remember, and maybe remembering would
help. Although my psychiatrist says not. In fact, she’d be saying that writing this is
a very silly thing to do.
It was violent. At
some point I must’ve started resisting.
Because I’m kinky, there was a cane in my bedroom. He used it.
He used it so hard he cut me repeatedly.
When I went to the police a month later, I still had the bruises. I can still see the broken veins on my right
thigh where the cutting was worst. He
assaulted me anally. He rifled around in
my kitchen and took the handle to my krupps espresso maker and penetrated me
with it. I think he tried it in my arse
as well, I remember a huge intense pain.
I stopped resisting. I remember
him blindfolding me, I remember the clicking of a camera phone, I remember
being told to suck his cock and swallowing and calling him sir. I remember ice. I remember calling him a taxi
and collapsing to the floor behind the closed door, numb, and then sobbing and
sobbing.
The photographs were another reason why the CPS didn’t
prosecute. He produced them when he was
interviewed to prove consensual activity.
I was never able to see them or comment on them. I have to take the police word for it that
they were erased from his phone, and hope that copies weren’t made on any of
his other devices. Most likely, he still
has them, I know that. And it makes me
sick. I probably had stopped resisting when
he took them, I was all fought out, just going along with it, hoping it would
end soon. My psychiatrist, who is a PTSD
specialist and deals with a lot of rape survivors, tells me that taking
photographs is a sign of a professional rapist, it’s a way of creating their
alibi, showing a visual that creates doubt.
He did that too with the text he sent me next day. He called me a young lady and said he’d had a
lovely time and did I want to see him again.
Or words to that effect. I used
to know it off by heart, but I’ve forgotten it now. It really confused me, I wondered if I was
mistaken, had I asked him to do all that?
What had we talked about at dinner, in the taxi? My ex-friend C said to me several times that
I must’ve been mistaken, that was I sure I hadn’t wanted it? She’s no longer my friend, because she simply
couldn’t accept that I didn’t want that.
I didn’t consent to being fucked without a condom. I didn’t consent to anal. I didn’t consent to penetration with other
things. I didn’t consent to any of it.
The next week I went to the STD clinic and got all the tests
for everything. They gave me the meds
for gonorrhoea, just in case. It turned
out everything was ok. But my injuries
were visible, I had to tell them the story, they were kind, but it was
horrible. I didn’t want to tell it
again.
I wasn’t going to go to the police. I’d been drinking. I was kinky.
I didn’t think I’d be believed, and I thought I’d be blamed. But whilst his profile had been removed from
match.com I saw it on another dating site – a different user name, but it was
him, same picture, similar details. I
knew I had to report him, I didn’t want to feel responsible for him doing it to
someone else.
So, a month or so later, I did eventually go to the
police. My bestest friend took some time
off work and came to London so I didn’t have to go through it alone. We arrived at the police station about 10am,
we didn’t leave until after 5pm. I went
up to the desk and said I wanted to report a rape to the Sapphire unit. They were confused, I was breaking due
process, I was supposed to report it first to a police officer who would then
refer me to the Sapphire unit. I said I
didn’t want to go through it more than I needed to, and they got the Sapphire
unit people down. During that day, I
first talked to them about it, then I had to talk to them again, this time with
them writing it down as a statement.
Then I had to go on video and do it all again, more and more details
being asked each time. It was
intense. I spent most of the day in
tears, unsure of my memory, trying to tell as much as I could, apologising all
the time for not knowing details which I was sure I should know. I feel so much guilt that my friend had to
listen to all of it; I couldn’t have done it without her, but it wasn’t a story
that anyone should have to hear. I owe
her my life.
They took photographs of my injuries, the bruising was still
visible. They took the sample of my
hair. They took my mobile phone because
of the exchange of texts with him. They
arranged to come to my flat a couple of days later to do their forensic
thing. It’s nothing like CSI. They were there for most of the day, taking
photographs, packaging things up. When
they left I had to go out and buy a new duvet, pillows, sheets. I had to buy a new laptop as I was
self-employed at the time and I needed it – they took it because of the
exchange of email we’d had via the dating site.
They took glasses, they took the coffee machine. They took my coat, the clothes I thought I’d
worn (but wasn’t sure). It was a whole
month later, things had been washed, things had been through the dishwasher,
but they took them anyway. They kept
everything for a couple of months, until after the CPS decision not to
prosecute, some of it I told them to just keep.
I always wonder about the myth of false allegations. If I hadn’t been raped, how would I have
managed to keep up the pretence during the whole day of police questioning and
doing it on video? Replacing my laptop,
the duvet, coat, everything – the cost was towards £800. I was lucky I had that money. Of course, I’ve never been compensated.
I did try. The police
referred me to Victim Support, who gave me details of the CICA, Criminal
Injuries Compensation Authority. I
completed all the paperwork, sent it off, chased every few months. It wasn’t so much for the money, but I really
wanted something official that said I’d been raped, that gave me some kind of
closure. Two years later, they wrote to
me to tell me my claim had been unsuccessful based on the reasons why the CPS
hadn’t prosecuted. The police never told
me why the CPS hadn’t prosecuted, just that there was a lack of evidence, and
it would come down to ‘he said, she said’.
But the CICA did, two years later.
Reason 1 – I had waited to report.
Most rape victims do. Reason 2 –
I had been drinking. That should have
been evidence of lack of consent. Reason
3 – the photographs he took. Which I
have never seen, been able to comment on or give evidence on, and which people
like my psychiatrist who work with victims know is a method rapists use to
produce doubt. My view of the CPS is not
a kind one.
At the time I didn’t really question anything the police
did, trusting that they were doing everything they could. Certainly, the fact that I had a named
Sapphire liason officer to support me was really helpful, and without that I
probably wouldn’t have made it through even as well as I did. But they said they would do things that they
didn’t do. They said that they would
interview the friends I had initially told and I had to give names &
addresses and warn my friends that this would be the case. They didn’t follow up with any of them. They said they needed the hair sample to test
to see if I’d been drugged, they never sent it off for analysis (and it was
returned to me along with all my other things too! I mean!…. There are no
words…). I’d been foolish enough to tell
a friend I didn’t want the cane in my flat anymore, and he’d thrown it in a
skip – so there never was chain of evidence.
With regard to the photo that another friend took of my injuries, the
police said they needed the camera to do their chain of evidence, the photo by
itself wasn’t enough. She was having her
own domestic violence case go through its process at the time and didn’t want
to get involved, she refused the camera and refused to make a statement. So, no chain of evidence. I suppose, there really wasn’t much tangible
evidence and waiting a month hadn’t been the thing to do. But I was processing, I was in shock, I
didn’t want to face it as a truth.
It took the police several weeks to track him down. I had forgotten his last name, and although
it did come back to me a few days later, the police had to wait for mobile
phone companies to share his details and things like that before they could
make the arrest. They told me they
arrested him first thing in the morning and made him sit in the cells all day
before interviewing him. I suppose
that’s something. But I know if he told
anyone what had happened to him, I will be another ‘example’ bolstering up the
myth of false allegations. It was
another few weeks until the CPS made their decision. It really hurt. The police had believed me, I knew that. Whilst before I reported it, I didn’t think
I’d be believed, the fact of being believed had given me hope that justice
would win out. I had a very strong value
& belief system in the power of justice; to have been believed, but for
there to be no justice, spun me into a very dark place. The process of reporting, going into the
details, reliving it, having hope and then getting no justice, to experience
all that on top of the rape itself, was too much to bear. My whole world order was knocked off balance.
I lost another ‘friend’ when I said that. I said that if a friend confided in me that
they had been raped, and should they go to the police, I would hesitate, and I
couldn’t recommend it. I am almost
thankful that my case didn’t get prosecuted, because I do believe that I would
have not coped, that I would have committed suicide during it, or after it. This ‘friend’ of mine told me that therefore
I deserved to have been raped. We’d been
good friends – I was going to be her best woman at her wedding, we were away in
Las Vegas on a trip to celebrate her upcoming wedding, my gift to her. I told her to leave the hotel and we haven’t
spoken since. Not sure what she told her
family about why she no longer had a best woman, but hey… I was learning that
not all ‘friends’ were supportive.
In the weeks & months that followed I felt very fragile,
I did some very questionable things but I thought I would get over it, albeit
slowly. Before the rape, I’d been very
controlling about my food, I’d lost about 2 stone, and I’d felt good. Afterwards, I ate macaroni cheese for
breakfast, lunch and dinner. I put on the
first 2 stone in the first month or so, and then another stone slower after
that. In the five years since, I have
hated the way I look. Every so often I
hit a peak weight and I try to lose it, usually by doing some crazy controlling
diet. I’ll lose a stone or so, start
feeling better about myself, and then sabotage it because I associate feeling
good about the way I look to being a target for rapists.
I started using drink and sex as a way of exerting my
control over what could be very dangerous circumstances – looking back, I know
I was trying to recreate the circumstances but with one different
characteristic, this time I was in control and consenting (I still do it, but
now, only in safety with people – well, a person – I trust implicitly. It’s entirely different, and now about
pleasure rather than self-harm). I had
an assessment counselling session with the Havens and was telling her what I’d
done the previous weekend. The look on
her face was one of pure horror. I
didn’t go back.
I did find counselling through the Women & Girls
Network; they were wonderful. Non
judgemental, accepting of my lifestyle, they gave me a life-line that I
absolutely needed, first with one-on-one counselling and then in group
sessions. Back then, though, I thought
the way I was feeling was temporary. The
counselling was going to cure me. The
group sessions were called ‘an ending group’, I thought it was going to end. It didn’t.
Last year I had quite a major relapse, brought on by overwhelming stress
at work, and sought help again with WGN.
Their services really are amazing, again I was given individual
counselling, again I went to the group sessions, but this time I knew they
weren’t going to be a cure, just a way of helping me to find coping
mechanisms. (They also gave me access to
aromatherapy massages, part of their holistic treatment. I really can’t praise or thank WGN enough for
their support over the years).
I decided to tell my parents what had happened; I think I
wanted to feel safe in their arms, like when I was a child. Although, I don’t really have any memories of
that happening so I don’t know why I expected it to go well. As soon as I said it, and saw my Dad’s face
just crumble, I knew it had been a mistake.
How could they be expected to deal with the fact that their daughter had
been raped? After that, I felt like I
wasn’t allowed to be depressed. I
gravitated away from them, hardly seeing them.
Mum would sometimes say things like ‘be safe’ and I’d take it as
criticism for that night. It wasn’t
until a few years later that I told my brother; he was alright about it, but
again I felt uncomfortable. Recently, I
told my parents about the PTSD diagnosis, I think things are going to get
better with them; they’re trying, and so am I.
About six months after the rape, I went back to full-time
employment. It felt strange, being
around people, them not knowing the intense chasm of pain that I had
inside. My therapy sessions were
happening at the same time, so I had to confide in my boss what had happened to
get time off work. She seemed to be
supportive at the time, but soon got frustrated with the time off I was having,
especially when I found the day after therapy to be really hard as well; I took
those days as holiday rather than sick, but it didn’t go down well at all. Eventually, I lost my job – she said it was
due to my performance, but that was on the day the work we’d been doing had had
some really positive feedback. When I
asked her what she meant about my performance, she said I was no longer
resilient, and she couldn’t rely on me.
I was essentially being fired because I had been raped. In the end, I negotiated some fairly decent
monetary terms and resigned instead, but I will never forgive her. I’d been at that company about 5 years, with
just a short break where I was trying to follow my film producing dream. My boss had been a friend or mine; I’d taken
her to Ikea once. I felt betrayed.
That betrayal resulted in me deciding I could no longer cope
with the world. It had been proved that
I couldn’t hold down a job. I was fat
and hated myself. I was often scared to
leave the house. I was often scared in
the house (although I had moved – in fact, whilst I’ve been in my current flat
for two years now, in the first three years I moved house 6 times). I packed up my flat, put everything into
storage and took a flight to Thailand.
When I was there, I wrote very amusing blogs about my travels. But I’d planned never to come back. Part of me was in thrall of the idea of just
swimming out to sea, and never coming back.
Instead, I came back early.
I had some kind of epiphany in which I decided that I needed to live,
and if I was going to rebuild my life, I should start straight away. That was harder than I’d imagined, as I came
back to 8 months of unemployment and the joys of signing on. My savings had almost entirely run out by the
time I got a job at the firm which 3 years later, I am still at. I was probably about 2 months from living off
friends’ sofas. I threw myself into my
work, determined not to screw it up just because my head was sometimes in dark
places, and then last year, being so immersed in my work caused an extreme
breakdown.
I had been working 12-14 hour days, 6-7 days a week for
about 3 months which coincided with last year’s anniversary. The lack of control I felt over the amount of
work that needed doing triggered panic & anxiety attacks, nightmares and
insomnia which I hadn’t had in quite a while.
I’d always been looking over my shoulder, wondering if the nightmares
& insomnia would come back, and sometimes they did, but usually only for a
few nights. This time, it was constant
and I was exhausted. I’d also always had
the odd anxiety attack, walking down the street, feeling like someone was
there, running up the stairs to my flat and putting the chain on, sinking to
the floor in a sweat. But this time last
year, it was all the time, and I couldn’t work properly.
I ended up telling my boss what had happened. He’s been supportive, in a way that the other
organisation never was, but I feel like I’m coming to the end of that support
now. After I spoke at SlutWalk in
September, I had another breakdown, this time triggered by my own actions,
getting so focused on doing the speech, I wasn’t prepared for the come-down
afterwards. I took too many pills, a
combination of lorazepam and sleeping tablets.
It wasn’t intentional, the pills themselves made me woozy about what I’d
already taken. But, it was too many, and
not many more and I probably wouldn’t be here to be telling this story.
I’m worried about my job.
I don’t feel like I’m doing it well at the moment. I feel like my boss’s patience is going to
run out. I have dreams of what kind of
career I want, a portfolio career with a different life-balance. But I have so much doubt as to whether it’s
something I can achieve, I used to have gumption, I used to be fearless, now
all I have is self-doubt and a lack of confidence.
I have hope though. I
was diagnosed with PTSD, so now I know it’s not just me being weak and
failing. 33% of rape victims develop
PTSD. 31% contemplate suicide. But my current psychiatrist says that the new
therapy approach called EMDR (google it) might help, could be a cure. She says I’m still too ill to start that, I
have to be less depressed, more able to cope with the bad stuff, but soon we’ll
start it. It’ll re-wire my brain, so I
don’t get triggered so much. The idea
that there really is a cure, that’s amazing to me. And, there really better had be, because I
won’t live another 5 years like this.
Even on the days that have been good, even when I’ve felt on
top of the world, there’s always a nagging fear that it will all go away. I’m always checking for danger. I’m suspicious of everyone, even my friends,
even my really good friends; I’ve been betrayed by too many. I have no trust. I choose relationships with people who cannot
commit to me because I don’t think I’m worth committing to. I’m lonely.
I won’t go on online dating sites, and I’m tired of making up excuses
when people who don’t know ask me why not.
I’m tired all the time, but at night it takes me ages to go to sleep,
I’m frightened of the nightmares that could be coming. I think of that night every day, it is always
with me.
Over the years I think I’ve used every method of self-harm
there is in order to cope; cutting, starving myself, stuffing myself, drinking,
mis-using the prescription drugs, taking the legal & not-so legal highs,
sex and even my kink, using my masochism to hurt myself for pain not for pleasure.
I’ve hibernated, cut myself off from
friends and family. I’ve run away (to
Thailand). I’ve got angry, campaigned,
blogged. I know none of this works. It’s going to be long hard struggle, but I
hope I get better and find the strength to carry on trying to get better.
After rape and mental illness, suicide is another of those
taboos that no-one wants to hear about.
People say suicide is selfish, what about the people who are left
behind? But, what about the person who
is so tired of life, in so much pain through life, has so much self-hatred that
they don’t believe anyone would care afterwards, what about them? Well, it’s something I’ve given a lot of
thought to over the past 5 years. My
plan is very specific, would take energy and time to sort through; an
accidental over-dose is not the plan. I’ve
always had a plan B. I guess, suicide is
just a version of that. I hope not to
need it, not for very many years, but I need life to be getting better, because
this has been 5 years of hell, 5 years that I didn’t think I would survive, and
I think it is a miracle I’m still here, but here I am, somehow.
