Tales of True Crime: True Rape Stories

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Take care of yourself physically. It's always important to eat right, exercise regularly, and get plenty of sleep—but even more so when you're healing from trauma. Exercise in particular can soothe your traumatized nervous system, relieve stress, and help you feel more powerful and in control of your body. As Dr Veronica Lamarche, a psychology lecturer at the University of Essex, says, situational ambiguity is also a contributing factor. “The majority of assaults happen in the ‘grey areas’ of sexual intimacy. This situational ambiguity makes it hard for victims to clearly say: ‘I was assaulted,’ because their experiences don’t perfectly map on to the model scenario.” Bear in mind they might not want to be touched. Even a hug might upset them, so ask first. If you're in a sexual relationship with them, be aware that sex might be frightening, and don't put pressure on them to have sex. A few months went by like this and then, one night when he came to the house, his friend Greg* was in the car. I didn't question why until after we were on the highway speeding to an unknown destination. I asked where we were going, and that's when they told me I was to have sex with one while performing oral sex on the other. I told them I didn't want to, and when we got to a spot, an abandoned campground in the middle of woods, I was told I didn't have to. Greg went into the car while I had sex with my ex.

But why do survivors find this can take so long? Prof Heather L Littleton, a psychologist at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, who specialises in social-cognitive factors in sexual assault and trauma, says: “Women who have an experience that legally would be rape, instead label what happened to them as something that is not a crime, such as a miscommunication.” Sexual assault referral centres (SARCs) are located across the country and available for everyone, regardless of gender, age, the type of incident, or when it happened. SARCs offer a range of services, including crisis care, medical and forensic examinations, emergency contraception and testing for STIs. They can also arrange access to an independent sexual assault advisor (ISVA), as well as referrals to mental health support and sexual violence support services.Fact: There's no surefire way to identify a rapist. Many appear completely normal, friendly, charming, and non-threatening. Someone asked me how I keep going. It used to be my son. Now, the only thing that stops me from swallowing my entire bottle of pain pills is my cats. I promised them a “furever home.” I cannot imagine how scared they would be for strangers to come in and cage them and take them away from their comfy home.

I was doing the cash register, it was a Sunday, so liquor sales didn't start until noon. Lawrence and Ziyad sat in the office until noon when the liquor sales started, then Lawrence and I traded places. For the longest time Ziyad and I sat in the office talking and getting to know each other. We talked about people, sports, cars, just small talk. Then he began making perverted comments to me. Feeling very uncomfortable, I went up to the cash register with Lawrence. I didn't tell him about his cousin. Now I know I should have. I was brought upstairs to a room full of desks. The detective introduced me to the secretary. I recognized her name. “She knows my step-dad!” I exclaimed. The detective yelled at me saying that whatever I had to say would stay in that room. Again I was too terrified to speak about my parents. The detective started asking me if my step-dad touched my breasts “playfully or sexually.” To me it didn’t matter. I thought it was wrong that he touched me period. I couldn’t answer the detective. He kept asking me over and over again, becoming more irate everytime he asked. He was outright screaming at me. I thought about how my parents would laugh at me everytime my step-dad touched my breasts. They thought it was funny that I would get upset by him touching me. After the third time he touched me, I stood up and stormed off. That’s when my mom said, “oh we can’t even play with you!” Because she had said that, I finally answered the detective, “playfully.” That was it. That’s all he wanted to know. He was done with me. My mom’s second husband would make me strip naked and lay in the center of my bed while he beat me all over my body. What he put me through was absolutely horrific. He raped me over and over again. I thought it would never end. He kept saying he was a bad man and that I would do as I was told. When I tried to resist him he kept gagging me or slapped me around the head. At 6.45am he eventually left, after trapping me for almost five hours.In a statement to India’s Child Welfare Committee (CWC) on November 11, the girl, who was homeless, said she was raped by 400 people in Beed district of Maharashtra state, according to CWC chairman Abhay Vitthalrao Vanave. She named two policemen in her complaint, Vanave said.

If you haven't decided whether to involve the police, any forensic medical evidence that's collected will be stored at the SARC. This allows you time to decide if you do want to report the assault.. I knew I couldn't report it to the police because Greg's two years younger than I am --he's 16 and I'm 18, though both he and Joe are a lot bigger and stronger than I am. Also, where I live still abides by the old rule of "if it's not genital-to-genital, it's not really rape" and more than likely, if it got out, they'd both twist it around so that it was consensual and I could end up on statutory rape charges. So, until now, I've told no one what happened to me. Street marches in Sacramento spurred by the East Area Rapist spilled to the Capitol lawn and found fertile ground in the tough-on-crime political movement. Sen. George Deukmejian launched his campaign for attorney general on legislation to toughen the penalty for rape. In 1978, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill, making forcible rape a three-year prison offense. Since your nervous system is in a hypersensitive state following a rape or assault, you may start trying to numb yourself or avoid any associations with the trauma. But you can't selectively numb your feelings. When you shut down the unpleasant sensations, you also shut down your self-awareness and capacity for joy. You end up disconnected both emotionally and physically—existing, but not fully living.

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To anyone who has felt these things, to anyone living in the wake of violence and abuse, I want to say that you are not alone. I was helped – perhaps even saved – that night by the kind man I spoke to from the Samaritans, by Lucia’s book, and by another book which has become my bible, The Body Keeps the Score. These books have made me realise that fighting pain is self-destructive. That in learning to live with trauma we have to face it. The only way out is through. Fact: Rape is a crime of opportunity. Studies show that rapists choose victims based on their vulnerability, not on how sexy they appear or how flirtatious they are. So that morning when my roommate asked me excitedly: “Do you think you’ll see him again?” I said: “I hope so.” That part wasn’t a lie. My limited understanding of consent and sexual violence at that time, and my overall sexual inexperience, meant I believed I was to blame for what had happened, that perhaps I just didn’t know “how sex usually is”. On top of all that, I had feelings for the guy. While the number of alleged rapists would be difficult to corroborate, the girl could identify at least 25 alleged perpetrators, he added. A few months ago my son ran away for good. He lives with them now. They have turned him against me. He hates me. He does not want any chores or any rules. He will be 18 in September.

YouTube sets this cookie to measure bandwidth, determining whether the user gets the new or old player interface. When I turned 18 I got my own apartment. I worked full time and went to college full time. Because I had lived with my dad, who was poor, for the year prior to college, I was eligible for full financial aid.

Millions of Americans discovered that Glen Ridge was not a foreign and alien culture, but all too closely resembled their own communities. Glen Ridge’s test of character became America’s test of character. Glen Ridge ultimately found that it could not insulate itself against the turbulence created by an outrage that in the past would have been hidden and buried. Like Glen Ridge, America has been forced in recent years to define what are fair, just, and principled relations between men and women. That hasn’t been easy for Glen Ridge to do. And it hasn’t been easy for America either.” Yoga, Tai Chi, and Qigong. These activities combine body awareness with relaxing, focused movement and can help relieve symptoms of PTSD and trauma. He delivered deathly threats in a forced whisper, peppered with odd phrases. “Make the bed twinge,” he told one victim, “I’ll kill you.” To another: “I’ll butcher you all to pieces.”