Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
I am the victim
“I’m willing to share my story because there’s a lot of misunderstanding about what goes through the mind of someone like me: Someone who has been the victim and survived sexual assault.
I’m 26 now. The rape?
“When I was 19, during my first year at university. I was young and naive when it happened. I went to his house. He still lived with his parents. It was a bright, sunny day. I knew my rapist: he was my partner for a group project. His parents were not home, and he forced himself on me. He raped me. Twice.”
He raped me; he threatened me.
Stock image used for illustrative purposes.
Afterwards, he told me there was no point in me “trying” to report him to the police because no one would believe “a slut like me.”
I was a young, naive girl, far from home, who didn’t know any better. I was terrified, living alone for the first time. Even if I was on campus, he threatened to kill me in my dorm because he could easily find out where I lived.
He got away with it
Justice? There was none because I was too scared. But also because I did not have any proof. He raped, threatened to kill me, and then let me go.
I returned to the student dormitory and tried to drown myself in the hottest shower I could have. I scrubbed my skin until it was raw and bleeding.
Stock image used for illustrative purposes.
I didn’t know better. I didn’t know what a “rape kit” was. I didn’t get any medical tests or examinations for more than a year. I had no evidence or proof of any kind. And so, he got away with it. I never filed a police report.
My parents are still confused by that period of my life: I came home in tears after less than a semester away. I changed university and changed my major, and I never told them. The shame and guilt could be what killed me, but it would kill them. I shouldered a world of pain and hurt to spare my parents. They still don’t know.
I dealt with it by not dealing with it.
That was my exact coping method for my early and mid-20s. I buried myself in my studies, participating in clubs and societies and doing all manner of activities and events to distract and distance my mind from what had happened.
I constantly fantasised about what I would do with my life, including a brilliant career and all the travelling and exploring of the world, because I was intelligent and successful at everything.
The second was that I just got numb to my feelings. I stopped feeling. More specifically, I stopped having normal emotions and emotional reactions to things.
The death of a close family member made me realise how bad my mental state was: I didn’t, couldn’t cry or express any sadness or emotion.
It was the wake-up call I needed, and I started seeing a therapist. Emotions did start to come back, gradually, and I began to feel more like a human than the robot I had become.
Finding a Therapist
During those first few weeks, I bounced from one therapist to the next, trying to find the person I could trust, talk to and open up to about the rape. I did. In Subang Jaya of all places. My therapist spent months (it felt like years) figuring out the correct medications and dosages.
Stock image used for illustrative purposes.
I took Xanax, Lithium, Valium, Pristiq, Focusyn, Ritalin, and Desvenlafaxine. I suffered from side effects ranging from dizziness and drowsiness to weight gain and nausea, to list a few.
The winning medical combination (most effective with the fewest side effects) is Quetiapine, Cymbalta and Xanax. My dosages have been incrementally getting smaller as I try to get off the meds permanently.
Therapy helped and continues.
Therapy takes time and hard work. Because it happened so long ago, therapy took time, and we tried different techniques before finding something suitable. Therapy is a mix of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).
Dealing with the trauma meant unpacking something I had boxed up and buried in the farthest recesses of my mind for half a decade. I had to go through and relive all of it. Necessary so my brain can process the long-repressed trauma. Confronting and facing it let me diffuse the numerous triggers for panic and anxiety.
It’s a different type of hell to relive it. I cried, and I screamed and shouted in pain. The worst part was reliving that I had let him get away with this and the guilt that he had probably done this to someone else before and after me. I had to relive every moment of the rape as if it were happening to me all over again.
My love/social life
I have one, but only a small circle of friends and family I know loves me and works to make me feel comfortable and safe. I do what I want, making me feel good, relaxed, and comfortable.
I know how cheesy this sounds, but healing is a process, and a large part of that process is making yourself feel as safe and happy as possible.
“For me, dating, the very idea of being alone with a man in any vaguely romantic or sexual setting, was enough to trigger flashbacks, anxiety, and a flight or fight response in me.”
Stock image used for illustrative purposes.
Before I started therapy, any man with romantic intentions was enough to trigger overt aggression: I pepper-sprayed one unfortunate guy in the face. His crime was to ask me out to coffee.
Every man who asks me out now gets a very polite but firm “No, thanks!” Maybe… one day I will be ready to take that step and go on a date.
It’s a part of me
It’s my past. It’s a part of me and shaped me into who I am, but I don’t see my life as a tragedy. Yes, I have been diagnosed with PTSD and anxiety with acute depression. The trauma and the mental damage are all real.
It’s changed me and reshaped how I look, act, and react to the world around me. I took self-defence classes. I carry pepper spray and a telescoping baton. I was hyper-vigilant in any public space, like a soldier waiting for the first shot of the gunfight to ring out.
I lived on the edge of an exhaustion-induced meltdown.
Today therapy and medication mean that I am no longer living on the edge. But there is no “recovery.” I can’t return to the innocent, naive, carefree, happy-go-lucky teenager I was. But I’m working on it every day. I do go outside; I can interact with strangers.
Life is always going to be more difficult than it should be. I will never be able to forget entirely, and I will never forgive. I try not to let the rape and its trauma hold me back.
My rape does not rule my mind or dominate every waking thought. I have regained control of my life. I am moving forward and building something good for myself: I have graduated, completed my internship, and started my career. I’m doing ok.
Hopefully, in the future, I will find a guy that I can trust to love me for who I am.
Things can only get better from here.”
Know anyone with an interesting story to share? Drop us an email at hello@inreallife.my, and we may feature the story!
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