What happened to me? How do I move on?

[Jess]

Hello, I am not sure if this is the right place to be posting this, I've never really used an on line forum before. I just wanted to talk to people who have been through this kind of thing and ask how you cope and please help me define what I have experienced.
It has now been 3.5 years since my last bad memory but after another unrelated bad experience my brain is bringing it all back to life for me although only pieces of it and I seem to have forgotten a lot of the details??? I am getting awful night terrors and feel crushed with it all going around in my head.
Everything started when I was 15 and met my x-partner, I was quite shy and he was 18, I was flattered by the attention and he was very dominant from the start which I liked as it made me feel less insecure. Fairly quickly it got to the point that I spent most my time trying to make him happy and if I did something wrong he would get really angry with me. He didn't hurt me, just shouted at me and then ignored me for hours/days. He was my first love, the person I first slept with, I was besotted. I think the first time I thought something wasn't right was during sex he would get really annoyed at me, he got really mad if I wasn't wet down there and one time he started rubbing me really hard and when I told him it was hurting he wouldn't stop and said he didn't care what it felt like for me, he just wanted me to get wet, so sex would feel ok for him. I started crying but he didn't stop so I spat on my hand and put it down there with out him noticing. We never really spoke about it after. Things got worse over time, once at a train station 2 guys started checking me out and he got jealous and he made me stand still while he groped me in front of them, I remember he pulled my top up exposing my bra and it was freezing so I tried to pull it back down and he told me to leave it while he played with my breasts in public. I just wanted to die on the spot, I never said anything. I didn't want to make him shout at me. Of course I should have heard these warning bells and left but I'm so stupid I thought this was normal?? It was done so gradually.
Things got steadily worse over the years, he would tell me he was going to have sex with me if I wanted to or not, sadly I would have wanted to as I loved him. He would never hug me or kiss me or hold my hand. Once when I was 18 I got out of bed to go the loo and he slapped me hard across the back and pulled me back into bed and had sex with me, I didn't say 'no', I did try to get out from under him but I'm not very big. He laughed at me after and said 'do you just realised I raped you' I was devastated and said told him 'no, I love you it wasn't rape'. He took that as a cue to carry on. If I ever initiated sex he said no and laughed at me, calling me ugly but when I wasn't in the mood he would force me. I started to try saying no but I had already given permission, hadn't I? I used to struggle until he had my underwear off but once he had opened my legs and got between them I quickly learnt I couldn't stop it. We moved in together when I discovered I was pregnant. During my pregnancy he called me fat and refused any affection. After my baby was born I didn't want sex and I started to understand the relationship was no good. He started trying to have sex with me again after the birth but luckily the midwife had told us both no sex until at least 6 weeks. On the dot of six weeks, after a few days of telling me what was going to happen he made me put my son in his cot in his room, he screamed as was used to sleeping in the crib by my bed but my partner didn't care and forced me on top of him, I cried so hard and after he yelled at me for ruining it for him by crying. These events didn't happen all the time but they went on regularly until my son was 2.
He never really marked me but I got bruises occasionally and I was studying when one of my lecturers noticed my tears and aches. He promised me he would look after me and my son, I gave a few details- enough to understand the situation and he talked me into breaking up with my partner. I made my partner sleep in a different room from me and told him when I was done with my final exams in one month I would move out. My partner acted like he didn't care, he said he never loved me anyway. I thought it was over but some nights my partner would come into my room and tell me if I wanted to live in the house I needed to pay my way and tell me to give him blow jobs, sex and sometimes even anal sex. I would cry during it but not really fight him off anymore, I needed to live with my son, get my degree and leave him. My lecturer and I got closer and eventually got into a really ill advised relationship, I don't think I loved him, I just wanted to be safe with my son and had no confidence that I could do that on my own- I acted like he was my knight in shining armour. I passed my exams, my x started drinking a lot and when drunk threatened suicide unless I did what he wanted. My lecturer got bored I guess and left me for his x girlfriend and said I was too needy and even suggested I get back with my x despite knowing what he had done to me.
On results night I went out with my friends, I didn't often go out but my son was good at sleeping so I put him down and my x agreed to look after him (he was an ok dad, he never shouted at our baby). At the party I had a few drinks, during all this stress I had lost a lot of weight (2 stone and i was thin to start) so I quickly got drunk. I started talking to the lecturer and he asked me to go outside with him, as I walked out the cold air sobered me up and I turned to ask him what he wanted but he had undone his trousers, pushed me onto my knees and put himself into my mouth, he held my head down on it so I gagged and vomited, he stood me up and turned me around, I said no, I do remember that, I told him to take me home and not to do it here- anything to stop it from happening, I didn't want to fight because when I lost it would be clear what had happened. He then did me from behind and tried to do anal sex with no lube, I cried out in pain and he suddenly stopped and told me I wasn't who he wanted to be with and walked off. I was numb, I was bleeding from his attempts at penetration, my knees were bloody and I was wearing a white dress so it was clearly visible. A girl I knew found me and took me to the toilets and helped clean up my knees, reapplied make up for me and found one of my friends to take me home.
I left my x partner, took our child and moved in with my parents and never told them what happened, I made sure I never spoke to or saw the girl again and slowly I built up my life. I now have a loving husband and we are happy together, we want a baby of our own but I have had a few miscarriages. So why are these memories coming back now? I have told my husband my past- I had panic attacks, night terrors and couldn't let him touch me for months when we first met. We worked through it with tears. I don't think I was raped, I gave permission to my x and maybe I wasn't clear enough to my lecturer. I worry all the time I wasn't clear enough, I worry it was my fault. I worry I've made a mistake and this didn't happen, I worry that if my partner was so bad why did I go out and leave him looking after my son?
I can't remember the details of most the episodes. I worry I've exaggerated it in my head. My husband said he thinks it was sexual abuse and rape and that doesn't change who I am, but how can it not change who I am or how I see myself? I don't want to have that in my past. I don't want to be a survivor I just want it not to have happened but then it's hard to have flashbacks and bad dreams and keep telling myself it's in my head, I feel like I'm going crazy. Am I? How do you define what happened to you? Do you need to recognise it? Do you have to accept it happened or can you keep going forward?
I'm sorry this was so long, thank you for reading. I am so sorry you have found yourselves here as well and I'm sorry if you think I don't belong here because it was my fault or I have exaggerated it.

[Music lady]

Hi Jess, Welcome to the site. You've found the right place.

So so sorry for all you've been through. This doesn't get to define who you are. None of this is your fault and you certainly didn't deserve it. Thank you for sharing. It must have taken a lot of strength and courage to type all that.

Consent by submission or force, isn't consent. You're having flashbacks now because your brain believes you are safe and ready to deal with it. I know you probably don't want to hear this, but squashing everything down and trying to forget it happened just makes it come back and bite you harder at a later date. I squashed things and tried to forget, it worked for a little while, but about nearly 2 years ago it came back and refused to go back in it's box.

From what you've said, it sounds like r*pe to me. You're not going crazy. Everything you're experiencing is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. I have to reassure myself each night that I'm safe. I can still hear his voice and hear him laughing. It takes time. I've heard that it will get better and that the journey is worth it. There are times I wish I could erase my past. I still struggle to hear the word r*pe or see it written. I've been through other stuff as well, my story is long and complicated. I wish we could 'just get over it', but unfortunately it isn't as easy as that.

I've found journalling helps me get my thoughts and feelings out of my head.

Do you have any support? I've found offline and online support very helpful.

Here are some links for you to look at to help you define your experience.

http://www.thesite.org/crime-and-saf...rape-9143.html

http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/commonmyths2.php

I hope this helps. Take good care of yourself.

[Casehardened]

Music Lady, thank you so much for offering Jess support; I read her post yesterday and really hoped you would see it and respond.

[Jess]

Thank you so much for your answer Music Lady. I needed to tell someone who wasn't my husband. I am so lucky to have such a lovely husband who listens to me but he would always take my side and I needed someone who I haven't influenced to give me their opinion on what happened.

Thank you for the links to the websites, I've never really felt I had the 'right' to look and read any of that information properly before. I can't believe 1 in 5 women get forced to have sex within a relationship, how does this keep happening? When I reflect that onto my friendships does that mean quite a few people I know have been through this as well? So many parts of those websites accurately describe my experience, it's not nice to realise which category your past falls into but it's also comforting to have it defined as something that is wrong, does anyone else find that? I just don't understand how I can just accept that this is what happened though, I don't want it to be any part of me- as soon as I start to tell myself this did really happen that's the thought that comes into my mind, I think that's why I wanted to tell some of my story and hear what other people think happened. I read it's common to doubt yourself but it doesn't stop me doubting it. I don't know if I've exaggerated it all, the flashbacks are vivid of specific parts but the facts/circumstances won't come into my brain- it's like looking at photo's of a film if that makes any sense. If my brain is going to hold back information, I wish it would hold back all of it.

Thank you for your kind words, I can't believe I managed to type it out- I can't read it back, so I'm sorry if it went in circles. Thank you for reading it. I'm worried about what you said about things not going into their box again, that's what I feel like is happening this time- that's the feeling that made me look for this forum. How do you move on from it? I'm so sorry you are here to, it's not ok. I find night time is the worst time for me, recently I've been getting really anxious at bedtime. I find myself listening for footsteps in my hall as that's how I knew if something bad was going to happen before, doesn't seem to matter how much my husband is cuddling me in bed, I feel my nose fizz and I can hear my own heart in my ears and it's like something is stuck in my trachea. I guess that's adrenaline kicking in? Bit late now?

I have a lovely husband and I'm currently signed off work while I recover from my 5th miscarriage and being referred for counselling by my gp for that, I don't want to go to counselling but I'm desperate now. I went to the doctor after my experience with my lecturer as I was damaged badly down there and I was worried it would get infected, I refused to let her look, I lied to her about what happened and just asked for antibiotics and the morning after pill, which ironically didn't work and I later discovered that night left me pregnant with twins, I had sort of presumed because he had stopped everything so suddenly and acted like he'd just changed his mind that I wouldn't get pregnant and thought taking the morning after pill would be being extra safe. I decided to terminate the pregnancy because I knew I couldn't cope and now blame my miscarriages on that choice. At the clinic I had my termination, they did an hiv test and I had to do the obligatory counselling session where I just lied to the lady and I'm worried I will do the same this time, I want help but I can't say it out loud. I will start a journal, I want to try everything to get him out of my head.

Thank you again for your support.

[Music lady]

Hi Jess,

I'm pleased I was of some help.

So sorry to hear about your miscarriage. I'm pleased your GP has referred you for counselling. I see a counsellor as well. Some things I have written to my counsellor for her to read because I can't bear to hear the words. So I've told her to read it, but not read it back to me and she can ask me any questions she likes on it. I hope you don't have to wait long to see someone and you feel better soon.

I still have trouble defining some parts of my past. There are some events in my past that I know happened, but I can't bear to say the words or even hear them. Living in denial works for a while, but it still comes back harder in the end.

My story starts from when I was a little girl. Some of it I can remember, but there are chunks of my past that I can't remember. The bits I can't remember, I just have feelings. But, I have no idea where the feelings come from.

Your question, 'How do you move on from it?' isn't an easy one to answer. I have good days and I have bad days. On my bad days, I listen to music, journal and try and distract myself away from my thoughts. I've found sites like this invaluable, just to have someone else who can relate and understand you. Some days, just breaking the day into manageable parts and focusing on putting one foot in front of the other helps me get through. The manageable parts vary from person to person. It could be day by day, hours, or minutes. Just depends on what works for you. I break my day up into hours, before coffee break, after coffee break, lunchtime and after lunch. I then have other distractions to see me through.

I find night times the worse as well.

One of my issues is trust. I think that comes from my childhood as well as what my ex bf did. It's taken me a long time to trust my counsellor completely. I held back on telling her some things in case she thought I was crazy. I have since told her these things. She didn't look shocked or tell me I was crazy and too broken to be helped. Instead she listened to me and validated my feelings. I often tell her that I feel crazy. She doesn't like me using the word crazy. Sometimes it can take a while to find a counsellor you can connect with.

Is there any way you can discuss your worries about your miscarriages with a doctor?

I'm here if you need me.

[Music lady]

[QUOTE=Casehardened;51910]Music Lady, thank you so much for offering Jess support; I read her post yesterday and really hoped you would see it and respond.[/]

No worries

[Jess]

Thank you again for your lovely reply. Although this all happened over 3 years ago, I'm finding talking/writing about it all really new and scary, I was so worried I was making a big fuss over nothing and your kind words are making me feel less guilty about spending time thinking about it. I got a letter from the counsellor today asking me to ring them and book an assessment apt. I got really angry about having to need counselling and ended up being pretty vile to my husband which on it's own made me call the number and I've booked a telephone assessment with a therapist for Tuesday. They emailed me a questionnaire to fill out and for some reason I'm feeling really offended about it, I feel like it's now MY problem that I need help with and it's not fair. I'm comforted to hear that your counsellor lets you write it down because there is no way I can talk about it, I can't even tell my husband what is going through my head at the moment. I had awful bad dreams last night and woke up pretty upset and couldn't find the words to tell him what I had dreamt about so made something else up. Do you feel angry about needing help? I can't imagine accepting what has happened to me and am still sure it was my fault, I gave my x permission to do it after that first time, didn't I?

I'm so sorry your story involves your childhood. I feel so robbed that I missed my late teens and early adulthood because of this. It's not fair and again makes me so angry and sad. I can't let this be any part of me.

I think that I'm having bad days because I have had to see my x again. He lives far away now but when he visits his family (who live locally) he wants to see his son and my son misses him so today he came around for breakfast before school. His aftershave filled up my house and I started having panic attacks- I just needed to get out the house so we walked to school half an hour early! I only have to see him a few times a year thank god but it feels surreal to be typing out a long story asking people if they think what he did would be counted as r... and then the next day having him over for breakfast. I tried to stay out the room to give them time to talk but he couldn't resist being rude to me and that makes my son clingy to me. My son doesn't really understand, I was shocked last year when he was upset about not seeing his daddy I tried to talk to him about it and ask him why and he replied because 'mummy and daddy fighted a lot and daddy did this to mummy' he then acted out being strangled. He only saw this one event, the event that snapped something inside me and I packed that night and left. I feel like an awful parent to him, I'm trying to make it up to him now though.

I have seen 2 consultants due to my miscarriages (all were 8/9 weeks and 2 required surgery to remove). All the tests are normal although I'm now booked to have a transvaginal scan in 4 weeks- to check for uterus problems (i fear that have been caused by my termination), I don't know how I will cope with this at all. Of course I don't think having a medical procedure is the same thing but it causes so many bad thoughts and my mind just leaves my body. I've had some before but always ended up hysterical. I want to take diazepam the morning before, will ask my gp.

Thank you so much for replying to my posts, I have isolated myself from everyone in my real life and am even starting to do it with my lovely husband. I hate that he knows what happened but I also love him for supporting me so much.