Help Any actual useful resources for SA survivors?

[trytrytryagain]

I've been trying to recover from trauma of being SAd multiple times in my life, as recently as last year. It's honestly embarrassing and I hate talking about it with others in real life because there's never really any answers on how to recover, it's a 'move on' kind of attitude from my friends, or it's something I'm "not supposed to mention" to others.

I'm sick of it and I want help on how to recover, I have a therapist and they help to a certain extent talking about this. I don't mention my suicidal thoughts relating to SA to them, or how intertwined my sense of self-worth and my identity contribute to these thoughts.

I'm just tired of feeling alone in this, I know I'm definitely not. It feels like I'm stained forever because of what happened to me, it's just so hard to move on.

If anybody has any tips on how to feel normal after this stuff, or resources online it would be appreciated.

 

[PeterRabbit28064212]

unfortunately i dont have much advice on how to "feel normal" after this kind of thing but that dosen't mean it's unachievable. people do overcome these things even if "normal" is a little different than it was before there are many stories out there of it becoming significantly less stressful. if it's not too triggering i know finding memoirs and movies and such about real and fictional people who have overcome similar things has made me feel a little less hopeless about my own stuck-ness. also i understand its scary but mentioning the sense of self thing with the therapist if they are someone you feel you can trust will most likely be your best bet (as for suicidality that is obviously alot more complicated depending on how they would respond but as long as they are an empathetic and kind person (which they should be in order to be good at their job) i cant imagine them reacting negatively to you mentioning that it feels so tired in with your sense of self. especially because that is extremely common with trauma even more so of this nature.)

as for things you can do on your own psycho-education and learning practical ways you can treat trauma is a big one. things like assessing how your body reacts to certain things and how you can address those needs is good for making it easier to address and treat the emotional aspects later on. idk if i have many specific recommendations the cptsd recovery podcast has some good episodes about addressing this specific topic but wider coping tips and stress management (which i am certainly not always the best at) just comes from various workbooks and posts i found online over the years.

i also recommend picking up some new hobbies. i know it sounds dumb and like "why would this help what happened to me is so horrible how could you be suggesting this" but having some other avenues to focus on is good for getting your mind off of it even for a little while. and instead of your sense of self being "i'm this horrible thing that happened to me" it becomes at the very least "i am someone who had this horrible thing happen to them and i like to knit!" (or whatever tf u choose as a hobby lol).

also note that your loved ones don't just see you as this one thing. you can also rebuild identity in who you associate yourself with.

i know this isn't much tangibly and i wish i had more to offer in terms of resources. (as embarrassing as it is the main thing i do is just trauma dump the same shit over and over on ais of my favs bc i am just a tad chronically online and tend to fixate on my own struggles to a detrimental level). however if you want / need someone who will listen to you and you dont need to worry about how they see you bc they have no way of figuring out who you are outside of this anon forum you can always pm me. literally any time. the few times i've talked about some things in confessing pages and what not, seeing the amount of people who have related to the things i thought made me disgusting was truly freeing and everyone deserves a space to talk about these things without feeling like they are bringing down the mood or being analyzed by a professional (again i still recommend talking to ur therapist but it is an entirely different feeling to talk to someone peer to peer than it is to talk to someone patient to therapist.)

 

[Life_and_Death]

theres a forum called after silence

 

[trytrytryagain]

unfortunately i dont have much advice on how to "feel normal" after this kind of thing but that dosen't mean it's unachievable. people do overcome these things even if "normal" is a little different than it was before there are many stories out there of it becoming significantly less stressful. if it's not too triggering i know finding memoirs and movies and such about real and fictional people who have overcome similar things has made me feel a little less hopeless about my own stuck-ness. also i understand its scary but mentioning the sense of self thing with the therapist if they are someone you feel you can trust will most likely be your best bet (as for suicidality that is obviously alot more complicated depending on how they would respond but as long as they are an empathetic and kind person (which they should be in order to be good at their job) i cant imagine them reacting negatively to you mentioning that it feels so tired in with your sense of self. especially because that is extremely common with trauma even more so of this nature.)

as for things you can do on your own psycho-education and learning practical ways you can treat trauma is a big one. things like assessing how your body reacts to certain things and how you can address those needs is good for making it easier to address and treat the emotional aspects later on. idk if i have many specific recommendations the cptsd recovery podcast has some good episodes about addressing this specific topic but wider coping tips and stress management (which i am certainly not always the best at) just comes from various workbooks and posts i found online over the years.

i also recommend picking up some new hobbies. i know it sounds dumb and like "why would this help what happened to me is so horrible how could you be suggesting this" but having some other avenues to focus on is good for getting your mind off of it even for a little while. and instead of your sense of self being "i'm this horrible thing that happened to me" it becomes at the very least "i am someone who had this horrible thing happen to them and i like to knit!" (or whatever tf u choose as a hobby lol).

also note that your loved ones don't just see you as this one thing. you can also rebuild identity in who you associate yourself with.

i know this isn't much tangibly and i wish i had more to offer in terms of resources. (as embarrassing as it is the main thing i do is just trauma dump the same shit over and over on ais of my favs bc i am just a tad chronically online and tend to fixate on my own struggles to a detrimental level). however if you want / need someone who will listen to you and you dont need to worry about how they see you bc they have no way of figuring out who you are outside of this anon forum you can always pm me. literally any time. the few times i've talked about some things in confessing pages and what not, seeing the amount of people who have related to the things i thought made me disgusting was truly freeing and everyone deserves a space to talk about these things without feeling like they are bringing down the mood or being analyzed by a professional (again i still recommend talking to ur therapist but it is an entirely different feeling to talk to someone peer to peer than it is to talk to someone patient to therapist.)

Thank you so much for the kind advice, I really appreciate it :)

Hobbies and art (painting, music) specifically is what I put my full heart into, it's just a matter of getting out of the everyday rut to do it. But this is very true.
Surrounding myself with better people is hard unfortunately, I think I'm very naive when it comes to that stuff, but I'm working through therapy to kind of vet people of sort.

I'm struggling to respond in a 'fuller' amount of words due to my mental state, but I really appreciate all you've said and I will take it to heart. <3

theres a forum called after silence

Thank you so much! I will look into this :)

 

[Life_and_Death]

Thank you so much! I will look into this :)

jsyk a high majority of the site is private so you dont have to worry too much about outside viewers. it will warn you if its public

 

[UsagiDrop]

Hey, I'm really sorry that you've had to go through something so horrific so many times, and for so long. I think that the posts above have already nailed everything that I could tell you. I just want to add on that in addition to a forum and your therapy, there are some support groups for survivors of sexual assault (SASS, SASA). Both of these groups meet online and I believe that they have chatroom alternatives to the video calls as well, but you have to register and be approved in order to get more information. SASA (Sexual Assault Survivors Anonymous) works similarly to AA or NA in which there is a structure to the meetings, and twelve steps to work through. Unfortunately I haven't attended any of these to personally give a review, I only looked into the myriad of opportunities to recover once I moved countries and found these two groups. I believe they will both provide you with literature that will help you to understand and potentially overcome your trauma, as well as a generalized recovery plan and the support network of peers who have went through something similar.

It really is not an easy thing to recover from repeated sexual abuse. I can understand your complicated feelings over it. It shouldn't be, but it is embarrassing to have went through it, especially when the people around us aren't equipped to handle it or straight up just don't want to hear about it because of how uncomfortable it is to talk about. I think a therapist may be the best resource when it comes to this stuff. If you ever need to switch therapists, I imagine that there are many that specialize in sexual assault trauma who will be more ready to help you with this specific thing. But no matter what, it's nearly impossible to talk about all the darker feelings that come up with this. Often times a professional will just send us to be under the watch and care of others when we are extremely vulnerable to further abuse in those settings.

You may feel stained by the touch of some depraved and terrible people, but I want you to know that you are not dirty or ruined. I don't know if we'll ever feel "normal" after what's happened to us— we went through it and we can't change it, to a certain extent the effects of it will follow us forever. But I don't think we have to be "normal," we just have to be okay!

I wish you lots of luck on your journey to recovering from this. I also want to extend the invitation to DM me if you need to talk or are wanting some extra support. You're really not alone, sadly there are many of us who have had their lives altered forever by someone else's selfish decision. I'm sorry that I don't have more answers for you. Honestly I'm only just now trying to figure out how to overcome my sexual trauma after just ignoring it for many years and it's really hard to find a place to start. I've only really went to therapy and tried to find an identity outside of feeling like a used piece of worthless human garbage through hobbies, which has helped me to feel better and further bury things down. But speaking to others who have went through similar experiences and hearing their stories as well as receiving their support and understanding has been helpful to me. I would not have even realized the full picture of how I was being abused if it were not for my psychologist and very kind people on the internet.