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We dated for a short time in 2018. It didn't work out for many reasons, one of them being he sexually assaulted me. He was penetrating me, I told him to stop. He kept going for several minutes. Finally I told him "you're done now". He laughed and made fun of me and then stopped. I stayed at his place hanging out for a few hours, which I realize seems bizarre, but I couldn't process it at the time. Fight/freeze/fawn response and I chose a dumb mix of freeze and fawn. I'm still kicking myself years later for not handling it properly. I was in denial. I still wanted us to work out so I pretended everything was fine. What I should have done was leave right away and go to police and make a police report and get a rape kit done so the DNA would have been there. I was too attached and so I didn't go to police until months later. He got away with everything.
It's been years since then. Today I ran into him walking on the sidewalk. I made a face at him and said something to my friend about it, like "oh, there's my ex that raped me" - I think I wanted to humiliate him for what he did to me - but I really don't know if there's a better way I could have handled it. I suppose I could have ignored him. But I want him to feel like his "good name" has been ruined for what he did. I want him to feel like there are consequences. I'm allowed to speak freely about the fact that he raped me. I'm not going to do anything violent but I'm allowed to be mad and have emotions about it. You know? I had therapy today and we went over it a bit. But, how would you have handled it? Is there a more dignified way to go about these things? What would a Queen do?
I’m so sorry you had to experience that. It is unfortunately more common than is really talked about, since the question of consent is complex and we women are taught from a young age to just go along with whatever men want. The freeze/fawn response is based on the fear that you are in a deeply vulnerable position, and if this person got aggressive, he could literally kill you. The freeze/fawn response is about surviving long enough to escape.
I also have dated someone who repeatedly assaulted me. I knew I hated it, knew I wanted out, but it took me a long time to put my foot down and eject him from my life, because I was scared and because I thought love was supposed to hurt. I have seen my ex once since we broke up - about 1.5 years afterwards (and it’s been over a decade since we split up now). At the time, I basically ignored him and made a snide comment, while happily greeting the person he was with, who I had known when I was dating my ex-abuser. Afterwards, I went into a total spin out and had a prolonged panic attack. I handled the experience really poorly.
I think if I saw him now, I would hold my head high and pretend he didn’t exist. If he attempted to speak to me or (god forbid!) touched/grabbed me to get my attention, I would most likely act disgusted, as if a maggot had touched me. This is probably not a dignified approach, but I do believe that disgusting men should be treated as such, and I would be absolutely disgusted if he ever touched me again.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. And sorry you ran into him.
There is no “right” way to respond. You did fine. Remaining true to yourself and your feelings about what he did to you, is the most important thing.
Embrace your anger, your sadness, whatever feelings come up. Please do not tell yourself you “should’ve” done anything else at the time of the rape. You did what you needed to do, to survive.
Cultivate self compassion. Check out Kristen Neff’s website for meditations on dealing with difficulty feelings. This is your journey, and you can love yourself through it.
My favorite guided meditation for traumatic things is “Soften Soothe Allow,” on this link. It’s so healing and helpful.
I hope you find healing, a little more each day ❤️🩹
i have been through very similar situations and freeze response is so real! and then we try to rationalize and pretend it wasn't all that bad, that he didn't really know what he was doing, that we should just relax and try to enjoy it. and the attatchment... omg... it's so, so strong! it clouds our judgement in a way that is extremely hard to explain. it's all so sick!
don't beat yourself up for how you reacted to the whole situation. police is useless, so i think you've saved yourself extra stress and humiliation. there is no right way to deal with that disgusting crime (unless somwday somebody allows the victim to retaliate properly).
this is the world we live in. it hates us. best thing we can do is stay away from men as much as we can.