A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:Sorry this is so long but I really need you to see all the facts. I am 27 and I was raped when I was 19. I was living at university at the time, and the man who did it to me was someone I trusted. In fact, at one point I even thought we might have been heading towards a relationship. (To give you a bit of background information, he offered to walk me home after a night out, but when we were alone in a wooded area he pulled a knife on me and forced me to have sex with him. I later found out that he had taken lots of drugs and he told the police he had a ‘bad trip’ from them.)After the attack, I went into what can only be described as serious shock and denial. I didn’t think about it or tell anyone what happened for about 6 months, by which point I was a complete wreck. The problem I have is how crazy I acted during that time and how it is still affecting my life now. It started off with me constantly feeling ill. I would make doctors appointments all the time and tell people I thought I had x,y or z wrong with me. At the time I genuinely believed it, but when I look back its ridiculous and my friends/flatmates started to get sick of my behaviour, calling me an attention seeker. I don't blame them for that because I basically did turn into one pretty much overnight. I also started having lots of problems at work. I had worked in a shop for 2 years which had been great, but after the attack I started making mistakes on the till. This resulted in it being short a few times, and long story short, I was eventually accused of stealing (I promise I never did - the till was also over a few times but no one ever focused on that). I was gutted, but defending myself from that seemed to distract me from the problems I was actually having so I started to hide things and move people’s stuff around in my flat so they would accuse me too, then I would put it back to prove them wrong. I know this probably makes no sense, but I seemed to feel better when there was drama going on that wasn’t related to the attack. It let me shout and release some of the anger I had without dealing with anything directly. This clearly did nothing to help relations with my flatmates though and they basically started cutting all contact with me and telling everyone I was a crazy thief. This all changed when I moved back to my parents house for the summer. They took one look at me (I had got very thin by this point), realised something was seriously wrong and forced me to tell them what had happened. I got help and was diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and stress, and I started a course of treatment including therapy and medication. It took a long time and was a very hard process, but I eventually managed to get over it. I went back to uni after the summer (while still getting treatment) but I moved in with other people so had very little to do with my former flatmates. I kept my head down this time and focused on getting better and on my studies, and although I still had to face a lot of gossip about the crazy reputation I now had (it was a very small campus and my change from nice person to crazy was a hot topic), I just got on with things and eventually managed to graduate.That was 5 years ago and I now feel I really have my life back on track, so much so that I have been seeing a guy for almost 2 months. It has been going great, but he came to me the other day and said 2 of my former flatmates approached him (they have mutual friends) and warned him that I am crazy and will steal from him. Not only that, they are from the same home town as me and apparently they have told many people about what I did back then, so I have a reputation back here now too that I knew nothing about. I am absolutely gutted about this. I in no way blame them for their opinion of me, I brought that on myself, but I'm sad that they still feel angry enough towards me that they feel the need to tell everyone these things. I really wish I could tell them what happened and explain why I acted the way I did, but since they already think I'm a lying attention seeker I don't think they would believe me.I don't know what to do. I feel awful about how I acted back then and wish I had told them right from the start what had happened to me, but I can't change it now and I have to live with the fact that my former best friends hate me because of it. I feel like I have damaged my future so badly because of my stupid mistakes back then and I am never going to escape my reputation unless I move away or something. But I'm scared if I do I'd just be running away and I'd also miss the support of my family. My boyfriend has been brilliant, and he thinks I should ignore them (he's actually really mad that they were so quick to stop being my friends without ever asking why I had changed so much, but I don't think that's fair - its not really their responsibility is it?), but it's so hard to do. Do you think it is it worth trying to explain things to them or will it just make things worse? Will I ever be able to convince people that I'm not that person? Any advice appreciated, and again sorry for the length.
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female
reader, janniepeg  +, writes (26 January 2013):
 I was an average person before I dealt with people with PTSD syndrome. I tried very hard to understand them. I would spend hours looking online for stuff like borderline, bipolar and narcissism. I still struggle to forgive people who wronged me. All I thought was that if they have problems they should fix themselves before involving others into their lives. I think of myself as a patient person but at the end being close to a person with anxiety affects me so much it gave me panic attacks. When I ended the relationship I felt a huge burden lifted off.
I do have sympathy for you. You can try apologizing but do not expect much from their replies. The world can be ruthless for victims.
My ex was beaten by his mother a lot when he was young. He developed anorexia and anxiety disorder. I understood why he was obsessive and negative all the time. I tried so hard to understand him but I can't forgive him enough to get back together. I did try to imagine that if I had been abused I might be doing the same things that you were doing. You only know what it's like when you go through it yourself. This is what most people don't understand.
When people do messed up things like stealing and gaslighting, we think about personality disorder. We try to trace where it comes from and we can all assume the source is pain. The pain of having your power and innocence taken away. If you explain to them now it would seem like you had an excuse for being the way you were.
A more empowering thing to do would be to connect with people suffering from PTSD and show them ways to recover. You can also give a speech in your school if you are brave. PTSD is a silent but deadly problem. It will help tremendously when you bring it up to awareness. When you do something public it gives people the impression you are very serious. You are trying to help others as well, and not just justifying what you did in the past.
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