Home Women Talking - Feelings and Reactions
Women Talking - Feelings and Reactions
The quotes below demonstrate the wide range of reactions women can have following rape or sexual assault. Every women reacts differently to what has happened to her, there is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to react.
"I can remember thinking, this isn't happening to me. I was like a zombie. He dragged me into a refuse site and raped me."
"After I'd been beaten a second time I couldn't feel any more. I really thought I was going to die, and I wanted it to happen quickly. I didn't know how badly I was hurt until they left me on the floor of my bedroom and I saw myself in the mirror. Then I wanted to die again. No one tells you how bad it can be: you think it will be the physical act that you will submit and save your life, you will be upset for a few days and then your get over it."
"You feel so isolated, so alone in the world. You feel you've been used. I sat in front of the fire and sobbed for hours. I wanted my mum more than any one else."
"Somehow I felt quilt because I had been degraded. I felt unclean, filthy. I thought it hadn't happened to me. I remember the police telling me that they had never seen anyone so cool and collected. I was even showing sympathy for the rapist."
"I had slept with a man before the rape, my second boyfriend, and I tried to think that this was what I'd done with my boyfriend and tried to blank out the fact that this man was not someone I cared for. I just knew instinctively that there was nothing I could do to dissuade him, and in a way I just went off into a trance. It was like going out of your body, trying to dissociate myself from what was happening to me. I felt like I was in a time wrap - while I could keep myself in this cocoon where it was all unreal, I'd be able to survive whatever he did to me."
"I was shocked and paralysed into this kind of mental paralysis. I was convinced he was going to kill me. I wanted to scream and break free but I was totally unable to do anything but comply with everything he told me to do. I was paralysed with fear and thought he would kill me. The only way I survived mentally in that hour - which seemed endless - was to try to dissociate my mind from my body just as though it was happening to someone else. the only way I could cope with having to be under someone else's will was to totally 'cut off' so that my mind was not really there."
"I just couldn't bring myself to undress and see my body. I felt dirty and disgusted. I was out of my mind, absolutely distraught. I was terrified of phoning the police because I couldn't face anyone seeing me. The minute I got inside I locked all the doors, pulled all the curtains shut and then washed myself all over. I scrubbed my nails, brushed my teeth. I felt dirty, humiliated and totally violated".
"I don't know how long it lasted, it could have been two minutes, it could have been two hours. In a way it seemed to go on forever."
"He pushed me against the fence and I feel to the floor and tried to scream, but you know, I could actually feel the muscles in my throat seizing up."
"He whacked me in the stomach. It's incredible that I didn't really panic at that point I think you react differently when you know your life is at stake."
"I always thought that I should have done more and that it was my fault in a way because I didn't do anything to stop him, but there is no right or wrong reaction and women should not feel guilty."
Adapted from women on rape by Jane Doweswell (Thorsons 1986)
Missoula Rape Poem
There is no difference between being raped and being pushed down a flight of cement steps except that the wounds also bleed inside.
There is no difference between being raped and being run over by a truck except that afterwards men ask you if you enjoyed it.
There is no difference between being raped and losing a hand in a mowing machine except that doctors don't want to get involved and police wear a knowing smirk, and in a small town you become a veteran whore.
There is no difference between being raped and going head first through a windshield except that afterwards you are afraid not of cars but half the human race.
"Rape Poem" from Fight Chambers of the Heart by Margi Piercy (Penguin books 1995)
Dark Thoughts Haunt My Mind
Dark thoughts haunt my mind
Over and over there to remind
Never letting me forget
The nights you took what you could get
Images of what you did I see
There every night reminding me
The torture, rape and cruelty
Not once did you see what it was doing to me
Like a knife tearing through my heart
Every time you made me play my part
Tools of torture and pain you used
Leaving me there bleeding and abused
A child's life should be filled with happiness
But you came and brought pain and sadness
The pain and torment you inflicted on me
Destroyed the person I thought I would be
Rights of Women
- I have the right to be safe!
- I have the right to be loved!
- I am not to blame for being abused!
- I have the right to say yes to some and no to others!
- I have the right to say no without giving any reason!
- I have the right to decide who I trust!
- I have the right to get angry!
- I have the right to disagree with other people!
- I have the right to make decisions about my future!
- I have the right to information about things affecting me!
- I have the right to ask for support for myself!
- I am a worthwhile person!
- I have the right to express my feelings!
- I HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE MYSELF!
YOU ARE A UNIQUE AND SPECIAL PERSON AND DESERVE TO HAVE A GOOD AND HAPPY LIFE FREE FROM ABUSE AND VIOLENCE.
