"Dear" rapist, may your life be eventful and short

[JoseB]

Hallo everybody. You possibly remember this thread in which I talked about the horrid experience a very dear friend of mine had (she was raped and beaten by the person she thought was her boyfriend). I mentioned there that I was going to Spain on June 28th to visit her. I kept in touch with her, although from thursday 24th onwards I coudn’t contact her. However, I knew that we had arranged to meet, and I knew that she was being looked after.

Well… I went to Madrid yesterday, and went immediatly to the flat where she lived with an older lady. And, there, I was told that she was not there. She had been taken to the hospital on friday.

She had tried to kill herself, by hanging.

On that friday, apparently despair overwhelmed her and she decided to end it all. She waited until the lady in the flat had to go out for some errands, and proceeded to hang herself.

It was extremely fortunate that the lady happened to forget something at home, and she came back, just in time to find her and get her down, still alive. She was taken ipso facto to hospital, and after checking that she was physically OK, she was taken immediatly to the Psychiatric ward. She is there now, basically under suicide watch, and doped to the gills.

I was able to visit her at the hospital. I cried afterwards. She appeared to be more or less all right, but … She is utterly, completely destroyed.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay in Madrid; my own family lives in another city. I am now in touch with the psychiatric ward in question, and will try to keep an eye on the situation from a distance. They are very strict when it comes to calling or visiting (short visiting hours, never more than 2 persons at the same time with the patient, and only one telephone line to call to, which can be done only for 1 and a half hours every day). I understand: They want to keep their charges in an environment that is as quiet as possible, and with as little distractions as possible.

It doesn’t help that, apparently, her parents (and I am using that word rather loosely here) told her, basically, “it was your fault” for getting raped. If it were up to me, those parents would lose their right to be called “parents” at all.

And that takes me to the point of this pitting: Rapist, disgusting humanoid that you are… You have annihilated the spirit and the mind of one of the most beautiful persons, of one of the best persons I know. May your life be full of interesting and eventful things, and may it be short as a consequence of that.

I feel powerless, useless, and tremendously sad.

Any advice about dealing with the situation as it stands now (apart from, of course, giving unconditional love to my friend and making sure that she knows that she is loved) will be welcome.

[John_Mace]

In her case, is it more that she was raped by someone she trusted? That it wasn’t an act of random violence by a stranger, but an indication that anyone in her life might turn against her at any time?

[eleanorigby]

All you can do is abide with her. Try to keep the lines of communication open and accept her wherever she is. I hope she finds her way.

[Broomstick]

She will be a long time recovering from this.

Let her know that you are still there, that you don’t believe it was in any way her fault, that you still find her a wonderful, charming, beautiful human being worthy of love.

You yourself will need patience - as I said, this will take a long time. Perhaps years. But she really needs to know others still care for her.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@JoseB

It doesn’t help that, apparently, her parents (and I am using that word rather loosely here) told her, basically, “it was your fault” for getting raped.

Dammit, with parents like that, I can’t help wondering if they were more responsible for “annihilating her spirit” than the rapist was.

[OtakuLoki]

@JoseB

It doesn’t help that, apparently, her parents (and I am using that word rather loosely here) told her, basically, “it was your fault” for getting raped. If it were up to me, those parents would lose their right to be called “parents” at all.

I don’t know Spanish culture enough to say one way or the other about how common this thinking might be. In the US and Canada, at least, it’s distressingly common.

Whatever anger you may harbor towards her family, don’t attack them when you talk with her. Tell her they’re wrong. Tell her that it’s not her fault, and nothing that she did justifies what was done to her. Tell her you value her, and that you will support and help her.

Don’t expect it to be a message she’ll ‘get’ without a lot of repetition, and showing as well as telling, though.

[Nava]

@Thudlow_Boink

Dammit, with parents like that, I can’t help wondering if they were more responsible for “annihilating her spirit” than the rapist was.

They’re probably a big part of the reason she was shy and insecure to start with With relatives like those, who needs enemies.
I don’t have much to say right now otherwise. Wish I had some magic words, but I don’t.

[Dogzilla]

Oh, Jose, I’m so sorry. It’s much worse than I thought. Her parents blaming her makes this a double-whammy violation. I lived through it and the blame the victim thing makes it all so, so much worse. I have no advice for you except to keep in touch with her and offer as much support, kindness, and love as you can. The sooner she gets psychiatric help, the better.

I do not care about bringing the rapist to justice unless it’s something your friend needs to do in order to cope and move on. Everyone is different, so if she’s not interested, drop it.

Much love to you both.

[Spice_Weasel]

What I am about to say is intended in the absolute most compassionate way. I understand that you are feeling rage and I understand your friend is probably going through one of the most difficult experiences of her life. What happened to her is tragic and abysmal and she has every right to feel… well, whatever it is she feels.

But there is language you’re using here that I can’t help but feel does more harm than good.

She is utterly, completely destroyed.

You have annihilated the spirit and the mind of one of the most beautiful persons, of one of the best persons I know.

That might be what it feels like, to both of you… but this kind of language suggests a permanency and an absoluteness that is not going to be helpful to either of you when it comes to healing.

The reality is, she was beaten and raped, and the traumatic experience has plunged her into a severe depression–for now. There is no reason to believe that she will not move beyond this and one day actually become stronger for it.

Here is a feminist essay you might find helpful: ‘‘The Collapsible Woman.’’ It helped me when I was suffering from severe PTSD as a result of chronic childhood sexual abuse for which I was also blamed. I thought the only normal possible reaction to such an experience was to fall apart. I became suicidal, I was hospitalized, I stopped functioning, I was, in my own mind, ‘‘destroyed.’’ This essay challenged my thoughts on this matter, and it challenged me to pick myself up and carry on (a process, I’ll admit, which is continually ongoing.) It might be too soon for you friend to hear, but I think you can take this message, and when you’re helping your friend, keep the big picture in mind – this does not have to define her life and in the long-term there’s a decent chance it won’t. You can be there for her without buying into the notion that her life is effectively over.

@The Collapsible Woman

If you have been raped or abused, you’re scarred for life. You will never be as you were before the experience. This is also true for falling in love, getting your heart broken, going to war, having a child, or reading a great book. Everything that cuts deeply marks us. Being “scarred for life” isn’t the defining characteristic of a person who’s been raped; we’re all scarred for life the second that we intimately relate to the outside world. The difference is in the nature of the wound.

<snip>

To imply that deep within every woman is something essential that can be seen or touched, a vessel containing the real her that can be stolen by someone else, is an absolute objectification of women.

<snip>

I am not suggesting that periods of extreme vulnerability are orchestrated or insincere. Idealizing a state of breakdown, however, rather than the strength it takes to get past one, traps women into believing that moving beyond the trauma is heresy. We need to be able to turn to each other and say, “Be a macha,” and know that that means, “I’ll cry with you, hold your hand, and give you time. But I won’t watch you lie down.” Until we can whisper the truth—nothing was stolen from you, that was a lie—and honor women for both their compassion and their guts, we won’t stop unraveling. We will always be the collapsible woman.

Just food for thought. I wish you and your friend the best of luck getting through this. One thing that is supremely evident is that you care very deeply for her. We should all be so lucky to have such devoted friends.

[Nava]

@Dogzilla

I do not care about bringing the rapist to justice unless it’s something your friend needs to do in order to cope and move on. Everyone is different, so if she’s not interested, drop it.

Can’t be done; at this point, the prosecutors are working on it de oficio (“by reason of their office”, “because that’s what their job is”). She can refuse to declare, but can’t ask that the ex-boyfriend not be prosecuted. The forum post gives them enough material to turn him into shredded cheese.

Hopefully, hopefully (hope is the last thing one loses, right? while there’s life there’s hope, right? only because it’s overused doesn’t make it untrue), coming through Hell will eventually make her stronger. As olives says, she’s hurt, not destroyed.
I don’t recommend reading these books at this point, not for you and less for her (there’s rape scenes in some of the series’ books, and the least-explicit ones manage to be worse than the explicit ones), but the lines are good to remember. Heck, lines like these are 95% of the reason I’m a Lois McMaster Bujold fan:
“Power is better than revenge. Power is a live thing, by which you reach out to grasp the future. Revenge is a dead thing, reaching out from the past to grasp you.” – Miles Vorkosigan, Borders of Infinity
“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.” – Count Aral Vorkosigan, A Civil Campaign

Her parents are thinking of la honra, but that is reputation - and they are looking at hers through a lense that isn’t valid any more. Nowadays, it is NOT acceptable for a man to rape his woman. Not any more.

[Dogzilla]

Olives, in Jose’s previous thread, I posted something to the same effect, but you just articulated that in a much better way. In my recovery process, one of the reasons I stopped talking about it to people was because I would often get that reaction, “Oh, you’re damaged for life.” Having been through the recovery process (and still healing), I’ve learned at least one thing in life and that is that it’s extremely difficult to ruin your life permanently. There is almost nothing that can’t be recovered from, nearly no damage that is completely irreparable. (Almost. I’m sure there are a few things that really are permanently ruinous, but I’m not convinced that rape is one of them.)

That always pisses me off because it gives me no credit for the difficult work of recovery that I’ve already accomplished and it also denies someone who is still wallowing in victim mentality any hope that there’s a chance of recovery. This is why I tend to use the word “survivor” because it implies healing, recovery, and the idea that there is hope for the Victim to get her Self back and become whole again.

Rape will always be a part of the survivor’s life, but like you said, there is no reason to define the rest of your life by a single, horrible, traumatic event that happened to you. Frankly, I think killing (in the military as part of a war, for example) would be much more traumatic for people and resonate within themselves for much longer. At least a rape survivor had no control over what happened, as opposed to a soldier who has a choice whether or not to obey orders (kill or be killed). The latter, in my mind, seems like it would much tougher to cope with.

[JoseB]

olivesmarch4th, Dogzilla, thanks for your messages. You are right, of course: At some point hopefully she will get through this, this experience should not define her life.

However, in my discharge I have to say that the shock of meeting her under these circumstances was very strong. I looked at her, and saw that her eyes were empty. I guess that my expressions were somewhat hyperbolic, but when I saw her I felt as if she had been very badly “shattered” psychologically. As I said before, when I left after my visit, I cried. A lot.

I shall take to heart your recommendations, and to keep in mind that -as you rightly have said- this thing, hard as it is, is not going to “end” her; that it is not the end of her life; that with any luck, with support and with love, she will grow stronger with time and will be able to become a survivor who, although having had to go through a hellish thing, has managed to conquer it.

I still feel sad, though. I hate to see her suffering like this.

Thanks again!

[Dogzilla]

Well, at the moment, I’m sure she is shattered psychologically. A lot of things she thought she knew to be true turned out to not be so.

I think olives and I just feel very strongly that it’s important for you – part of her support system – to be very careful about your language and keep every word you speak positive, upbeat, and hopeful. And understanding and compassionate. So we want you to know what the triggering language is so you can help your friend.

[Bam_Boo_Gut]

Thanks for being a true friend JoseB. Just keep calling the ward, can you send flowers if she would like that? I’m sorry her parents are worse than useless.

[Shot_From_Guns]

@JoseB

It doesn’t help that, apparently, her parents (and I am using that word rather loosely here) told her, basically, “it was your fault” for getting raped. If it were up to me, those parents would lose their right to be called “parents” at all.

Ugh. If there is any way to make these terribly destructive people either realize how fucking ignorant they are or cut them out of her life, do it.

[Thylacine]

There is little more horrifying than being rescued after a suicide attempt, not only are the issues that drove you to that still around, you now have the added trauma of everyone being angry and upset and services being forced upon you with all the horrors that come with being drugged into oblivion.

Suicide happens when pain exceeds coping resources, tell her you are glad she is alive and let her know that you are around and that she can call (or email or whatever) you to talk about anything she wants at any time, sometimes living in the distress is so hard you just need someone to understand that you may need to call them at 3am but that when you reach them you may need to talk about anything but the trauma and how shit it feels. Let her know it is ok to talk about news or cartoons or being assaulted. Talk to her as though she is the person you have known her to be, ie. if you joked around together before joke with her now.

I haven’t read the other thread, did her family like the mongrel bastard? It can make a very big difference if they trusted him too, they are possibly carrying guilt and want to lay it off on her. Families tend to be pissed off when you try to exit too.

Here (australia) flowers sent to a psych ward are a very rare event and tend to raise the whole place up which makes them even more special. Psych wards are terrifying places being full of mad people and all. Thinking you have become one of “them” is a whole new grieving process.
<Back to long term lurking>

[Anne_Neville]

@Shot_From_Guns

Ugh. If there is any way to make these terribly destructive people either realize how fucking ignorant they are or cut them out of her life, do it.

I’ll hope it was just a stupid thing they said in a stressful situation, and that they’re not really ignorant enough to think that she deserved to be raped.

It’s very tempting to believe that all rape victims did something to deserve being raped, though. If that were true, then all you’d have to do is avoid doing any of those things, and you’d be safe from being raped. Just like you’ll be safe from lung cancer if you never smoke, you won’t get diabetes if you’re not fat, and so on.

It’s harder for a lot of people to acknowledge the fact that there is nothing you can do (or avoid doing) to make yourself 100% safe from bad things happening to you. Guess what, people- we live in a world where bad things happen to good people. We live in a world where bad things happen to people who have done nothing to deserve them.

Make sure your friend understands this. She didn’t deserve to be raped. Some people who say she did something to deserve it think that because, if they didn’t, they’d have to face the fact that it could happen to them and there’s nothing they can do about it.

She should also know that, just because these people are her parents and are older than her, doesn’t mean they know everything. Her parents can be otherwise good people and be very smart, and still be horribly ignorant about rape. It’s hard, seeing that someone you love and think of as a good person can do something terrible.

[Shot_From_Guns]

@Anne_Neville

It’s very tempting to believe that all rape victims did something to deserve being raped, though. If that were true, then all you’d have to do is avoid doing any of those things, and you’d be safe from being raped. Just like you’ll be safe from lung cancer if you never smoke, you won’t get diabetes if you’re not fat, and so on.

I think we all understand the “logic” behind these kinds of positions. That doesn’t make them any less wrong, or cruel, or disgusting, or fucking retarded.

[Anne_Neville]

@Shot_From_Guns

I think we all understand the “logic” behind these kinds of positions. That doesn’t make them any less wrong, or cruel, or disgusting, or fucking retarded.

A lot of us have to deal with the fact that our parents, or other people we love and respect, believe things that are ignorant, wrong, cruel, disgusting, or completely fucking retarded. The OP’s friend may or may not have come to this realization already (I base this on the description of her as “naive” in the other thread- this may be one more thing she was naive about).

[Shot_From_Guns]

True.