Life after rape

I met this guy of about 19 when he was working in a shop. He was really flattering and charming. I know now I was just desperate for someone to like me.

He invited me to go out with him for an evening and when I said I didn’t live in London he said for me to come up and visit him sometime.

We stayed in touch and I’d agreed to go up and stay in his family house for a night and go out in London. I was really naïve and I didn’t think anything of it. I wasn’t romantically interested in him. I just thought it would be something different and I was totally unaware of my personal safety.

My mum didn’t want me to go but our relationship was quite volatile and the more she said ‘no’ the more determined I was.

I met him at a tube station in the afternoon.

As soon as we met I knew it was a bad plan but I didn’t want to lose face in front of my mother. We walked to his house and he lived on a really nasty estate.

He said ‘if you were walking through here on your own you’d get shot because there are loads of drug dealers’.

I realise now he was building it all up so I wouldn’t try to leave. He had obviously planned what happened, which was a very hard thing for me to come to terms with later.

When we got to his house he said ‘by the way, the plan’s changed, we’re not going out tonight. And you know I said you could sleep in my sister’s room? Well, you can’t now, you have to stay in my room.’ I don’t remember much of what happened ’til the next day. I remember a few details, which aren’t very pleasant, and I’m glad I can’t remember more.

He made it very clear I had to do what he said or I’d be in trouble. He was too big for me to try to fight and he’d engineered the situation so I didn’t have any option but to stay.

I know he raped me repeatedly. I don’t know specifically what else happened but I know other things did. I remember trying to be asleep but that didn’t stop him.

Your brain does funny stuff in intense situations. There’s fight or flight but there’s also freeze. That’s why my brain did. I locked down and went somewhere else.

The next day he took me back to the tube station. I remember I felt dizzy and I told him not to let me fall. The next thing I knew I was on the ground. That was initially what I felt angry about. I couldn’t feel angry about everything else because it was just too awful. I was numb.

I didn’t tell anyone what happened until years later.

A long time later I went to the police and asked them to put his name in their system to see if anyone else had reported him for rape and if they had I would make a formal complaint, but it didn’t come up so I didn’t report it.

For information about Rape Crisis visit rapecrisis.org.uk, sotonrc.co.uk or call 023 8063 6313.

For information on whomadeyourpants? visit www.whomadeyourpants.co.uk

I didn’t want to have to go to court, to have him in my life again, and I didn’t think there would have been enough evidence to get a conviction.

He actually rang me up, years later, to apologise. He said things had gone bad in his life and he thought it was because of what he’d done to me. He wanted to meet up and I actually said yes, even though I didn’t go. Talking to him was so frightening, it was difficult to hold on to what was right and safe.

After the rape, I went to the doctor for a pregnancy test but for years I was scared he’d given me some horrible disease.

I’d already had an eating disorder but after that it got much worse and I got into drinking, smoking, taking drugs and sleeping around.

I did that for quite a long time. I went to university and got a good job but up until I was about 27 (I’m 33 now) it’s all a bit of a blur.

Then in 2005, I felt as if I spectacularly exploded. I spent three months lying on my sofa and I could only go out if I had a friend there.

I went to Rape Crisis in December, 2005. I’d had counselling before for my anorexia but I’d never told them I’d been raped.

It wasn’t an easy decision to go to them. Self-worth was a big issue. Most people who’ve been raped believe that somehow it’s their fault – that’s still something I struggle with.

The first day I went there I was a terrified shell of a person. My counsellor said a day would come when I wouldn’t want to go there anymore because I’d have better things to do with my time and it was true.

I went there once a week for two and a half years. Rape Crisis doesn’t put a limit on how long you can see them for – it’s as long as it takes. For a while I felt I wanted to move into the building where they’re based because it was the only place I felt safe.

Counselling was hard but it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I hadn’t wanted to be alone with my thoughts but it’s not scary now. I was really scared counselling would unlock memories and I was frightened to remember. My counsellor said your brain won’t give you anything you can’t cope with – that was really reassuring. I’ve never had any new memories come back to me about the rape.

I finished in May 2008. I felt good, safe and excited. I was positively fizzing.

The enormous silver lining for me in all this is my life now. If it had never happened I wouldn’t have ended up at Rape Crisis and had the opportunity to put right all the other stuff that had been wrong and had led to me being unsafe in the first place.

Also, it was while I was at Rape Crisis that I came up with the idea of setting up whomadeyourpants?. It’s a worker’s collective for women who are mostly refugees. The business supports women and it’s come directly from the feeling I got at counselling. I thought if I can share this great feeling with other women I will.

I’m staggered by the number of women I meet who, when I’m open about my experiences, share similar and significantly worse experiences in their own lives.

It’s important for people to say ‘this happened to me and I’m not ashamed of it. It was really rubbish but I’m not going to keep it secret because it was someone else’s fault and I’m not going to make myself feel bad for someone else’s badness’.

If you’ve been raped, your choice has been taken away from you. I’m choosing to use this as a positive force in my life because it’s never going to not be here.

I want people to know Rape Crisis are brilliant people and they’re there to help. I didn’t know how bad my life was before I went to counselling. I didn’t know how sad and scared I was. When it’s unlocked it’s amazing. Life is really good. It’s exciting and there are so many fun things to do!”