Understanding things may feel different

When our boundaries and safety are violated, it can change the way we think and feel about ourselves, our relationships and the world around us. The aftermath of it can also be physical.

The assault can result in physical injuries. We may have bruises, pain, bleeding and soreness. We may feel like you can’t breathe, experience chronic fatigue, involuntary shaking, not sleeping or eating like we used to and that our future sexual experiences will feel different.

You should get a medical check up to make sure you are protected against any sexually-transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and physical injuries. You may be asked to take medicines as a precaution. This won’t be easy but it’s important you protect yourself.

You may feel like you can’t trust people or that you don’t feel like being around your friends and family. You may feel angry. These changes are natural and though they may feel permanent and overwhelming, they don’t have to be. In time, you may find peace.

Identifying and naming your feelings

The first step in understanding why we feel the way we do is to identify what it is that we are feeling. Take a deep breath in. Take a deep breath out. Can any of the following words describe how you might have felt or how you continue to feel after the assault?

• Anger and blame, feeling incredibly mad or blaming ourselves instead of the perpetrator for their actions.

• Shock, a sense of disbelief or inability to understand what happened.

• Numbness, like we can’t feel strong emotions and everything feels flat.

• Helplessness and loss of control, the feeling that everything we do never works out. We feel like new choices in our lives aren’t our own.

• Loss of trust, feeling we can’t trust people whom we may have thought we could before. We may also have trouble establishing new relationships due to loss of trust.

• Isolation, like we don’t want to be around people or that they don’t want to be around us.

• Disorientation, finding it hard to believe what’s happening is real.

• Dissociation, when we routinely check out of day to day situations.

• Vulnerable, feeling an increased sense of being exposed to harm, mentally or physically.

• Fear, an intensified sense of feeling unsafe, maybe even disrupting our daily life.

We may think that these reactions are a sign of weakness but they are not.

You are not alone in feeling this way. What happened was not your fault. What happened to you was a crime. Reading this, you may be at the start of your journey to reclaim and recover your power and this itself is a brave and loving act for yourself. Continue to be kind to yourself and take your time.

Reclaiming your body (Trigger Warning: self-harm)

Trigger warning: This section may be upsetting for some as it has descriptions of self-harm and assault.

After experiencing sexual assault, we may feel our body no longer like our own. Often, we can disassociate or detach from it, and sometimes, even harm our body to feel like we are in control, like in Soukayna’s personal account. This can feel scary, but know that noticing and being aware of what is happening in our body is the first step to recovery.

Being aware of every feeling in our body is at the foundation of our emotional healing and recovery. You might have learned about the body’s evolutionary response to danger—what is often referred to the fight-flight-or-freeze response. Author and pioneering researcher on the effects of trauma, Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. has written a book called “The Body Keeps the Score” in which he writes about the unbearable heaviness of remembering but also using the body as the bridge to recovery. According to Dr. Van Der Kolk’s research and other trauma-based research, trauma impacts this response system. As sexual trauma survivors, our bodies can be “stuck” in one of these 3 responses to fear. Understanding and learning more about what our body is experiencing after sexual assault can help us in our recovery.