For those recently raped
This is the time where you have to make what could be life changing decisions.
For those who were raped by someone you live with, you have an additional and complicated issue to deal with. Not leaving doesn't mean you weren't raped or that you are giving retroactive consent.
While you may feel alone there are many resources available today that weren't available in years past. If one resource doesn't give you what you need, please don't give up.
Sometimes those who want to help may be safer targets for the anger you have toward your rapist. You may not realize how hyper-sensitive rape has left you and you may react to a gentle touch as if it were a shove.
You may have the opposite reaction and feel nothing. This doesn't mean that you were not traumatized. Your rapist may want to exploit your numbness in order to avoid personal and legal responsibility.
If you are being threatened by your rapist or someone else on your rapist's behalf, that is witness intimidation and in most jurisdictions that is a crime.
Note to college students who reported to your college:
A US Department of Education ruling in response to a Security On Campus lawsuit explicitly bans colleges from enforcing gag rules upon student rape survivors. Colleges which sanction rape survivors for speaking up are violating federal law.
If you feel suicidal, please contact your local suicide hotline.
Read more, including how your safety is your highest priority.
For those who know someone who was recently raped
If a friend or family member of yours was raped, you are considered by experts to be a secondary victim. Just as rape can traumatize the victim, it can traumatize you as well.
Rape victims need your support, but you need support and information as well to be effective support while taking care of yourself.
Many people unintentionally practice victim blaming. If you warned the person who was raped about the rapist prior to the crime, this is not the time to say, "I told you that person was trouble."
Do not take the law into your own hands. If you have immediate concerns about the physical safety of the person who was raped, please contact your local law enforcement agency.
Many of the resources which serve rape victims also serve family and friends of rape victims. Lean on them so that the person you know who was raped can lean on you.
For those who are just beginning to deal with a rape which happened months or years ago
Many survivors, once they get past the initial trauma, will suppress their trauma for years or decades until they are finally able to resolve that old trauma or until something triggers that old trauma. This could be having a child begin dating or it could be a news story which strikes a nerve.
Some hotlines get more calls from people decades after their rapes than they do from people days after their rapes.
Those who tell you that you should be over your rape by now may mean well, but they don't know what they are talking about.
Working through old trauma can help you understand behaviors and reactions which you assumed were irrational. If you've had persistant trouble trusting yourself and assumed something was wrong with you, facing your rape may help you understand how the past impacts the present.
Once you have understanding of the persistant impact rape has had on your life, you can begin to change that impact.
The resources which are available to those who were recently raped are also available to you.
For those who have been victims of date rape and want to help shed light on the dynamics of date rape
Take our anonymous date rape survivor survey.
The results of this survey can help debunk popular myths about date rape.
The criminal justice system works slowly and unevenly. That means that systematic change requires a grassroots response so that date rapists don't have the benefit of the public's ignorance.
