1) Becoming friends with my body
Becoming friends with my body after the rape became crucial to helping me heal parts of it. I needed to remember although my body had been violated; it was communicating to me everyday.
It was telling me what it needed, what parts of it were hurting more than others. What areas in my
body I needed to pay more attention to and whether it needed more gentle care or something more intense. In many ways I was learning to have a relationship with my body I never had before and although this came on the tail end of something so tragic as rape; I could take this huge trauma and learn to appreciate the resilience of how God created me. That I could go through this even though it never should have happened but still come out the other side.
We all come in different shapes and sizes, just like the animal kingdom; God made the cheetah and the elephant, the ant and the giraffe. Humans are greater in complexity but we still are each formed differently. In much the same way, each of our bodies need different things. Making friends with my body meant understanding that I was made exactly as I was meant to be and that I knew my own body in ways others may not.
In addressing that, some things however are common to those who have experienced the trauma of rape. A trauma that is not easily forgotten and one that although we may cognitively begin to heal from as survivors, our bodies can remind us of.
I remember mentally in some ways, feeling like I was making progress from what I had been through only to be reminded of it by my body. The aches and pains, random bouts of illness and sometimes peculiar things my body did all acted like a spotlight on my past trauma. Many times I did not appreciate these reminders; after all, all I wanted to do was forget about it all. My body however being the friend to me it was, was saying ‘no Pam I need attention here, I need care here’. So like a baby, I began to listen more attentively to it. Maybe it could be my friend.
I emphasise the word friend here because how many times in our culture are women subjected to
reminders that their body isn’t their friend, that it is not enough or good enough. I know for me
personally I dealt with fluctuating weight and perfectionism sometimes surrounding my body. I dealt with wanting different parts of my body to look different and to feeling less of a women because I was petite, although now I love being small. There is fat shaming, skinny shaming, colour shaming and more. I have retaliated myself to being shamed for being the way I am before by fat shaming, not because I genuinely believe skinnier women are somehow more attractive but as a defense mechanism to being shamed myself. It’s a cruel, circular cycle that women can fall into and part of that reason is sometimes women forget that their body is designed perfectly uniquely for them and is ultimately their friend.
When a person has been assaulted/ raped, her/his body temporarily became the ownership of someone else. Not only is her basic human right taken from her, it is very easy after an assault for a women to feel disconnected from herself and her body. Like it isn’t her own but the property of other people. This happens because the reality is she was treated like property; her needs and wants were not considered during the assault, she was a tool for someone else to exert their false sense of control, power and dominance. This feeling of being overpowered can translate to a women feeling like after an assault her body is not her friend but something to be ashamed of, hate and even in some instances destroy. After all someone else didn’t respect her body why then should she? Taking back the narrative so as a rape survivor we can view our body as our friend that wants to be loved not hated is a part of the healing process. The perpetrator may not have respected our body but that doesn’t mean we can’t. After all we are living in it for the rest of our lives and therefore doesn’t it deserve our care?
2) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and seeking appropriate help
Something common to rape survivors is Post traumatic disorder. This can show up in our body in
physical symptoms like headaches/migraines, hot flushes, nausea, shaking/trembling, fibromyalgia,food allergies, chemical sensitivities, chronic fatigue and more. Emotionally this can cause panic attacks, anxiety and depression, numbness or a disconnect from feeling and a lack of connection with our true emotions and feelings. PTSD after rape is intense and our body will often cry out that it has been hurt and needs healing through these various reactions. It is showing us that what happened to us was traumatic and that it was too overwhelming for our body system to handle; hence it has gone into overdrive. Addressing PTSD means not ignoring these signals but listening to their cry. Finding space to learn and understand what is going on and getting the appropriate help we need. It can be a lengthy process to get the right help after rape. Many people still hold judgments about what part a victim played in her assault as if she asked for it; some may try to be helpful but just genuinely not have the knowledge on PTSD or the impacts and aftermath of rape.
Sometimes in healing, it may take a trial and error process until the right help and support for a
survivor is found.
In all of this remaining friends with ourselves and our body is crucial. Persevering through possible
judgment and misunderstanding, other people’s ignorance or lack of compassion is key. Sometimes people will blow you away with their humanity to what you have been through as a survivor, other times it will feel like no one gets it and you are on this journey alone. All these feelings are relevant and normal. I try not to worry too much about people’s negative reactions to my trauma but to focus on my own healing path. This was not always easy for me; but people ultimately see things through their own lense and we as survivors are not in control of other people’s reaction to our trauma. What we can do is seek out help that is right for us and let go of the wrong kind.
3) God is the ultimate judge
Remaining unoffended is a spiritual practise as well. Ultimately I believe God sees and knows all and will handle people in his own way and timing. Injustice can feel incredibly hard; which too can affect our mind, body, soul and spirit but injustice on Earth doesn’t mean injustice forever. My personal belief is that God deals with perpetrators in his own way and that if we don’t gain justice or the legal support here on earth, that person’s soul and spirit will have to one day face what they did.
The focus therefore as survivors can be on our own healing. Injustice can feel demoralising,
emotionally very difficult and even make us sick. For me as a victim I had trouble with unforgiveness; things were left undone and I had trouble letting go of anger because some people were not brought to full justice. I gradually came to more forgiveness, but it is a lifelong process and I was even able to pray for the perpetrators. Not because I agreed with what they did; I hated what they did and evil is real. But because I saw those who hurt me as someone lost and in pain themselves and unforgiveness was at times making me sicker. I didn’t want to be bitter, my righteous anger was completely understandable and made perfect sense, but my emotions had the power at times to make me physically ill.
The body is so clever that when we are processing and experiencing emotions that come up for
healing it responds. For me unforgiveness required spiritual intervention. My faith has always been
important to me; I clung to it after the rape like I always had, but I found when I began to gradually forgive, my body felt healthier. There were still parts that would remain; for instance I live with food allergies and chemical intolerances and sensitivities but I could find more balance in myself by also focusing on my spiritual health; which included forgiveness.
Forgiveness can’t be forced I don’t believe. It needs to come from a genuine space; to be real. This
often takes time. Although after the rape I had an immediate sense that I could forgive the person
that hurt me and that God’s forgiveness was available to all; including the perpetrator. I realised that the lengthy time it took me to heal after it all had taken so much from me. I had lost my health, my ability to function and my sense of self. There are no words that adequately articulate what is taken from a person when they are raped, often though the aftermath of what they deal with offers some indication of the enormity of this crime on someone’s life. It has a ripple effect that can’t be ignored when someone is in the throes of trying to get back their sense of self and some semblance of what it means to live again in a world that can feel incredibly scary and wrong.
4) Disassociation & Exercise
Survivors can be hit on a deep, core level which can translate to a feeling of disassociation from their own body. One way that helps me when I experience disassociation is exercise. Exercise can help with not only increasing endorphins in the body which boosts the feeling of happiness but also with processing intense emotions that come up for victims. It acts as one outlet helping the body transmute feelings like rage and anger into motivation. It may help the ‘out of body’ experience survivors feel into something more real and present. When we are exercising, the physicality involved can require focus and attention which helps us be more present to ourself and our current situation. This can help trauma survivors who disassociate to come back to themselves rather than stay in that space of not feeling like they are where they are. For me personally if I disassociate I try not to place judgment or fear around that but to simply say ‘oh I am diassociating’ and then if I can, employ strategies to come out of that space; one of which is exercise.
Exercise can be gentle or intense or anything in between depending on energy levels during that day or time. Getting to know my own body more after rape meant adapting to what it needed. Many times because what I had been through was so hard on me, I had to learn more about being kind to myself and my body when it needed gentle care. I found I had a lot of problems with my breathing and lived in a space of what felt like regular panic attacks with different levels of severity. Exercising helped to regulate my breathing. Not only is it good for emotional wellbeing it can physically help someone breathe better as it can help the heart and lungs. Heartache after rape is very real and this translates to the body with breathing issues being common for trauma victims. Exercising after rape is also important in allowing oneself to reconnect to themselves. They matter and the violation on their body does not take away from the self care they can now show themselves.
5) Fight, flight, freeze or fawn and Panic attacks
If our body had to freeze during an attack to save or protect ourselves, we may unconsciously hold our breath after the incident in everyday life without even realising. This is not something to fear but to recognise that especially when triggered we may experience our body trying to protect itself from another attack by freezing. Once again the body is trying to be our friend by offering this self protective mechanism of freezing, though confusingly if there is no real danger when we are triggered we may not understand what is going on. Panic attacks can be incredibly scary but they won’t kill us unless something else is going on that will.
Panic attacks are our bodies way of trying to warn us that it is triggered and one way to help
ourselves when we have these is to focus on our breathing and regulating our breathing so as to
calm down our system. The nervous system is a whole system in and of itself and can be acutely
aware of our past and what has hurt us. It therefore can detect triggers which act as a catalyst for
setting off panic within us. Each of us have different triggers. For people that are sensitive, highly
sensitive or have been through more trauma or a greater level of trauma, the nervous system can be one way of the body communicating to us it is triggered and does not feel safe or that it is in need of further healing and care. We can ask ourselves ‘Am I safe right now?’ If this answer is yes we can focus on calming ourselves down with whichever strategies we have in place at the time. Breathing techniques are an appropriate strategy during an attack. Understanding that although it may feel like we are going to die, many times we are not, is important to helping us get through an attack.
Making friends with our body and even our panic can help us understand what it is doing. That it
doesn’t hate us, that it is not trying to torture us but cares so much it wants to send off these
warning bells. We can judge the situation with common sense, am I in real danger here? If not
understand the panic attack for what it is, a trigger, a reminder and our body communicating to us based on our very real past trauma.
6) Prayer and Faith
I also pray if I feel triggered, faith for me has helped me feel that I am protected and that the fear is a normal reaction to what I have been through. Prayer is powerful because it can remind us that
there is a creator so much bigger than ourselves who wants to love and protect us. Rape survivors
may feel unprotected even after the attack; understandably because they had a very real experience of the terror and fear embedded in a rape experience and the body has not forgotten that.
Therefore our bodies can feel unprotected and adopt these self protective mechansims for survival. What an extroadinary thing the body is; getting ready for battle. It may believe another rape could happen and it wants to warn us. Sometimes this is a reality, other times it is not; it is a trigger and the body is getting prepared in case. It knows our past, it knows what we endured, it doesn’t want us to go through that again; so it releases the alarm; warning us. Prayer for me is a direct correlation to how important my faith is to me. It comforts me at times by reminding me I don’t need to have all the answers, that God is at work even when I don’t understand and that at times I can surrender.
7)The Role of food in trauma recovery
After being diagnosed with food allergies and Food chemical intolerances I was propelled into
survival mode researching food in order to eat. A corn allergy meant most food became untouchable for me and I began to purify what I was eating. I had no choice, I could not even eat a piece of bread without been sick nor did tap water go down safely. Food became poison and dangerous to me. I had to listen to my body in a way that was going to keep me from becoming malnourished. Many survivors and victims of severe trauma may find that their body is reacting to the trauma by rejecting previous foods they could tolerate. In some ways the rejection is the bodies way of intuitively guiding the person to healing. Food in our society can be very toxic and full of harmful things with no nutritious value to us. Purifying the food for me meant making everything myself from scratch. I learnt about the flours my body could tolerate, the oils, the liquids, the meat, the fruit andvegetables and so on. This was a lengthy process of trial and error and continues to this day. I carry an Epipen and have had many a trip to the emergency trying to unravel what was going on.