Discussion groups

Those of us who’ve started these discussion groups for rape victims have been raped ourselves. We felt an enormous need to talk to other people who’d experienced the same thing, who understood what we were on about. We had some great experiences of the very first group launched, and we want to keep that good feeling going by offering as many people as possible the opportunity to be part of a DIXI group.

We just want to forget the first few days after the rape itself, to get as far away as possible from all the horror. Some don’t bother to report the crime, others think it goes without saying that they should report it. We think it’s right to report the rape. There’s a chance you might regret not doing so later, and then you’ll find things even more difficult for yourself.

Some people choose to be open about what’s happened, tell their family and friends about the assault. Others choose to keep all the painful thoughts to themselves. There might be many reasons for this. What would people say? People promising to keep a secret – that’s not worth much.

There are so many questions in this regard. Take all the time you need. Feel your way forwards – because if one person rejects you or doesn’t believe you, another might turn out to be more help to you than you thought at first. Don’t bear your problems alone. Our experience from the discussion group is that the only thing that really helps is talking about what’s happened and dealing with the whole experience that way.

We’ve all been really preoccupied with wondering whether the ways we’ve reacted after the rape are normal. Showing feelings, crying, ranting, hating and feeling miserable and depressed is normal after a rape. Being afraid of members of the opposite sex, losing your libido, maybe isolating yourself – those are common reactions too. There’s no hard and fast rules on how you must or should react – the main thing is just to make sure you react.

For some of us, this business of reacting has come all at once, while for other people it may take a few years before they show a reaction. Some of us concealed our problems and just cried at night when nobody saw us. Some of us felt it was all our fault. Others felt absolutely nothing – just this massive sense of emptiness. None of your feelings are right or wrong, more normal or more abnormal than anyone else’s.

It’s difficult for anyone who’s never been raped themselves to understand what things are like for you. They’re afraid of hurting you, uncertain, and that means they don’t dare to talk to you about the rape. More often that not, they simply won’t be able to understand what things are like for you, but they probably want to help. If you don’t take the initiative yourself, you might never get to talk about your feelings.

Nobody wants you to forget what’s happened, you can never do that. But you can learn to live with it, and work with it in a positive way.

One thing all of us at DIXI have in common is that we’ve felt it’s helped us to be together with other people who’ve experienced the same thing and to talk about our feelings and reactions. It’s turned out that we’ve all reacted in fairly similar ways. Our experiences in different situations have been a great help to all of us. We hope that once you’ve read this, you’ll be interested in finding out more about DIXI groups, and maybe you’ll want to join a group yourself!