Effects of Sexual Assault

Sexual assault is a personal and destructive crime. Its effects on you and your loved ones can be psychological, emotional, and/or physical. They can be brief in duration or last a very long time. It is important to remember that there is not one “normal” reaction to sexual assault. Therefore your individual response will be different depending on your personal circumstances. In this section, we explain some of the more common effects that sexual assault survivors may experience.

Depression

There are many emotional and psychological reactions that victims of rape and sexual assault can experience. One of the most common of these is depression. The term depression can be confusing since many of the symptoms are experienced by people as normal reactions to events. At some point or another, everyone feels sad or blue. This also means that recognizing depression can be difficult since the symptoms can easily be attributed to other causes. These feelings are perfectly normal, especially during difficult times.

Depression becomes something more than just normal feelings of sadness when the symptoms last for more than two weeks. Therefore, if you experience five or more of the symptoms of depression over the course of two weeks you should consider talking to your doctor about what you are experiencing. The symptoms of depression may include:

Prolonged sadness or unexplained crying spells
Significant change in weight or appetite
Loss of energy or persistent fatigue
Significant change in sleep patterns (insomnia, sleeping too much, fitful sleep, etc.)
Loss of interest and pleasure in activities previously enjoyed; social withdrawal

Feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness or guilt
Pessimism or indifference
Unexplained aches and pains (headaches, stomachaches)
Inability to concentrate, indecisiveness
Irritability, worry, anger, agitation, or anxiety

Thoughts of death or suicide

If you are having suicidal thoughts, don’t wait to get help. Call us or the careline any time at 1-877-266-4357.

Depression can affect people of any age, gender, race, ethnicity, or religion. Depression is not a sign of weakness, and it is not something that someone can make him/herself “snap out of.”

Flashbacks

When memories of past traumas feel as if they are taking place in the current moment. These memories can take many forms: dreams, sounds, smells, images, body sensations, or overwhelming emotions. This re-experience of the trauma often seems to come from nowhere, and therefore blurs the lines between past and present, leaving the individual feeling anxious, scared, and/or powerless. It can also trigger any other emotions that were felt at the time of the trauma.

Some flashbacks are mild and brief, a passing moment, while others may be powerful and last a long time. Many times you may not even realize that you are having a flashback and may feel faint and/or dissociate (a mental process in which your thoughts and feelings may be separated from your immediate reality). If you realize you are in the middle of a flashback:

First, Get Grounded: The first thing to do is sit up straight and put both feet on the floor. This will help you to feel grounded.
Be In the Present: It can be helpful to remind yourself that the event you are reliving happened in the past and you are now in the present. The actual event is over, and you survived.
Breathing: Try focusing on your breathing. One way to do that is to count to four as you breathe in. Count to four as you hold that breath and then count to four as you exhale. If you do this and keep repeating it, you may find that you can become calmer and can be in the present.

Pay Attention to Surroundings: Another way to help yourself feel like you are in the present is to pay attention to your surroundings. What is the light in the room like right now? Touch something around you that is grounded like a table or a chair. What does it feel like? Can you smell anything? Do you hear any sounds?
Self-Soothing: Are there things that normally make you feel safe and secure like wrapping a blanket around yourself or making some tea?
Normal: Also, remember that it can take time to recover. You are not crazy. This is a normal reaction.
Take care of yourself: Give yourself time to recover after a flashback. Reach out to loved ones or counselors who will be supportive.

Rape Trauma

a common reaction to rape or sexual assault. It is a normal human reaction to an unnatural or extreme event. There are three phases to rape trauma:

Dramatization: you cannot stop talking about the assault and it dominates your life and identity
Suppression: you refuse to discuss the event and act as if it did not happen
Explanation: you analyze what happened, what you did and what the rapist was thinking/feeling
Flight: you try to escape the pain (moving, changing jobs, changing appearance, changing relationships, etc.)

Resolution Phase: the assault is no longer the central focus of your life. While you may recognize that you will never forget the assault, the pain and negative outcomes lessen over time. Often you will begin to accept the rape as part of your life and choose to move on.
NOTE: This model assumes that you will take steps forward and backwards in your healing process and that while there are phases it is not a linear progression and will be different for every person.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

a normal human reaction to an extreme or abnormal situation. Each person has a different threshold for what is perceived as a traumatic event. PTSD is not a rare or unusual occurrence, in fact, many people experience PTSD as a result of a traumatic experience such as rape or sexual assault. You may be experiencing PTSD if you have experienced the following symptoms for at least a month:

Pregnancy

Because rape, just like consensual sex, can lead to pregnancy, it is important for female victims to be tested after an assault.

Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs)

Victims of sexual violence are at risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections.

Suicide

Some survivors of sexual assault may get so depressed that they think about ending their own life. Suicidal thoughts should be taken very seriously.

If you have already taken steps, or feel that you can't avoid harming yourself, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.
You can also call the Careline for help 24 hours a day at 1-877-266-4357. If you are having suicidal thoughts or you know someone who is, they can listen and help.
If you are worried that a loved one is contemplating suicide, it's okay to ask them about it directly. Suicide experts say that asking someone about suicidal thoughts will not lead them to consider suicide if they're not already contemplating it.

Effects for Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Assault

There are many reactions that survivors of rape and sexual assault can have. But for adult survivors of childhood sexual assault there are reactions that may either be different or stronger than for other survivors. These include:

Setting limits/boundaries: because your personal boundaries were invaded at a young age by someone that was trusted and depended on, you may have trouble understanding that you have the right to control what happens to you.
Memories/flashbacks
Anger: as a child, your anger was powerless and had little to no effect on the actions of your abuser. For this reason, you may not feel confident that your anger will be useful or helpful.
Grieving/mourning: being abused as a child means the loss of many things: childhood experiences, trust, perceived innocence, and a normal relationship with family members (especially if the abuser was a family member). You must be allowed to name those losses, grieve them, and then move forward.
Guilt/shame/blame: you may carry a lot of guilt because you may have experienced pleasure or because you did not try to stop the abuse. There may have been silence surrounding the abuse that led to feelings of shame. It is important to understand that it was the adult who abused his/her position of authority and should be held accountable, not you

Trust: learning to trust again may be very difficult for you.
Coping skills: as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, you may have developed skills in order to cope with the trauma. Some of these are healthy (possibly separating yourself from certain family members, seeking out counseling, etc.); some are not (drinking or drug abuse, promiscuous sexual activity, etc.).
Self-esteem/isolation: low self-esteem is a result of all the negative messages you received and internalized from your abusers. And because entering into an intimate relationship involves trust, respect, love, and the ability to share, you may flee from intimacy or hold on too tightly for fear of losing the relationship.
Sexuality: many survivors have to deal with the fact that their first sexual experience came as a result of sexual abuse. You may experience the return of body memories while engaging in a sexual activity with another person.

Body Memories

When the memories of the abuse you experienced take the form of physical problems that cannot be explained by the usual means (medical examinations, etc.). These maladies are often called “psychosomatic symptoms” which does not, as many people think, mean that it is “in your head.” Rather, it means that the symptoms are due to the connection between the mind and the body. Physical problems that can come of these somatic memories include:

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