Blaming the victim

[Pryras]

So far, I have only 1 line of support outside of the forum, which is a sexual assault counselling centre in my city.

When I was in the hospital, they asked me about my assault and why I didn't report it earlier or why I didn't just say no and walk away. These were women, nurses / a psychiatrist and a therapist who were essentially making me feel crazy and ashamed for my passiveness. It's not "my word over his" it's clearly his word unless I have solid proof to say otherwise.

UGH, I wish I was believed and not questioned or humiliated for being passive and scared. I'm not pressing charges, there's no civil suit, I don't want anything and there's no vendetta. So WHY the fuck am I dealing with this "he could never.." or "he didn't force himself on you.." bs.

 

[GoBack]

It's the worst feelin to have it turned back on you. Having one support is more than I have right now, the doctors think pills fix everything and the waiting list for the counseling service is years long since all the me too started.
Just concentrate on that? Getting yourself through it. People who don't believe you or blame are just part of the problem and not worth the pain

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

Spoiler: Trigger Warning: Me Too

Decades ago, I lived in an apartment complex and there was a group of us there who were friends.

One of them, another female, disclosed to me that she had been gang-raped in the past. I believed her.

About three-and-a-half years in, a guy moved in and became a part our group. I had a weird relationship with him. Over time, he started sending up red flags, and I kept overriding them. This was part of his MO as a predator, to keep getting green lights and upping the questionable behaviors. Eventually, he drugged and raped me. It took a couple months for me to piece together the events and realize what had happened, though to an outside observer, it would have been clear. In fact, there was a woman I'd known for a decade who was a mentor and a kind of mother figure, and I'd been talking to her about the events during those couple of months. When I came to the realization I'd been raped, she said, "Yeah, baby, I thought you already knew that." It wasn't until much later that I realized she herself was a vampire and covertly predatory. Always had been.

(Edit: Immediately after the incident, he stopped speaking to me, and I didn't understand why. I didn't even understand yet that I'd been raped. It was one hell of a confusing night, and he set it up that way. By the time I put everything together, I had no evidence. The drug was out of my system. I couldn't even remember the exact date. I briefly considered revenge. Just considering it gave me power.)

I outed him to our mutual friends. I told them he'd drugged and raped me. I didn't want him as part of our group. They'd been my friends for much longer. Of course they told him, and of course he lied about it. One of these friends was the girl who'd told me she'd been gang-raped. She told me she didn't believe he had raped me. Her boyfriend, who I'd known longer than her, also didn't believe me. I lost my friends, my support system, over it. A few months later, I moved out and moved on.

A couple of years later, I don't remember which one of us reinitiated contact, but I got back in touch with the female friend, but not her boyfriend. She came and visited me. She and her boyfriend were still living at the apartment complex, and still friends with the guy who raped me, who also still lived there. I laid out to her the entire incident of that night, how he groomed me for months before, and all that came after, and she listened but reserved judgment. Not long after, she told me in a MySpace message that she didn't believe me and believed the guy, and that she and her boyfriend were maintaining their close friendship with him. I didn't even bother to bring up that I had believed her incredible story of gang rape and that she was betraying me when I had been a good and true friend to both her and her boyfriend. I blocked her. I was done. She created a new account just to send me a gif calling me rude for blocking her.

I have no fear of a predator on this site reading my story. I publicly stand strong every day, and my power is obvious. This is why I rarely get PMs, and respond to very few when I do. I'm not a victim. I am not prey. They view me as a block to the spoils they seek, and they consider me their enemy, either to be avoided or fought against, but not as weak and vulnerable. I have no fear of them coming at me. At best, -- and that best is pathetic -- what they get from my story is a turn-on, but there ain't nothing I can do about their sickness. I didn't cause it, I can't control it, I can't cure it. All I have to say to them is:

I'm climbing up in my pulpit now, because I'm gonna preach, sisters and brothers.*

@Pryras, what you experienced with professionals victim-blaming you is upsetting. It was wrong. And yet it also doesn't surprise me. This seems to be the way of people in general -- they do not listen to or believe the victim, and they make up reasons they are comfortable with to believe the perpetrator. I don't know why this is, but I have hypotheses, and I make some judgments. I suspect it is because people fear identifying with the victim and therefore feel powerless if they accept the person was perpetrated against, therefore they defend the one with power, and themselves feel more powerful, though it is in fact weakness.

They are vampires. They feed off the power of the perpetrator. They also feed off of the victim's need, chew it up, turn it into something else that serves them, shit out what was valuable and turned now to waste, having processed through their systems, and, finally, fling it back at the victim like monkeys flinging poo. The main point to notice in all this, while the focus seems to be on you, what they have actually revealed: they are monkeys. They are not evolved. So don't let them take your power, that's what they want. They clearly wouldn't know what to do with it if they had it.

Stand tall. Walk erect and upright. You are more evolved than them, and they hate it, because they cannot face the weakness in themselves that keeps them from evolving.

You are more evolved than him.

You have more power than any of them, and they can't handle it. You have a voice, and they don't like it. You survived and are recovering, and they don't like it. Even though when you speak it is about you, when they listen it is about them, and without even trying, you reveal their hidden weaknesses. They can't face the revelation. They retaliate and try to silence you and knock you down low again.

They have filters that make them see the illusion of a victim, and as such, that you can be victimized some more, because they are not only monkeys, those women were jackals, the lowest of the low, feeding off someone else's kill. Disempowered, passive-aggressive people are at that level. But you are not kill. That's their illusion. You are more alive than any of them, and that's why the vampires come out, to feed off of life forces they cannot access within themselves; someone or something all but killed off something in them long before, and they don't know how to bring it back to life, they don't know how to identify and reclaim their power. (Are you keeping all these metaphors straight? )

You are above all of these people, including the perpetrator, and low people can't stand that, because they when they got broken, they couldn't evolve, and therefore cannot stand erect. They're shorter than you because of your erectness, and want to bring you down to their level and lower. As monkeys, they have long arms with long reaches. They can fling poo. Whoop-de-fuckin-doo. Wash that shit off, take a deep breath, and stand erect.

You know you're in the right, and that cannot be taken away from you, even if it seems sometimes like it has been, it is always still there and you can always reclaim it because it is yours. You know what happened, you know it was wrong, and reclaiming and keeping hold of that is more empowering than any support, because it is self-support. It builds off your inherent foundation. True support will help you find your inherent truth and rightness if you misplaced them or someone hid them; help you identify them; and help you hold onto them until you have a firm grasp. Grasp them. They are yours. No one can take them, even if you think they did. That's the illusion.

Him apologizing won't give you back the power that you already had. Those women refused to help you claim the power you already have. You're getting back in touch with it, and you're going to be more powerful than you ever were before. I'm affirming that. And I've lived it. This ain't no cheeerleader rah-rah, I've been out on the field myself, tackled, trampled with spiked cleats, head-butted, dog-piled, trash-talked, spit on, cussed, threatened, and carried off on a stretcher, did my PT exercises, recovered, came back out stronger and smarter, owned that field, and hold the all the records and trophy cups. I'm drinking from one of them right now. It tastes. so. GOOD. And I wouldn't deny a single one of them Heaven or evolution or their own hard-won trophy cups filled with nectar, though they sought to deny me mine, but they have to first step up and seek it. They have to seek their own power and proper support. I'm not going to martyr myself to try to deliver what's inside them when they don't yet want it. I live by example, and by not returning unjust harm for unjust harm; that's help enough on my part.

Now, where's the congregation that's going to jump up, raise their arms, and dance in the aisle, yelling, "Truth!" and, "Preach it, sister!"? Because I tell ya, the Holy Spirit is on fire ta-NIGHT!



*Apologies to readers who are Black for my appropriating Church, but I'm feeling a litte MLK about this and want to set my girl free. I am inspired and on fire. I speak only with admiration and respect, not to steal from you but to be in the company of fine and powerful examples. And you'll note I laughed at myself, I know I'm fired up, and all passions are a bit ridiculous. I'm being ridiculous alongside my seriousness. However, if you feel the need to call me out, please do. If ever I am convinced I have acted wrongly, I will change, because I seek truth, which will make me a better person, not being "right," which is not upright at all.

 

[Pryras]

Spoiler: Trigger Warning: Me Too

Decades ago, I lived in an apartment complex and there was a group of us there who were friends.

One of them, another female, disclosed to me that she had been gang-raped in the past. I believed her.

About three-and-a-half years in, a guy moved in and became a part our group. I had a weird relationship with him. Over time, he started sending up red flags, and I kept overriding them. This was part of his MO as a predator, to keep getting green lights and upping the questionable behaviors. Eventually, he drugged and raped me. It took a couple months for me to piece together the events and realize what had happened, though to an outside observer, it would have been clear. In fact, there was a woman I'd known for a decade who was a mentor and a kind of mother figure, and I'd been talking to her about the events during those couple of months. When I came to the realization I'd been raped, she said, "Yeah, baby, I thought you already knew that." It wasn't until much later that I realized she herself was a vampire and covertly predatory. Always had been.

(Edit: Immediately after the incident, he stopped speaking to me, and I didn't understand why. I didn't even understand yet that I'd been raped. It was one hell of a confusing night, and he set it up that way. By the time I put everything together, I had no evidence. The drug was out of my system. I couldn't even remember the exact date. I briefly considered revenge. Just considering it gave me power.)

I outed him to our mutual friends. I told them he'd drugged and raped me. I didn't want him as part of our group. They'd been my friends for much longer. Of course they told him, and of course he lied about it. One of these friends was the girl who'd told me she'd been gang-raped. She told me she didn't believe he had raped me. Her boyfriend, who I'd known longer than her, also didn't believe me. I lost my friends, my support system, over it. A few months later, I moved out and moved on.

A couple of years later, I don't remember which one of us reinitiated contact, but I got back in touch with the female friend, but not her boyfriend. She came and visited me. She and her boyfriend were still living at the apartment complex, and still friends with the guy who raped me, who also still lived there. I laid out to her the entire incident of that night, how he groomed me for months before, and all that came after, and she listened but reserved judgment. Not long after, she told me in a MySpace message that she didn't believe me and believed the guy, and that she and her boyfriend were maintaining their close friendship with him. I didn't even bother to bring up that I had believed her incredible story of gang rape and that she was betraying me when I had been a good and true friend to both her and her boyfriend. I blocked her. I was done. She created a new account just to send me a gif calling me rude for blocking her.

I have no fear of a predator on this site reading my story. I publicly stand strong every day, and my power is obvious. This is why I rarely get PMs, and respond to very few when I do. I'm not a victim. I am not prey. They view me as a block to the spoils they seek, and they consider me their enemy, either to be avoided or fought against, but not as weak and vulnerable. I have no fear of them coming at me. At best, -- and that best is pathetic -- what they get from my story is a turn-on, but there ain't nothing I can do about their sickness. I didn't cause it, I can't control it, I can't cure it. All I have to say to them is:

View attachment 37614

I'm climbing up in my pulpit now, because I'm gonna preach, sisters and brothers.*

@Pryras, what you experienced with professionals victim-blaming you is upsetting. It was wrong. And yet it also doesn't surprise me. This seems to be the way of people in general -- they do not listen to or believe the victim, and they make up reasons they are comfortable with to believe the perpetrator. I don't know why this is, but I have hypotheses, and I make some judgments. I suspect it is because people fear identifying with the victim and therefore feel powerless if they accept the person was perpetrated against, therefore they defend the one with power, and themselves feel more powerful, though it is in fact weakness.

They are vampires. They feed off the power of the perpetrator. They also feed off of the victim's need, chew it up, turn it into something else that serves them, shit out what was valuable and turned now to waste, having processed through their systems, and, finally, fling it back at the victim like monkeys flinging poo. The main point to notice in all this, while the focus seems to be on you, what they have actually revealed: they are monkeys. They are not evolved. So don't let them take your power, that's what they want. They clearly wouldn't know what to do with it if they had it.

Stand tall. Walk erect and upright. You are more evolved than them, and they hate it, because they cannot face the weakness in themselves that keeps them from evolving.

You are more evolved than him.

You have more power than any of them, and they can't handle it. You have a voice, and they don't like it. You survived and are recovering, and they don't like it. Even though when you speak it is about you, when they listen it is about them, and without even trying, you reveal their hidden weaknesses. They can't face the revelation. They retaliate and try to silence you and knock you down low again.

They have filters that make them see the illusion of a victim, and as such, that you can be victimized some more, because they are not only monkeys, those women were jackals, the lowest of the low, feeding off someone else's kill. Disempowered, passive-aggressive people are at that level. But you are not kill. That's their illusion. You are more alive than any of them, and that's why the vampires come out, to feed off of life forces they cannot access within themselves; someone or something all but killed off something in them long before, and they don't know how to bring it back to life, they don't know how to identify and reclaim their power. (Are you keeping all these metaphors straight? )

You are above all of these people, including the perpetrator, and low people can't stand that, because they when they got broken, they couldn't evolve, and therefore cannot stand erect. They're shorter than you because of your erectness, and want to bring you down to their level and lower. As monkeys, they have long arms with long reaches. They can fling poo. Whoop-de-fuckin-doo. Wash that shit off, take a deep breath, and stand erect.

You know you're in the right, and that cannot be taken away from you, even if it seems sometimes like it has been, it is always still there and you can always reclaim it because it is yours. You know what happened, you know it was wrong, and reclaiming and keeping hold of that is more empowering than any support, because it is self-support. It builds off your inherent foundation. True support will help you find your inherent truth and rightness if you misplaced them or someone hid them; help you identify them; and help you hold onto them until you have a firm grasp. Grasp them. They are yours. No one can take them, even if you think they did. That's the illusion.

Him apologizing won't give you back the power that you already had. Those women refused to help you claim the power you already have. You're getting back in touch with it, and you're going to be more powerful than you ever were before. I'm affirming that. And I've lived it. This ain't no cheeerleader rah-rah, I've been out on the field myself, tackled, trampled with spiked cleats, head-butted, dog-piled, trash-talked, spit on, cussed, threatened, and carried off on a stretcher, did my PT exercises, recovered, came back out stronger and smarter, owned that field, and hold the all the records and trophy cups. I'm drinking from one of them right now. It tastes. so. GOOD. And I wouldn't deny a single one of them Heaven or evolution or their own hard-won trophy cups filled with nectar, though they sought to deny me mine, but they have to first step up and seek it. They have to seek their own power and proper support. I'm not going to martyr myself to try to deliver what's inside them when they don't yet want it. I live by example, and by not returning unjust harm for unjust harm; that's help enough on my part.

Now, where's the congregation that's going to jump up, raise their arms, and dance in the aisle, yelling, "Truth!" and, "Preach it, sister!"? Because I tell ya, the Holy Spirit is on fire ta-NIGHT!



*Apologies to readers who are Black for my appropriating Church, but I'm feeling a litte MLK about this and want to set my girl free. I am inspired and on fire. I speak only with admiration and respect, not to steal from you but to be in the company of fine and powerful examples. And you'll note I laughed at myself, I know I'm fired up, and all passions are a bit ridiculous. I'm being ridiculous alongside my seriousness. However, if you feel the need to call me out, please do. If ever I am convinced I have acted wrongly, I will change, because I seek truth, which will make me a better person, not being "right," which is not upright at all.

IM ANGRY FOR YOU, and wow I felt this deep in my heart and i'm sorry you had to experience such horrific events AND PEOPLE.
I can definitely relate especially with the mutual friends knowing and worse, - CHOOSING - to believe the perpetrator over the victim. I didn't realize i would lose so many people in my life after sharing it but it was equally very freeing to be away from that. I don't need sheep in my circle and we don't need to prove our experience to anyone. Fuck them. Everyone says that they fully support outing predators / rapists but tend to lose that same energy when it's one of THEIR friends. It's all about maintaining any semblance of a friendship nowadays, quantity over quality. Initially, the lack of support from the mutual friends was what REALLY set me off, like i was being stabbed repeatedly by people i trusted for years. It traumatized me more than the assault! Thankfully i removed the worst of these people from my life but there's still a few who still quietly maintain contact and support the guy...

As women, we have to justify everything we do but the perpetrators are given the benefit of the doubt. We make excuses for their behaviour, and run down a list of "what ifs" and "Well, maybe you shouldn't have.." and it's all victim shaming. Being passive isn't a green-light, neither is being in a bar, at his place late, and even consentual intimacy before that. You know, it reminds me of when investigators try to catch child predators online. There is a large handful of people who think it's wrong and actually sympathize with these predators. "It's wrong because he was baited and encouraged to show up" i'm sorry but WHAT, LOL! Morality says you don't rape someone because they're dressed a certain way or harm a minor because they didn't say "no."