I Am More Than My Assault: How Trauma Impacts Identity
By Imogen James
*CW – Sexual Assault*
Hi, I'm ____, and I was raped when I was _____.
Sadly, this sentence is one that many people, especially women, will say in their lives. It’s a sentence that you may only hear from your best friend after ten years of knowing them or from a stranger after only ten minutes. Everyone deals with their trauma in different ways.
Around 35% of women worldwide have been assaulted in some form, and of these less than 10% sought help from law enforcement. I know I didn’t: I was too young to speak to the police without crying. Rape is an epidemic – an act so violent and terrifying, it scars you for life. So why is there so much tiptoeing around the subject? So little help? So little conversation?
After it happened to me, I tried to forget. I was a kid, so I told myself that it didn’t affect me as much because I didn’t truly understand it. ‘Oh, I'm lucky I was so young,’ I'd say, not realising how skewed that is. I told myself that it didn’t matter. Then I grew up, and it began to matter more and more. I started to realise the sense of heightened fear and awareness that came over me while walking around in the dark or going places by myself. Sex was fine for me, but it always reminded me of what had happened in the past.
My assault started to become a part of who I was. I didn’t tell people about it though; I didn’t want it to be a ‘part of me’. I was me, and my rape story did not come into daily life. There was no need to tell every friend, every person I met. I didn’t want the X on my name, the hush in the room, the uncomfortable stares. Now, I can sit on my sofa in a flat with my best friends and we can openly talk about all the times that we have been assaulted. I’ve come to realise that it is okay to talk about it if you want, if it is something that you need to talk about.
But then comes the identity crisis. Who was I before my trauma? Who am I now? There is a huge pressure on women to ‘find themselves’, whatever that means. Women must reinvent ourselves over and over to remain interesting to society, which leads me to the question: how is something so permanent in my life supposed to form part of my ever-changing identity? You have to remember, however, that your identity is not what you decide to present to people or post on social media, but instead what you feel to your core, the values that you hold yourself to, the people that you love, the actions that you take.
You can have as many therapy sessions as you like, but nobody will understand your experience and how it shapes the way that you think. You cannot speak it away or pretend to forget it. What you can do is remain yourself. That is not to say that you should ignore the assault and act fine, that you should be ‘strong’. Instead, it means acknowledging that even if your trauma alters you, you are still you. You do not need to get back to the person you were. You just need to embrace your feelings.
I weaved my past experience into who I am now. I don’t need to shout from the rooftops that ‘I was raped’. Instead, I educate myself and others on these issues. I follow stories, I sign petitions, I lend an ear to friends, I let a girl approach me in the street if she needs to in order to feel safe. There is no right or wrong when it comes to dealing with what has happened to you, and nobody can force you to do anything with your own experiences. You don’t need to tell anyone. You can tell everyone. Either way, it will not define you.
I am more than my assault. I am a graduate of an esteemed university. I am a 21-year-old published writer. I am a dog lover. I love the colour green and house plants (even though I don’t know how to keep them alive). I am a loyal friend. I am a hopeless romantic. Most importantly, I am not a victim, or a survivor, or anything in between. I am simply me. Things have happened to me, good and bad, and all it does is add layers, and interests, and values, and fight.
Information Used:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rape-statistics-by-country