Surviving Sexual Assault
March 24th, 2011
By Gail Post, Ph.D., Women's Issues Topic Expert Contributor
Click here to contact Gail and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
The recent sexual assault of CBS news reporter Lara Logan during her coverage of the February 2011 Egyptian uprising is a stark reminder that any woman is vulnerable to assault, regardless of her public status. You don’t have to travel to a distant country during political upheaval to be at risk. According to the National Violence Against Women Survey (2000), 17.6% of American women have been victims of an attempted or completed sexual assault. And while men can be sexual assault survivors, 90% of rape victims are women.
Here are some statistics on sexual assault:
1. 32.4% of rape survivors indicated that they were assaulted between the ages of 12 and 17.
2. 21.6% were assaulted before they were 12 years of age.
3. 64% of women who were raped, assaulted or stalked after the age of 18 indicated that they were victimized by a current or former boyfriend, partner or husband (National Violence Against Women Survey, 2000).
4. According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), a sexual assault occurs every two minutes in the U.S. Sexual assault is a criminal act of violence; the victim is never to blame, regardless of the circumstances. However, the FBI estimates that only 37% of completed or attempted rapes are reported to law enforcement officials.
What typically occurs following a sexual assault? Most rape victims initially experience wide-ranging, intense and sometimes contradictory emotions. Anxiety, fear and even disbelief are common. The individual may be in shock and feel like her life has been destroyed. She may be afraid to socialize, travel, or even go to work or school. Developing trusting relationships may seem almost impossible. She may feel rage toward the perpetrator, yet experience irrational feelings of self-blame. Many victims question whether they provoked the attack by how they dressed or acted, wonder if they could have foreseen or prevented what occurred, and harbor feelings of shame.
Just as disturbing as the initial reaction are the long-term consequences. According to the World Health Organization (2002), sexual assault victims are three times more likely to become depressed, four times more likely to consider suicide, six times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, 13 times more likely to abuse alcohol, and 26 times more likely to abuse drugs. For example, some women develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) where they experience intense anxiety, flashbacks or nightmares of the event, and phobic avoidance of situations that are a reminder of the trauma. Some women develop eating disorders or engage in self-injury such as cutting in an attempt to minimize or avoid painful memories. At a minimum, problems in relationships, sexual difficulties, and feelings panic and anxiety can persist for years.
Sexual assault survivors need information, support, understanding, and sometimes, counseling to aid in their recovery. At first, individuals need to seek immediate medical attention, file criminal charges, and reach out to family and friends for emotional support. It is surprising how often these steps are not taken due to fear of blame, public exposure, retaliation, or rejection from loved ones. Family and friends need to encourage the victim to get the medical and legal attention needed, to provide reassurance that she is not to blame, and to recognize that it is normal to exhibit a range of emotions and behaviors. While initial reactions of anxiety, sadness, anger and avoidance can be expected, if these reactions persist, significantly interfere with work, school or social relationships, or evolve into more serious symptoms such as depression, PTSD, eating disorders, self-harm, or addictive behaviors, the individual may benefit from therapy. A variety of treatment approaches can be used to address different effects of the assault depending on the symptom that the individual is experiencing. These can range from short-term, cognitive-behavioral techniques for managing anxiety or intrusive thoughts to more intensive therapy that addresses coexisting symptoms such as an eating disorder or drug abuse. Couples therapy can be helpful when interpersonal anxiety or sexual problems interfere with a relationship. Some individuals also benefit from participation in support groups for survivors of rape or sexual abuse. Regardless of the type of support, it is critical that any woman who is assaulted receive the support she deserves.
Helpful resources on sexual assault:
- www.rainn.org
- www.feminist.com
- www.aardvarc.org
- www.stopfamilyviolence.org
©Copyright 2011 by Gail Post, PhD, therapist in Jenkintown, PA. All Rights Reserved.
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15 Comments | Click here to leave a comment.
Comments
Surprising to read that such a high percentage of the crime is committed by a partner/husband/boyfriend…What this does is not just bringing along all the problems to the victim of the crime but also makes the victim question herself for having trusted the person and thereby make it difficult for the victim to trust anybody after the incident…A perfect recipe for withdrawing from one’s social relations and thereby inviting loneliness…
The reason for sexual assault can vary a lot.But what happens after such an incident is very important from the victim’s point of view.The victim’s world often,if not all,seems to shake violently and it the level of depression can only be imagined.Support is one thing that is the least we can provide to any victim of sexual assault.Support from a friend,a family member,a partner,a neighbor,you could be anybody,but providing support is one very important and basic thing we can do.
Way too few women speak up when an assault happens to them? Why? Well the evidence is here. many times it is enacted by someone that they know and by whom they thought loved them. Also they are afraid of what others will think about them, that maybe they did something to bring this on.
Nothing is going to stop this growth in sexual crime except for stricter punishments. I want to ask one question here-If there would be death penalty for sexual crimes,do you think sexual crime would increase,decrease or stay the same?
It is for a reason that punishments exist in the first place. And if one is not deterring criminals,then we ought to make stricter ones.
almost everybody speaks of the physical suffrage of a victim and even those who speak of mental suffrage think that the problems are only with regard to the victim’s sex life. but we need to understand that everything changes for the victim after such a crime. and no aspect of the victim’s life remains free of this issue. right from having a meal to going out alone after dark-everything is bound to be affected. this is a sad but true fact.
Richard,
You make an important point about trust. When a woman is raped by someone she knows, her sense of trust in her own judgment can be destroyed. It can take a long time before she can learn to trust and allow herself to develop closer relationships.
get help you cannot survive this alone you should not be made to feel like you have to survive it alone
@MT Heart, the rate of sex crimes has actually dropped, not gone up. That’s the kind of thing that makes people paranoid, when people don’t look up the actual crime rate and just go by how often it’s reported in the media.
That said, I’m all for the death penalty for pedophiles and life imprisonment at the minimum for rapists.
The most under-reported rape I think is when a man gets raped. In fact, if someone is going to be raped, proportionately it’s more likely to be a prisoner than any other group. In the US Justice Department’s 2007 report “Sexual Victimization in State and Federal Prisons Reported by Inmates, 2007,” 4.5 percent of the state and federal prisoners surveyed reported sexual victimization in the past 12 months. That’s one in 20.
There’s so much misinformation about rape. Some think that men can’t be raped. They can–and by women too. They don’t report it because the stigma of being dominated against your will by a woman is far worse than the inverse.
@Shawn: The fact that there is a stigma in the first place is a problem. Anyone who can think negatively of a rape victim no matter their gender needs to resign from the human race and go back to whatever cave they crawled out of.
The stigma and disbelief can be justified however in some cases. A handful of people, most of them women, have falsely accused men of raping them or their children. Even though they ruin someone’s life, they’re often not charged with lying under oath, slander, filing false reports, wasting police time, contempt of court, or anything else you do when you try to get someone in legal trouble. They should be in jail too.
Shame on them! They undermine any genuine rape cases brought to court with their false claims too. Can’t they see the damage that does to women who have been raped and aren’t fully believed? Real rapists could walk free because of them.
Some foreign countries blame women for rape because they claim they “seduced” the men. That’s a major problem I believe in mainland Asia and even some areas of the West. It’s incredible that would even make sense to a smart person in this day and age. The old “she asked for it” argument holds no water.
No matter what atrocity happens, you will always get the one who tries to shift the blame to another or something else. Or worse, people who try to justify rape. Those kinds of people are almost as bad as the rapists in my opinion. I wonder if they would feel the same if it happened to their own wife, son or daughter.
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