This can be a very difficult subject for some and if you fall into that category then it might be best to close this article and move onto a different one, there are far happier ones on here. But with that said, the issue of sexual trauma definitely needs more exposure because there are so many people whom it affects and some of these people are fearful of speaking out and reaching for help.
What is defined as sexual trauma?
There’s no one definition that fits all, but broadly speaking it can be categorised as unwanted sexual attention that causes bodily injury and/or emotional distress. This can be physical or verbal and happen just once or repeatedly. Sexual abuse is someone using manipulation to get what they want, usually through intimidation or coercion.
If you’ve been affected personally, or you know someone who has been, the end goal of charities set up for this specific reason, is for you to feel that you’ve been seen, and to give you hope that you’ll be able to put this thing to rest. There are steps that can be taken towards healing, perhaps through general advice, speaking to a professional or from someone who has gone through the same thing. There might be someone who can give you advice from the perspective of someone who has experienced the same thing, gone through the same emotions and can give you tips on how to go on and heal yourself. Sexual assault can be shameful and confusing, as well as painful and deep and it’s almost certain that a degree of some sort of help will help this process.
Why me? Was it my fault?
Absolutely not. There may be nothing in your life which makes you more susceptible to suffering sexual trauma, or there might be. The statistics show that sexual trauma is more prevalent in situations where substance or alcohol abuse is an issue, or here there’s been inappropriate sexual conduct carried out. This can be anything from sex work to people who aren’t bothered about hiding their sexual conduct. We know that being exposed to adults having sex, or pornography, can have a catastrophic effect upon young people.
How does sexual trauma affect people?
There are lots of ways that sexual trauma can manifest itself, including:
- -Major anxiety. It doesn’t have to be towards sex, it can pop up anywhere in your life, about the most innocuous things. Like constant worry about your job, or schoolwork, being afraid that you’ll lose someone close to you, or being overly anxious about going out and mixing with people.
- -Causing a deep, clinical depression. When our brains are trying to cope with something bad, it often means that emotions are clamped down and the serotonin (also known as the happy hormone) levels in your brain drop significantly. This isn’t just a case of feeling a bit low, clinical depression is due to a chemical imbalance in your brain and often needs medication to treat it.
- -Disassociation. This means that you stop associating with the things that you did before and you withdraw from your normal day to day life. You might also feel that what has happened to you feels a distant memory that you are struggling to get rid of.
- -Self-loathing. This is a particularly common feeling after sexual trauma. You might feel that you led someone on, that you dressed provocatively for example, or even that you didn’t stop what was going on, even though the human brain’s response to trauma can be to freeze you so you don’t make any move. This does NOT mean that you allowed this to happen, you were assaulted whether you screamed and kicked or simply went into a kind of daze, and neither of these are a measure of how ‘badly’ you were assaulted.
- -Feelings of shame. Again, very common where the victim feels that it’s somehow their fault, or where they haven’t managed to stop the assault from happening. This crops up particularly where the abuse is ongoing and sustained, with the victim not knowing how to stop it happening, so they seem to ‘go along’ with it, even though their brain is screaming ‘NO’.
- -Self-harming. This is where people take out the trauma of what has happened by physically punishing their body. It can be anything from cutting themselves, burning themselves or developing an eating disorder. All of these are forms of taking control of your physical self, even if it’s sub-conscious.
- -Finding it difficult to form relationships, either with a partner or with family and friends. It can have physical manifestations that make your sex life more difficult, such as premature ejaculation, inability to maintain an erection and finding it difficult to orgasm in men. Whilst women can suffer from vaginismus, an unpleasant condition where the vagina clenches itself so tightly that it’s impossible to have penetrative sex, or even use a tampon.
The best advice to give in this situation is to tell someone as soon as you feel ready. Keeping it a secret will only add to the sexual trauma.
