rape

[Andrea]

Dear Scared
I contacted this website about a year ago. I had found out the year before that what I thought had been a drunken one night stand 20 years previously, had actually been a drug rape. The more I thought about that night, the more I remembered, including telling him I did not want to have sex with him a number of times. The man lives locally and I have seen him a few times since and have completely blanked him. I know I would get extremely upset if I were to talk to him. I reported it to the police. They just said I had nothing against him except his word against mine. The man took great pleasure in telling me what he had done knowing after 20 years there would be nothing I could do. The point of this response, is that Diana Holbourn suggest the Rewind Technique which helped me immensely. You are supposed to have a therapist trained in this to help you, but I just did it myself. You imagine you are watching what happened on a TV screen and try to remember as much detail as you can. As soon as the event is over, you go straight back and start over again. Keep doing this until you feel nothing. No anger, no pain. I was at the point where I thought I might end up in a mental institution, my short term memory was shot to pieces and I almost lost my job over it. I went to my Dr. and he told me to stop 'playing the victim' and get over it. I have not seen this Dr. since and will not see him again. I am an intelligent adult, but I was not coping with the after effects at all. Now I am coping with life well again, I can see that I was suffering from PTSD. Nobody can know exactly what you are going through, but I wish you well and a speedy recovery to some sort of normality.

[scared]

Hi Andrea,thankyou for your message,and for being brave enough to tell me your story.I feel less alone knowing that there is someone out there who had a traumatic experience in the past,who seems to be gradually recovering.(i dont mean i feel better because you had a traumatic experience,i hope you understand what i mean)It gives me hope.It is wierd because I knew at the time it happened that I had said no,but the man told me that the pain and fear i told him i had was normal for someone who was a virgin prior to my experience with him.I had not been drinking and was in shock afterwards (although he had had some drink.I might try the technique you suggested.How did you find out that you were date raped,i hope u dont mind me asking.The thing that i realised today after seeing my counsellor was that I am not to blame for his behaviour,and there is nothing for me to feel guilty for.I said no and he raped me,as he was manipulative and abusive.It sounds like your rapist was also very manipulative.It must be really hard seeing him about.I think if i saw mine again i'd kill him.What the police said is awful,it sounds like they didnt care,that must have been really hard to deal with. It really pisses me off that they often drop cases saying theres no evidence,or not enough,there should be more men convicted for their rapes.At the moment i'm trying to stop going over what happened in my mind,and trying to remember what happened after it happened,as its driving me mad! I guess i'll never know,and dont think i want to.Have you been having panic attacks or nightmares? After my memory came back of the rape,I felt so dirty i couldnt leave the house for weeks,except with people i knew.I couldnt bear any man looking at me.how did you feel after you realise what had happened? sorry to be so nosy,its just that i didnt realise that there were other people who had had memories come up similar to i did.take care.

[diana_holbourn]

I?m pleased to know the rewind technique helped, Andrea.

Scared, here?s something (with minor modifications) that I put in another thread about the rewind technique some time ago:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>You relax yourself first, by imagining you&#39;re doing something you find really soothing and enjoyable like walking in a woodland area, where you feel nice and safe. Then the counsellor asks you to make believe you&#39;re floating out of yourself, and then to imagine you&#39;re watching yourself watching something bad that happened to you on a television screen. They ask you to imagine it was fast forwarding through the experience. Then you imagine you&#39;re you again, watching it with a remote control box in your hand, and they ask you to imagine the video was rewinding, so you imagine you&#39;re watching it all backwards. Then you imagine it going forwards and backwards over various bits of it, until you don&#39;t feel any emotion while you&#39;re watching it. The last time, you fast forward it to somewhere after the event when you felt safe, or safer, and then you rewind it, back past the traumatic incident to a time before then where you felt safe, so you imagine it?s fading away into the distance.

I don&#39;t know how easy it would be for you to find a counsellor who practiced the technique. But it&#39;s worth asking. It may be possible to do the technique without a counsellor. You can buy a tape that takes you through a routine like that from http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/...revention.html The tape&#39;s for people with panic attacks mainly, but the relaxation exercises might come in useful. If they don&#39;t, they say you can get your money back if it&#39;s within 90 days.[/b][/quote]

[diana_holbourn]

By the way, you might think the rewind technique sounds a bit zany, but one way it works is to disrupt the way the brain thinks about things, so it stops continually automatically replaying the same thing in a person&#39;s mind in the same old way, because the pattern&#39;s been broken because you&#39;ve been thinking of things in a different order so much, so it stops being a habit.

[scared]

Hi,I dont know if anyones still out there,but I have to make a decision about my placement for my counselling course.I have been working with adults with children with learning disabilities,and young people with learning disabilities as a counsellor.I have only had 2 clients for an hour each.The people at the placement are expecting me to go out and make lots of decisions about who I counsel and how I do it with these clients.I have a supervisor,who i discuss my work with,but we recently had a disagreement and i feel she was quite personal in her anger at me.We are getting on better now,but i have just had 3 weeks off placement as i have been very low,and didnt feel fit to counsel others.The problem is,i saw her this monday,and she has asked me to decide by next wednesday whether to continue with the placwement.For our course we have to do 100 hours counselling.She is getting some clients for me,but the ones i have seen are not coming back,as they dont want counselling.My supervisor also told me i would have to repeat things i said several times,so that clients with learning disabilities would understand me.Its is a very difficult client group to counsel,and i may have to sometimes refer clients to their gp etc if they needed it.So it is really complicated.My course colleagues have all got more straight forward placements where they go in and just counsel people,without the extra difficulties.I dont feel my supervisor is giving me enough guidance,although she said she will discuss it with me.I am really not happy at the placement,but dont know what to do.I have another 18 months from the end of may to get my 100 hours done,and have looked into another placment.But i am worried if i give up this one,i wont get another one,as there are only so many out there.I just dont feel i can decide at the moment,as i am feeling really overwhelmed,and confused,and scared.But is it right to continue with it if im so unhappy?please can anyone help...

[diana_holbourn]

Maybe it would help you clarify things in your mind, like what&#39;ll have to happen for you to be satisfied with the placement, and help you when you have the conversation with the supervisor where she said she&#39;d discuss things with you, if you work on writing down a list of specific questions you need to know the answers to if you&#39;re going to be happier with the placement. It sounds as if she should have given you more guidance, so it&#39;ll only be fair that she answers such questions.

You could hopefully find some decent articles about counselling people with learning disabilities on the Internet as well.

Finding a placement by next Wednesday so you can be sure you&#39;ll have one if you give this one up sounds like a tall order&#33; Why does it have to be so soon? I wonder if she could be persuaded to let you stay on longer while you look for one. After all, I don&#39;t see why there&#39;s a good reason why she shouldn&#39;t let you arrange to do, for example, 25 hours of your 100 hours in the placement you have at the moment and the rest elsewhere. After all, it&#39;s not as if they&#39;re going to have to spend a large amount of time and money training you if you don&#39;t make the decision soon, I don&#39;t suppose. Or I don&#39;t see why you couldn&#39;t be allowed to stay on for the time being but give a few weeks&#39; notice if you find another placement, to reduce inconvenience to them. I wonder if she&#39;d be willing to negotiate something like that with you?

[scared]

Hi,to be honest,if I had another placement,I would give this one up at once.Working with people with learning disabilities does not really interest me as a job,as I only took the placment as it was the only one available at the time.The problem I have,is that my supervisor has a couple of new clients for me,but she doesn&#39;t want me to agree to take them on,and then to leave the placement in a few weeks if i find another one.Which I understand.Therefore she wants me to decide by next week whether to stay on,as I can&#39;t really stay on at the placement and not work with any clients,as my previous two have gone.I just feel so much pressure to make a decision quickly,and am just so confused about my life at the moment.I just feel really lost,as I&#39;m trying to finish my course at college,and am doing a group research project (a presentation),I have my daughter to look after and just dont know where I am.I emailed a friend from college last night,as noone at college knows what happened to me and what i&#39;ve been going through,as someone at college yesterday asked whether each person of each research group has to speak in their group presentation,and she said the guidelines for the work dont say.So I said to someone in my research group that I didnt want to speak,but they said I had to.So I emailed another person in our research group last night and told her about what I ve been going through,and that I feel that I can&#39;t stand people looking at me at the moment and she said I didnt have to speak,maybe I could operate the projector etc.I have been feeling more and more sick as it gets close to our groups presentation.I get nervous public speaking anyway,but I feel so much more nervous,even terrified at the moment and didnt think I could do it,so i hope the others in the group agree with my request.I agree about what u said about asking my supervisor questions,as I did that on monday,but am still not happy with the proposed client work.I just feel that for my first experience of client work,that this placement is too much,particularly with my mental state fluctuating.

[scared]

The problem is,my feeling is that I dont want to carry on at this placment,but do I listen to that feeling,or do the sensible thing and stay on at the placment knowing Im not happy there,and carry on feeling miserable.The issue isnt if I m capable of doing the work intellectually (emotionallys another matter),but do I want or need the extra challenges of this placment right now.I know that whatever placment I get,there will b different and challenging client issues,thats fine,but if Im somewhere where clients come for counselling, wanting it,thats ok.I have no problem with people with learning disabilities,as i have worked with them before during my previous nurse training,but counselling them is very different.The other issue is that there is not necessarily going to be an ongoing amount of clients.

[diana_holbourn]

Is there anyone sympathetic at your college you could speak to who might be able to help you arrange to postpone your placement, given what you&#39;ve been through? Hopefully they&#39;d let you. If you&#39;re supposed to do 100 hours over 18 months, that must be about 1 or two a week. But if you had a six month break and then started, aiming to do your 100 hours in the next year, it would only be about 2 hours a week, which might not be that much more. Do you think you and they would be allright with that? It would be good if they allowed you to do that, because then you&#39;d have months to find a new placement, so you might feel happier giving up this one.

Hopefully your group will let you off public speaking. But if they insist you do some, do you think it might help if you pretended to be someone else while you&#39;re speaking, an actor playing a part on a stage, and imagine the people you&#39;re speaking to are an audience you&#39;ve never met before?

Relaxation exercises might help as well, if you can try some as soon as you can beforehand, like breathing slowly, regularly and evenly for a few minutes, perhaps counting slowly to a set number like four or five while you breathe in and out. It&#39;s best to breathe through the nose while keeping the mouth shut to help slow down the breathing if you do do that.

[scared]

Hi,thanks for your suggestions.I actually feel that in a way,the client work keeps me sane.As it distracts me from spending much time thinking about what happened,and I am pleased with how I did in the first two sessions,given that they were difficult sessions because of there complexity,and how I was feeling.I feel that I managed to mostly put my feelings aside when counselling,although I nearly got upset asd my first client cried for an hour&#33;So I would rather not wait as I am keen to get on with client work.The problem also,is that we have to do 2 case studies based on 2 clients we&#39;ve counselled,and hand in a placement portfolio before at the end of the 18 months.So i suppose the quicker I get into my client work,the sooner I can start on that.If I dont get my 100 hours done,and the portfolio by december next year,I cannot pass the course.So although Ive got 18 months,I do feel under pressure to get into my client work.Iam also conscious that several people at college are well on there way to getting their 100 hours done,and I feel I left behind.

[diana_holbourn]

It&#39;s good that you did well in the first two sessions. At least that&#39;s some encouragement for the future.

What do you think would have to happen to make you happier with the placement you&#39;re in? If it was going well for you, what would have made the difference?

If you were to try to make things more comfortable for yourself step by step, what do you think the first few little steps might be? What would you do yourself, and what support do you think you&#39;d need from others?

[scared]

What I meant by doing well,was that despite having a client who was really upset,I just about managed to keep calm and counsel her,even though she said she wasnt sure if she wanted counselling.the second session didnt go so well,as I had to ask the client a lot of questions,to get him to talk to me,so less counselling could be done,but I think I did well to stay with the client.I didnt mean that the placement was going well,just that I was sort of muddling through the client work,by working out how to do things,with no guidance from my supervisor.There is nothing that could make me happier with my placement apart from not counselling people with learning disabilities,having clients that actually wanted counselling,and if it was a counselling agency where clients came wanting counselling,instead of being offered it by my supervisor (who is a counselling psychologist)Also if I could choose a supervisor,instead of keeping the one I ve been given (there is no choice).Do u mean how would I make things more comfortable for myself in the placment?If so,then I feel the only thing that would make me more comfortable is to leave the placement.I would be even more comfortable if I had another placment lined up to go into.I dont know if you understand that I have not felt completely happy with this placement from the start,and have become more and more unhappy.I am feeling really anxious tonight,and have had a couple of panic attacks today.I had a feeling of terror tonight thinking about death,and that I dont want to ever die.It probably sounds wierd,but thats what was going through my head.

[scared]

[img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif[/img] [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif[/img] [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif[/img] [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif[/img] I just feel as if this decision is taking over my life.I can&#39;t cope with the stress,I feel like im going to explode.I just want to be able to decide whether to stay with it,or to leave it.I really feel i dont want to stay,but am too scared to let it go,so what can i do?I cant keep going on like this...

[diana_holbourn]

I was thinking that if you&#39;re managing to keep it together with the clients, at least that&#39;s a hopeful sign. It means you&#39;ve got some strengths that you could hopefully put to use again if you have to.

But I wonder if it would be possible for the placement to be postponed just for a few weeks, since it&#39;s not fair that you should have to make the decision in so short a time. A few weeks would at least give you a bit more time to find out if there are any other available placements. Does all the counselling have to be long-term, or could your supervisor find you some clients that would only need a couple of sessions of counselling? What do you think she might say if you asked her?

It sounds as if you&#39;ve been given a raw deal by the college and your supervisor, not getting enough guidance from her, and since the college surely should have asked you what kind of placement you wanted to do rather than given you something without consulting you. Do you think it&#39;s possible that if you told them that you really don&#39;t think you&#39;re suited to the placement and gave them some ideas on the type of thing you&#39;d prefer, they&#39;d help you look for another placement and let you change? After all, surely they&#39;re supposed to be there to educate you in what you really want to do, so if you don&#39;t ever want to counsel people with learning disabilities, it&#39;s only fair that they should find you a placement more suited to what you do want to do.

Hopefully your anxiety will go down when you start to see your way towards a solution. But can you think of anything immediate you could do that you&#39;d enjoy and that would take your mind off things for a while, for instance telling yourself you don&#39;t need to come to a decision for the next couple of days so you&#39;ll stop worrying but just see if any new things come into your mind between now and then, and having a warm bath or something else you like? Something that&#39;ll relax you?

[diana_holbourn]

Here are a few more thoughts:

How bad could things possibly get?

If you really can&#39;t stand the placement and would be really worried that you wouldn&#39;t get another one if you gave it up so either thing would put far too much pressure on you, how practical an option do you think it would be, if the worst came to the worst, to give up your college course and look for a similar one at another college or a slightly different one at the same college? A fresh start might be better because of the ill feeling on your course towards you anyway. You could quite legitimately say that you were giving up the course because of temporary ill health, so leaving hopefully wouldn&#39;t reflect badly on you, and while you were waiting for another one, perhaps you could take your mind off things by doing some voluntary work with people, which would also demonstrate your commitment to working with people to any interviewer for a new course. Hopefully if you had to tell an interviewer for a new course why you left your old one, they wouldn&#39;t pry much, beyond you saying you&#39;d left because of ill health. But it might be as well to decide what you&#39;ll say if they do beforehand, though they might not mention it. I&#39;m not quite sure how it works.

But I know there are lots of organisations that offer voluntary work, so you would hopefully have something to do while you were waiting to get on a new one. Social services might have a list of local ones.

However, if you&#39;d prefer to make a go of things on the course you&#39;re on, what plans do you think you could put into action if you resolved to spend as much of Monday and Tuesday as you could in a last-ditch attempt to find a new placement? How many organisations can you think of who might be worth contacting because they might be willing to give you a placement?

If you can think of a few, perhaps you could put them in order of preference, and then think through how best to find out about other organisations, unless that would just involve asking at your college.

If any held out a promise of a placement but then things fell through after you&#39;d given up your current one, again, if you were really pessimistic about finding another placement, you could quite legitimately leave your course on the grounds of ill health and do something else like voluntary work while you got onto a new one, unless you&#39;re pessimistic about being able to get onto another one, or it would be impractical, or you really want to get qualified as soon as possible.

If you gave up your placement and decided to chance it by spending the next month or two or whatever time you decide on looking for another one, perhaps taking on something voluntary and temporary while you were looking, but then you didn&#39;t find one in the time you&#39;d set for yourself, perhaps you could again think about leaving the course and going for a course elsewhere or a slightly different one at the same college. What do you think? How easy do you think it would be to get on another course?

If you feel really anxious today, perhaps you could ring an anxiety help-line like No Panic. They&#39;d be willing to listen, and they might give you some tips on relaxation and talk you through some techniques. Their number&#39;s 0808 8080545.

The No Panic help-line&#39;s open from 10 AM to 10 PM. When it&#39;s closed, there&#39;s a taped message instead, talking people through a relaxation exercise involving slowing down the breathing.

If you ring the help-line, it&#39;ll be as well to have something to write things down on, because as well as any tips help-line volunteers might give you, what happens when people phone the initial help-line number is that they get given the names and numbers of a few volunteers they can ring while they&#39;re on duty.