cant get my head around it

[Guest]

Approxamitly 10 weeks ago a girl from my local pub confided in my friend and myself and told us that she had been raped by a man that we knew and opened a can of worms as my friend eventually told me the same man had raped her 6 months previous and was to frightened to tell any of us as the man was threatening her, he is a cocaine addict and very violent when he wants so there was no evidence. We pursuased them to go to the police, statements where taken but no chaperone officer or anything was offered. It took weeks for anything to happen then he was taken in for questioning and released on bail, another 3 anonamous girls came forward with the same allergations so when his bail date came he was released again,on his second bail appearance all charges was dropped due to lack of evidence apparently!! They was asked if they were dissapointed with the outcome and given the cps telephone number and was told to ring them... 5 rape allergations and all were dropped, it was mentioned that he is under investigation for serious assualt and drug charges, but thats no good to my friend who watches her back all the time and suffers panic attacks and regular nightmares. i cant believe our legal system can let a man away with this if it was 1 allergation with no evidence then maybe but not 5. My personal thought is that the case wasnt dealt with correctly, it has been mentioned to write to the home office and they will look at the case again. Does anyone know what steps she can take next or should she just leave it. Any advise for me to help her through it as she bottles everything up and feels she is putting on us would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[diana_holbourn]

It does seem an injustice that the case isn't being taken up since there are so many of them, and that someone on such a serious charge was released on bail before the charges were dropped. Hopefully he'll get a long sentence for the assault and drugs charges they're thinking of bringing against him and it'll happen soon, so at least he'll be taken out of the way.

I'm not sure what it would be best to do next. But perhaps a few questions you could consider when deciding whether to take it forward would be what, if anything, you have to lose, what would be the best possible outcome and what would be the worst, how likely are each to happen and how would they affect the people bringing the charges and how would they deal with it, and if they dropped the matter, how they'd feel if he wasn't brought to justice for the other things, and how they'd feel if he was and sent to prison.

There are techniques for dealing with panic attacks that might be helpful for your friend. One is a distraction technique, where the moment people feel an anxiety sensation that feels like a panic attack might be coming on, they take their focus off their worried thoughts and focus their attention on what's going on around them, for instance counting the number of things in shop windows or the number of leaves on a plant or something, or trying to say the alphabet backwards or recite half-forgotten song lyrics or something. Part of what causes panic is worrying about the sensations and feeling sure they're going to turn into a panic attack. That can bring on even more anxiety, that can make it more likely that the person will panic. So if the person turns their attention to other things as soon as they feel just a little bit anxious so their thoughts are on other things so they don't contribute to bringing on the panic attack, the anxious feelings should go away so they don't turn into panic. The earlier people can catch their anxious feelings, the more likely the method is to succeed, since once panic has come on, it can be more difficult to concentrate on other things.

Another technique is changing the breathing patterns. Some of the physical symptoms of panic like feeling light-headed can be brought about by breathing too shallowly and quickly. Really trying to slow the breathing down, and breathing through the nose so not so much air is taken in in one go, can make the symptoms go away. So that can calm people down as well. The slow breathing technique can also be used as a relaxation technique, if it's done for a few minutes several times a day, not just when a person's feeling anxious. If the body's calmer, it'll take more to get to the stage where the anxiety turns to panic.

Using distraction and relaxation techniques can also help to stop nightmares coming on, since they're often caused by worrying about things, so the more people can take their mind off them the better they'll probably sleep.

She might not feel safe relaxing because she might think she needs to be on her guard, but it's unlikely that she'd get so relaxed that she couldn't act fast if she had to.

There are other threads with details about how people can cope with panic attacks, some with a bit more detail.

Reassuring her that you're willing to listen to her talking about her feelings could be a real comfort to her, if you think you can cope with hearing about them a lot. Writing things down can sometimes be a relief for people as well, since it helps get bad feelings out of the system, although spending too long on it can cause people to brood on their feelings so they end up feeling worse. If she has a goal in mind when she writes about her feelings it might help to stop that happening, like writing them down so if she does decide to take the matter further and write to the Home Office or something, she can explain just how the attack affected her in the hope that they'll take the matter more seriously.