After the Silence
"Welcome to After Silence, an online support group, message board, and chat room for rape, sexual assault, and sexual abuse survivors. You are not alone, you are not broken, and you can heal. After Silence is designed to help victims become survivors, and communicate in the recovery of sexual violence. Our mission is to support, empower, validate, and educate survivors, as well as their families and supporters. The core of our organization is a support group, message board, and chat room where victims and survivors come together online in a mutually supportive and safe environment. Surviving rape, sexual abuse, sexual assault, incest, and molestation may cause different feelings to emerge. During the healing process many survivors of sexual violence undergo a dramatic reality shift, and see life and themselves drastically different than before. Feelings of anger, fear, shock, denial, and confusion are normal. Often pain doesn't simply go away, it has to find a safe outlet. We believe that breaking the silence is the first step toward recovery and it is our mission to provide a safe, loving, and thought-provoking online support group for each rape and sexual abuse survivor to speak out, ask for help, and give help in return. To realize (sometimes for the first time!) that you are not alone can make all the difference. Learn more about our support forums for healing and recovery.
If you have been a victim of rape, date rape, sexual abuse, incest, sexual assault, marital rape, childhood sexual abuse, or molestation please know that you did nothing wrong and you are not to blame. In our online support group and forums you can share your story, feelings, fears, doubts, and receive support from fellow survivors who are experiencing similar emotions. Here you may speak freely without identifying yourself. At times the path to healing may seem an arduous and somewhat frightening one, but you don't have to go through it alone. By joining After Silence you become part of a community that understands your struggles. We are here to support, listen, and heal together."
What's the point of sharing stuff? It doesn't take away what happened or solve anything. For some people it's useful, but not everyone is the same. It's very, very difficult saying stuff like this.
Last year, I was sexually assaulted. I was stupid and I thought he was doing those things because he liked me. A few months after the incident, everything started to piece together. I was saying no, I was crying, I was pleading for him to stop - he was fully aware of that yet he continued. That wasn't right. Just a few months ago, while I was in school, I decided to see a counselor who specialized in sexual assault, rape, sexual abuse, and sexual harassment. She had done a presentation in my health class on sexual harassment and my mind couldn't stop racing back to what happened to me. After her presentation, she handed out small blue slips as feedback, and there was a space asking if you would like to talk with her in private. I was the only one in the class who checked that off. We met two weeks after her presentation, and I told her the entire story - details and all - and easily, she came to the conclusion that I had been sexually assaulted. I was devastated, my mind was boggling, I was so confused. I went home that night and I blamed myself. I told myself that I had deserved it because I was so stupid. I should've hit him, I should've called the police. There are a thousand 'what ifs' still floating around in my head. What if I had told my mom? Would she believe me?
I look back on this as a point of strength in my life. I have been through so many negative things, but the more that I overcome, the stronger I become. I love myself and you can too. Don't dwell on this forever. You are strong, you are beautiful, you never deserved it, and it was never your fault.
@Kalen
Thank you for sharing your story and message of hope. We have this unique ability to blame ourselves for awful happenings. This could not be further from the truth. I don't think I ever dwelled on it, although it deeply impacted the way I navigated relationships and affection in an almost unconscious way. Once I started linking these behaviors to trauma, I was able to begin healing Best wishes to you in your wellness.
Im sorry that you had to go through sth like that but you are really just really srong!although i dont know you but still im so proud of you.♡
Stay strong
I really admire those here who are able to speak out. I desperately want to be able to but I just can't.
Maybe it's because I believe that what happened wasn't so bad.
Maybe it's because I'm a very private person and usually deal with stuff myself.
Maybe it's because I'm just plain scared.
I don't know. I'm so lost :(
Shame and silence are what give our perpetrators their power. It is an important step in shaking off those chains that hold you down. I realize that is easier said than done. I hope you find a way to openly express yourself and utilize 7 Cups to the best of its ability. I invite you to PM me personally if you would like to talk more. ♡
Thank you :)
Glad to. 
How can you really have a family, have any real relationships with them, if they tell you you're a liar about what happened to you? If they get upset with you about coming out all those years later about a family member who abused you? If they held that family member so highly in regard that they would rather keep the nice memories of them instead of acknowledge what happened to you?
What can you do besides cut them off, and shove them away? What can you say to them that will make them take the rose colored glasses off and face that they didn't protect me? Make them face that they didn't look hard enough, didn't pay enough attention?
All my childhood memories are tainted with abuse from my step dad. From the age of 3 I was trying to tell family members what he was doing to me, their was police and social work investigations but he knew what he was doing they never found anything to charge him with. Rather than my meant to be mum protect me I had to go back living in the same house, forced to suffer abuse from him till I was 14. I started to run away from home nearly everyday so when I tried to tell everyone about the abuse they started saying I was only attention seeking... At the age of 3 how the hell did I know what any of that is? I remember a phase where I started to think that maybe it was normal and that's why my mum just let it happen, she even walked in on him doing it and still chose to stay with him. When I got to 14 I ran away for the last time, I simply refused to return to that house so I was placed in foster care. Not one member of my family attempted to contact me. I was punished and lost my whole family for telling the truth. I was a very messed up child and got worse in my later teens as I was legal to drink then. If it hadn't been for the woman I call mum now I think I'd be dead by now she saved my life and shaped me into the woman I am today. I know now that it wasn't my fault, that I wasn't wrong for telling people but every single one of my birth family knew what was happening and they all chose to ignore it. I want to confront them and ask why, I want to tell them everything I went through and let them see how damaged I am because of it all but I don't think I could bare to be in the same room as any of them.
I never really understood what happend to me...I just know that everyone thought i was joking and no one did anything about it... i don't blame them though...who would think that your own family member could hurt you?
@carefulCity2204
I was just thinking of this seconds ago. That is, how fundamentally more violating sexual assault becomes when it is at the hands of a family member. It can certainly go on to impact your relationship to the rest of your family. In my case, a dividing wall certainly went up, although I was blessed to have support and he was the one who was ostracized, not me. I do realize this is not always the case. My heart goes out to each and every one of you who have a family of unbelievers. I am of the opinion that this drastically inhibits our ability to heal and move on. Seems more sensical to talk about it, as a family, and react accordingly.
Thank you for your words, I really apreciate the time you took to read my story. I just hope that I can finally overcome this.
I know think you ever really get over it, scars fade but they never completely go away. We just find ways to deal with it better
It's true, we can learn to carry our pain differently even if it never really leaves us. Most important among these skills, I think, is self-love. Trauma inhibits our ability to learn that we are worthy of health, happiness, reciprocity, and love. The truest victory of all is living well despite the wrongs we have endured.
You are most welcome.
Don't give up. 
I was raped by my cousin from the age of 7 to 11. I didn't even have a name for what he was doing to me until I was 10. I've only told one person what he did. My family has no idea. My parents would joke and laugh with him at family gatherings and I would stand there and laugh with them, while I screamed on the inside. I began self-harming when I was 11, I still do. I hate myself. I hate that I didn't fight, I didn't say something. I know I shouldn't blame myself, but I do. I feel so much anger and frustration. I feel so full so sorrow and mourn the innocence that I was robbed of. When I was 15 he joined the military and left. There were so many times I wished he would be killed. I hadn't seen him for 5 years and I was beginning to feel so much better. I'm in a great relationship, I had slowed down the self harm, I felt happy for the first time in a very long time. I saw him a few weeks ago for the first time in years and it was totally unexpected. All those emotions came rushing back. I could barely breath. I felt like a scared little girl again. I feel like I'm drowning. I'm depressed. I'm fighting against cutting, but it's the way I've coped for so long. My boyfriend is trying his best, but I'm scared he'll grow to resent me because I'm not the happy girl he fell in love with. I've told him about the rape and he is amazingly supportive and tries to understand, but how can he? I just found out today that my rapist, after living out of state so long, is moving back to my hometown, where I currently live. Now I'm terrified of going to the store because I might run into him. I'm so tired of crying over this and hurting so much. I just want to be better.
After the silence at night I got so scared I didn't go back to sleep I was cold sweated