My boyfriend blames me for my rape

trigger warning- Sexual Assault

Me and my friends of 8 years would always go on an annual camping trip and we tried to make it a tradition and this was the 2nd year. 4 male friends and 3 female friends (including me). It was summer and very hot so we were all dressed in shorts and shirts and not heavy clothing. We all shared one tent but it had three ‘rooms’, one big one and two smaller ones. One of my make friends had a massive army bed thing on some stilts so he took up one of the smaller ‘rooms’. My other two male friends one of them called ‘X’ the other called ‘Y’ shared the other smaller room. My female friends shared the big one with me and our other male friend slept in there too as he was dating my friend and slept near the side of the tent next to her. One of the nights my Y hayfever (even though mine was a lot worse, my eyes were literally red) but because my other female friend had a crush on him she told him to share the room with her and I could sleep somewhere else. I went over to the room to sleep and they told me to go sleep somewhere else as it was already full with the 4 of them even though it was already established as my room. I didn’t really want to sleep in the same ‘room’ as X so I tried sleeping outside but it was really cold as it had gotten quite late at night. So I decided to just stay with X because he’d been my friend for over 8 years so I trusted him and stuff and it was about a meter away from everyone else so it wasn’t a big deal. In the night he tried putting his hands down my pants the first time and I pulled his hand away. He did it a second time more forcefully and I did the same. The third time he did it quite violently and I pulled his hand away and turned to the side. At this point I was scared and felt frozen with fear. I didn’t know what to do and my mind was racing and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Everyone knew I was in a relationship too so it wasn’t like he would’ve gotten the wrong idea. Then he forcefully pulled my pants down and raped me.

The next morning he left really early and very strangely went on a three hour walk and everyone was confused why. I was still processing and barely even realised what had happened to me. Now I realise it was probably his guilt and him waiting for me to tell everyone and hoping he could just be prepared incase he got a call accusing him.

I didn’t say anything until later that afternoon to my friend and when she started crying I realised how serious it was and what had happened to me. I eventually told everyone else there what happened and X ended up getting punched by my friend and we all slept outside with him in the tent as he refused to leave until the morning and I was having panic attacks all day.

Eventually when I got back I told my boyfriend and he was really struggling with it and was literally posting things on his Snapchat that were like sad quotes and stuff. We talked about it and he’s annoyed that I stayed with him in a room and wore shorts (because it was really sunny in the day) and didn’t do anything when it was happening (because I literally froze and had a panic attack). After it happened I went to a rape clinic and X even admitted he did it to my friends so it wasn’t like he didn’t believe me. He just blamed me for it. He said if I was a better girlfriend and made different decisions it wouldn’t have happened. Because of this he doesn’t want me talking to him about it even though I have no one else to talk about because I’m not as close to my friends anymore as it happened a year ago so he’s the only person I can talk to now. The ‘anniversary’ just passed and my PTSD that I had at the time has come back now and it’s really bad but I have no one to talk to about it.

He blames me still a year later so it’s not like he was taking time to process it or anything and he still talks to me about his feelings around it but I can’t talk to him because he’ll be angry and upset. In the past we’ve had some issues where he’s thought I’ve been too close to other guys and stuff so this makes him feel like it’s my fault even more. I’m really struggling and don’t know what to do.