My Cheater Raped Me

Dear Depressed Chump,

As a former resource advocate for survivors of domestic violence, I hope you are able to follow CL’s very sound advice and immediately gather a team of experienced supporters to explore your legal options because your abuser just went nuclear in terms of using violent tactics against you.

The reason that rape has historically been a weapon used in war to crush opposing populations is because it’s a form of violence that, aside from physically injuring victims, also induces catastrophic psychological wounds that only the victims of it understand so that, even aside from inducing terror and injury, it psychologically divides the target population and condemns victims to being poorly understood even by their own “side.”

In other words, your abuser dug deep into the arsenal of abuse and pulled out the worst weapon short of turning you into a quadriplegic or killing you. He intended deep and grave harm. Furthermore, he intended to doom you to psychological isolation by inducing a trauma that not everyone else will understand. For very real and practical reasons, you cannot put anything past him now, even murder. Someone capable of doing what he did is statistically capable of anything.

Aside from gathering emergency supports, you also need emergency triage to keep the time-release damage that your abuser just unleashed on you from sinking in deeper. Think of it as a snake bite or STD but in a psychological sense. You need an antidote in the form of social support and empathy stat.

If it helps to understand the the nature of the “venom” that was just “injected” into you, one of the common psychological wounds from sexual assault is something called “projective identification,” a theory meant to explain the entirely baffling process by which victims of sexual violence end up– quite falsely– feeling the shame and self loathing that the perpetrators of it *should* feel but generally don’t.

No one understands why this process of transference and displacement of a sense of guilt and shame is so effective but I chalk it up to a process of “mesmerization.” Like they say, lies become more believable when the liar believes their own bull. And *no one* believes their own bull more than serial sexual perpetrators who are the most loathsome, detested and lowest types of criminals around. Because serial sexual abusers like domestic batterers and rapists are rightfully reservoirs of so much shame, they have all the more need to externalize this toxic burden of shame/blame/guilt to others, namely their victims. This is why all engage in a specific mental trick called “neutralization” whereby they manage to entirely delude themselves that their victims “deserve” abuse, violence, punishment, etc. I imagine that it has something to do with the fact that the abuser is so utterly convinced of their own righteousness and the victims’ unworthiness that “projective identification” is so effective in displacing shame to victims. Victims are literally spellbound.

I hope it helps a little bit to understand that, at this moment, all the unbearable feelings you’re experiencing belong to someone else. All the activating, self-protective, energizing and rebellious feelings (that led you in part to write a letter to CL for instance) are rightfully yours but not the shame, not the guilt, not the sense of embarrassment and not the despair. The latter all belong to your abuser and you need to “return to sender” by literally immersing yourself in a sea of supporters and people who fully get what you’ve been through and will help to protect you.

Another thing to discuss with legal advisers is how your response to this assault can either help or not help in terms of getting full child custody. You may also want to consider filing an injury lawsuit for domestic violence. If the jury rules for malice in this type of suit, the perpetrator can never declare bankruptcy to avoid paying. If you’re concerned about being left high and dry with small children, then this may be a viable and justifiable route. Furthermore, this type of suit can leave a permanent, unexpunge-able record of the crime. That could come in very handy when your abuser goes scorched earth and tries to malign your character in every way possible as all rapists do in order to discredit their victims whether the victims fight back or not. But the issue of suing– like getting divorce settlements– is also a place where the “venom” of false shame might deter you because you’re afraid of being seen as “out for money.” Please get help in getting that venom out and don’t let false shame make you pull your punches at a time when your and your children’s future welfare depends on taking action now.