Sexual assaults and experiences of violence are usually successfully processed. For this to happen, you need to face what you have experienced, process it and come to terms with it. A professional can help you with this.
What is trauma?
A trauma is a serious event that exceeds your brain's capacity to process. Whether you experience an event as traumatic, however, is very personal. For a baby, a vaccination can be traumatic; for you, it may not be at all. If a three-year-old boy is yelled at by his mother, he can experience that as traumatic. As a teenager, he would just find the mother's yelling annoying: Whether something is traumatic always depends on the personal experience. A traumatic experience typically includes feeling powerless, terrified, helpless and desperate, or "checking out" internally. It is also typical to feel paralyzed and unable to do anything – you might freeze with fear, or you might be completely limp.
How does the brain process trauma?
When you experience something traumatic, certain functions of your brain shut down and you process the things that happen differently. Sensory input (what you see, hear, smell, taste, feel, sense) is absorbed unfiltered instead of being neatly stored in your memory. That creates an inner disconnection, which is also called dissociation. For this reason it is very difficult for many people to remember traumatic events. Nevertheless, these sensory impressions come up again and again and are then relived. This is called a flashback. You might also have nightmares about the event.
Are sexual assaults and violence always a trauma?
Violence and sexual assault can be experienced very differently – regardless of how bad the act itself was. Suppose you manage to fight back. Or you can talk to someone about it afterwards and are taken seriously. Or the person who harmed you shows genuine, lasting remorse and never does it again. All of these can help. In contrast, feeling powerless, helpless and desperate, coupled with huge fear and a "shutting down" and "splitting off" in the brain are risk factors for experiencing and processing the event as trauma. Very often, this also includes the person not having anyone to talk to or their distress is not being taken seriously.
What if I can't handle life anymore?
When you've experienced something you can't cope with, you may want to avoid any memory of it. But at the same time, you are constantly plagued with thoughts that just come up. Maybe you have flashbacks. You may also dream about it. You might be irritable and unable to concentrate, you might sleep badly and be very jumpy. You may withdraw and check out internally. Maybe you don't really enjoy anything anymore, and you don't like thinking about the future. You feel really down. Contact a professional so that they can help you to enjoy life again.
Why do I act strange?
You may also be behaving differently or "strangely." After a sexual assault or another act of violence, some people start to use alcohol or drugs to soothe themselves. Others eat in an extremely controlled manner – or they lose control when eating. Some now function especially well and compulsively follow rules. Others harm themselves. All these behaviors are emergency programs that help you deal with the bad thoughts, bad feelings and great inner tension in this stressful situation. You can read more about them in this text. They calm you down so that you're temporarily in control of your life. However, an emergency program is only suitable for emergency situations. In normal life it gets in the way. At some point, you don't need it anymore. But because it has become a habit, you can't break away from it that easily. Then it is especially important to get help.
How do I process traumatic events?
If you've had a bad, traumatic experience, it is necessary that you deal with it at some point by re-examining the experience from all sides, forming a new opinion about it and integrating it as part of your life story. This way you can come to terms with it and look to the future again. Many then even feel strengthened and in some ways more mature than before the bad experience. Such a process can take anywhere from a few days to several years. Talking is very important for processing. A professional can help you, for example a psychotherapist. You can also contact a victim support service. You can do this even if the traumatic event(s) happened a long time ago.