In my last post, Working Through Shame After Child Abuse, I talked about how some forms of abuse are particularly degrading. Because of this, survivors of those forms of abuse might find it more challenging to overcome the shame involved from having been a victim of those forms of abuse.
Gang rape is one form of degrading abuse that is difficult for a person to work through. While a child might try to rationalize being raped by one person as that person being evil or insane, having a pack of people rape your body has no possible explanation. A group of people has decided together that you are nothing more than a sex toy to be exploited for their nefarious purposes, and you have no hope of escape. It is as if the people justify their actions as being okay because “everyone else is doing it.”
When a child is gang raped, there is no hope of escape. How can one little boy or girl possibly fend off several adults who could easily overpower the child one-on-one? And yet the child often walks away feeling as if she is responsible because there must be something wrong with her. She is the common denominator in this equation. There must be something so fundamentally wrong with her to incite a group of people to attack her in such a painful and degrading way.
Unfortunately, this thought process carries into adulthood. The child abuse survivor must find a way to come to terms with having been gang raped. This is not an easy thing to do.
If you have survived a gang rape, you are not alone. Unfortunately, gang rapes of children happen much more frequently than anyone wants to admit. You can heal from this pain. The gang rape was not your fault. There is nothing that a child could ever do to be responsible for falling victim to a gang rape. Your abusers are responsible for their own actions.
If you are not in therapy, I strongly recommend finding a qualified therapist with experience in counseling people who have been gang raped. Hearing a professional tell you that the rapes were not your fault is very powerful in helping to overcome the shame. The shame is not yours to bear.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
[…] my last couple of posts, Working Through Shame After Child Abuse and Recovering from Childhood Gang Rape, I have been discussing shame that arises out of experiencing particularly degrading forms of […]
i was gang raped and have a really hard time with this, my father was there. i dont know how i can ever recover? I hope I can,
Christine,
You can heal from this. If I could, then you can, too. My mother/abuser did not participate, but she is the one who drove me to and from the gang rapes. Her involvement in handing me over made it so much worse.
I was actually gang raped multiple times, but the one that haunts me the most was my “exit ceremony” from the cult of ritual abusers. They knew that my family was moving away, so they would lose their hold over me. They made that last “session” extremely traumatizing so I would be too frightened to tell. It worked until my late thirties.
NOTHING that anyone ever does to you can change who you are. Somebody recently told me a great way to show this in concrete terms. Take out a twenty dollar bill. Crumple it up. Is it still worth $20? Write words across it. Is it still worth $20? Tear it in half. Is it worthless now? Of course not — You can tape it back together and still buy $20 worth of merchandise with it. No matter how much you deface a twenty dollar bill, it is still worth $20. The same is true with you, only you are priceless.
Take care,
– Faith
I am 33 and have never admited to aneybody untill this past week what happend to me. somtimes it wsa one person….once it was a group. I was a teanager. Went to a party. Im so imbaresed I have never told my husband of 13 1/2 years. He and I have been togther for almost 20 years cince we were children.
I am in therapy but it is for bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. I do get susidal somtimes and have ended up in ICU from trying to kill myself 2X. My therapest is a man and I cant….I just cant….decuss it with HIM. I asked for a woman therapest and everybody was like why? So I wrote a letter to the nurse practishner telling hur of my abuce from age 7 to 18 by differnt people some family members some not.
Somtimes when my husband and I are togther I zone out, like shut down I cant handle it so Im not there aneymore. Has aneybody else had this happen? Also somtimes when we are togther I pull away and get realy upset and cry. He stops emedatly and wants to know what is wrong. That makes me cry more becuse he is so understanding and loving to me but I just cant tell him the truth.
Im ashamed Im imbaresed Im a non-person somtimes. I know this isnt normal. In my head I know that it isnt my fault the troble is that my HART dosent beleve it at all. Plese somone repily Im scared. Lisa
hello. up until 6 months ago i never toldwhen i was a teenager i was gang raped they gave me drugs and alcohol to do what they wanted with me and yes sometimes it was 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 at a time my husband never understood why i woulnt talk about me at a certain age weve been married for 18 yrs i just turned 40. am having panic attaks and have been seeing pschotherapist which has helped was abused as child and sexually abused and raped t 18 gang raped at 19 and again at 21 still remember everything…dont know if the memories of him asking everyone “what do you want her to do” will ever go away
Hi, Amy.
I am so sorry for all that you have been through.
– Faith
Dear Amy, I feel your pain last year my 12 year old daughter was tricked off of school grounds and gang raped by highschool boys and adult members of MS13. This was in a tiny town in Wyoming where “That doesn’t happen” I wish I could say that this was the begining but it wasn’t. They told her that they now “owned” her and that she would be summoned in the future for ‘appointments”. The took her across state lines, drugged and dazed where she was trafficked in Denver, they burned her back with cigarettes and foot with a cigar, they threatened her life and ours if she dared to speak up or to anyone about it at all. When it all fell apart it was a dear friend of hers we found out from. She has made great strides this year but is refusing to go to anymore therapy. But I am the one that is a mess. I can hear them in my waking hours telling her what to do, I can hear them cocking guns and holding them to my babies head, I cant make it stop. I can’t afford to break down infront of her because i worry she will think I am ashamed of her. I am not even sure how I found this forum but I just wanted you to know that you are not alone…and I am now praying for you too. I am so scared for her future and for the person she marries, She used to have bad PTSD nightmares but not so much anymore. I worry and wonder if she just says the dreams have stopped so I dont worry?
Hi, Lisa.
Everything that you describe is normal for a survivor of sexual abuse. I lived most of my life “shutting down,” especially during sex.
I am not a doctor and cannot diagnose you, but I can tell you that abuse survivors are sometimes misdiagnosed with bipolar and borderline personality disorder when what they really have is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or some sort of dissociative disorder.
I strongly recommend that you get a female therapist and be honest with her about your history. Bipolar disorder is treated with some heavy duty medications, and those meds are not going to “fix” the problem if the cause is the trauma from childhood rather than a chemical imbalance in the brain.
I also strongly recommend that you visit http://www.isurvive.org, which is a message board for survivors of child abuse. You will meet numerous people there who have endured similar traumas. For me, it was like coming home. For the first time EVER, I felt like I fit in somewhere.
Take care,
– Faith
I saw pictures that a part of me has drawn. I don’t want it to be true. The pictures depict us being raped by more than one person at a time. The picture shows us so little. I don’t want this to be true. I’m so scared of what’s coming next. Thank you for your article. At least I don’t feel so alone.
My father’s sister married a pedophile. My mother would joke sometimes about how he was always showing people pictures he had taken of little naked girls. I often spent the night at my aunt’s house–everyone acted like it was such a wonderful treat! My beautiful and wealthy aunt was going to let me stay in her big house! I remember we’d get into pajamas in her bedroom, then she’d say it was time to say goodnight to her husband–who was in a different room. We’d walk down the hallway and into the other bedroom…and clear as day I can see him there, always with one or two other men…sitting up in bed…and my aunt brings me closer and closer and everyone is talking to me but I can’t hear anything.
My Aunt would always joke with everyone when she took me home, she’d tell my mother, “She must’ve had some awful nightmares! She was kicking me all night!”
All of these people are fine, upstanding members of society…no one would ever suspect…and it makes me sick, thinking about these conversations…and being so manipulated by parents and aunt.
My aunt and her husband divorced and there were no more overnight visits. I’ll always wonder if there are photos of me floating around out there–I was so young, only 4 or so.
I was gang raped. I am an RA survivor from a very young age. My abuse started when I was under 2. That was over 50 years ago and still, I work at healing. it’s hard when most people don’t believe that RA exists. I have intentionally used denial as a healing tool and have done myself a disservice wiht this. have you written about denial. Thanks for writing about the hard stuff you have, esp. Sexual sefl abuse. This stuff is sooo not easy. society refusing to accept it’s very existance doesn’t make it any easier for us who would love to be able to say it’s not true. Thanks. Scared…me.
Hi, Scared.
I am so sorry for all that you have been through. This is a safe place to discuss these painful topics. I wish it wasn’t true, too. I sure would sleep better at night. :0)
– Faith
Faith;
I was in a meeting about a grant for a non-profit. The short of the story is that there was secrecy, trust was broken and internally I lost control and my ability to think and talked
nearly totally escaped me.
Nearly, fifty years ago I was violated. For the longest time I filled the stool with blood everytime I sat down on the toilet.
I was told that if I told the truth things would be worse for me.
The truth may set you free but the pain may always ketch you unexpecedly.
The person who took advantage of me was a big brother role. I thought he was going to teach me things that I wanted to know, like how to throw a football. Things my father did not have time for….
I googled “raped nearly 50 years ago and still not healed”
your site came up , I sort of thought I can not imagine how much worse that must have been and in the more detailed story I still think it must have been worse on your life than my experiences- but, what you shared I share.
Writing about it is so different than when I call the crises hotline. When talking I talk about the racing heart, the level of clear vision and those type of things till I regain composure. Then I ask about ordinary thins like what is the weather like there, do you wah your dishes in a particular order….till I trust I no longer break the world around me.
thanks for your website
I’ll check out isurvive.org
drp
Iwas gang raped by my fellow class mates over 50 years,and have never gotten over the shame.After the initial rape I became somewhat promiscuous,and had an unwanted pregnancy age age 17,with my boyfriend.I surrendered the child,and four years later married a man for who both physically and mentaly abused me.
I have undergoing therapy for many years,But I’m too embarassed to mention this to my therapist.Any reader feedback will br appreciated.
Hi, Elaine.
I strongly encourage you to talk about this with your therapist. If you can’t find the words, you can print out your comment and this blog. You have nothing to be ashamed of. The gang rape was NOT your fault.
– Faith
I was sexually/physically and mentally abused by my father from the age of 2 to 12…he also involved others: our family doctor, a close family friend whom i called Uncle Bill and was a sergeant in the police dept as well as various other women. He tried to have my mother molest me, she wouldnt, she took many beatings for not….we finally got out. Getting out was not the end. I was gang raped, and raped at least three other times by other men. I now know how to protect myself better from this sort of thing….am 43.
By the time i was 22 my mother was in a car accident and suffered brain injuries which left her in a locked in state…she looked like she was comatose, but was completely aware. I cared for her for eight long years. I married a man whom I divorced quickly since he began hitting me. I am married now with four children. One of my children was diagnosed with cancer at age four and spent three years undergoing chemotherapy.
Life rapes me everyday. The feelings of being out of control are overwhelming. It is difficult for me to be here. The childhood trauma goes on forever. I was diagnosed with ptsd in my twenties….it will never end!
The worse part is I fear I have nothing to offer my children….my hope, dreams and inspirations are nonexistent today and yet I have no right to leave these children without a mother, yet all I want to do is die.
Im so sorry that these awful things have happened to me and to all these other women and men….Its so hard to imagine being happy or ever finding peace in this lifetime!
Anna
Hi, Anna.
Have you gotten into therapy? There really is life after severe abuse. I know because I was severely abused and now have hope.
A wonderful resource is the “Survivor to Thriver” manual:
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/survivor-to-thriver-manual/588019
I also found a lot of support on Isurvive (www.isurvive.org,), which is an anonymous message board for child abuse survivors.
– Faith
Read your story. Thanks for surviving. If you would want to encourage me to share hopes of changes let me know specific thoughts of hope I can hold for you.
My change this morning is to have Big Brothers Big Sisters review my history. My life’s direction is when it comes to pain-v-love I wish to side with love.
hi faith,
yes, in my early twenties, when the ptsd became so out of control. i spent years in which all my focus was my recovery. individual and group therapy, hospitalizations, medications, EMT, hyonosis…i feel like i’ve done it all. at one point in my life, i thought i was better, and i guess i was better…the nightmares, the night terrors, the disassociatative behaviors…these aspects of my life improved.
but, as i mentioned previously, life seems to be chock full of pain to get through and i cant seem to keep up with all of it.
i wake up dreading my life! what a life….i know the power lies within me to get better, and yet, im so weak again. have little faith left in my heart 😦
thank you for the link, i will buy the book.
im glad that your life has hope….im sure you
Hi, Anna.
Do you do a lot of self-medicating? By this, I mean drinking wine, taking Xanax, or other mood-altering methods? If so, this **could** factor into your struggles (although definitely talk with your doctor about this — I am not a doctor).
I was in a terrible place for a good part of 2011, feeling like life was nothing but pain and work and toil. In reaction, I would drink wine or take a Xanax (legally prescribed by my doctor for anxiety). I kept feeling worse rather than better, so I experimented with stopping both.
I was shocked to realize that, while the mood-altering substances shut down the pain, they also shut down the joy. I had lost touch with the good things about being alive. Without the mood-altering substances, I regained appreciation for the beauty of the leaves as they change color, the joy in hugging my child, and other positive things about life that had been “shut down.” If you are getting cheated out of the joy, it can be hard to find a reason to go on.
– Faith
i am really grateful for this expression. someone i know was recently gang raped. the silence is really the ultra-tenderness and pain and i think fear. how can the energy be allowed to safely flow to healing for a girl on the edge of puberty? how can this burden be carried with dignity? who are these men?