What My Therapist Said That Helped Explain My Sexual Assault Response

“It’s my fault.”

“I should have known better.”

“I shouldn’t have been drinking.”

“I should’ve said no.”

“I should’ve fought back.”

These phrases run through my head every day, sometimes every hour. Since being triggered a month or so ago by a rape scene in a TV show, my sexual assault has been on replay. I keep going back to it and thinking of all the ways I could have — no, should have — acted differently. But I didn’t. I didn’t say no in that moment. And I hate myself for that.

I was talking to my therapist about this and she started to explain how all the trauma I endured from living in an emotionally abusive household for so many years has affected me. She asked me to think back to how I coped with it then, even though I didn’t recognize it for what it was. I almost laughed a little as I told her it wasn’t like I was coping in any healthy ways. I cried, I self-harmed, I starved myself, I purged, I drank — I did whatever I could to just not feel the pain, whatever I could to find some sort of control in an environment I felt completely powerless.

She explained how my trauma response was to freeze/fawn. I just took all the hurtful things that were said and done to me because when I was a child, I couldn’t escape. And when I could finally leave, I did whatever I could to feel like I was escaping my reality. She told me how because of that, even when I move or I’m in a different environment, my body remembers. It remembers the pain. It remembers the fear. It remembers not having that control and being forced to just sit and take it until I could leave.

She told me the same thing happened when I was abroad … when I was assaulted.

She said, “You’ve never fought. That’s never been your response. For all these years, you coped the best you could with what you had. You froze. It’s no different here.”

I froze.

I’ve heard stories before of women who froze, too. I never blamed them. It made sense — you block it out as much as you can. You’re overwhelmed and you just freeze. It’s awful and terrible, but it makes sense. However, I always told myself that didn’t apply to me. Because it wasn’t rape, I should have been able to stand up for myself. Because, even though what he did was awful and has permanently scarred me, it could have been worse — so, I should have fought. Because I put myself in that position, I should have gotten myself out.

But the body remembers. It didn’t matter to my body or brain how “bad” it was or how I got there. To my body, there was a threat, there was someone who had more power than me threatening me, and it did what it’s done for the past 20-something years any time something similar has happened. It froze. I froze.

And maybe that’s OK?

Maybe, it’s not completely my fault.

Maybe, realizing this is the start of healing.