Rita is 22 and was raped when she was 13 by someone she knew. This was her first sexual experience. She felt that she couldn’t tell her parents because she didn’t want to upset them or ‘let them down’. Rita buried the memories of the abuse for 8 years until she eventually told her mother what had happened.
Her mother contacted the Police because she didn’t know what else to do. Rita didn’t want a Police investigation and did not give any details about the rape. She was referred to CARA for counselling.
Rita’s counsellor encouraged her to examine her feelings around not telling
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anyone and how that had affected her. One way that Rita coped was to sometimes overspend and this had caused her to accumulate debts which added to her anxiety. Rita worked with her counsellor to put strategies in place to help her with the urge to spend and worked hard to use these strategies with some success. This made her feel better.
Rita disclosed that she would self harm but now tries to talk to people instead of hurting herself. She still has the urge to self harm when feeling low and explored her feelings around this.
Rita struggles with relationships and often freezes when she is with a man. She has low self esteem and anxiety issues and has suffered panic attacks. She has tried to bury her feelings about what happened and carry on with life. She wants to be able to deal with the rape and the repercussions.
At the end of counselling, Rita said that her confidence had grown and she was in a much better place. She felt at least for now she was in a better place to move on from what happened.
Rita’s counsellor explained that if in the future she felt that she need more support, she could come back to CARA to consider further counselling.