Thursday, June 5, 2014

The Intake

I can't stop shaking. I went through the intake process and it went well, in general. It was fairly basic, just asking about the history of abuse and whether anything was ever reported and if I had been in therapy before. They asked about any substance abuse and whether I had ever been suicidal and if I was currently suicidal. They asked about my income and I honestly was also nervous about that because I always hear that I make too much money for any assistance and that is stressful for me. If I could afford the $190/session, I wouldn't be calling this place. 

They said that they would be calling me back today or tomorrow after my file had been reviewed by a clinical specialist. I don't quite know what that means, but I assume they're looking at my history to see what sort of therapy would be the best fit for me. 

I know I'm going to take flak at some point for not reporting a lot of abuse. I didn't report it when Tim raped me and I didn't report it when I got taken advantage of at Stephanie's wedding reception. It took me months to realize either of them were rape and that's a problem. But I don't process things quickly. Even if I had reported either of them, it wouldn't have gone anywhere. I honestly feel like if a woman reports abuse, she gets screwed over and scrutinized and the guy is off the hook, all while the woman has to relive the trauma over and over. I'm not OK with that and I don't think that it helps anything. I'm angry about that, but I'm also angry that I didn't process anything sooner. I guess it made it easier for me to try to work out the aftermath of leaving Tim. It wouldn't have been easy to try to be conciliatory if I thought of him as a rapist instead of just the guy I didn't love. The likelihood that they would even have prosecuted him was slim to nil anyways. 

2 comments:

CrouchingOwl said...

Disclosure can always be hard. Reminds me of a while ago at work when I had managed to mention to someone in a kind of passing way about having AS and even though when I did it I passed it off as if it were a kind of casual comment I still went away from the interaction just shaking and biking home like the devil was after me just to work the tension out of my body.

sleepyhamster said...

I know what you mean. Usually when I talk to people about it I'm emotionally removed from it. But this time I knew that it next something because these people might actually be able to help me. That made it real to me and much more shaking for me.