Readjustment

Little by little, you emerge from your state of shock and start thinking about returning to your normal routine. So begins the process of reorganizing your daily life. This phase generally begins about a week after the sexual assault and continues for several weeks thereafter.

During this period of readjustment, you will probably start to feel ready to take up your usual daily activities. You want to forget about the assault and concentrate on the aspects of your life that you have perhaps been neglecting for some time. You are relieved to feel less obsessed about what happened to you; the time has come for you to start looking after yourself and reclaim all the energy you were using to deal with your emotions. You find you no longer have to talk about the assault and your feelings all the time. You may even tend to deny the fact that it is still bothering you.

During this phase, you may be startled when someone comes into the room or touches you unexpectedly. You will also probably continue to have nightmares or violent dreams about your sexual assault, with attempts to escape ending in failure. Your dreams will probably evolve over time, however: they may remain violent, but your reaction will change. For example, you may be ready to defend yourself and retaliate against your attacker.

The word that best characterizes this period is “action”. You are ready to try to regain control of your life so that you can feel good about yourself again. During this phase, you may feel the need to move, change your telephone number, or change jobs. You may feel the need to get as far away as possible or, then again, you might want to take up your life right where you left off and get back to your usual activities.

Certain fears or phobias that arose during the period of initial shock may become more severe:

• fear of staying indoors
• fear of crowds
• fear of being alone
• fear of people who look like your sexual attacker
• fear of certain smells or objects, sounds, textures or places that remind you of the assault
• fear of sexual relations