Female victims of rape, have you, would you join a group? How to set up a group?

Do you think it would be depressing to begin a group for female victimes of rape?

Have you been along to a group especialy for this?

In my local area there isn't much support victims of rape, and I have never spoken to another victim of rape so I'm not sure how other people deal with it.

Also, how who would I approach/ what would I do if I was to set up a group, would it be a bad idea?

I don't know how "support groups" work, I mean just as a chance to be around people with similar experiences but not to talk in a depressing way.

There's a lot of questions in here, but I would be grateful for your feedback, thanks.

thank you ncgrl , if you don't mind I would like to get in touch when I have some more ideas and thought things through abit, and Tony A thanks for your advice, that's exactly the kind of group I'd like to set up, I think just a group or young activity group for people to make friends, cinema etc, just to have the feeling that you're around people who understand you and you don't have to worry about people saying wrong thing etc. but so that you're not relying on the past and others who want to be stuck in the past.

It's going to be difficult especially as I have never been to any groups like this at all, but that's a good idea about having someone with experience etc.

Also, where would the meeting place be, maybe people would be embarrassed to go somewhere where it's possible to find out "ohh look that group of women have all been raped"

I think I would be abit uncomfortable entering a hall-type room.

I'm just amazed how hard it is to find support for rape in my area.

If your focus is here and now, and about positivity for now and the future, then I believe it may have merit.
If it were to become a debating society about past wrongs, then I believe it would have little benefit. Those groups often become little more that competetive story telling, with lots of tears.
I think you need to seek out a willing and positive mediator, who has experience of working with groups, and who sees the past as where it is, yesterday, rather than as an inevitable continuum.
Do not get me wrong. Rape is appalling, and I do not diminish its effects in any way, but now and the future is where you, and others are at, and where you all need to be. Focussing on those things, and being, or becoming, positive is what will make for better futures.


Later:
Further to your comment about your group being identifiable - call it, if it has to have a name, something innocuous and only let its purpose be known to its members. Give it a silly name, perhaps "The Jelly Baby Appreciation Club" - something not at all to do with rape.
Approach local social services and ask if they can point you in the direction of a positivistic, experienced and voluntary counsellor who might guide your group, at least in its beginnings - but vet her/him to ensure you are not led down the "healing is remembering" route. Yes it's important to remember your painful lessons, but rehearsing them over and over is destructive, not constructive.

Of course I wish you the very best of luck.
Go forward with your plans. I hope you, and the friends you will surely find, all have dozens of things to enjoy and celebrate together in your ever-better futures.
Forward and Onward, into the sunshine!! Report It

You have an excellent idea. What I suggest is that you set up your group to speak and make suggestions with positive feedback. I am in a depression group and we seldom speak of the depression. If needed we are certainly welcome to ask for advice and help and support but we try our best to give the most positive advice that we can.

Hope this helps , if you need anything more about groups email me and I will try and help you.

Good luck.

no thankyou

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