For those who have been victimized by rape, do you feel that the life you had

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was changed, altered, taken from you on some levels? Do you feel this has changed who you were, who you might have been? What choices and decisions you would have made, what directions your life may have gone? Do you find that in some ways after many years it still affects you? or in some way influences your life? Example, the woman who through fear of men, gains weight, now her health is affected by the weight but she can't seem to lose it no matter what she tries, so her life is still in some ways controlled or influences by the atttacker. Example, woman who hears a word, just one word, that is used by so many casually in passing even as a term of affection, only when she hears it it bothers her, she feels her stomach knot, she gets angry, or in some other way feels strong emotional responses tied into the day when she heard that world and it altered her world when it was used by the one who raped her, so in some ways the rapist is still in her life, affecting her life, and what she does. How many feel that there should be some way to get help, to still be able to go after the one who attacked them, make him responsible, either though punishment or he pays for her counselling etc, no matter how much time has passed, it could be 6 months, it could be 20 years, but it may still be there as part of your life, shouldn't a woman have the chance to strike back still? or should she just let it go and forget it? How do you forget the things you lost in your life due to that one moment when someone changed your life with out your permission? How do you just let it go? Can you push it aside, and move on, but it is still there? Or is it gone now for you?