Thanks for writing this. You could talk about your rape as a traumatic experience. But trauma is also not something that is valued much in society or in mental health discourses.
The issues you were facing can also be looked at as consent issues. Our culture does not teach consent, or if it does, it does a poor job. While asking for consent is not a perfect solution, it would deal with much of the issue of coercive sex. The notion that no means no. And asking more than a few times and getting a ‘no’ is already a clear sign of coercion. Also reading body language in that situation would be a reasonible way to discern a ‘no’. Someone looking happy, upbeat, joyful is a far better way to discern a ‘yes’ that asking multiple times and never getting a ‘yes’.
The way the mind works in regards to trauma is what you discussed. Your mind like most people in our culture is inhabited with core values that align with white supremacy and rape culture like mine are. It wasn’t a choice, it’s what happens when you live in it. And it has taken a lot of unlearning (or what I call decolonization) to not ascribe to rape culture and to learn about consent culture. But your thinking is part of the conflict that many rape survivor experiences.
This thought pattern talks about your self-worth, your acceptance of rape culture, of your desire not to blame someone because of the consequences(social, legal, emotional), to doubt yourself and your memory(common in trauma), to understand how futile it is to get justice vs the ability to value yourself, the ability to value your needs above others (personally, sexually), to have the drive to confront a rapist, to reclaim your power, to want to exert that tremendous effort to heal. This struggle is what I consider those thoughts are about. How most people know to fight against rape culture is nearly futile and thus your pain comes from your refusal to accept this horrible state of our world. And this ends ups in what most people call ‘mental illness’ or ‘trauma’. So in order to heal, you have to reclaim your power, your ability to value your needs over others, to learn to demand affirmative consent and this takes a lot of emotional labor and healing. And most people don’t have the support or resources to accomplish this and that is tragic.