How can I get my dad to believe that I was raped?

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It drives me bananas, when parents don't believe their kids, when it comes to issues, of this nature.

Hey there,

Can I offer a hug? You are a very brave young person for telling your Dad. I had a similar thing happen although it would be classed as sexual assault by a man who had "groomed" me from the age of 14. I was not raped. I somehow got out before it came to that. He was a friend of my fathers. The assualt actually took place when I was 16. It took me 2 years to tell my father and he was devestated. It was my mother that said "well you shouldn't have gone into that room alone with him". Yes, valuable advice after the fact . He was a friend and I trusted him. Why wouldn't I go alone into a room with him to watch a dvd?

Hon, your dad is very afraid in very simple terms. You cannot make him see what happened to you because he can't bear the thought of not being able to have prevented it. As someone said, this is NOT your burden. Your father will come to accept or he won't, but this should not hold you back from healing yourself. If you struggle to come to terms with it, you need to think of your options in being able to fix it so you can move on. Carrying the residual feelings of a traumatic and violent act such as that, will not be good for you long term.

Take good care of your precious self.

Mics

Well, your father knows you much better than anyone here. Nevertheless, you need to contact the police yourself and tell them who raped you. Was it a counselor or another kid? Chances are, you are not the first or the last victim. Short of other victims coming forward, there is very little you can do since you did not report it in a timely manner. The police will go and ask the person you accused if he raped you. Since there is no physical evidence, it will depend on him admitting that he did it. If for some reason he can prove that he didn't do it, then the police will arrest you for filing a false police report. So basically, since the chances of him being charged this long after it allegedly happened are so remote, I suggest you simply seek counseling from Rape Victim support groups and leave it at that.

Since you didn't say, I am assuming that there was no pregnancy as a result. A pregnancy is hard evidence and DNA can be traced back to the father.

I'd say that after three years there's nothing new you can say or do that's going to convince your dad that the rape actually happened. Even if it is a matter of denial on his part for whatever reason, you can't control his reaction or lack thereof. So my advice is to just drop the rope and walk away--stop struggling to try to convince him of anything and attempt to move past it, as difficult as that may be. Staying stuck trying to *make" him respond the way you want him to is merely costing you energy and (I suspect) emotional pain.

Yes, it was something that I was unwilling to tell my parents about when it happened, because I was very afraid of how my dad would react and what it would be like to talk about.

If he believed me, it would make it easy for me to put past a lot of very bad things that happened around the same time, relating to being sent to the camp.

I think that is one of the reasons why he keeps denying it, because I told him many, many times that I did not want to go back to the camp and that I would not go back, but he sent me anyway. If he believed me, he would know that I would not have been raped if he listened to me. My mom believes me, but it's almost worse. She cried when I told her because she considered it karma for her dad who many girls and women in eastern Germany, some of them being Jews liberated from concentration camps; she could not understand why I would deserve something so horrible. I know this because she recently told this to my older brother who is much more severely Autistic than I am. Everyone tells me it's wrong, but I feel like I was punished that day and it makes me not want to get help, but at least I told all the people who will be able to help the most, even if one of them won't listen.

That is horrible.
I've also experienced sexual assault.
And nothing was done about it, the police basically didn't care.

I think there is a stereotype of girls lying about rape to get their way. Even though this is a very small minority, people will often just assume you're lying to get attention!
Or in your case, to avoid something.

I've learned that the word "rape" means nothing to some people. Especially men. Because they just see it as "sex you didn't want to have", completely forgetting the violence, terror, and shame that goes with it.

I just finished watching "The girl with the dragon tattoo" trilogy. In this movie, she knows a man that is forcing her to provide sex, if she doesn't he threatens to lock her in a psych ward forever. But she's a smart cookie and brought a secret video camera and recorded a violent rape. Anyway, they show a court scene when the word "Rape" was mentioned, and people didn't really care. But then she showed them a video of the act. Suddenly the act was more "real" and the people understood how horrible it was, and their viewpoints changed completely.

Most people don't get to videotape their assaults, but I think if you could actually show people your memory they would understand better.

Someone I knew was molested, along with her younger sister, as a child. She never told her parents (the sister was too young to remember the incident later) - that she never felt there would be any point partly shows their failings as parents, but also shows how difficult it can be for someone to come forward in these cases. What I'm trying to say is that it's very brave of you to seek to talk about it, and that your parents' failings are their own, not yours. Just as it's not your fault that you were raped, it's not your fault that you are not believed. I'm sorry I have no advice to give, except n ever to forget that others' failings are not yours.

Tell him with confidence but don't have swag (false confidence) or maybe talk with someone who will know and understand than have that person tell them while you explain the story.

This topic is nearly three years old!

I don't know; it may be very difficult for him to face the fact that not only was his daughter abused but at a place he helped to send her to. He may not be able to face his own internal guilt about it. That's one possibility.

What I do know is that I hope you go to police with what happened to you. That camp should be shut down! If you are not ready to report it yet, please at least go to counseling with a really kind empathetic counselor and build yourself back up again.

ETA: I see how old the topic is now but, I am leaving my above answer as is, in case someone else has a similar situation in their past or the original poster returns.

Also, the OP's last post was in November of 2010. She doesn't see these replies.

The OP was banned years ago. She kept an Encylopedia Dramatica page where she boasted about making up fake stories about being raped to troll sites like this. There are some weird people out there.