Depression & suicide

Survivors of sexual assault often battle with low self esteem, depression and suicide. After her attack, Laura contemplated suicide a number of times and suffered depression for many years.

Journalist and rape survivor Charlene Smith suggests why these hidden impacts often get overlooked: 'I think there’s an over-emphasis on the physical act of penetration, attempted penetration, oral sex or any other form of attempted penetration. I think that the most serious effect of a rape is psychological. I think that it’s very difficult to imagine how people can have so little respect for themselves that they do this to you and that they behave in this demeaning, degrading way. And I think that, particularly for people who might have been raped in their home, your home is the place where you’re supposed to feel safe, it’s your anchor, and to realise that someone can come into your home and attack you in this way is devastating.

'A person who rapes is a person who doesn’t care about himself, he has no self respect, he has no self esteem, and he tries to destroy that in you, he tries to destroy your self respect, your self esteem. Most of all he tries to remove your capacity to love and to be loved, and the way that you move forward is by consciously learning to love yourself again, to care about yourself again, to say, to congratulate yourself for doing every little thing that you couldn’t do before.'

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