Friend's Rape: real or attention seeking?

I am in need of advice regarding a friend of mine. It is a very long story so I will try to keep it as brief as I can. I'm not even sure if I am posting in the correct forum, because I really think that there are some undelying mental health issues going on with my friend, but her story centers around her rape, so here I am.

I met "Alyssa" at a new job I started about 10 months ago. She warmed up to me after a few months, and we hung out one day. She breifly gave me the framework of her story:

Raped at age 16, became pregnant, had the child, decided to raise the child, then 6 years later began having nightmares of being brutally raped by the child's father, who was an aquaintance. She confronted the father, and he raped her again (a year and a half ago). Got pregnant again. Had our supervisor drive her to the abortion clinic. Backed down, and ended up having a miscarriage. She never filed any charges against him, and never told anybody any details. Everyone just got the framework like I did when we first hung out.

We hung out a second time. This time going out to a bar. "Cathy" ended up getting very intoxicated, and passing out in my car as I was driving her home. She began thrashing around and moaning in my front seat. I reached for her hand, asking her if she was ok, and she started to cry and flatly began telling me random details of the rape. She had pushed my hand against her neck, adn left it on the upper part of her chest as she told me fragments. It felt so awkward. I hardly knew her. I brought her to her bed, and left. Throughout the next week, she began telling me that she has these "repressed memory" dreams every single night, where the scenario plays out. She told me that she has never been able to talk about what happened, despite seeking treatment at a rape crisis center, and with a therapist. She asked me if I would be willing to listen to the whole story. I agreed, wanting to help her. She slowly told me. Talking as if she were a child, she went through a fragmented description of her repressed memories of the rape.

After that, our friendship flourished. She became one of the best friends I ever had. She would always bring me things, and help do anything. She seemed so genuine, and always wanted the best for me. She told me that her dreams stil persisted, but that she felt so much better about things, finally being able to get the whole story out. I was happy to help. She's such a good person. She told me that after she was able to tell me those things, I showed up in her repressed dreams, holding her hand, adn helping her through it.

She started to spend a lot of time with my family. My boyfriend, and child love her, and treat her like family. One night we invited her over to watch a movie. She fell asleep during the movie and started acting out her dreams. We stopped the movie, adn let her sleep on the couch, but I felt so awkward, adn uncomfortable because I tried to wake her, and she would just grab my hand, and try to cuddle up against me. I ended up telling her that I had to go to bed, and she got up and left after about 20 minutes of being on the couch alone, while my boyfriend and i went to bed. The next day she sent me and email telling me that she had gone to her rape counselor that day, and was able to get the whole story out. I was so happy for her, since I had been urging her to keep trying to get professional help. She also said that while talking to her counselor she realized that she had some questionable feelings for me. She said tha she didn't think they were sexual, but that she felt closer to me than she ever had with anybody ever. She's never had a relationship, so I figured it was her first experience with intimacy. I told her that intimacy and sexually don't always go hand in hand. I've had intimacy in my close relationships with women, without any sexual anything. I kind of just shrugged it off, and tried to tell myself that it has more to do with the fact that she's trusted me with things that she's never told anybody else. She then told me a few weeks later that she had just been confused, and definitely cares about me, but doesn't see me sexually in any way. So I just chalked it up to the rape trauma.

She stayed the night at my house one night after she thought the father of her child had broken in to her house, and was crying and upset, adn asked if i would sleep next to her. I felt so bad for her, and even though I was uncomfortable, I laid next to her. The entire night she was having her dreams, then cuddling up to me, then pulling away to give me space. It was so uncomfortable, but I didn't know what to do. I didn't want her to feel abandoned so I stayed, and just tried to be there for her. The next morning she told me that she remembered more in her dreams. She never finished the dreams, and her memory about the incident had stopped at a certain point. Now all of a sudden there is another man in the dream. There is arguing between the two men (the father of her child/rapist, and unkown man).

She told me a couple of weeks before this that she had been working with a dream therapist over the phone, who she's been referred to by a hypnotist she had seen. The dream therapist advised that she got further in her repressed dreams with me, because she feels safe with me. He advised that if she got to the end then they would stop happening every night, and her full memory of the incident would be recovered. She asked me if I would try to help her get through more of the dream. I reluctantly agreed. She has seemed so fragile about this, and I wanted her to get better so she can be the good friend that she normally is.

The next week, she stayed at my house again, and went through more of the dreams. This time it was so much worse. She began taking off her shirt and bra, at several points. She was crying louder, and moaning. She would be halp asleep and sit up and tell me certain things then go back to sleep all the while cuddling up on me. I was so uncomfortable. I want to help, but I know that this is waaaaaaaayyyyyy beyond the scope of what a friend should be doing to help another friend. The next morning she tells me more of the story. The unknown man forced the father of her child to rape her because he owed the unknown man money, due to some bad drug deals. The unknown man raped her too. He choked her, adn raped her with a gun. It is all so brutal and horrific. I thought the original story was awful, but this was almost unthinkable.

This is all so much for me to handle, and I don't know what to do. At work, she is so likeable. She is everyone's friend. She bakes cookies for everyone, and is funny, and charming. She is normal in every way (aside from going through this). She is such a fun person, and seems to be such a good person, and we usually have so much fun. But this aspect of our friendship is becoming really unhealthy. I am in therapy for an unrelated issue, and I talked to my counselor about this, and her advice was "RUN! AND RUN FAST!" She doesn't believe that there is much truth to her story. It was like a light bulb went off in my head. I realized that I had been ignoring my instincts, trying to be a good friend to this person. I am starting to see holes in some of the things she has told me. I have made a serious effort to put distance between us. She asked me the other day if we could try the dream thing again, and i told her I don't feel comfortable doing it with just me and her. I told her that unless there was a trained professional there, I couldn't do it. She became so upset! She told me she felt abandoned, and like all her progress has stalled because I am unwilling to help her alone.

I am very confused because I am not a mental health care professional. I have no experience with rape, or repressed memories. I don't know what to believe. I don't know if I am being rude or insensitive (please forgive me to anyone who's stories have been doubted!). It all just feels like a manipulative plot to become close to me. Please someone give me some insight as to what's "normal" with rape recovery, and repressed memories. Sorry for this post being so long, but there's a lot going on here!

Hi, foreveroptimist! You definitly shouldn't be expected to do that "dream therapy" with her and she should see a propper psych doctor. I can't tell you if she's lying or not, but I don't think this is very healthy for either of you. How does she treat her child? If she's lying about all this and even if she's not lying but she thinks it's healthy of her to expect so much of you, it's really not healthy. Do you know any one in her family who you might be able to talk to about her kid and maybe even about what she's doing?
You could tell her that you care about her but you can't help not feeling comfortable with what she expects of you.

jasmin wrote: How does she treat her child?

She seems to be a good mother. She maybe doesn't give her daughter the amount of attention that she needs. But other than that, she seems to be doing a pretty good job for the most part. She tells me all the time that she feels like a bad mother, but I don't ever see any evidence of that.

jasmin wrote:You could tell her that you care about her but you can't help not feeling comfortable with what she expects of you.

I did tell her this. Her reaction is what makes me feel like she's not being honest about things, or at least is taking a very unhealthy approach. Her reaction was to become almost irrationally upset. For about two days, after I told her that I wasn't able to do the "dream therapy," she texted/emailed/talked to me about her feelings on the subject. She said that she wouldn't have done the same to me. She told me that no mater what I needed from her, or how much it hurt her, she would do it for me. She told me that she thought I was "different," and that our friendship was "different." She told me that she regretted ever telling me any of it, and getting me invloved, because now that I am withdrawing, she feels alone. I told her that I wasn't withdrawing my friendship, or support, but just that I shouldn't be helping her through her dreams, but that she needed professional help. I told her I felt like she was trying to make me feel bad for setting healthy boundaries. I'm not sure how to handle the situation from here. She's made me feel really guilty, and I feel like I need to put distance between us, but hate to make her feel like I am abandoning her.

The biggest reason that I doubt her honesty is that she is moving out of state, to live with her brother, who happens to live 1 hour away from her child's father (who has little involvement in the child's life). She claims to be very afraid of him, and the whole purpose of the move is so that he doesn't know where she lives. Seems really illogical to me. She also had told me that she was taking a weight gain-dietary suppliment thing that body builders take in order to remain overweight, so that no men bother her. I found out about two weeks after that from a coworker, that before I met her she had been to a weight loss clinic, and been perscribed medication to help lose weight. Apparently, this occurred about a year ago. I didn't mention the dietary suppliment she said she was taking daily to "maintain" her weight. Since she claims to have stopped taking the weight gainer, she lost about 15 pounds in 3-4 weeks. You don't take that, while visiting a weight loss clinic.

Not sure what to think, or how to react to all of this...

Her behavior sounds really strange.. Maybe she needs attention or feels a compulsion to lie. I honestly think you should talk to someone in her family who might understand, because people who do this kind of thing can end up harming their kids by putting them in strange/scary situations like the one she put you in. Someone who can help has to find out what's going on with this woman.

I my goodness. I typed very detailed and thorough reply to your post and then hit return instead of reply, causing the whole thing to disappear. I hope the webpage can fix it!


Darn, I will have to be brief. You have taken on a huge task! I doubt very seriously your friend is lying about the rapes and assaults. She maybe leaving out things, tho. For example -- for example--- sometimes people seek out the very person they are afraid of unconsciously because on some level only that person can take the pain away by an epiphany it was wrong. She may have loved this person once, and finds it hard to admit some part of her still does, to herself and you. Who knows? It could be in the mix. Also sometimes people leave out parts of a story that may be important to other people but seem insignificant to her and what she is trying to understand now. Some of her fear that he was breaking in the house could have been atrigger rather than a logical fear, as sometimes proximity doesn't matter. I doubt very seriously she is lying about the rapes.

As to the dreams, people often have their own sets of dreams symbols. Maybe this extra person now showing up in her dreams represents a real person, and it is also possible this extra person is a dream symbol representing a feeling or a situation and she may be thinking the person is real. It does not mean she is lying. It sounds to me she is trying desperately to make sense of all this. Lots of victims of crime have that feeling. I admire her efforts to get to the bottom of it. She may have PTSD which can make people seem off-kilter for a while until they find the right help. I would question this dream therapist and make sure the credentials are there. Even people with credentials may not be a match for their clients, it's very personal. She really needs a person who specializes in sexual trauma in my opinion. That seems crucial actually.

I doubt she would want this kind of attention were she not a victim. When a person is going through something terrifyinfg and isolating however, and someone is there for them, and a dependency develops, having that person withdraw (and thus also risk the loss of a whole network of support and friendship she has through you in this case - losing you could cause an avalanche) could be very scary to a person, causing them to do things in desperation to keep the person there or to reassure that the person is still concerned about her, eliciting your concern in ways that aren't healthy or which you find even more unappealing or suspicious. If that is happening here you may have things to question and might be tempted to question her original story. Watch out for that. It sounds quite plausible she has become dependant on you. It can be confusing to support someone doing that, and can cause you to disengage further, understandibly so, if that is happening. She may now do things to avoid that extra pain and isolation she fears. That seems the more likely scenario to me than her having made up the whole thing. I really do find that very unlikely.


Most of us are compassionate people and want to help, and like to think of ourselves as people who would help. Sometimes that can be tricky if we don't really want to help some one and we find our wants and values in conflict. It is OK to decide not to help if it makes you uncomfortable. It sounds to me like you felt uncomfortable early on. If so, it might have been better to acknowlege it early on instead of being there when you didn't want to. It is so understandible if you did that. The thing is, if she thought it was OK to tell you, she might have revealed more things to you than she would have normally, thinking you were OK with being there for her. She may have found herself reassured by your support and risked going into more vulnerable explorations, thinking you authentically wanted to be there. She let down her gaurd, adn perhaps you didn't really want her to. It sounds like it has been too much for you! That is why it is often better to admit reservations or discomfort early. It is often hard for compassionate people to check their boundaries. Sometimes it really is better than pretending, even if you have good intentions in doing so. Obligation and friendship are not the same thing, though it sounds like you have been a friend, just one who has often found herself acting out of obligation. It is also Okay to anknowledge where you are now, and I admire your courage to do so, because it is not easy to admit. Though now compassion is sort of obligatory, because you have in your reticence delayed her in realizing how taxed you were. ... I'm hesitant to offend you, but is there any chance you're feeling guilty about deciding you're maxed out? You've taken on ALOT! This is tricky, but if you are feeling guilty, you might feel less so if she were lying,a s you'd be off the hook. In other words unconsciously, you might be tempted to want to seee it that way, so you don't have to be the bad guy. I don't know if that is happening here. If there is any possibilty of it, tell yourself that it really is OK to set a boundary for yourself. You don't have to feel guilty. for doing so. it is Ok to leave if it it was all real. Because if you put forth the theory that she is lying (and underlying it was relief for you from withdrawing your support) and she IS really telling the truth, hearing that people think she is lying could be devastating to her! Absolutely devastating. if there is any doubt that she is lying, any possibility it was all real, do err on the side of her being truthful about it all. In other words, please be careful. I sense that you will be.

One other thing... while hypnosis and dream therapy can be bona fide and truly therapuetic, there are plenty of people experimenting, and that can be dangerous. Hyponosis for smoking cessation and hypnosis for compound-complex sexual trauma are very different! Hyponosis can be used wrecklessly and handled poorly or too quickly can cause more damage than existed before. People have to be very careful when using hypnosis for this kind of trauma. Hypnosis for this type of trauma should only happen in the office of a seasoned therapist who specializes in sexual trauma to go at a healthy pace. It's similar with EMDR. In my opnion, a weekend workshop for therapists in EMDR is NOT enough training. In my opnion, EMDR can be miracuously helpful, and it can also be very dangerous. Credentials and experience. Your friend might be having her head even more scrambled by this hypnotist. And that scares me for her. If she was abused in developmental stage, she might also be developing a personality disorder. She needs serious help. I'm really concerned that she is going to this "hypnotist". This person may have no idea the damage he or she is causing her. And she, in desperation to find answers, may not either.