Should You Report Your Assault?

Ultimately, if reporting your assault will support your long-term healing and wellness, then you should do it. If it will actively impair your healing, then don’t. If you’re somewhere in the middle, you may want to weigh up the pros and cons when you’re feeling calm.

What to Consider

How likely is it that this person will do the same thing to someone else or to you?

Will you hold yourself partly responsible for not speaking up, should it happen again? Does your assailant depend on his victim’s remaining silent?

What are the chances that your assailant will actually be prosecuted and made to suffer some sort of penalty?

Does this matter to you or do you merely want it known, officially? Unfortunately, in many areas, rape is not only under-reported, it’s under prosecuted and notoriously hard to take legal action against.

Are you willing to go through any resulting legal processes, should you report and choose to make a case?

Are you fully aware of the process you’d have to go through if you chose this path and do you have the mental (and financial!) resources to see it through?

What effect will reporting have on your immediate social sphere?

Of course, some disruption can be expected, but you may choose to hang back if speaking out endangers your life, or threatens your safety in your home or community.

What is your ultimate reason for reporting?

To make sure that your assailant doesn’t go unpunished? Because you need it for closure and to move on? Because you want revenge?

Carefully consider whether reporting will satisfy these needs.

Will tirelessly pursuing the matter legally take away energy to deal with your own private trauma? Or will it give you the energy and strength to get better faster?