New Zealand sexual abuse survivor shares mental, physical effects of rape almost a decade on

Warning: This story contains references to suicide and rape, and may be triggering for some readers.

A Kiwi woman advocating on behalf of sexual violence survivors says eight years on after her own assault, she still carries mental and physical trauma.

Laura Eustace, 25, today uses social media to have "really hard conversations" in a hope to support others through her own experience.

"Throughout my life, there has been a lot of trauma I have gone through I felt no one really talked about," Eustace tells Newshub.

"It's become a passion project for me to talk about these things because for a very long time I felt very ashamed."

On her Instagram page Flourish Project NZ, Eustace she pushes back on the idea that subjects like abortion reform, mental illness, sexual abuse, or suicide should be seen as taboo.

"I use Flourish as a way of talking about things I have gone through and reflected on, and also speak up about topics that aren't talked enough about… because it can be pretty damn lonely."

She talks about the impact her work is having, and discusses the toll the events she says she has gone through has taken on her personally.

'I didn't want to acknowledge the reality'

When Laura was 17 years old in 2013, she says she was raped. At this time, Eustace was already in a mentally fragile state, and had been battling with depression and suicidal ideation.

She says of her decision to share the story with Newshub, she wants others to understand how something that happened to her almost a decade ago still affects her today.

"When I was 17, I went to a party of someone I was good friends with. While I was there, I had a couple of drinks, enough to get tipsy," she recalls.

"I was introduced to a person and we were chatting - they asked if I wanted to come and see the garage."

Eustace says she didn't think anything of this suggestion until the pair got to the garage and the person forced themselves on Eustace.

"I cried, I vomited, I said no, I tried to stop. At that moment I ended up freezing and wished it would be over. Afterwards he pulled up his pants, laughed it off, and walked straight out."

Later that night, the alleged perpetrator would trap Eustace in a room, where she says he forced himself on her again.

Eustace told Newshub she did not want to acknowledge what had happened and didn't want to accept that she was raped for a long time.

"In my head, I thought I had let it happen. I wanted the narrative to be that I had consented to it because I didn't want to acknowledge what the reality was," Eustace says.

Eustace didn't tell anyone the truth behind her experience until a year later, when the friend who had accompanied her to the party told her she had been raped.

"She felt guilty because she was also at the party. It was only recently that she has been able to work through that guilt," Eustace says.

Ten minutes from death

After finishing school, Eustace moved to Sydney to study business at the International College of Management.

Eustace says her mental health was rocky, and she continued to struggle with severe depression and suicidal ideations. She tells Newshub she "wasn't coping".

"I didn't realise the extent of how much trauma had been stored into my body. I had never worked on it."

In 2017, when Eustace was 21, her mental health hit rock bottom after her best friend passed away suddenly.

"My body just shut down," she says.

Feeling as though she was unable to cope, Eustace attempted to take her life, and almost succeeded. She was told if she had been found ten minutes later, she wouldn't have made it.

"I woke up with a tube down throat with people telling me I was lucky to be alive," she says.

After returning to New Zealand, Eustace was assessed by a public health crisis team who told her she was not critical enough to be made a priority and it would be six months before she received any help.

This would lead Eustace to find the psychologist that has changed her life, and finally allowed her to admit that she had been raped.

Eustace's psychologist gave her the tools to admit what had happened to her was wrong, and it was also the truth.

"I was told by some of the people closest to me that it had happened to me because of what I was wearing, or because I was drinking," Eustace says.

"Those messages led to a lot of mental strain and resentment… I was so scared of being called a liar."

'I don't think people realise how heavy it can be'

Today Eustace works as a Communications Coordinator and has found a partner she completely trusts. Thanks to constant sessions with her psychologist, her mental health has improved drastically.

"I went from not wanting to live to thriving," she says.

However, Eustace still suffers from the mental and physical implications of her rape almost ten years ago.

"The thoughts that you have about yourself can really wear you down for so long. I don't think people realise how heavy it can be," Eustace says.

"I have had to adjust the way I live my life due to anxiety."

As well as being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress disorder, Eustace is suffering from vaginismus.

In 2019, Eustace started noticing pain in her abdomen, as well as the need to constantly pee, and was experiencing abnormal bowel movements.

"I ended up booking a gynecologist appointment, who told me I had a very active pelvic floor and needed to see a physio because I probably had vaginismus," Eustace says.

Vaginismus, which is common among sexual violence survivors, is when the muscles around the vagina become extremely tight, and anything that is inserted inside is immediately rejected.

'No can look like so much, but yes only looks like yes'

A topic close to Eustace's heart is consent, which she believes should be part of the New Zealand school health curriculum.

"Saying no can look like so much, but yes only looks like yes," Eustace says.

"Consent needs to be taught from a young age. Guys grow up watching porn and might see an actor being shoved onto a bed and think girls love that, but that is [wrong]."