Rape Leads to Insanity

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Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil and is a horrible thing to have to experience. In most cases it can negatively affect the mental health and cause depression and sometimes lead to Sanity Slippage. With this trope, a woman or man[1] who is raped experiences significant Sanity Slippage and may or may not regain their sanity. Compare Shell-Shocked Veteran (another common portrayal of PTSD), Break the Cutie, Rape as Drama. Sometimes the rape might not have actually happened and it will just be Attempted Rape.

No Real Life Examples, Please.

Examples of Rape Leads to Insanity include:


Anime and Manga

Fan Fics

Film

  • In the classic silent film The Wind, Lillian Gish, who is already being driven around the bend by the neverending titular wind, finally cracks completely when the bad guy rapes her.
  • The sister of the Anti Heroine in the Dirty Harry sequel Sudden Impact becomes catatonic after the two of them are gang-raped.
  • Subverted in The Generals Daughter. It turns out that it wasn't her brutal gang rape during military school that lead to the late Elisabeth Campbell's Sanity Slippage. The betrayal of her General father, who refused to investigate the crime further because he thought they wouldn't be able to apprehend the suspects and because he allowed himself to be bought out by his own superiors, was the event that broke her mind and sent her into a downward spiral.
  • Most Rape and Revenge films, though some victims (like the ones in Torched and Baise Moi) go a bit more violently psychotic than others, their newfound bloodlust not being restricted to just their rapists.

Literature

  • The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant has this as a major theme. Covenant rapes a girl early in his first visit to The Land, and it haunts him throughout the ensuing stories. Part of the consequences is that Lena (the girl) definitely loses it because of the rape.
  • Tender Is the Night: Nicole's sexual relationship with her father when she was a teenager (hence statutory rape) leads to her becoming schizophrenic.
  • Speak: The book centers around a teenager named Melinda, who's just entered the 9th grade. She's not exactly the most popular kid in school, due almost entirely to her calling the police at a Wild Teen Party last summer. After the events of said party, Melinda goes from a bright, outgoing, friendly teenager to a bitter, angry, depressed one. Her grades go down the toilet, her parents are alarmed, and Melinda can't find the words to tell anyone what really happened; eventually, she stops speaking almost entirely. The plot mostly centers around Melinda's gradual decline, up until The Reveal of how she was raped by Andy, and then her gradual climb out of the hole.
  • Nimue in The Warlord Chronicles wasn't the most stable person around to begin with, but her rape at the hands of King Gundleus pushed her over the edge. When she got over the worst trauma she was actually grateful in a way, as a great priestess must pass through three severe trials on their path to true power according to her beliefs, and the rape counted for two of them. But it doesn't prevent her from exacting revenge brutal enough to make battle-hardened warriors cringe when she gets Gundleus in her hands.
  • In The Perks of Being a Wallflower Charlie's aunt was raped as a young girl, which led to her having serious psychological issues, which is why she herself molested Charlie.

Live Action TV

  • Jan from Days of Our Lives was an Alpha Bitch before she was raped. Afterwards, she turned crazy.
  • In Oz, Beecher's rape at the hands of Schillinger definitely didn't do any favors for his mental health.
    • Same deal with Cyril.
    • Adebisi brutally rapes the semi-conscious Schibetta at one point. As a result, Schibetta, traumatized by the rape, begins losing his mind and is transferred to the psych ward.
  • "Revenge", the very first story on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, played on this idea without using the R word. A woman already recovering from a nervous breakdown is "assaulted" in her trailer. Her husband looks to avenge her by killing her assailant. One day she points the man out to her husband, and he does the deed. Then she points to another man, and another, and another.
  • Supernatural: Arguably what happens to Sam Winchester after he is freed from Lucifer's cage.

Music

  • In the Three Days Grace music video "Never Too Late" a woman is almost driven to suicide (she works through her issues though) and we learn that she became that way as a result of possible abuse physical and sexual at the hands of a man in a striped sweater.

Theater

  1. (the victim is usually, but not always, female)