TW: Sexual assault

I'm so sorry this has happened to you. This shouldn't be primarily about how it's affected your friend. You deserve support and to feel your feelings matter, especially because sexual assault robs you feeling that you matter or deserve to be taken care of. From what you've described about your friend it sounds like she isn't able to provide that for you, for whatever reason. For now, I would try to stop expecting that from her and focus on recovery. There are people that do know how to support you so I would reach out for that support because you deserve it and to feel better. You can contact https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-help/want-to-talk/ . There is an option to chat online if you don't want to speak over the phone. Don't expect yourself to be able to continue like nothing has happened, just like you wouldn't expect it of anyone else if they had experienced trauma. I understand that you don't want to talk about what happened. I'm a sexual assault survivor too so I get it. When we experience assault our brains and nervous system don't process what's happening to us in the way it does for non-traumatic events. Talking and getting appropriate support helps move those traumatic memories from the area of our brain that went in to defense mode during the assault, to a place where it can be processed safely. You can let the person at the helpline know you are autistic because they will have had training and understand that your autism impacts how you are processing what happened to you. 

Thank you for your response and time taken to respond to me. I will stop expecting her to be good friend and also visit the site you have linked when I am ready. Your words of encouragement mean a lot to me and have helped me feel as though I'm not alone in this matter. Would you suggest that I speak to her again or not?

I don’t think any of us are qualified to tell you how you should or shouldn’t run your friendships. I wanna start by saying I have a huge amount of sympathy for you. I think you might find it helpful for me to offer One possible interpretation of what your friends perspective might be.

let’s just emotionally discharge the entire issue and say hypothetically it was about money. Say your friend A had accused another friend B of stealing from her. And B said to you ‘no I didn’t she said it was a gift.’ And A never called the police at the time.

now if A told you all of that and did it in such a way that it was clear A expected you to pick a side. That effectively they were giving you an ultimatum ‘you can’t be friends with both of us.’ And say hypothetically you were as good a friend with B as A. What would you do?

a lot of people would say ‘I shouldn’t have to choose. I’ve not been given enough evidence to decide who to believe. Someone else like the police should have to sort this out not me I should  not have to make these sorts of decisions. And so if I have to choose I’ll pick which ever one isn’t giving me an ultimatum. Because I don’t think that’s fair.’

I know that sucks however that’s probably what’s going through your friends mind.

I don’t think any of us are qualified to tell you how you should or shouldn’t run your friendships. I wanna start by saying I have a huge amount of sympathy for you. I think you might find it helpful for me to offer One possible interpretation of what your friends perspective might be.

let’s just emotionally discharge the entire issue and say hypothetically it was about money. Say your friend A had accused another friend B of stealing from her. And B said to you ‘no I didn’t she said it was a gift.’ And A never called the police at the time.

now if A told you all of that and did it in such a way that it was clear A expected you to pick a side. That effectively they were giving you an ultimatum ‘you can’t be friends with both of us.’ And say hypothetically you were as good a friend with B as A. What would you do?

a lot of people would say ‘I shouldn’t have to choose. I’ve not been given enough evidence to decide who to believe. Someone else like the police should have to sort this out not me I should  not have to make these sorts of decisions. And so if I have to choose I’ll pick which ever one isn’t giving me an ultimatum. Because I don’t think that’s fair.’

I know that sucks however that’s probably what’s going through your friends mind.

NAS87570 said:

She said she wishes I told her earlier because she wouldn't have continued to sleep with him that morning and how she now needs to get tested because he fu**ed me.

That's rude, if you two are supposedly friends she couldn't have just asked if you have an STD? Also why should she assume you would be the contaminant and not him? Sorry but I don't think she is your friend by the way she disrespects you at even the basic level.
She sounds like the sort of person that just keeps people around for her own ends, like she uses you as her friend because she is emotionally selfish but she isn't yours in return.

Possibly she is in love with him? Or in lust with him. I've seen people choose someone they've fallen for but who treats them like dirt over their closest friends. Maybe because she was ... how to put this ... maybe because she met him as a sex worker, that's the PC term i believe, she assumes you met him that way too? That it was a transaction gone bad? Some people get weird about sex work, as if sex workers have less right to say no. That's not what the law says but some people, even sex workers, sometimes think that way.

As for not giving her an ultimatum, you may not have explicitly said it. But you said if she'd said she didn't believe you you would have ended the friendship. I expect she had a good idea that's what you were likely to do.

You had no reason to lie but she couldn't know that. There might be a number of possible reasons in her head. Maybe she thinks that you have feelings for the guy you accused and that he rejected you are these accusations are an attempt to get revenge for him rejecting you. That would fit in quite well with her point of view if she's head over heals for this guy it might be easier to view him as some one who rejects women than is rejected by them.

Or maybe she thinks you are doing this for attention. If you are kind of lonely, maybe not that popular. She might see it as you trying to push some one more popular out of the group to draw more attention to yourself. I'm not necessarily saying that any of this is rational. I'm just observing people often don't behave rationally.

I agree, I think my biggest battle right now is me trying to do right by someone who couldn't do the same for me. The comments she made were very insensitive. She went as far as to say that she was also a victim in this situation as the morning after he had assaulted me she slept with him without knowing he had fu**ed me the night before and those were her exact words. But he never fu**ed me he r*p£d me which she failed to acknowledge. She said she wishes I told her earlier because she wouldn't have continued to sleep with him that morning and how she now needs to get tested because he fu**ed me. She was so insensitive to the point where I felt bad. I know the ideal thing would have been to tell her first thing in the morning but I was still shocked and had not processed what happened to me. Everything was so fresh it literally happened hours ago and I was not ready to speak on what happened. 

After reading your response I realize that context matters in this situation which I failed to include in my original statement. Her and the guy were not friends and nor did they have a relationship that held that much weight in comparison to mine and hers. He was a guy she met when she was 18 on a dating site where rich men pay women for sexual favors or other kinks. She met him a few times for that purpose but that was it. The night he took advantage of me was the first time they had seen each other in years. I did not give her any kind of ultimatum or make her choose who to believe. I guess I kind of just expected her to believe me or at least give me the respect of telling me she doesn't believe me so we could have respectfully ended the friendship instead of continuing to be my friend but not trusting me to tell her the truth. It hurts because I had no reason to lie to her and she would not have known anything ever happened if I didn't decide to speak up because he never would have said anything.

Peter said:

I'm not getting into an argument about this with you. Because that argument isn't going to help the OP.

Don't then. It's not like there is anything to argue about anyway, I was just sharing a fact quantified by the data extracted from thousands of reports, you can't really argue with that even if you wanted to.  But okay, for the OP I won't bother address the rest of your unsubstantiated opinions here either.

I'm not getting into an argument about this with you. Because that argument isn't going to help the OP. (in another more hypothetical thread thread maybe if you want to make one) The OP will benefit from understanding why her friend didn't believe her.

If a person has 2 people they trust and care for roughly equally and one accuses the other they usually need a reason to believe one over the other. Something from a 3rd party to tip the scales one way or another.

People don't like being put in the situation of having to choose which friend they hurt or reject. So if they are forced to choose all other things being equal they often choose to stand by the one who isn't putting them in that position.

You can argue back and forth whether that's right or wrong but that won't change the fact that that's often the way the world works. Which I think is something it's useful for the OP to consider.

No it's not the same, theft is not the same as any kind of assualt.

Peter said:

Say your friend A had accused another friend B of stealing from her. And B said to you ‘no I didn’t she said it was a gift.’ And A never called the police at the time.

There are reasons someone whouldn't call the police right away especially when the crime id of a sexual nature.  https://courtingthelaw.com/2019/06/08/commentary/6-reasons-why-rape-is-an-under-reported-crime/ OP already said they don't want to keep being revictimised which is reason 5 on tha list.
More importantly the friend seems like another woman and should be a lot more sympathetic. Especially because being autistic makes the OP extra vulnerable, when she was already very vulnerable to crimes of that nature.
And a SA/r*pe survivor never owes it to anyone to put the emotions of an unsympathetic friend before their own wellbeing. Self-preservation is not selfish.