but I'll try some rewriting later if no one else gets to it -
This is not intended to be a substitute for professional help or counseling. If you have been assaulted and need immediate help, we would encourage you to contact the police, your local rape crisis center or other local authorities. Please consult the list of crisis resources if you are in need of real-life counseling or assistance. (link to list).
Too many rape crisis centers have moved to the professional counseling mode and away from peer counseling. The rape crisis center I volunteered at for a decade sometime after I left set a limit of X number of sessions (and perhaps even a time period after the event) - at which point they no longer considered peer counseling to be sufficient. That, in my mind, is arrogant horse-pucky. Recovery is a lifelong process and - in most instances peer counseling, or some good support groups that don't imply you are crazy just because you aren't over it yet go a long way. An expectation is that one is really damaged if one doesn't recover on schedule creates damage even if all that we are experiencing is some normal variation in finding a new balance in our lives.
The other piece (or part of the same) is the focus on authorities or reporting or things in the realm of "officially" dealing with things. I went that route - and would make that choice again, even though it was a pretty miserable experience. But it is just as as valid a choice to avoid those formal structures which can be quite damaging in and of themselves.
That may not make any sense to anyone other than me - but I'll try to take a stab at modifying the language so it is more affirming of the variety of healing timelines and processes, and of interaction with formal structures.
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