Abigail Breslin feared she wouldn't be believed if she reported being raped to police.
Abigail Breslin
The 20-year-old actress recently revealed she had been sexually assaulted by someone she knew, and she has now clarified that it was a person she was in a relationship with and admitted she didn't want to put her loved ones through the ordeal of a legal battle.
Explaining why she didn't report the attack, she wrote on Instagram: "First off, I was in complete shock and total denial.
"I didn't want to view myself as a 'victim,' so I suppressed it and pretended that it never happened. Second of all, I was in a relationship with my rapist and feared not being believed.
"I also feared that if my case didn't lead anywhere, he would still find out and would hurt me even more. Thirdly, I knew how hurt my friends and family would be after finding out, and I didn't want to put them through that."
The 'Scream Queens' star went on to admit that she had been left with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following the assault and though she has made "progress", she still has "flashbacks and nightmares" about the incident.
She wrote: "I have made a lot of progress since the event occurred, but I won't pretend it isn't something I struggle with. I still have flashbacks, I still get nightmares, I still jump when somebody touches me unexpectedly, even if it's my best friend tapping me on the shoulder."
Abigail was responding to a commenter on her Instagram account who had suggested that "reported rapes are the only rapes that count", and she insisted the remark was incredibly "unhelpful".
She added: "To say that rapes reported are the only rapes that count contributes to the ideology that survivors of unreported rape don't matter. It's unfair, untrue and unhelpful. It's like [saying] you got a black eye from getting punched in the face, but because you didn't call the police, you didn't really get a black eye.
"Unreported rapes count. Reported rapes count. End of story."
Tagged in Abigail Breslin