@Arella Mae,
Oh, I understand that you are not making one type of rape seem lesser than another.
I think it is a very individualized situation, Arella Mae. Rape is such a profound personal violation, and I think that different women react emotionally in various ways to acquaintance/date/relative rape.
I would imagine that if one is the victim of a stranger rape, particularly if a weapon is used, and there is a real threat to one's life, or a physical attack and beating, in addition to the sexual assault, PTSD might be more likely to occur, simply because of the extreme fear and physical trauma that were a part of the actual event.
I have no personal experiences of my own to draw upon, but I have known many women who were victims of incest or acquaintance rape. Like you, they all had significant problems with trust, particularly in their relationships with men. Denial was also very prevalent, at least for a period of time.
One woman I knew, who had been sexually assaulted by both her brother and her father over a period of years during childhood, had suffered from severe recurrent major depressive episodes. She had also repressed most memories of these events until she was an adult when fears that her own young twin daughters might be sexually abused began to trigger vivid flashbacks of what had happened to her. As her memories returned to her, she was flooded with all sorts of emotions. She became consumed by rage over what had been done to her, and for a brief period she was suicidal and required hospitalization. That woman did appear to have PTSD, in addition to other emotional problems, associated with her sexual victimization. She was eventually able to work through many of these difficulties with the help of a therapist, but some chronic depression was a continuing problem for her even with medication. She divorced her first husband, a somewhat emotionally abusive and controlling man, but was reasonably happy in a second marriage with a very caring and supportive husband who genuinely seemed to understand what she had been through earlier in her life.
Someone else I knew had been involved in an incestuous relationship with her father for about two years when she was in her mid teens. She was in both awe and fear of her father, a highly respected and very powerful man in his professional life. She suffered from very deep feelings of shame about that relationship that made it very difficult for her to become involved in any intimate relationship with a man. As a college professor, she tended to be very overly intellectualized and unemotional in most areas of her life, apparently because she continued to deny her feelings about most things--she had made herself rather emotionally numb. This person also tried therapy, with several therapists, but she was so mistrustful, and so defensive, that the therapy really did little to improve her ability to form close relationships. Eventually she became sexually involved with an older woman, and she felt safer and freer to be herself in that relationship, which was like a marriage, and that afforded her a degree of contentment and happiness she had not known before.
Another woman I knew had been sexually abused by a neighbor, who was also her mother's boyfriend, when she was about 11 or 12 years old, and, when she tried to tell her mother what was happening to her, the mother reacted with disbelief and anger toward her, which made this child feel even more helpless and victimized. She began acting out in all sorts of self destructive ways--drinking excessively, cutting herself, bouts of bulimia with purging, overdoses of pills, etc. This continued long after the sexual abuse stopped, and went on through most of her adolescence and early 20's. Therapy and medication eventually helped to stabilize her moods somewhat, and most of the self destructive behavior stopped, but she continued to have intermittent problems with alcohol abuse, and rather serious problems with generalized anxiety and phobias. She was able to function reasonably well at her job, but remained rather socially withdrawn and isolated outside of work. She did not date at all and had few female friends. She spent most of her free time alone, engaging in rather solitary hobbies and pursuits.
I've known others as well, but those three had very different reactions to their rapes by people they knew or were related to. They were all significantly damaged emotionally by their sexual assaults, perhaps because the abuse was repeated over a few years for all of them. Some sense of trust was the hardest thing for all of them to regain. For all of them, there was some degree of trauma which was quite long lasting.
I think that, particularly in the case of incest with a father, there can be highly conflicted emotions involved. Unlike a stranger, the father may be loved, or at least seen as a powerful emotional presence in the girl or adolescent's life. So, when the rape or sexual assault then occurs, it is a very substantial betrayal of trust and boundaries, and that can generate considerable conflict and anxiety. That would not be the case in a stranger rape, where one has no pre-existing feelings for the rapist. Also, in cases of incest, the female may not tell anyone about what is happening. Or, she might tell her mother and the mother might not be able to deal with it. Or the revelation about the incest may blow the entire family apart with anger flying in all directions. The whole issue of seeing the rapist punished, or wanting to see him punished, is much more complex when the rapist is the father. All of that adds to the trauma for the victim.
As I've said, I have not had personal first hand experience with rape, but I've certainly listened to enough women talk about their experiences to understand what it is like and to be able to empathize with what they have been through. All types of rapes are traumatic, and I'm not sure that we can say which types are the most or least traumatic, that really is an individualized matter. And I think that most women can instinctively identify with a woman who has been raped because it is something that can happen to any of us at some point in our lives and we all know that.
Sickening.