Hey I'm the rape victim, and the thread is
Alchemical Taoism --- website of great value.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to ask what I would do back then if I knew what I know now, because my present knowledge is informed by having gone through A&Ps and Dark Nights and having gone through those I am highly motivated to solving the issues that were seen/created/whatever.
Before going through the A&P, there was not a lot of interest in meditation, I had no reason to do it and I thought of it as a merely religious activity. II had no reason to do it, and knowing that it would likely involve all the weird and difficult experiences it does, I would likely never choose to get into it (furthermore, people who get into meditation before going through A&P are usually very religious). But after the A&P, there was clearly something wrong, and I was convinced that meditating was the only thing I could do to fix it.
So it's not like at some point I pondered on whether to meditate and came to a conclusion, I was basically thrown into it by circumstances (as is the case for most of us I think).
And meditation does seem to help, at least to me.