Kim Kardashian ‘preparing for rape’ during the infamous Paris robbery is a horrible insight into every woman’s biggest fears

“He grabbed my legs and I had no clothes on under. So he pulled me towards him at the front of the bed, and I thought ‘Okay, this is the moment they’re going to rape me'”, Kim Kardashian describes her encounter with her attacker in a haunting, and sobering moment of Keeping Up with the Kardashians last night.

In October of last year, Kim was robbed during Paris Fashion week, and this week she broke her silence about the terrifying ordeal. However, what’s almost more horrifying than the robbery itself is the way she describe readying herself for rape: “I fully mentally prepped myself.”

If you’re a woman and you read the first portion of her statement — “He grabbed my legs and I had no clothes on under” — your mind went directly to the same place as mine, and the same place as hers.

These were men who were carrying guns, and her first thought wasn’t about murder, it was about rape. In moments of great distress, it’s an animalistic instinct that our minds naturally search for, and fast-forward to the worst possible outcome. This is a type of thinking classified by psychologists as catastrophic thinking, and is something that everyone has experienced at one point or another, but with women it’s different.

According to Clinical psychologist Joe Dilley, Ph.D, “Catastrophic thinking in everyday life spikes the stress hormone cortisol and reduces our ability to react effectively,” however, when it comes to the most extraordinary of circumstances, it could be our best defense. Meaning, it’s a necessary kind of precautionary thinking, meant to help us in the event we need to counter, or defend ourselves against, such horrifying outcomes.

Rape has become the weapon women are most afraid of. Kim admitting this was the deepest darkest part of her psyche her fears could possibly conjure, is all the proof we need that women experience this world differently.

@carolinephinney