Why a definition became my best friend for a couple months

I think I was in denial for a while. Scratch that; I know I was in denial. I was even in denial when I started to address the problem.

The first time I let myself think that maybe what was happening was not the common shenanigans of an idiot was in a discussion class at my synagogue. We were talking about the rape of Dinah in the Torah and how we could connect it to what was going on in the world. In the midst of talking about rape and sexual harassment, my mind was connecting some dots. After class, I pulled my teacher aside and hesitantly shared with her what was going on at school. Bet even as she confirmed my suspicions that it sounded like harassment and gave me some advice, there was a small part of my brain that was telling me I was blowing this whole thing way out of proportion. So I thanked her and left with full intentions of sitting on it for a couple day before deciding what to do next.

Unfortunately, I never got that time.

The next week, my Small Engines teacher called in and took the whole week off for a family emergency or something like that. This meant instead of working in groups in our assigned areas around the garage, we were able to sit wherever we wanted to to watch some videos. Sounds nice right? Wrong.

On Monday, I sat in my usual seat in the back of the class next to some of my group mates and the sub’s desk. He came in a little after class started and sat at the end of the row. Throughout class, he tried to get my attention, first with ‘hey’s and ‘hey you’s that quickly dissolved into ‘bitch.’ No one said anything, not even the substitute teacher. Sadly, this behavior is what I came to expect about his behavior (especially when it was directed at me.) It just wasn’t at the top of anyone’s list of priorities.

The next day, his friends took the end of the row while he claimed the seat next to mine. He jerked off with his friends until the middle of class when he slid his chair closer to mine and threw his arm around the back of it, trying to get it around my shoulders. I didn’t let him. He leaned in and said some things I didn’t care to respond to all while his friends snickered in the background. Again, nobody did anything and was left trying not to punch him in the face because then I would be in trouble.

The next chance I had, I went to my librarian and she got me out of class for the rest of the week until I was able to talk to my guidance counselor that Friday. He was gone from class for most of the next week. That and my teacher running interference to the best of his abilities was all the school did to address the problem. When my dad talked to my vice principal about it months later, the vice principal said they couldn’t really do anything unless he touched me. I knew that wasn’t going to happen because if he touched me, I was going to punch him.

Sadly, whether it be the school’s lack of motivation to address it or his own twisted mind, the problem only got worse as time went by. He was either a freshman or a sophomore and I was a senior so the only class we had together was Engines. But there were times when I was doing errands for teachers during class and I would see him wondering in the hallways. When we were the only two in the hallway, he would rush at me, pretending like he was going to attack or touch me. I hated that I always flinched away. I hated how he would laugh after I flinched and then continue walking like nothing happened. This behavior didn’t really stop even after the class had ended.

He crossed another line the day before Winter Break started. He tried to corner me when I was trying to drag out a lawnmower (in Small Engines we studied how small engines worked by taking apart a lot of them and putting them back together; our last assignment was fixing a small engine like a lawnmower or a snow blower by ourselves. So there were weeks where there were just a pile of lawnmowers in the back of class and you had to fight to get your own out.) Like most times, there were some innuendos he just couldn’t keep to himself, but he also tried to move closer to me and into my personal space. I told him to stop. He laughed, asking ‘stop what’ before giving me a look up and down. ‘Well, I do like what you’re wearing today.’ Another step forward before my teacher noticed and called him away. I finished pulling out the lawnmower before going back to my desk. I put on my jacket and zipped it up to my chin. It stayed like that for the rest of class and until I had been on my friend’s couch for a couple hours.

At the end of class, my teacher asked me if class went okay that day. I gave him a truthful ‘no, not really’ and told him what happened. I don’t think Mr. Teacher really understood why I was so upset about him telling me he liked what I was wearing. I didn’t know how to tell him I felt utterly unsafe in that moment in a room full of people. I didn’t know how to describe how that one up-and-down glance made me feel dirtier than any oil could make me. How the one glance and a couple of steps made me feel so insecure that I just wanted to go home and sit in my closet until I calmed down. So I just told him the basic: “he told me he liked my outfit and stepped towards me.”

I feel a little silly to admit that I told my parents last (my sibling, doesn’t count, my dad told them.) Mark that I said silly and not regretful. There was a small part of me that didn’t want them to worry and another bigger part that was afraid of their reactions (or rather their overreactions.) (That made them sound like horrible parents, they’re not.) But I think the real reason I told them last, and maybe why I don’t regret telling them last, was that I wanted the problem at least on the way of getting solved. I wanted to show them that I was capable of doing things myself.

I think another reason I put off telling them was because it made it real and took away the only place I could pretend that this wasn’t really happening to me.

During the first couple weeks I was admitting to myself that maybe this was harassment, I researched the definition of harassment. I already knew the basic definition; what I wanted to know was the legal one. US Legal defines harassment as the “unwanted, unwelcomed and uninvited behavior that demeans, threatens or offends the victim and results in a hostile environment for the victim. Harassing behavior may include, but is not limited to, epithets, derogatory comments or slurs and lewd propositions, assault, impeding or blocking movement, offensive touching or any physical interference with normal work or movement.” One of the reasons someone would be guilty of harassment in the second degree is when “He or she engages in a course of conduct or repeatedly commits acts which alarm or seriously annoy such other person and which serve no legitimate purpose.” I don’t know why, but the definition gave me more comfort that I didn’t get from others. Maybe it was because I could use it to check things off to double check I wasn’t over exaggerating when I said I was being harassed. Maybe it was the cold, clinical way it just stated the definition and the facts. Anyways, I pinned it to the task bar and revisited it anytime I was questioning or doubting myself.

I did hate one thing about the definition though: how it used the word ‘victim.’ I knew it meant it in the most clinical sense but during that semester I developed a strong hatred to that word. I don’t know why, no one ever called me that, they probably didn’t even think about calling me one, but I hated the word. I hated that they could use the word and be totally justified in using it. I vehemently hated the idea of being a victim almost as much as I hated the guy that was doing the harassing.

What made me so against that I was a victim? Even when I wasn’t even being called one outside of the voices in my own head? I don’t have the answer. Maybe I’ll never have the answer.

Was it because my parents raised both me and my sibling to be strong and independent? And that being a victim made me feel the opposite of that? Was it because I couldn’t punch or hit or cause any physical damage to this guy? Was it because my bubble of safety felt like it was popped? Could it even be the innocent enough Tumblr/Instagram/Twitter posts of the princesses who refused to be victims and saved themselves?

Do other people feel this way? I’ve been in a couple discussion with rape survivors and I knew one or two people who were sexually harassed, but I never thought to bring up the question. Did they use the word survivor because they disliked being called a victim or do they hate the word survivor as much as I hated the word victim? Could it be that we are all just boiling with anger and take it out on things that seem somewhat justified?

I love my friends, but god, I hated them those couple months. Looking back, I think I really just wanted someone to just call out what was happening instead of just saying it was a ‘bad experience’ and everyone refused to do that. I wanted them to be as blunt and as honest as the definition I had pinned but none of them were. Everyone was skirting around it and saying pretty words and it made me feel like everyone wanted to forget about it.

It made me feel alone.

• feelings
• personal experience
• uncertainty
• you are not alone