I am a Survivor

 

I was 5.

My grandma always had parties at her house. They were HUGE for family events and a good size even when it was just her friends. My mom and grandma were very close, and they liked to party together. My grandma had hosted an event at her home for friends she and my mom knew from the bars and such. I was there. My mom did not like to leave me home alone. There was the Moon Park literally right there, and when it got too late, I would hang out in my grandma’s room watching TV.

When it was time to go home, it was late. I was asleep, and my mom woke me up to put me in the car. I cannot remember if my brother was there, at home, or at a friend’s. But my mom was bringing two men home because they were too drunk to drive. When we got home, I went to bed.

I am an early riser. I woke up at like 6 a.m. to watch cartoons. When I got to the living room, the two men were sleeping on the couch. I did not think anything of it and turned on my cartoons. One of the men woke up. He sat next to me and asked how I was and what I was watching. Then he started rubbing my leg. I did not know what to do, so I watched my cartoon.

When he slid his hand under my panties, I moved and told him I had to go to the bathroom. I went into the bathroom and locked the door. I was not sure what had just happened or why he did that. And then I started freaking out that I would get in trouble for waking him up.

My mom went out every night, and the rule was: you do not wake her up. So now, in my 5-year-old head, I was thinking I couldn’t tell my mom. She would be mad that I woke him. I went back to my room and just stayed there.

Once everyone woke up, we had to take the men home. I sat quietly in the car with one of them next to me. I honestly do not remember which one. I did not want to be there. But I remembered where we dropped them off. I knew how far they were from my home. The man forgot his jacket, and we had to drop it off to him. I begged my mom not to make me go, but she said I had to.

A few weeks later, my mom got really sick. So sick that we had to go to my grandma’s so she could take care of her. It was just a really bad flu, but in my 5-year-old head, I thought my mom was going to die. So I decided to tell her about that morning.

To my surprise, she was so upset with this man. Not with me.

However, nothing was done about it, and that was the last time we talked about it. I never saw or heard of him again. We just moved on with our lives.

Sometime between 3rd and 5th grade, my neighbor friends and I were having a yard sale to make money for our “club.” A man pulled up and parked. I walked toward his car—not too close—and asked if he needed anything or wanted to buy any of our stuff. He just smiled and moved his head and eyes down toward his lap.

I fell for it and looked.

There he was, with no pants on and a map underneath his erect penis. I backed away, and he took off. We told our parents and called the police. I gave the best description I could, and that was that.

I saw him one more time, riding a motorcycle with his penis hanging out. What the hell is wrong with people? I never saw him again, although I was constantly looking around for him.

I was in 6th grade.

I was walking my friend home to her house. On the way back, I was walking on Beach Boulevard in Huntington Beach, where I lived. Beach Boulevard is a very busy main street. A man pushed me down on the sidewalk and started trying to unzip his pants.

His zipper got stuck.

I was able to get away. I ran to another friend’s house that was on the way to mine. He walked me the rest of the way home. We told my mom what happened, and we went to the local police station.

I gave the officer my account of what happened. He started asking me where I was really walking. There was no way this happened on actual Beach Boulevard, he said. I must have been in an alley or somewhere else, and I just did not want to admit to my mom that I had been somewhere I shouldn’t have been alone.

No. I could have told my mom if I had been in an alley or wherever. That wasn’t the case. I was on Beach Boulevard. I was just as shocked as he was. It was a busy main street. I felt safe because of that. I was not lying.

Then he asked what school I attended. When I told him, he started asking me about a troublemaker who went there and what my affiliation with him was. I knew of him. Everyone at school did. But I didn’t know him. We weren’t friends. We were in different grades. We didn’t even have classes together.

The officer became fixated on what I knew about this fellow student. I knew nothing about him. I left feeling unheard and, once again, looking over my shoulder wondering if I would ever see the man who attacked me again.

I never heard anything about it again.

At 15, I got my first real job. I worked at Wienerschnitzel. It was just up the street from my house, and it was money! Originally, I would walk to work and then change into my uniform in the bathroom. When my boss found out, he told me I could change upstairs in the office. So that is where I started changing.

A new guy started working there, and we became friends. I told him he could change in the office too if he wanted instead of using the bathroom. Some time went by, and one day my friend/co-worker told me he had discovered a camera in the office. He told me we should not change up there anymore.

I was shocked. This man was a Calvary Church-going man. He talked about overseeing the youth group and such. He was a family man. Married with children. Went to church every Sunday.

How? Why? Are you sure?

Yep. There were working cameras.

I quit my job. I told my dad about it, and he and I went there. My dad told him to give him one reason not to beat the living shit out of him.

He said he had none.

Looking back, there had been rubs on my back and touching of my legs and arms that seemed off. But I overlooked them while I worked there because maybe I was thinking it was more than it really was.

I doubted my own thoughts.

At 17, during my junior year, it was Prom. My boyfriend at the time was in ASB, so he was part of the Prom committee. I loved going to school dances, but to be honest, I didn’t want to go to Prom until my senior year. But of course I was gonna go with my boyfriend. I’m not that horrible...haha.

Anyhoo, I wasn’t sure yet what I would be wearing. And if you know me, I hate tan lines. I got them bad because I was in my pool and at the beach all the time, so I was tan. I started going to a tanning salon near my home so I wouldn’t have to worry about whatever dress I bought showing tan lines.

The man working there was very nice. We would chat here and there. He told me it was his mom’s salon. He told me he wanted to come up with sunscreen and tanning-lotion vending machines and put them at beaches. He wanted to start in Hawaii with this investment. He told me about a girl at another high school he talked to and helped who had a kid and played softball. Just different small talk here and there. He would ask me about my school and such.

Then, during one visit, I was in my tanning bed with the door locked. I was completely naked, wearing headphones and listening to a CD I had brought. All of a sudden, my music turned off. Then the top of my tanning bed started opening.

I was startled, to say the least.

It was him.

He looked at me and told me he loved me. He told me he had been celibate for over three years and wanted to take me with him on his adventures. He told me he loved me. Then he touched my breast and said he loved me “from here.” Then he touched my lower area and said, “Not from here.”

I just listened to him talk and stared.

Before he left, he said, “I love you.” Then he asked, “What do you say?”

I replied, “I love you too.”

As soon as he left, I did not finish my tan. I got dressed. I waited for the bed to finish its cycle, and I tried to leave. He asked me to clean Room 5 while he helped a couple start their tans. I said OK. I did what I was asked. Before I left, he told me to remember what he said and to think about it.

My mom was there to pick me up, and she was pissed. See, she had come to get me earlier, but I wasn’t done yet because he had been talking to me before I started tanning, so everything took longer. She was late meeting her friends for Happy Hour at Mario’s. Which—I LOVE Mario’s. It was a Mexican restaurant that had the best food.

But I did not want to go.

I begged my mom to take me home first. She refused, saying I had already made her too late. This went on for the entire five-minute-or-so drive from the tanning salon to Mario’s.

We were about to park when she looked at me and said, “What did he do to you?”

I said, “I just want to go home. Please.”

She got her friends from Mario’s, and we went back to my house. After I told my mom what happened, we called the police. My mom and her friend went back to the salon and waited.

He had a girlfriend who was picking him up. When he started to leave, my mom and her friend got out of the car. He saw them and apparently threw his hands in the air and said, “I did nothing to her.”

He and his girlfriend left. My mom and her friend came back to the house.

I was in a daze, and I wanted to make brownies with chocolate chips in them. So my mom’s friend went and got me everything I needed to make them. As they were baking, the police came to take my statement. I offered them brownies. Basically, I insisted they eat a brownie.

I was just trying to feel normal.

He knew my address and phone number because you had to provide that information when you started tanning. He knew what school I went to and more because of all those little conversations we had when I was there.

I saw him everywhere. Even though he was never there.

I slept in my mom’s room for a while. I had to take summer school and adult education to graduate on time because I was missing so many classes. I carried a journal everywhere I went because I couldn’t quiet my mind, and writing it out helped.

In the end, I chose a more conservative dress that wouldn’t have shown any tan lines. I never would have needed the tanning salon.

When I told my dad what happened, he signed us up for karate classes. After the first class, sitting in his Bronco, he asked me what I had done to allow this man to think he could come into my room.

I asked my dad to take me home.

We never took another karate class. We never spoke about it again. I have tried a few times over the years to talk to my dad about how that made me feel, but he isn’t one to talk about the past. We should just move on.

In the end, the tanning salon—which belonged to the man’s mom—was shut down. He spent two weeks in jail.

They never asked me to testify.

Shortly after I graduated high school, I started talking more with a former classmate. We began hanging out more and more, and eventually we went on an official date. We got back to my house and went to my room.

I told him I was down for just about anything except sex.

He said OK.

I wasn’t a virgin. It wasn’t about that. I knew that by going back to my room, there could be thoughts and expectations, so I wanted to make it very clear before anything happened exactly how far I was willing to go that night. I told him a few times. Every time, he said OK. Not a problem.

The fooling around started, and I think I said it one more time—maybe twice—because, frankly, I knew we were about to have some fun.

Everything was good until it wasn’t.

He grabbed my hips, literally lifted my body, and put himself inside me.

I froze.

I did nothing. I did not say stop again. I did not engage. I just froze.

Fuck, my mom was in the house. I could have screamed. But I didn’t.

Why didn’t I? How could this be happening? Why couldn’t I do anything at all?

When he was done, he left. I sat there ashamed. Not ashamed of what happened. Ashamed that I thought I had let it happen.

I knew better. At least, that is what I told myself.

But my body was triggered, trauma took over, and I froze. It took me a very long time to understand that. And even now, I still hold a tiny bit of guilt and blame, even though I know I did nothing wrong.

When he found out I was telling our mutual friends what happened, his friends and his brother started calling my home, my work, and more, threatening me and telling me I needed to shut my mouth.

At one point, he admitted to one of my friends that I had said no—but, according to him, I had only said it once.

She told him, “She only needed to say it once.”

Nothing happened to him.

And I miscarried at work before I even knew I was pregnant.

Many years later, Facebook suggested we become friends. I mean, we have a lot of mutual friends. We went to the same high school. I blocked him on my main account, but I made a fake account and looked. I Googled him too.

I had never had any desire to do any of this until Facebook brought him front and center into my world again. He had originally been going to school for criminal law.

WHAT?! OMG, I was enraged.

He didn’t finish. Instead, according to what I found online at the time, he owned an MMA gym or something in Oregon and was an MMA fighter and trainer.

I wrote him a letter or message. I don’t even remember anymore if I emailed it from a made-up account or sent it through Messenger from my fake account. I sent it. Then I blocked him.

I have never looked again.

And this doesn’t include the catcalls. The times I’ve had to ask men to leave me alone. The unwanted messages. And more.

I try not to limit myself from doing the things I want to do. But I have to live cautiously. Always.

Sharing my location. Telling people where I am going and when I expect to be back. Checking in. Not because I want to, but because I have to.

And none of us girls question any of it. We check each other’s locations when someone is out. We text to make sure someone doesn’t need an out or need help.

Because we know how dangerous any man can be.

Not will be. Can be.

We do all of these things to try to make sure we are safe. And then, when something does happen, somehow we are questioned about our actions.

What did we do that allowed this to happen? What would we do differently if we had to do it again?

Like, what in the actual fuck?

Yes. We are scared of men.