The last few days have been very difficult for me, in the fact that this video surfacing triggered me and opened old wounds I didn’t even realize were still there. I started out shocked, then angry. I got to a point to where I couldn’t stop crying. Now I’m angry. I’m still crying. The anger and the crying are going back and forth. I decided to come out about my experience on social media only to have it flung back in my face, used as a political ploy for Trump supporters to throw mud at Hillary supporters. Effectively, what this proved to me, was that this is exactly why victims don’t come forward. So now, I hope to use this as a teaching moment. For my children, for my family, for the men and women of our communities, that this behavior, regardless of if it is normal (it’s not) it shouldn’t be and it shouldn’t be tolerated. We need to change our behavior toward women, and how we speak about them, and to them, and how we treat them.
My first experience with sexual harassment and sexual assault happened when I was 12 or 13. It was summer time, and I was in Junior High. I was at the pool in the neighboring town and some of the local boys came up to me trying to touch me, kiss me and ask me if I wanted a boyfriend. Boys weren’t on my radar then, so I told them no, and their response was to call me a lesbian and a bitch. This wouldn’t be the last time I was called a lesbian either, but that’s a different story.
At 15, I worked for the local McDonalds right off the interstate. We fielded a lot of interstate traffic to include truck drivers. One day, while working, a man who was at least 40 smacked my ass and said to me “Do you wash your jeans in Windex, because I can see myself in them,” and then laughed to his buddy about it. Around that same age I was at a wedding of a family friend and a man who was at least my mother’s age kept grabbing me and trying to pull me on to the dance floor. It didn’t matter how many times I told him no, he wouldn’t listen, and even my mother’s words appeared to fall on deaf ears. I don’t remember what got him to stop.
Things at school because torturous around that same time. There is something about being different that people feel they can pick you apart. I’d been spit on, laughed at, and even had my hair ripped out of my head all by those “boys being boys.” It wasn’t cute, it wasn’t funny and it wasn’t never just locker room talk. I dreaded school every day.
Things got even worse once I was 16. I remember one guy I dated came over to my house one night with some of his friends while my parents were gone. We went back to my room and he tried to force himself on me and when I told him no, he threw me into my closet door. I ran out of my room at about the same time to find his friend on top of my screaming 12 year old sister. I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t have had that 12 gauge close by that we chased them out of the house with. Of course they told their buddies something else happened. Rumors started circulating and by the time my junior year started I could hear the whispers of “whore,” “slut” and I was even give the nick name “the train” and often time girls would dedicate that song in my name. I didn’t even know or understand what that meant at the time until years later and it disgusts me to this day. Women can be even crueler than men. It seemed never hard to find a date, only to find out that most guys only dated me because they thought I would be easy. I dated some good guys along the way, but I developed a pattern of breaking up with anyone before anything could get serious because I was once told by a boyfriend “The only thing you’ll ever be good for is a piece of ass.” I dated a lot of guys, but somehow that translated into I slept with them all. If anyone pressured me into doing something I didn’t want to do, I broke it off, but that didn’t stop them from saying they did it anyway.
I hated my life, I hate my school, and I hated the town I grew up in. Most of all I hated the people. I pretended it never bothered me and usually smiled through the pain, but I often cried alone. I remember a few years ago my mother telling me at one point she was worried she was going to come home to find me dead.
At 16, almost 17, I was working at Avoca Super Foods, and a group of co-workers came up to me to inform me that the Assistant Manager was bragging to them about how he was going to “Fuck me like the dirty girl I was and make me like it.” I guess this explained all the creepy and lewd gestures he did around me. I made a report to the manager but was told because it was hearsay, nothing would done. I felt unsafe in my workplace and they did nothing about it, proving to me I didn’t matter. I left shortly thereafter.
In college in spent plenty of time hanging out with the guys. Playing videos games, chatting, drinking beer and watching sports. On one night, unbeknownst to me, they had other plans, and what was supposed to be a night of fun turned into a night of hell. I remember saying no, and crying, but I can’t say for sure what happened from there. I don’t know if I don’t remember or if I blocked it from my mind. I never told anyone, because I didn’t think I would be believed, because I’d already been shown I didn’t matter previously. Luckily, these two were kicked out of the college about a month later for doing the same thing to another woman. Guilt ate at me for not speaking up to spare her the same fate, but relief that I no longer had to look at their faces.
I endured plenty during my time in the military, and while my ex-husband denies any abuse, it was there, in the forms of physical, emotional, verbal and sexual. I never told a soul. Once I did finally come to terms and speak about it, he lashed out and told me he would tell people the truth, as if I had done something to deserve what happened.
Most recently, in 2013, I was approached by a gentleman at a truck stop. I was returning to my car and he followed me. He grabbed me by the arm multiple times and wouldn’t let go, commented on my body, touched my chest and spoke about the size of his dick. He repeatedly tried to get me to get into his truck with him. I don’t think I ever felt so scared in my life, I couldn’t scream. The only thing I could think of to do was lie and tell him I had a gun. He immediately left and instead of calling the police I called the guy I was dating. He told me to go home and I’d get over it. Once again I was shown how much I mattered. I should have called the police.
Words aren’t action, this is true. They can be much more and many times they turn into actions. Words are powerful and they have the power to ruin lives. I don’t know how I am still here today, through sheer will I suppose. I am using my power and strength to work to change the culture in our world that says it’s ok to degrade women, to bring them down and make them feel worthless and powerless. We are human beings, and deserve to be treated as such. We deserve to be treated as equals, and I will fight to make that happen. I refuse to allow my daughter to grow up in a world I grew up in. I refuse to allow my sons to feel it’s acceptable to treat women this way. I refuse to let them carry this forward to the next generations. I refuse to watch our great nation become the laughing stock of the entire world because of one man.
