captain jigglypuff
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For the past twenty five years, I’ve been struggling with the knowledge that I was sexually assaulted in gym class for months by a classmate and then being victim blamed when I refused to talk about it because I was still traumatized and in denial and no one made me feel safe, told me my rights as a victim, or even that it was okay if I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.
The very first time it happened, I was just walking down the hall from the locker room to the gym when I felt the finger touching me and I heard other boys laughing at what had happened to me. I turned around and saw a group of boys pointing and laughing at me and I immediately ran back towards the locker room past the girls’ gym teacher with tears in my eyes. The kid who did it panicked and screamed “Oh no!” And tried to grab me to prevent me from running but he couldn’t catch me in time. I immediately went into the fetal position and kept crying hard and unable to speak . I just remember the female gym teacher asking me what had happened to me. I was so o confused and scared and I thought maybe I did something to deserve it. I had to be sent to the nurse’s office because I was that traumatized and I knew that I couldn’t tell my family about the assault because I knew they’d might try to say it was my fault. The kid was barely punished and all he got was a three day out of school suspension.
Two weeks went by before I felt that finger touching me again while I was changing. I turned around to see who did it but he ran away faster than I could turn around. It kept happening every time I was bent over and had my back turned. I thought that if I ignored it then the kid would get bored and leave me alone because I was told to do that by adults whenever I was being bullied. It didn’t work and only became more frequent.
Eventually I became do afraid to turn around in gym class or join the huddles because I was afraid of being violated again. I would press my entire back against the wall and refused to move from that position. I even refused to leave the locker room until I knew that no one other than the teacher was left behind.
The school never tried to separate me from the kid until four months later after I showed some serious hyper vigilance. Eventually I had to rearrange my class schedule to be placed in the adaptive gym class for physically handicapped kids. I was also treated by the school by that point as being the problem. The school psychologist even wrote down in a psych evaluation she did on me that it was my fault for being bullied and sexually assaulted and that I was faking it to get attention. Teachers had deemed me a liar whenever I tried to tell them that other kids were bothering me and they acted like they were the real victims so I didn’t tell anyone what was happening because I knew no one would ever believe if I couldn’t prove it. I even specifically told that psychologist that I “didn’t feel safe” in school and she said that I was making things up and blaming my peers for my own mistakes. But seriously, what fifteen year old kid uses the words “don’t feel safe” if it wasn’t true?
No one ever told me that it wasn’t my fault and that it was okay if I didn’t want to talk about it yet. The school eventually told my family and they kept trying to force me to talk about and even the therapist did this and I kept refusing to talk about it because I didn’t feel safe. I was then treated like I over reacted to some prank and that I didn’t know a good touch from a bad touch. I have since become terrified of seeing the doctor to get a physical for the past two years out of fear of hearing that I need a prostate exam. I haven’t seen my doctor in two years and I know that is a serious problem but I’m too afraid to go.
I don’t know what to do. I can’t press charges because I missed the cut off age for my state’s statue of limitations for filing charges and I can’t do anything unless someone else say the same person violated them and I can’t name drop my attacker because of legal reasons. I just don’t know what to do.
The very first time it happened, I was just walking down the hall from the locker room to the gym when I felt the finger touching me and I heard other boys laughing at what had happened to me. I turned around and saw a group of boys pointing and laughing at me and I immediately ran back towards the locker room past the girls’ gym teacher with tears in my eyes. The kid who did it panicked and screamed “Oh no!” And tried to grab me to prevent me from running but he couldn’t catch me in time. I immediately went into the fetal position and kept crying hard and unable to speak . I just remember the female gym teacher asking me what had happened to me. I was so o confused and scared and I thought maybe I did something to deserve it. I had to be sent to the nurse’s office because I was that traumatized and I knew that I couldn’t tell my family about the assault because I knew they’d might try to say it was my fault. The kid was barely punished and all he got was a three day out of school suspension.
Two weeks went by before I felt that finger touching me again while I was changing. I turned around to see who did it but he ran away faster than I could turn around. It kept happening every time I was bent over and had my back turned. I thought that if I ignored it then the kid would get bored and leave me alone because I was told to do that by adults whenever I was being bullied. It didn’t work and only became more frequent.
Eventually I became do afraid to turn around in gym class or join the huddles because I was afraid of being violated again. I would press my entire back against the wall and refused to move from that position. I even refused to leave the locker room until I knew that no one other than the teacher was left behind.
The school never tried to separate me from the kid until four months later after I showed some serious hyper vigilance. Eventually I had to rearrange my class schedule to be placed in the adaptive gym class for physically handicapped kids. I was also treated by the school by that point as being the problem. The school psychologist even wrote down in a psych evaluation she did on me that it was my fault for being bullied and sexually assaulted and that I was faking it to get attention. Teachers had deemed me a liar whenever I tried to tell them that other kids were bothering me and they acted like they were the real victims so I didn’t tell anyone what was happening because I knew no one would ever believe if I couldn’t prove it. I even specifically told that psychologist that I “didn’t feel safe” in school and she said that I was making things up and blaming my peers for my own mistakes. But seriously, what fifteen year old kid uses the words “don’t feel safe” if it wasn’t true?
No one ever told me that it wasn’t my fault and that it was okay if I didn’t want to talk about it yet. The school eventually told my family and they kept trying to force me to talk about and even the therapist did this and I kept refusing to talk about it because I didn’t feel safe. I was then treated like I over reacted to some prank and that I didn’t know a good touch from a bad touch. I have since become terrified of seeing the doctor to get a physical for the past two years out of fear of hearing that I need a prostate exam. I haven’t seen my doctor in two years and I know that is a serious problem but I’m too afraid to go.
I don’t know what to do. I can’t press charges because I missed the cut off age for my state’s statue of limitations for filing charges and I can’t do anything unless someone else say the same person violated them and I can’t name drop my attacker because of legal reasons. I just don’t know what to do.
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