Was I just sexually harassed? It was the summer of 2016. 14 year old me was walking to summer camp at my school. I was a few minutes late but that was nothing out of the ordinary, I was usually late to summer camp. I was walking down a long block, that was going slightly downhill. There were houses on both sides of the street, tall buildings on each side of the sidewalk, yet there was only shade on one side of the street. The shady street was covered by the shadow of a tall apartment building. There were trees planted on every segment of the sidewalk. It was super shady and seemed like a cool place on a summer day. I decided to cross the street.

 After crossing the street, I walked past a lady that was also in the shade, she looked like she was waiting for someone. I felt the cool shade around me. I was surrounded by large structures; the tall trees were on my left side and the row of houses were on my right side. There was not one streak of sunlight. I saw the long path ahead of me, the trees and houses were all along both sides of the sidewalk. I realized I needed to see what time it was, I needed my phone. 

I reached into my drawstring backpack trying to find my phone, my summer camp bag. The material of the bag was so thin and flimsy, it was so hard to get to the bottom of the bag, I had to dig for what felt like a century. I felt the soft fabric of my camp shirt, pointy ends of my scattered pencils, and the smooth plastic of my water bottle. Finally, my fingers grazed my phone, but before I could take my phone out, I felt a pair of hands around my waist. 

I looked down and saw a pair of hands that belonged to a tall man with a bushy beard. He was wearing a worn out blue mets shirt, tan camo shorts, and white tennis shoes that weren’t white anymore. I was staring into a stranger’s eyes, as I felt the adrenaline rush within me. As I turned around, he tightened his grip on my waist. He didn’t say a word to me, we stared at each other for what felt like forever. Finally, after recovering from the shock, I tried  to scream but I couldn’t. It was as if the words were physically stuck in my throat, no noise came out. I tried again, and this time I succeed,

 “NO!” 

I pushed him away from me. The voice that came out of me was very unfamiliar, it was filled with anger, fright, and shock. Thankfully, he let go of me as I pushed him away with all the energy in my weak body, he gave me a creepy smirk and ran down the street. As he left, I began to break down, tears poured down my face like a waterfall, crouching down on the sidewalk, I didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, I remembered that lady I had passed by. I looked back and saw her standing in the same spot, with her hands over her mouth and her wide eyes. 

Her eyes were as wide as saucers, her hand covered her opened mouth, and she was standing still. The expression on her face would make you think that she was the one that had just been grabbed. She stood where she was, frozen, not even coming over to help me or ask if I was okay. She just looked at me without saying a word so I walked up to her and started crying even more because I felt safer crying with someone next to me. I showed vulnerability because I was in the comfortability of a stranger’s presence. I didn’t necessarily need or want to talk to her but I just needed to be next to her, it gave me a sense of protection and safety. She spoke up and said that she saw the man follow me from the corner of the block and she thought that I knew the man. I finally mustered enough courage to ask, 

“Can you walk with me to my school? It’s only a block away, I’m scared”

 I was deathly afraid that the man was going to come back. She rejected my plea by saying,  

“I’m sorry, I can’t, my ride is almost here” 

At this moment, a group of ladies walk towards the direction of the school and she urged me to walk amongst them. I walk amongst the strange ladies whom I didn’t know, yet they gave me a feeling of comfortability. The second we parted, I sprinted all the way to my school; I didn't stop until I got to school premises where security cameras could see me. 

I saw my camp director, Ms. Kammy, so I wiped my tears and collected myself. I didn’t think it was a big deal because nothing happened; I wasn’t hurt, raped, or kidnapped. I smiled at Ms. Kammy and greeted her as I walked in

“Good Morning, Ms.Kammy” 

While walking in the hallways to the cafeteria, I told myself that I just needed to process what had happened and then I would be fine. I walk into the cafeteria, say a quick general ‘Hi’ to everyone. I went to sit and put my head down, I started to think about what happened, what it felt like, what I could’ve done, and I kept making myself remember how he looked and what he wore. My best friend, Jaylin, came over to me and asked me if I was okay. It wasn’t normal to see me sitting quietly by myself with my head down, as I was an outgoing loud person. I opened my mouth to tell her what happened, beginning with when I crossed the street. Once I got to the point where I felt his hands, it was like I was there again; the tears were uncontrollable.

I didn’t even expect myself to cry at all, I didn’t think it was a big deal. I’ve always been a person who didn’t like to cry in public, so naturally, I wasn’t liking this. I couldn’t control my tears as they fell from my eyes, so I continued my story. At this point, I did not care if I was seen crying, I didn’t stop talking until I was finished. My counselor walked over to us and asked me what was wrong. Jaylin explained my story to her because I couldn’t muster up the courage to say my story again. My teacher was shocked, she said,

 “ I thought it was just that you had an argument at home before coming or was just not happy, I did not expect to hear this type of story”. 

As I was sobbing, Jaylin walked me to the bathroom, holding my arm sturdily but softly as I was fragile, like physically hurt. We called my mom, she was shocked at first, but calmed down after knowing that I was safe.

“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“I’m okay, I’m not hurt. Can dad come pick me up?”

“He’ll come once he finishes his work.”

 After we came back to the cafeteria, my counselor walked me up to my director’s office. The counselor told my story for me, my director was even more shocked than anyone else was. 

“You were fine just before! You even said good morning to me with a smile on your face.”

I gave her a weak smile, I couldn’t fake a big smile anymore.

There was a continuous pattern of someone else helping me tell my story, I couldn’t manage to tell my story again. Hearing my story come out of someone else’s mouth made it seem unreal, like they were telling a story about someone else; but they weren’t, it was about me.

My director immediately called my principal, and we walked up to the 4th floor. My principal called the police, and we waited. It was my first time in the principal’s office, there was a large brown table in the middle of the room. In the room was me, my director, the principal, and Assistant Principal, they asked me to tell my story one more time. It was only the second time I told my story, I tried to tell it as cleary and organized as possible. I didn’t want to confuse them or anything. It felt as if I was in a courtroom, being prosecuted; everything I said had to be accurate and precise. My principal was taking notes on his notepad, and listening intensively. My principal told them my story, once again my story came out of someone else’s mouth, and they also jotted down notes. They asked me some questions,

“How did the man look? Can you describe him to the best of your ability?”

“He had on a blue t-shirt, tan cargo pants, and white tennis shoes.”

One of the police officers said that he was going to patrol around the neighborhood to see if he was still around. The security guard from downstairs offered to go with a policeman to find the guy. 

“Was there anything he did that was out of the ordinary? Anything that caught your attention?”

There wasn’t anything too specific that I remembered, I just outlined the important details of my story again.

“He grabbed me from behind, but he let go when I screamed. He was about to leave, but then he turned around and sort of smirked at me...like this”

Then I imitated the smirk, it was weird. Then I remembered the lady that was standing there,

“There was a lady that was standing behind us, she witnessed the whole thing. She said that she saw the man following me.”

I brought her up in case I forgot some details and they need her for some clarification. I wanted to ask the police if they could get surveillance tapes from the house that it happened in front of, but I didn’t want to interfere with their job.

As they were interviewing me, I answered the question to the best of my ability. I was trying to replay his image in my head over and over again, so I wouldn’t forget how he looked like. The principal asked me,

“Can you demonstrate how he grabbed you? On the principal?”

As I got up to demonstrate on the assistant principal, I was feeling hesitant because it was weird to touch my assistant principal in that way. I wrapped my hands around his waist, making sure both palms were flat on his stomach like the man touched me. I felt all eyes on me, it was uncomfortable. It seemed as if I was an animal from the circus, performing my act.

The police and security guard came in and informed us that they found the man.

“You gave a great, on point description of the man,'' he said.

“He escaped from a mental institution today, they came to get him though. He’s going back in”

 One of the Police in the room even said,  

“maybe he was just trying to give you a hug?” 

That lit up a burning fire within me that I had to contain. Why would he even say such a thing?

I didn’t know how to feel, I knew I wouldn’t forgive him but I was glad that he didn’t intentionally want to hurt me. Part of me felt bad that he escaped just to be sent back in, but the other part of me felt like he deserved to be sent back in after what he did to me. The police called the ambulance and we waited 20 minutes before it came. My dad still did not come yet, so we went without him, I went with my counselor. We got to the hospital and sat in a private room, covered by curtains. We watched YouTube videos, and I was fine. My counselor was careful not to ask me questions or say anything about the incident, but I didn’t even think much about it. I had not cried since the first time I’ve told Jaylin my story. I would forget about it for a while, then all of a sudden I would remember it and it was unreal to me that it happened to me. After two hours, my dad came and my counselor left.

My dad also did not speak much about the incident, we waited a few hours for the doctors. Finally about another two hours later, about 4 or 5 female doctors came in and checked my private area. I informed them that I was only grabbed nothing else, but they insisted that they needed to check. They shone a flashlight into my most private area, I felt very exposed. I didn’t think it was necessary for 4 doctors to come in when it was only 1 of them checking on me. After, one of the police members came into the room and told me I could go home, they would come later to check up on me. That was the end of my incident, or so I thought…

I thought that I would not be affected by it, it didn’t put fear in me; but I was wrong. A few weeks later, a man was walking normally. He was walking behind me and his arm brushed mine, I jumped. Although, he meant no harm, he scared me. I realized that, at night I would get more paranoid. I would be scared of going out alone at night, scared of being “hugged” again. The incident put fear in me without me even knowing.

My case of harassment was not even intentional, it was a mild form of harassment; yet, I was very impacted by it. It made me very paranoid, I look over my shoulder every minute when I’m alone at night. It’s hard to imagine how victims of rape, assault, or groping go through their daily life. They live in paranoia that it may happen again, they are scared of men, they are scared to leave the house alone. Nearly one in every five teenage girls have been sexually assaulted. Being assaulted or harassed at such a young age, an age where they are starting to find themselves, can be a very serious issue. The teenage years are when a girl is starting to see things in a different light, this is an age where they have their own opinion on certain matters. 

Every 9 minutes, Child Protective services are called for claims of child sexual abuse. 82% of children sexually abused are girls. 1 in 9 girls and 1 in 53 boys under the age of 18 claim to be sexually abused or assaulted in the hands of an adult. Children feel helpless and they don’t know what to do. They often feel scared to stand up to an adult. These experiences are generally brought into their teenage years and adulthood. They’re 4 times more likely to abuse drugs and have PTSD when they’re adults. They are 3 times more likely to experience a major depressive time in life.

Being sexually harassed can mess up their entire life, it can ruin their entire thought process, their view on this world. They see the horrible things that go on in the world, they are mentally, or physically, scarred. There needs to be more support groups for victims of sexual harassment,not just regualr therapy but group therapy, where they know they’re not alone. Children need to be educated at a young age, to be careful of their surroundings and that if they’re sexaully assualted in any way, they must tell an adult. Many kids don’t tell their story because they fear they won’t be believed, they are embarrassed, or they think it’s their fault. They need guidance on what they should do after something they couldn’t control happens, that’s how we can protect our children.