Today I was watching a journalistic piece on allegations of sexual abuse which would have been taken place on the set of a popular show here. This show has lines with the music scene, a scene I’m very familiar with because I’ve been a part of it for many years. I didn’t expect to recognise so much. I didn’t realise how much more broken I actually am.
One thing a person said brought back flashes. Another victim was describing how she kept being harassed by this person until she finally agreed. The third told the interviewer that she still feels like it was all her fault because she didn’t fight back or what if she wasn’t clear enough that she didn’t want this?
And all I could think about was a 19-year old woman who is in love for the first time. She gets kissed and tells the guy that she’s not interested, he keeps on bothering her till she agrees. He wants to touch her, but she doesn’t want him to, he keeps on going till she doesn’t pull his hands away anymore. He touches her in other places she doesn’t appreciate it, says no, he goes on till she agrees. When he’s all satisfied he ghosts and she keeps on wondering why she was the difficult one, why she is weird, but also why she ended up agreeing in the end. She wanted to fit in… She thinks that that was the way it’s supposed to be, right? The fact that it felt not okay is her fault, because this is how it should be.
The now 20-year old woman goes to her private music lesson. She has musical theory, piano, and combo lessons with a private tutor. The woman doesn’t think it’s weird that the teacher corrects her posture physically, that he stands with his front against her back when she’s practicing “accidentally” touching her breasts. He keeps on telling her why he doesn’t appreciate parents at his lessons, which she thinks is weird since she doesn’t need her parents there. But for some reason she’s glad there’s someone else in the room as well.
A fellow musician accuses a teacher of targeting her and inappropriately touching her. The woman has to testify and can only say that the teacher was being more hands on with women than with men. She didn’t play well that day and she beats herself up for playing badly, it was her her fault she didn’t play well. The teacher just tried to help.
There are even more examples and I thought I dealt with this and I never thought anything had happened. Turns out I was wrong.
i hope these realizations can lead you on a journey of peace, it sounds like it’s been a lot that’s happened, hopefully you can work through these experiences and finally be free of them. We’re here for you, however we can support you best.
Tbh it made me doubt myself a lot again. Especially on the topic of boundaries. Because I ended up giving in just to be done with it. I never talked about it because it was all my own fault anyways.
The result of this is that I never had a relationship since. No one gets close enough… Not for the past 11 years. I’m also just too much work, so perhaps not even worth it…
You have said it yourself: the behaviors that these people had were inappropriate and abusive. And you are right for using those words. By definition, you were not responsible nor guilty for what happened. They caught you by surprise, they used their position/power, they insisted despite you saying no. It was not your fault. The shame belongs to those who dare to ignore, voluntarily, the limits of someone. They crossed a boundary they shouldn’t have crossed. It is their responsibility. One’s body is not made to be touched by anyone whenever they can.
Giving in just to be done with it is a way to survive at the moment when someone make you feel trapped, when you are scared and triggered by an inappropriate or violent behavior. It is, for example, how seual abuse often happens in marriage. One partner takes the other for granteed, that sexual intercourse has to be done, so in order to be “done with it”, the other partner gives in and dissociate. Giving in doesn’t mean consenting. Consent can’t happen when someone feels threatened, whether it’s explicit or not. A contract, for example, will never seen as viable if the person sigs because of pressures and constraint. It is the same here. You didn’t consent. These people knew it but chose to ignore it. That is on them. They are at fault.
I’m sorry that you’ve been through these situations. You know I have been through my own share of sexual assaults and abuse. I hate that being touched by someone without your consent is something that you have known in your life. No one deserves to feel like their body has been subjected to someone else’s needs/urges. No one should ever feel like it is their fault if someone wants to use them.
As you are sharing here and using the right terms to describe what happened, I believe there is a part of you who knows that it wasn’t your fault. You know it was wrong. You didn’t ask for any of this, even though it is confusing to think of this type of past event and see it with a new perspective, one that is fair to us. The very fact that you are now ale to talk about it and name it is a good sign. One that shows that your mind is getting ready for taking some steps forward and start a healing process that has been waiting silently. Please let your therapist know about these experiences, whener you can, and even if it has through written words. You deserve to be helped, to be supported while processing these memories. You deserve to inject a different truth in these. One in which you are not to blame. Because that’s the reality.
Take your time. Feel at your own pace. Your heart and mind are slowly opening to something that needs to be processed. You will be okay. Love you friend.
Tbh it made me doubt myself a lot again. Especially on the topic of boundaries. Because I ended up giving in just to be done with it. I never talked about it because it was all my own fault anyways.
This sounds to me like it’s a sort of internalized blame, a way to explain it to yourself, to try to make sense of your experience. Micro has some excellent points in a previous reply.
you said no, and he continued, that is disrespecting your boundaries. there is no confusion about that to me. this is not a case of “this is the way it’s supposed to be” at all.
The result of this is that I never had a relationship since. No one gets close enough… Not for the past 11 years. I’m also just too much work, so perhaps not even worth it…
this sounds to me that the reason is that you were so scared of people taking advantage of you, victimizing you again under the guise of their relationship with you and/or their position/power. This sounds like a hurt mind trying to shield itself from opening up to people who have shown that they hurt you when you let them on.
And you know what? It should be some amount of work to be let into the deepest parts of our hearts and our affection. They should show themselves to be worth the time and the emotion that goes into it, they should show that they deserve the trust and affection given to them.
I can tell you AS A FACT, that you are indeed worth getting to know. You are worthy of feeling safe and loved in your relationships, and the other person is supposed to respect your boundaries and your wishes.
I always say it, it’s better to be alone than with someone who makes you miserable or feel bad about yourself.
I genuinely hope our words can help you heal, that you can start to move from blaming yourself to understanding that you did what you needed to do to survive those moments.
Do you have a therapist to help you through this?
And we are here for you, thank you for sharing with us.
yeah I guess that I need to have another talk with my therapists again… yayyy… even more things to add to the shitpile of me… I know I shouldn’t think like this but sometimes I’m just wondering if I’m ever going to be normal or at least functional…
Sorry, I’m just frustrated because every time it seems like something is going a bit better, it just all falls down again… and i’m just frustrated at this point… sorry
I do go to therapy, but I hadn’t brought this up because I thought I was “over it”… but after seeing that piece it just all came back… worse… more blaming me… but also that feeling of “I need to do this/accept this because I want to achieve x and this person is an important person in that industry”. Whenever something bad happened… someone yelled at me for being incompetent or not being good enough and my mom was in the same room… she didn’t stick up for me, because “we needed that person later and it’s better to stay friends with them” so whenever I didn’t say anything back to them either, I would get praised for not defending myself…
She was never in the same room whenever someone touched me though, but since I “needed that person” I wouldn’t say anything anyway. Only to find out later that he has done this with multiple young girls and that inappropriate behavior was the reason he was fired from a high job in the industry…
It just all didn’t click back into place until that video popped up and I saw that… sorry…
um, respectfully, i strongly disagree! you have suffered a lot, and no-one has been there to ‘have your back’ while you went through it. Worse, the perps were seen as needed, or important, or useful for advancing, and others told you to lay low/keep quiet/ignore it.
When we’re made to feel that everything we suffered is not important or no big deal, when we’re forced to lock it up inside of, when we try to cope by blaming ourselves since no-one else blames the wrongdoer, it affects us, how we see ourselves.
You did not ask to be a victim.
You did not deserve to be one, you did not cause it to happen.
What you call a sh*tpile? Guess what I see? Someone who just had a major break through, who on their own was able to say, hey I went through that… and I do not believe that that was okay!
That’s huge, that’s brave, and now you’re gonna take steps to address it, to talk about it. That’s huge. Thats the definition of brave and courageous.
I’m sorry you didn’t have support then. But you have us now, and you have your therapist, and you have your awesome self for support now. Things can get better.
