It’s weird, right?
I never thought of New York as “scary” before. So many people from the midwest used to ask me if it was scary, because I think sometimes in movies it’s portrayed that way. But I always felt safer in New York than many other places.
I find it almost a little more scary in Ohio to come back to a dark neighborhood when I’m staying with my parents. No one’s around! Someone could be in that tall bush! This looks like how a bunch of Criminal Minds episodes start! Whereas, in New York, it’s always lit (in both the literal and colloquial sense). People are around…
So, I never thought of it as scary.
And I was assaulted by someone I knew. It wasn’t a stranger on the subway. It was the person I maybe even thought I knew best (as a new person here).
So… I maybe shouldn’t be afraid of the city, right? But I am.
My brain has crossed some wires somewhere, and I am afraid.
I don’t go to a lot of things. I don’t wanna be spending time with all those scary New Yorkers, or whatever, I guess…
I basically don’t take the subway, unless I ride with someone I know. (And isn’t that actually weird or ironic or something? Someone I knew hurt me and now I’m like, “I’ll only do this thing I’m irrationally scared of if someone I know comes with me… when someone I knew was the person who hurt me in the first place.”)
I’m weirdly pretty darn scared of the subway. Sexual assault guy and I did have a ride on the subway once where he was making me very uncomfortable. and I remember thinking, “Aurora, you’re overreacting. You’re fine. He’s not being so intimidating as to cross a line here. Maybe you’re just taking it that way because of everything else that’s happened.”
I was trying to calm myself down on the whole ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan. And it was very shortly after that that he assaulted me. And I think they run together in my head a little.
They’re not reeeeeally super related… I guess except for the fact that my brain runs away with the idea that maybe I should’ve seen it coming because he was so intimidating on the subway. And “if only, if only, if only…”
But anyway, that subway ride runs through my mind kind of a lot (ish). It’s one in the long list of things that I thought, “if only this or that,” maybe this wouldn’t have happened. And now I’m weirdly scared of the subway.
[I mean, even the day we had a weird interaction on the subway in and of itself wasn’t great. So, there is that. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as some other things he did. So, *shrug* Anyway.]
I’m kind of scared of the city. And it’s all weird. Yeah, that’s it. It’s just weird… It’s uncomfortable. I hope eventually I can figure out a way to change it.
[This is part of the sexual assault series]