[This is from the sexual assault series.]
I don’t necessarily know how to describe it… But you know how sometimes you go through a relationship ending, and you see the person’s favorite coffee shop or whatever and you have a moment where you think about them? Well, this is like that on steroids.
Because it’s not like the person just was kind of a jerk or left me in sort of a mean way, or anything that would normally make seeing their favorite [coffee shop, bookstore, whatever] hard for some reason.
No, no. This is like this person betrayed my trust in an exceptionally deep and terrible way. This person hurt me.
After they physically hurt me (which was so already bad enough in itself), they used their power in the musical theater world and their mental power, I suppose you’d say (or some gaslighting mind games, if you will) to continue to hurt me. (And that’s a paragraph that’s hard to write. Because I don’t want to crucify someone or be all super victim-y… Or even admit that I was capable of being gaslighted (gaslit? What’s the past term of that?) I’m just trying to make the situation a little clear…)
So, when I see stuff that reminds me of him, sometimes I get physically ill. Or I cry. It is hard – really hard.
So, I go out of my way to reclaim that stuff (if I can’t avoid it) – eat at that restaurant, drink that coffee, etc… Make it not about him anymore…
But it can still be hard, is the point. A small thing can set me off…
For instance, I happened to hear his name (just his first name) over and over while on a tour at Sea World. And when the tour was over, I escaped to the back of a building and sobbed, and even called a helpline ’cause I had trouble getting through the rest of my day.
That may be dramatic. (I mean, that’s pretty dramatic.) But it’s just the life I live for now. I went through a period where I was honestly pretty terrified of this person in various ways (kind of still am sometimes). And that fear really crept up in not cool ways (and still does sometimes!).
To be clear, I am not actually terrified that he’s going to physically harm me again. I really don’t believe he will. I am more terrified that he will be able to affect me in our industry, or in the public’s eye – that he’ll make me seem like I’m crazy or a liar, that he’ll gaslight me or other people… I’m more scared of weird manipulative and emotional stuff (in large part because that was his bread and butter – he could seriously win an Olympic gold medal in that stuff).
Anyway, I dunno. It all just feels weird is all – and so much more serious than a “break-up,” so I shouldn’t even sort of frame it that way. But it’s so weird how it’s all the same, but different. I dunno!
[For more on sexual assault, you can go here.]