Frozen

I know the title might deceived some to think this is a post about the famous Disney movie, sorry to disappoint you guys, but this post isn't about a film, is about an episode of my life I kept under a lock for nearly ten years.

Few months ago I was having a conversation with my flatmates, exchanging stories of everyday sexism and inevitably we started to discuss about sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour from adults towards minors.

One of my flatmates recalled the time her neighbour tried to tricked her into coming to his house and how her mother reacted threatening the man with calling the police. She was young, just a child but she said that she could remember how frightening everything was.

I thought about my own experiences, growing up in a city like Lima, the extraordinary thing would be not to have stories to share about sexism, but when I was talking something happened, I suddenly remembered an episode I had experienced when I was fourteen. I had kept that memory locked that for a long time I even forgot about it.

So, why Am I writing this now? This weekend I saw a video about a girl who was raped during her fresher year at university. Not only she spoke about how hard was to confront the reality of being rape but also the guilt she felt for not fighting back. She froze and it took her years to understand that one of the many reactions of fear is to freeze, to play dead, to try to detach yourself from your body and hope it will end soon.

And I just wanted to cry, I felt guilty for a long time because I did not say a word when that doctor touched me, nor when he grab me in his arms and made me hug him, nor when he kept asking inappropriate questions about my personal life, nor when I was so uncomfortable I just wanted to leave. And the worst is that I kept asking myself why I did not react.
I was praised by classmates and teachers for my communication skills, I was the top of the class, I was teased by my friends about how much of a lawyer I was. I was the one getting deadline extensions for the whole class, convincing teachers to let us leave earlier in exchange for more homework, the one negotiating academic assistance for my classmates who were falling behind. But I could not speak for myself when I needed it, I just stood there and did nothing, nor did I tried to push him back, I did not say a word to my parents. At the beginning was easy to justify, nothing really happened, why would I make my parents get into trouble?

Almost ten years later I also realise that I did not say anything because I was scared. I had heard too many stories of girls who were not believed by the police, girls who were accused of lying or provoking the unwanted attention of men. And more importantly, I was a teenager dealing with the chaotic emotions teenagers deal with. I was at a critic stage of my life, I felt ugly, fat and a geek. I was scared that I had misunderstood the situation, the society I lived in pushed me to feel flattered rather than insulted. My fourteen year-old self thought she was not going to be believed and telling her parents about it would not improve the situation, on the contrary it would make it worst.

Almost ten years later I can say that I know that I did not ask for any of those "attentions" and I did nothing to encourage them. To freeze was a normal reaction and it did not mean consent, I was fourteen years old and I was not prepared to deal with that sort of situation. However there's a thought that I can get rid of, and that is that I know I was not the first one and probably not the last one to suffer that treatment at the hands of a man people trusted. After that episode I never came back to that place, actually I left the country few months later,  I never saw that man again nor I can't remember his face (probably blocked by my really smart brain), but I just hope that someone spoke out, because is not the memories of what happened what haunts me, is the fear that after me, someone might have actually got hurt and that I could have prevented that.