When I learned I was pregnant with my third child, I strongly hoped for the baby to be a boy. I wanted my third child to be a boy because I strongly feel this world is NOT FOR GIRLS — IT IS NOT SAFE FOR GIRLS.
And that view stemmed out from being SEXUALLY TERRORIZED countless of times during my teenage years.
Not Abused but Terrorized
Let me draw the line.
In my vocabulary, being abused and being terrorized are two different things. For me, when one’s abused [sexually], there are deeds involved. In my case, I wasn’t groped or touched inappropriately. However, my assailant instilled so much fear in me that I carry up to this day.
It all started when I was in my Sophomore year in high school. I was heading to our classroom one early morning. That said room was across the large oval of our school and was outside its protective fences so, there were other people milling around aside from the students going about. While crossing the oval’s premises, I spotted a man on a yellow bike standing by. I passed by him when he called me, “Day, tan-awa o. [look]”. I looked at him only for him to pull his shorts down and reveal his organ. Shocked, I looked at his face. He had a sinister smile on and said something lewd that had me running in fear to my classroom. There were only a few students around and I was so scared that he followed me. I only got to breathe that morning when my HE teacher arrived and let us inside the still locked classroom.
Later that afternoon, I was back to my old self. I thought it was a one time freaky incident. But I thought wrong. The nightmare followed me home.
Repeat
That same year, I was heading home – a fifty-meter walk away from the highway – when I spotted that same yellow-hued bike. There weren’t any houses along the grassy stretch from the highway to my house. My mind was on a History exam I almost failed that morning that I wasn’t really minding my surrounding. But a whistle cut me off from my reverie and looking up, I saw that same man in the same yellow bike jacking off in front of me with that same sinister smile on his face spewing off the same scary lewd words as he did the last time.
I ran as fast as I could and when I reached home, I immediately told my mom. I wasn’t crying but I was so scared. Maybe it was the absence of tears that somehow made Mama thought little of the incident. Upon hearing my story, she ran outside to look but came back and said, “Wala naman ang tao [The man isn’t there anymore]”. I was so scared to go back to school that afternoon but Mama assured me she’ll be watching me from our gate until I reach the highway. I survived that time.
And I survived many times after that.
That man always came back and he always seemed to end up “victimizing” me. Early mornings as I go to school . . . afternoons while walking home . . . noon breaks when I had to go home . . . it was like he was just around waiting to pounce on me.
There were times I had to climb up our gate and hide somewhere inside our house’s premise because he was around. There were times I had to go and make the excuse of buying something from a far-off sari-sari store just so I could hang around it long enough for Mama to come home from an errand. I was afraid of being left alone. I was so scared to walk that 50-meter stretch from the highway to my house. I was so scared of going home when dark settled in I had a self-imposed curfew — no going home after 6 PM. And when I did break that rule, the short jeepney ride heading home was spent in fervent prayers. Once I got off the jeep, I ran all the way to our house. My heavy school bag didn’t matter as long as I get home the fastest way I could.
The man didn’t fear anyone. Whenever he saw me, he would always resort to jacking himself off in front of me in public even when I was already across the street or about to board a jeep to school. Others saw him, passengers . . . the driver. But it seemed like it was only me who was very scared of him. They seemed to dismiss him as someone who wasn’t right in the head.
I eventually ended bringing a cutter with me in my pocket at all times. If I would end up a criminal, I was at the point where I didn’t care as long as that man’s hand didn’t get near me.
Breather
My college years were a breather. I was away and I rarely come home. But on the times that I did, the fear always came back. It was triggered by simple things — bikes [even the ones that were not painted yellow] . . . men with semi-shaved haircuts . . . bikers . . . even walking men in general.
There were a number of occasions that I planned walks, times I wanted to go to the mall or somewhere else but I had to back out the last minute because at the gate, I saw something or someone who made me lose my control over me fear.
Not Anymore
A time came when he “victimized” another girl my age. The incident went way beyond what he did to me — he grabbed her breasts as he biked beside her. The incident wasn’t reported to the police but that girl’s uncles got so angry they planned to ambush him. That was the time he stopped coming/biking by. I wanted to think that he was dead and I made myself believe it, strongly wished for it.
Physically, he wasn’t able to do anything to me but my encounters with him didn’t leave me unscathed.
Many years have passed. I want to say that I am over my nightmare but I’m not. Yes, I’m not gripped by it anymore as I was before but the fear is still there and it’s not just for myself anymore — it’s extended to my two little girls now. I feel that like me, they’re not safe here in this world.
Unanswered
Looking back, there was always the question why I never bothered telling my parents more about it and, as gripping as it was, I just decided to keep it to myself? After Mama’s reaction the first time it happened to me, I could have opened up more, made her understand that it wasn’t something we had to sweep under the “it’s just nothing” rug. I could have told her I wanted to report it to the police. They could have done something, couldn’t they?
Yes, I told her a little about the other times that guy with the yellow bike “terrorized” me but I always made it sound like it was nothing.
Would it have mattered if I talked her into allowing me to bring my story to the police and had that man blottered? Would the police even care? After all, what I experienced was something petty compared to the heavier cases they had to take care of everyday.
If I did things differently, would the outcomes be different, too?
I Am Heziel 