Survivors can decimate victim blaming statements themselves.

“I am sorry.” I have heard it from some of the lobby groups, lawyers, and politicians I have talked to. It was nice of them to acknowledged what I experienced was real and unjust, but I wanted more. For certain, I wanted action. Yet I also wanted to know I was not alone. I wanted someone to come along beside me and say “hey, I have been there. I get it.” And based on what they shared about their experience, I would know they understood my pain, frustrations, and despair. Then I could suddenly exhale, knowing there were some common threads of surviving sexual harassment. My reactions and responses, while feeble at times, could be validated as “normal.” 

This is my humble attempt to validate what you may feel and think. My intention is not to sit in sorrow or despair. That is not who we are. We survive. And we are stronger when we are connected. So if you are at a safe place today emotionally, please read this to empower yourself so know you are not alone in your triggers, neurological responses, and psychological stress. If today is tough day trigger wise, I suggest you skip reading it. Read other ways to empower yourself as a survivor. 

If you are at a safe place, here now is my “I am sorry” note to you, my friend, my fellow survivor: 

I am sorry others do not understand what you have experienced.

I am sorry fear consumes you.

I am sorry you feel like you cannot win, that whatever choice you make you lose.  

I am sorry that some days the negative feelings can overwhelm you.

I am sorry that some days you sit and spin hoping you can find a way out of this trauma. 

I am sorry that when you sleep you revisit your trauma.

I am sorry that some nights your anxiety keeps you awake. 

I am sorry you feel so helpless.

I am sorry that you silently carry around a sadness that others cannot see and you cannot talk about because you do not want to lose your job or be misjudged or discredited.

I am sorry you have to see at work those who victimized you.

I am sorry you have to pretend to be okay when you know you are not. 

I am sorry you are uncomfortable at work, uncertain who knows and whose version of the “facts” they know.

I am sorry your company took advantage of your fear. 

I am sorry your company does not support gender equity.

I am sorry that by coming forward you have another layer of trauma to process. 

I am sorry that when you watch the news you are triggered.

I am sorry when you get dressed in the morning you remember.  

I am sorry you filed a report and had it ignored. Minimized. Mishandled.

I am sorry questions you have about your narrative remain unanswered. 

I am sorry you feel alone. Isolated. Invisible. Unheard.

I am sorry you reached out for help legally and no one would take your case.

I am sorry you went to court and their defense team demonized you.

I am sorry they had a lawyer when the harassment occurred and you did not.

I am sorry you reached out politically and no one would reform our legal system.

 am sorry cultural and legal reform takes so long. 

I am sorry you have to spend your personal time in therapy because of your trauma.

I am sorry there are so many layers to your grief.

I am sorry I do not have a magic wand to fix it for you.

I am sorry.

If reading this triggered you and you need emergency mental health care, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Remember you are not alone. You are seen. You are loved. 

Your story is true. Do not allow anyone to convince you otherwise.  Part of your trauma will involve listening to a defense team who is legally allowed to victim blame you.  Any legal situation involves a prosecution and a defense. The survivor is the prosecution, meaning they must present evidence proving the perpetrator sexually harassed them, that they reported the harassment to their company, that they endured retaliation as a result of their report, and that their company was out of compliance with a specific law the survivor identifies. The company and perpetrator, meanwhile, attack the survivor’s evidence, story, and witnesses, which may include discrediting their testimony. By accepted legal practices then, a survivor’s narrative will be criticized.

Acknowledge ahead of time their victim blaming statements will sound convincing. They will throw moral, logical, historical, scientific, and legal arguments at you that make you feel like you should have done this or not done that or you are lying about this or that. Accept that you have no ability to stop victim blaming statements. Admit you are an employee, working for a company who has 24-7 access to legal counsel and to a public relations department. They will project whatever image they perceive is helpful to their case and they can steer company decisions in a way that make you look incompetent, vindictive, mentally unstable, and money hungry. 

Address your shame, blame, and fears to these truths by remembering what is motivating you: the belief that everyone deserves respect, an impartial investigation, clear policies, the right to appeal, and the right to be heard. Remind yourself you are fighting not just for yourself but for everyone, everywhere. Your perpetrator could commit sex discrimination again or could relocate, exposing any American to the trauma you experienced. You are the gate keeper to keeping others safe. The arrows will come and they sting. Yet you are a survivor who never surrenders and always moves forward. You know there is an army of allies and survivors who believe you and support you. So, fight on. Speak your truth. We are rooting for you.  

For a long time, I identified myself as a victim. I certainly did not see myself as strong or courageous. I was terrified. I also thought that those who were survivors had somehow healed from their trauma and were well beyond having to process triggers, victim blaming statements, and their experience. Later I came to understand the difference between a victim and a survivor. 

In the simplest of terms, I describe a victim as someone who suffers undeserved pain inflicted by humanity (i.e. an injustice) or God (i.e. a natural disaster). A survivor, meanwhile, is someone who stays alive as and after that trauma occurs. In other words, anyone who has experienced sexual harassment and is still breathing is a survivor. A survivor is someone who does not give into the despair, hopelessness, and heartache of sexual harassment. I prefer this definition as no survivor’s narrative is perfect. Everyone’s account is marred with misinformation and missteps as they attempt to endure their harassment, mobbing, and retaliation. Also, no survivor is ever fully arrived at understanding gender discrimination and bullying. There is always more work to do in fighting it, studying it, and understanding it. That being said, I believe there are common threads that unite survivors into a community. To understand this unity, one needs to examine the trauma of sexual harassment.  

Sexual harassment causes people to question sacred institutions that are supposed to provide support and justice for victims. Administrators and colleagues who you expected to protect you suddenly dismiss, discredit, and disempower you. Friends and family who you thought would believe you do not.  Democratic and spiritual institutions that you thought were supposed to protect the weak fail you. There is also a sudden awareness that control has been taken from you. Control on what happens to your body. Control of your story. Control of how people see you and react to your narrative. Control of keeping loved ones you hold dear close to you.  Control of your privacy.  Control of what happens to your career after you share your story.

A survivor keeps themselves alive amid this trauma. Survivors may fawn. They may freeze. They may flee. These strategies, while negative, keep them alive as they process what happened to them, how  to respond, and how to gain strength to fight back. Survivors are not perfect and they do the best they can with the circumstances they are given.

In the midst of these losses, there remains a part of the survivor’s life that they still control: They decide how to respond to their trauma. They can either continue to run from their fear by fawning, freezing, or fleeing or face it head on. They can learn how to manage their anger, regret, anxiety, and shame or let these negative emotions manage and consume them. They can practice an attitude of gratitude or be consumed by despair.  Survivors can or cannot allow other people’s views and actions to determine what they think, how they feel, and how they see themselves. 

Those who survive long-term determine which parts of their previous life are now too broken to keep.  In my narrative, I had to discard the idea that living with integrity means people will respect you. They may. They may not. That is up to them. I had to get rid of the belief that people who work at schools understand the ethic of care for survivors and that they lead with integrity. Some do. Others do not. I had to leave behind my belief that my district can be trusted to care for my wellbeing. They may have sometimes, but when it really mattered, they let me down. I had to learn that I live in a fallen world, with fallen people. I had to learn that free will means there are no guarantees in life.

Survivors also evaluate which aspects of their previous life they want to hold on to. For me, I realized I could not reject my faith in God, despite struggling with how he could allow evil to rule the earth. I could not leave my believe that knowledge is power and that education changes people and culture. I could not abandon my family, even if they blamed me for my harassment and disagreed with my decision to share my story. I held onto my belief that grace flows when you admit others are just as broken as we are. This helped me see that my family and friends lacked knowledge just like I did when I first encountered sexual harassment. They were afraid just like I was. They had negative coping mechanisms too. They are on their own journey of understanding the nature of sexual harassment, mobbing, and retaliation. They had their own opinion, which is their right just as much as it is mine. Listening to their viewpoints helps me learn, modify my thinking, and grow. I also could not remove my belief that every human has the responsibility to advocate for the powerless, even if meant it risked public ridicule, financial ruin, and emotional stress.  

Survivors learn how to establish healthy boundaries for toxic people who cannot be trusted. They forgive but they do not forget. They fight for justice, accountability, and reform, pushing away other people’s victim blaming statements and manipulative political moves that attempt to control their story, thoughts, and responses. They refuse to surrender their power to those who victimized them. They decide who they are, not other people. They determine what aspects of their life others have access to. They realize others are just as responsible for ending sexual harassment as they are. 

Long-term survivors recognize their mistakes and learn from it. They come to understand that being vindicated will not make them feel better. They have to decide that for themselves. They willingly embrace the ugly emotions, memories, and triggers of their sexual harassment experience. They recognize negative coping mechanisms and create levels of accountability that eradicate them. A survivor empowers themselves, reaching out when they are swallowed by despair and hopelessness. They get help psychologically and spiritually. They admit they cannot survive this alone.  And then, when they are ready, they help others.

This part is important to me yet hard for me to "sale to you" as I lack concrete proof. Needless to say, I will give it my best shot:

There were so many times I went into my therapist’s office and told her I was clouded psychologically, that I did not know what I was feeling or where I thought I should go from there. I wanted so desperately to know some magical formula that would get me from point A (hurting) to point B (happy).  She kept telling me that  she did not have a magic wand and I would figure it out if I just gave myself time. I can still hear her now say my name and then “you have always figured it out eventually.” At first I was angry she told me this. I thought “Seriously—you charge this much an hour and all you can do is tell me to wait a couple of weeks?” She got much more convincing though once I saw she was right. Step by step, I did eventually discover what my triggers where and how I could manage them.  

For example, one trigger I have is trusting my local news agencies. I went to these outlets with my story, and they refused to pursue it. As a result, I lack confidence they are impartial. I fear they avoid reporting stories that make our state service and community leaders look bad (i.e., we do not want to jeopardize the economic growth we have). To guard myself from this trigger, I am very selective when I read local news. I make sure I in a safe place with safe people. At work, I have advocated for a team norm that prohibits discussing politics. This helps me manage the anxiety I have about being victim blamed and being manipulated through mobbing. The longer I endured, the move I came to understand my trauma, which in turn helped me realized I was strong and I could get through this.  I just needed to give myself time.

So, like me, all I can tell you here is to trust me. From one survivor to another, you will find your way. Just give yourself time. I wish there was a train car we could all hop on named "recovery" but there is not. (If we are wishing though, can this train car have unlimited, calorie free ice cream please? Not the artificial kind or the bad tasting kind. The kind you get to special order and enjoy guilt free...Got off on a side note there. Sorry.) 

As you come to process your harassment and retaliation, you will look back and realize you found strength you did not know you had. You will be open to the idea that recovery is not a point A to point B destination but rather a tool you learn to carry with you where ever you go.  (I still wish the tool came with ice cream though...Every survivor can dream.)

A few days ago, I experienced a 10-minute episode of anger, which turned into sobs of sadness. I realized I probably will never know what really happened in terms of how the district, Department of Labor, legislators, Governor, press, or union handled my sexual harassment reports, retaliation complaints, or mobbing charges. I could have sat there and dug a should hole for myself, thinking something like “You already knew this. You should be over this by now” or “Seriously, you are trying to mentor other survivors when you are not even a survivor yourself.” Instead, I gave myself permission to cry. I sat on my bed until I was done and then I moved  feeding my children dinner.  (No it did not include ice cream...but it did include a box of Life cereal.)

Your sexual harassment experience is your sexual harassment experience. Feel what you feel. Do not run from it because you have some sort of diagram or checklist for what grief looks like. If you want to be mad and take a baseball bat to some cardboard boxes in the garage while shouting profanity at your perpetrator or company do it. Emotions are not right or wrong. It is how we respond to them that is. 

Running from what you truly feel and having false expectations is mismanaging your trauma. Do not set a time limit on when your anger, sadness, or fear should stop. No matter where you are in your recovery, embrace your emotions, memories, and triggers. Identify what you are feeling. Then sit and allow yourself to feel the pain of that emotion. Invite someone you trust to sit with you.  Talking with them will help you collect your thoughts so you can understand what you are feeling and why. They can also offer you words of encouragement and hold you accountable when you wrongly accept victim blaming statements. After you have identified and embraced your emotions, exhale through a positive coping mechanism. Go on a walk. Listen to your favorite song. Read your favorite book.  Play with your pet.  Learn what makes you happy and has no hazardous side effects on your health (like endless ice cream eating) and then do that activity.  Only by allowing yourself to grieve freely will you heal. (Bummer deal about the ice cream though.)

It is easy to fall in the “should holes” of sexual harassment. “Should” holes are endless canyons of guilt, regret, and shame. Nothing beautiful grows there. Only poison weeds of self-hatred, brokenness, and despair. Survivors can get stuck in these “should” holes due to victim blaming, gas lighting, mobbing, and the legal system. The survivor’s story is scrutinized (i.e. “you asked for it”), their charge is minimized (i.e. “they didn’t mean that”), and their motivation is demonized (“you just want..). Pushed into canyons of blame, shame, and regret, it is only natural for survivors to consider the “if only I had…” 

If only I had managed my anxiety. I should not have allowed the fear to take over.

If only I had fought back. I should not have fawned, froze, or fled.

If only I recorded the conversation I had with HR. I should not have trusted my company so much.

If only I had not adopted that negative coping mechanism. 

If only I documented everything. I should not have deleted that email.

If only…

And there we sit in a “should” hole of guilt, shame, and despair. 

“Should” holes are common in the survivor community.  Fear of losing one’s job and reputation clouds our judgement. We want to keep our family safe financially. We want our kids next year to go to the same school. We want all the hard work we did for years, climbing the cooperate ladder, to mean something still. We want to end all the employee conflict and rumors we have had to endure to end. We want things to go back the way they used to be. So we weigh the pros and cons. We placate our fears, only to find ourselves later in the “should” holes of survivor hood. 

Victim blaming statements from people you trusted leave you stunned. You hear it is your fault. You hear you overreacted, misunderstood, exaggerated. You hear you are lying. You hear your integrity questioned. You hear your motivations are selfish. You hear you seemed okay with it. You hear silence or criticism from your friends and family. Amid processing this psychological stress, you were expected to have the mental clarity to collect evidence, navigate company procedure, find a lawyer, process legal reports, and determine your next course of action professionally, all while you continued your responsibilities at work and did so silently to honor the company and perpetrator’s privacy.  

It is no wonder you found yourself in a “should hole.” Climbing out begins when you accept you did the best you could under the circumstances. You survived. Grieving that, understanding that, and accepting that is a process. Giving yourself this grace is essential; without it, you will not heal, learn, or grow stronger. Hold on to it while you take responsibility and consider what you should have done different. As you reflect and learn from your experience, contextualize every “if only…” thought with what you know about your trauma. Then, after you are out of your canyon of despair, shame, and regret, go help others climb out of their “should holes.”     

When the injustice of sexual harassment and subsequent retaliation happened, my worldview was shattered. I trusted administrators to be fair and moral yet they acted out of self-interest. I expected my work colleagues (teachers who vowed to be defenders against bullying and discrimination) would stand up for me. I assumed the government and its various lobby groups would check injustice yet quickly learned how inept the system was at protecting victims of sex discrimination. I taught that the press held community leaders accountable yet my story was ignored. I thought God would protect me from evil as I stood on his word yet he seemed passively permissive to injustice. I believed the Church would defend victims of sexual harassment yet they seemed ill-equipped on supporting me through my trauma. I assumed friends and family would believe and support me yet some doubted, dismissed, and demanded I react a certain way. I saw myself as a woman of faith yet now I froze with fear, anxiety, and depression. Every sacred institution was shaken, and I felt alone. 

I desperately needed someone to normalize my experience yet when I turned to the internet I found few websites related to my experience. This was especially true when I searched for testimonies from survivors who experienced mobbing and gas lighting and who approached their sexual harassment trauma with Christian truths. There just was not a lot of information out there. From my search, then, in talking with friends, counselors, clergy, and family, here is what I learned:

Not everyone will not help you. This does not mean they do not acknowledge the injustice you experienced. Most do. They just are too busy fighting their own internal battles or managing the chaos of their own life to help you. Others are ill-equipped on how to help, not knowing what to say, how to write a persuasive letter, why God allows evil, or how to navigate the political system. Some are too scared to help and perceive raising their voice would make them targets of retaliation. 

I tell you this not to discourage you but to empower you.  As an educator, I believe knowledge is power. Having false expectations will make the psychological load you are carrying heavier. So please know when people do not rally to your aid, you are not alone. I experienced that too and believe it is a common thread to any injustice people encounter. For me, it helped to imagine all those Sandy Hook parents who saw their children killed yet then saw very little change politically afterwards. I am not suggesting what the answer was to this tragedy. I am merely pointing out that little changed in terms of our country’s mental health services and gun control laws afterwards. 

Change is slow. Yes, that sinks too. That means more people have to suffer before people start to listen. Acknowledging not everyone will actively support you means you have to accept their own brokenness, educate them on how to respond to sexual harassment survivors, and admit you were (are) scared too. Yet having realistic expectations, grounded in the common threads of human survival, will empower you to give yourself grace when you encounter similar struggles in advocating for justice.  

One mindfulness exercise that helps survivors manage their trauma is daily having an attitude of gratitude. Initially I rejected this advice. I felt like those who told me “to choose joy” wanted me to ignore the pain I experienced. That did not make sense to me as I knew I had to acknowledge and grieve what happened if I was to heal. 

That all changed when I went to a hardware supply store for a specialized lightbulb. My thoughts had been running all day long, pondering the pros and cons of going forward with my story. As I walked into the store I concluded going public would be ugly and I could not prevent the smear campaign that I had tried to control for so long. Still uncertain what do, I paused my thoughts and looked for the light bulb I needed. While I was standing in an entire aisle of nothing but light bulbs another customer struck up a conversation with me. They could not find what they were looking for and asked for my help. I offered it and, in turn, told them what I needed. In the end, we both ended up helping each other find the correct illumination. As I walked away, though, I had an epiphany. Indeed, humanity has the free will to choose to be mean spirited, baseless, and evil. I could allow this knowledge to consume me with despair and hopelessness. Yet remaining in the dark would mean I would never see the light of humanity either. I would never feel understood, seen, or heard. 

An attitude of gratitude works in a similar way. Daily you acknowledge the good you encountered. The sun setting in the evening. The hawk flying in the air while you drive your car. The wave “hello” from a complete stranger. Someone letting you enter traffic simply because it was the right thing to do. Memories shared with a compassionate friend or family member. 

It is not minimizing the discrimination you are experienced. Indeed, it is dark and unjust. It just means you look for the good in your life too. You intentionally seek out evidence to remind yourself that not everything is this world is evil. Considering such beauty and acts of kindness manages the despair and hopelessness that survivors experience.  It also gives your body a break from ruminating about your fear and anxiety.  In short, it is good for your mental, emotional, and physical health. 

Try this approach. I think you’ll thank me for it.

Be warned what is typical neurological memory loss for a trauma victim is often interpreted as a false report. A survivor, for example, claims after an unsubstantiated verdict that they have additional evidence to include in their account. Suddenly critics point out that this new memory is fabricated. “Oh now you have something that proves you were right and they were wrong. Why didn’t you tell us that to begin with?” It seems fabricated to them, in other words. 

In my own narrative, I had memories come back to me over a year after I filed my 2018 formal complaint. I remembered the first encounter I had with perpetrator’s lewdness, an event observed by a teacher. I also recalled that I had emailed my perpetrator after I met with my principal, informing him that I told him about his unwanted advances. I then connected this memory to an email I received from my state’s Department of Education that told me my email account was full and I needed to create more space by deleting emails in my account. To date, my email records stop one month before I reported the harassment. To date, more memories have come to me, some less certain than others, some with substantiated evidence, some without.  

Remember the original incidents took place in 2011. Here was I was close to 10 years later remembering what happened. The odd thing about this “memory lapse” is that I would remember it and then forget it again. It was not until I realized I was forgetting it that it became etched into my memory. It remains entirely frustrating for me though as I know some people will dismiss it and claim I am trying to manipulate the perception of my narrative or to persuade legislators to adopt certain reforms. Yet here I am, describing it anyways with the hopes that people understand this neurological memory loss is common for people who experience trauma. It does not mean they are lying. It simply means their body is recovering.

If you are like me, your memory will grow in another area as well. Earlier in processing your trauma certain things will not make sense to you. When I first read my 2018 formal investigative report, I immediately noted their “inability” to locate the one witness who observed the harassment in 2011. I also immediately noticed their partiality to the truth. They knew I claimed he had an erection. This was no simple miscommunication between me and my principal. I started my report with “it all got started” and then described how he said my hair was pretty and I smelled nice, and how this turned into another, separate event followed by a request for “a hug” after I asked him directly to stop making sexual advances towards me. My complaint was about multiple, unwelcomed comments. This was not a single incident of sexual misconduct then. I knew the first time I read it they were covering up what took place.  

This was as deep as my initial understanding went though. Only later did I realize they omitted other information as well. First came my awareness that I still did not know what my principal did with the 2011 complaint once I gave it to him. I knew this omission was to their benefit as well. Other administrators would look responsible for mishandling my report. Next I identified the report left out why the district did not interview the third teacher I confided in about my informal complaint. Even later came my mental note that her testimony would eliminate any ability for them to argue I changed my 2011 story in 2018 due to some work conflict. After all, I had asked her prior to 2014 if she knew about my sexual harassment complaint, and should she remember our conversation, her testimony would be credible as I reported my perception that our relationship was one of tension.  

If your experience is like mine, you will not, in an instance, recognize all the ways your company mistreated you. You will have to go through a process where you realize what they omitted or changed. Then, after you grieve their partiality and deception, you will find renewed mental clarity and strength to analyze their motivations. Having a support team can help you navigate these steps faster and more thoroughly. Yet please recognize ahead of time that just when you think you have closed a part of your grief, a new chapter can open up. This too is normal. And it too will become manageable.