I’ve been debating, but I think this post just has to happen.

It’s been a heavy weight on my heart for almost two years now, and I’m ready to move on…to healthier spaces, to new horizons. But I can’t fully do that, when this shadow has been living in my peripheral. Because, sometimes trauma thrives in dark places. And I need to shine a light on it, even if no one is paying attention. Because otherwise it will continue to tendril itself to my ankles like a weight, an anchor solidly planted in the black of the ocean’s floor, and never let me be completely free. The only way to get loose, to get back to the light, to be free…is to get a knife and start cutting. But I can’t do that, until I shed light on the chains. Even if it risks losing a limb.

Imagine, for a moment, being in this place with me. See if you feel caught in the same chains. Feel your breath burning in your lungs, from the silence you keep.

Know you’re drowning.

Here’s a story, of something that happened. Not so long ago, but long enough that I feel safe in letting it go. So…here I go…

Suppose as a young mom, with very few friends and isolate from the world (not even admitting you’re a ‘writer’ yet) you stumble upon a martial arts school. You remember being in Kenpo in college and loving it. How it empowered you, gave you friends and community…so, being a mom of young women, you start your kids there. Because it seems to teach ideals and principles that you agree with. Self defense, discipline, respect, integrity. All good and decent. Your kids have fun, and you join the program, to be a part of their journey as well as to start your own. As time passes, they move on (as kids do) to new adventures. But you’ve found a home there. A real home. Friends, community, purpose. You love the art. You have plans for the future practicing this art.

Its inexplicable how deep in your bones you feel it. It’s like it was always there waiting for you to find. It might have even been something you always knew from eons ago, because it felt organic and made sense, and the way it taught you to move and use your power was the most beautiful thing you’ve ever had.

So not only do you want to continue to live in this world, but you want to teach others, you want to help kids, you want to encourage women in the art. So you work hard, nights and weekends, extra study and home and private lessons, and getting up early for weapons classes and staying late to help with questions. It is your life, and the family and friends you’ve made on the journey are as close to you as your own heart beating in your chest. You feel safe. You feel finally respected and equal as a woman, even in such a man’s world.

Then…one day…

A man you’ve worked with for almost ten years, who has always been like a big brother to you, completely platonic in your eyes, a family man to all who know him, your coach, your mentor, and someone you trust implicitly…starts to say things to you. Uncomfortable things. He starts sending them via messenger, non stop. From the moment you wake up in the morning until you try to sleep, he’s there…prompting, asking, demanding your attention.

You don’t respond, you deflect, you laugh it off. You ask him to stop.

Because he’s a man of this art–this art of integrity and discipline–and a family man, your coach, your mentor, you think he must just be confused, or teasing, or…joking? And when you tell him its uncomfortable and you don’t like it, he should respect that you’re not interested. And stop. He should…right?

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t stop.

You block him. He tries to manipulate your friends and co-workers at the dojo into getting you to talk to him, feigns depression, sobs into your messenger, leaves depressing posts all over social media. Everyone is very concerned for him. But you are confused. Because you feel like you did something wrong. When all you asked for, respectfully, was for him to back off.

Why would someone, who was like a brother to you, act that way? Why wasn’t your no enough? You’ve blocked him, you’ve asked him not to work with you on the floor, you don’t speak to him. You won’t take classes with him. He tells your collective friends that you’re being stubborn and unreasonable. He leaves the school in an emotional outburst. You stay. Because this is your home, and your sanctuary. And you have children to teach who are the very beat in your heart and you cannot abandon them.

Only soon, it doesn’t feel like a sanctuary because two weeks later, he comes back, starts requesting classes, starts saying that his mental health is at stake. He starts leaving typed notes in your employee box, tucked into books for you…telling you that you’re denying the truth of your own feelings (as though he knows your feelings better than you do?) He gushes that he loves you. That you belong together, that you’re fated for one another… You bring it to the head of the school. Because now it’s happening at work, and it’s gotten scary. This isn’t some passerby.

This is a man who outranks you, who could kill someone with his bare hands. And he’s made your workplace hostile.

And by hostile it means– you shake every time you pull up in the parking lot to teach. Your stomach is ulcering, you’re not sleeping. You hope, every night, that he doesn’t show up. Every time the bells ring on the doors into the dojo you cringe and look for the next higher rank. But it doesn’t help. Because no one knows.

Because your boss doesn’t want to ruin the man’s reputation. He doesn’t want to put a ‘stain’ on his school. Even though its more than just an inconvenience or a stain to you. It’s a dark and frightening world that’s closing in on you everyday. The man starts taking more classes, which means you take less. Your training suffers, you fall behind on your hopes of a higher degree and becoming a Sensei. Because you can’t be on the floor with him and you worry one day he’ll step onto the mats with you and do real, physical damage. You’re afraid it would lead him on if were nice out of fear, or even just in being near you, even if you ignored him completely. Because even when you gave a clear no, he only heard yes. You don’t feel safe.

You finally tell your boss, you can’t do this anymore. He tells you that you need to work with the man, to heal and get over it. That the man is depressed and they can’t possibly make him leave…what about his mental health? Can’t you two crazy kids just work it out? You tell him that there are laws against this sort of thing. He says he’ll think about it.

But you don’t need to think anymore. You can’t stay someplace that’s not safe, and the family that you thought you had is just a hierarchy of men looking to protect themselves, and any form of behavior they want to engage in. They are fine calling you their token female to promote a ‘family friendly’ atmosphere and boost female students to sign up, but you better not speak out for your actual rights to be safe, or against a higher-ranking belt, because that would make them look bad.

So you quit. A lawsuit is an option. But it also means an upheaval for the students, the kids and adults who find comfort in the art and in the community. It means years of litigation and strain on your own family, including financial weight you cannot afford. It means having to defend your ‘no’ to a bunch of men, who like the others before, don’t believe you.

So, you send in your resignation. The head of the school says he’s asked the man to never come back to any of their properties (out of fear of litigation, not out of a sense of what is right). They hope you’ll come back when you’re ‘feeling better’. They tell everyone you left to pursue a ‘book deal’. They don’t say that you left because you were being harassed.

You hope that you can feel better…you hope it will be safe again and your wounds will heal and you can move on and get back into the world and the practice and the teaching you love. 9 months pass. You start to take a couple of classes in different schools. You start to feel…buoyant, supported, you laugh on the floor again and you haven’t done that in over a year. You find an instructor you trust. You can hug people again and not feel…strange. You agree to cover a couple of classes to help them out. You sign up for an all-school event. Knowing you’ll have to prep for it, knowing its a big step, but feeling that you’re ready. And you’re excited at the challenge and at getting to practice again, and at being part of your family… Oh my God…how you’ve missed it, the motion, the science, the beauty…

But then…you feel the anchor on your foot, cutting into your ankle when someone pulls you aside and says, hey…he’ll be there you know? He’ll be there. At the event. They’ve let him register. He’s coming. He’s coming back. Just as you are. And your guts turn and you throw up and you can’t eat or sleep for days and you can’t not cry. It’s a cruel torture tactic, giving someone hope, for escape and freedom, only to shackle them down at the last second…

So you pull out your knife and you stare down at your foot and you know that you’ve only got one real choice if you want to survive.

And it isn’t to stay here, where this past, and this darkness, and this hurt is the weight keeping you under. You can’t possibly put your heart back into this water, now that the shark is circling. So you cut yourself free, and it must be complete. Through the bone, the limb can’t be saved. You won’t ever come back, there is no hope of it. You’ve lost a decade or more, of your life, of your passion, of the marrow in your bones. You’ve lost friends. Your family.

Because someone wouldn’t take no for an answer and someone else defended his ‘right’ to a yes.

So if you seem heartbroken in your posts and your correspondence, you hope its only temporary. You try to feign the idea that you’re ok. But when, for so much of your life, your safety, happiness, and well-being has, in one way or another, been snatched away by a man who thought he deserved your time and your light, its really hard to come back to ok.

I’ve been floating in the sea, bleeding, without a limb…fighting up, and away from the dark for a year and 6 months now… but there are days when I still feel like I haven’t breeched the surface yet. I want to shout out to the entire world, but I don’t think they’d listen. Because, I’ve merely become one of a couple hundred million women…who were told to stay silent, to not rock the boat, to be the anchor. The stability in status quo…

I’m not an anchor anymore. And its time to let go.

Thanks for listening. I know it won’t change anything and the damage is done. But half of my life’s goals, my passion, my love, was stolen from me and so if I have a hard time, sometimes, calling back, feeling happy, wearing fitted clothes, getting on and getting over, finding energy, finding confidence, trusting, coping with crowds… not looking over my shoulder when I hear bells ring… I hope you’ll understand. I hope you’ll give grace. To every woman.