***Trigger Warning – mentions elements of sexual abuse against a child/teenager which readers may find graphic in detail
A Bad Professor
Time in martial arts lasted throughout my eighth grade year up until the end of my ninth grade year. So I suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a bad professor for about a year, and no one presumably knew about it because I remained silent.
In hindsight, the instructor was a bad professor. Although he had firm rules and procedures and led the team on sparring matches, he was a bad leader in general. Yet, everyone paid him accolades and set him high up on a pedestal as if he could do no wrong. He was so smug and so very narcissistic.
Over time, I developed a strong dislike of him, but for a time, I felt powerless to do anything to stop him. Instead, I tried everything to change and protect myself. When I refused to offer myself to this instructor by allowing his kisses, caresses, hugs that went on too long, or by providing him shoulder and neck massages, then I suffered immediate but silent consequences that were always in my face.
By this time in the game of this instructor’s predatory dance with me, I figured someone had to have known what was going on, but everyone still behaved as blind people with their heads stuck in the sand. Dirt-filled eyes obviously see nothing clearly, but I sensed that no one person was aware that anything was off. However, instead of questioning the adult at fault, I was blamed. It was the instructor’s youngest sister.
Strange Sisterly Love
The instructor’s youngest sister who attended classes and was the same age as my younger brother, was supposedly cast as my friend in this situation. I would later learn that the instructor was able to stay one step ahead of me by using his sister against me. Anything that I shared with her, she shared with him (her brother), and over time, her like of me grew into strong dislike and then deep-seated hatred against me. I was never particularly sure what had happened between the two of us, but narcissistic individuals always have a way of tainting others’ views of targets.
Since I was the instructor’s target, he obviously had no problem painting me out to be someone negative to his sister. She seemed to worship the ground her brother, the instructor, walked on. In her eyes, he could do no wrong. So at some point, I believe he set the stage for her to view me as the enemy. It became clear to me that this was the case as my attempts to keep myself away from the instructor was met with his strong resistance.
At some point, the sister viewed me as the seductress of her brother attempting to take him away from her! It was crazy. So I fought and struggled to keep myself in class even if it meant that I felt myself soaking and leaking blood through my clothing no matter how I was padded down like I was wearing a diaper. I struggled to keep my body to myself. I did not want to be the instructor’s property. So I took measures in wearing shorts underneath my uniform to prevent accidents, but it was extremely difficult.
When there were sparring matches, he always paired me to fight against his sister. I was never a fighter by nature, but I would defend myself if I had to do so. With the instructor’s sister, I was definitely no match. He had trained her well, and even though martial arts is not supposed to be about acts of violence, the instructor’s sparring matches had become that way in his class in an effort for him to get what he wanted from me. After matches with the sister, I knew I had been in an actual fight. Unfortunately for me, that was all set up by design.
The instructor’s sister beat me numerous times in matches, but I was a good sport and gave it my all. Yet, something about her spars with me were about fighting dirty against me. She fought me like she truly hated me and I was her enemy. She even ripped my uniform top, gave me a fattened upper lip, and left bruises on my body. At some point, it finally occurred to me that she could not have truly ever been my friend to begin with.
After the last match we had where I ended up having to punch her hard to get her off of me, I treaded ground with her lightly. We did not speak to each other again for several months afterwards, and that was fine with me. Even as a child and teenager, I would walk away from so-called friendships and never look back. If those so-called friends said it was the end, then I treated them like they did not exist to me because they said it was the end. So, it was the end for me too, but for good.
The instructor’s sister was seemingly fighting to defend her brother. From what, though? I do not know. If everything was a secret and no one was sharing anything, then I do not know why the sister hated me so much. Perhaps she was jealous of his wicked attention of me. If so, then even that was strange to me. She had access to her brother all of the time. So, I could not see how I even posed a problem for her.
Yet, at some point, I recognized that it was more about the instructor not being able to have access to me. That had become his problem. I was doing everything possible to keep his access away from me by refusing to engage. However, he was going to gain access to me by any means necessary. When his plan with his sister did not work against me, he took a different course and used my siblings against me.
Stay tuned for more to this story in the next post about The Instructor.
My Voice Unchained 