***Trigger Warning – mentions grooming as it pertains to sexual abuse of a child/teenager
Before The Change
Prior to the change of release that came for me, I struggled greatly to keep myself from the hands of a predator. The martial arts instructor was set on keeping me his target for his sadistic purposes. His behavior and sexual advances towards me were continuing in an aggressive nature, and I feared that there would be no stop.
I told no one at the time because I feared for my safety as well as the safety of my siblings. The instructor knew how to use strategic tactics against me to bring me under his control and submission. He was also a smooth talker regarding my parents and had used my father’s financial issues to make sure that I would remain his target.
No one had a clue to this instructor’s actions, and if anyone did, no one to my knowledge had ever come forth and said a word. I had no doubt that I was not his first target and victim. He operated in a manner that was just too smooth … like it was something he had mastered and gotten away with times before. He was a married man and father, but he was also a sex predator. He had a keen eye for young teenaged girls, but the fact that I sensed that he wanted to groom my sister was a problem because she was eight going on nine at the time.
In the eyes of the community, the instructor could do no wrong, and he was supposedly changing the lives of youth one life at a time for the positive. Yet, the truth of the matter was that the community had no idea about this instructor’s devious exploits and that his martial arts studio was nothing more than a disguise for what he was really after. He was changing the lives of youth one life at a time for sure, but not for the better. He was a narcissistic sociopath, and he was a destroyer of the human spirit. Someone needed to stop him. I wasn’t sure that would be me.
My Attempts To End The Instructor’s Abuse
I did try to end the instructor’s abuse in my own way. I tried to do so silently. When the instructor’s sexual aggressiveness and physical touches towards me began to wear upon me, I would become physically ill each time there was a scheduled evening class. I would develop overwhelming headaches and severe nausea before class. As if my menstrual cycle did not cause me enough issues, illness was a totally different caveat, but this illness was different.
I believe I was in full blown panic because I would even break out into a sweat just before a class was to begin. A few times, I refused to go to class which raised the eyebrows of both my parents. However, their eyebrows were not raised enough to question if something was wrong. My dad just expressed that money was paying for classes, and I needed to attend them even though I knew that the instructor had my dad on some type of payment plan.
At one point, I missed nearly two weeks of classes because of panic and illness, and because of this, the instructor paid a visit to my family’s home. He came with a card signed by everyone from the class, and he also came with flowers. It was a surprising gesture, and because he had specifically come to see me, my father insisted that I come out of my room to greet him. All I kept thinking throughout the exchange was that my parents had no idea that they had invited the man who was molesting me into their home. I could hardly contain my disdain and anger. I was sickened when the instructor reached out to hug me.
The instructor told my parents that he hoped to see me back in class very soon. He claimed that everyone, including him, missed my smiling face, but I knew that he merely wanted me back in class to continue his abuse against me. I also figured he was checking to make sure that I had told my parents nothing. He attempted to make eye contact with me while holding a ridiculous grin on his face while both my parents stood in his presence smiling as well. All I could think was that he was pretending to somehow court me without my parents’ knowledge of what was going on. He was basically forcing himself in my life, and I resented him for it.
After I did return to class, I still found ways to avoid being around the instructor. After the instructor set up sparring tournaments where he either matched his son or himself against my brother for the purpose of beating him up, my brother became an unknowing ally with me in skipping the instructor’s classes. Some days when we had to walk to class, I was able to convince my siblings to skip class. Then we would walk over to the park located just beyond the studio and hang out for the duration of the class. Then we would leave the park and walk around a different path to avoid walking past the studio building so we were never seen by anyone.
We actually skipped classes a few times, but then my sister, who had a crush on the instructor and was also possibly being groomed by this instructor as well (as a tool against me), did not want to hurt the instructor’s feelings by not being a part of class. When my brother and I decided to skip two more class sessions, my sister did not go with us but instead went to class. She promised not to mention us but would say we were sick. However, just as I expected her to do, she ratted us out and told the instructor that my brother and me were spending time in the park. Not surprisingly, he contacted my parents by phone to explain the situation.
When my parents confronted my brother and me about skipping (and wasting money that was not being paid anyway), I was honest when I said I no longer liked martial arts class or the instructor. I told my parents that I wanted to quit, but my father wanted us to complete what we had started and at least make it to a different colored belt to show our mastery. My father said that if we still felt the same way about martial arts, then we would be allowed to quit. It was a bargaining tool that my father utilized believing he would change our minds even though my mind had long since been made up.
Interestingly, my brother and I were forced to apologize to the instructor for skipping his classes. “After all, this man has been nothing but kind to you all. You just don’t know how kind. He has actually waived a few fees for us, and here you all are being ungrateful … especially you [my father singled me out]. I would think you would know better since you are so compassionate and care about how others feel,” my father said. To say I was annoyed by my father’s outcry was an understatement. The instructor accepted our apologies and then joked about a suitable punishment all while grinning and staring at me. I was burning with rage on the inside. If anyone owed anyone an apology for bad behavior it was the instructor who owed us!
Shortly after all of this occurred, everything began to progress, and I was no longer able to stop the instructor’s negative actions against me on my own. Avoiding him had proven to be costly for me, and I was fearful that he was not only attacking my brother with physical beatings under the guise of martial arts sparring but that he was also making attempts to groom my little sister. I figured the only way to save my siblings from further abuse was to sacrifice myself. I was more often scapegoated by the family anyway, so I didn’t think I mattered, but my siblings mattered to me.
Yet, I still held onto the words of the older woman, who was a student of the class, when she told me that sometimes it works to tell a family member about the perpetrator’s problem. If I was going to sacrifice myself, I reasoned with myself that the instructor was going to have to go down for it too. So I thought about someone who would be a suitable family member of the instructor’s that I could talk to about him. I did not believe it could hurt, and I did not think that I had any more to lose than what I had already been forced into giving up: my pride, my dignity, my innocence, and elements of my body.
The Glass Window
Fast forward to the final time that the instructor was in my presence, and I found myself forcefully reclined on top of a table in the foyer of the studio with the instructor lying on top of me. He was moving his body above me in a simulated sex act. I was so very frightened and fearful that there was more to come with further progression of his acts.
I was so very aware of what was happening that I could not even dissociate. My other selves were slow to even join me. My brain did little for me in this situation, but my body reminded me by keeping score. My body had recall of other abuses, such as a rape, that were faintly in a distant memory. My body remembered and reacted to the instructor by tensing up, freezing in place, and wishing for his deeds to be over. It was then that I felt myself splitting off. My body remembered a familiar occurrence. Below the surface, I was very aware of what was about to happen if he continued.
When I turned my head away from the instructor’s gropes and kisses as he held me pinned down to the table, I heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. The isolated location of the building was not an area frequented by anyone during that time of evening. No one even visited the park very often either. So I was grateful for the sound of an approaching car. It was a prayer answered, and I felt that I had been spared further assault in the nick of time.
The sound of that approaching car jarred the instructor from his lustful stupor as well, and he immediately propelled himself up, gathered himself, straightened his uniform and then glanced out the window. We were both clearly visible to whoever was slowly approaching. As I arose from the table, climbed off, and stepped down, I waited as the car approached. I heard the instructor say, “Go into class”. Yet, I did not move. I stood frozen in place waiting to see the reveal of my deliverer.
The vehicle was a police car, and I took note that there were two officers inside as the car slowly moved by the window. I saw both officers stare out in the direction of the building. I was certain that both officers saw the instructor and me standing near the window watching them. The officers drove half way around the curve in front of the building and then pulled over to the side of the front and parked. They did not get out of the car, however. They simply sat in place.
When I looked at the instructor, I took note of his reaction. There was something I saw register within his eyes that looked like a sort of resignation, but at the same time, he also had a cocky stance and look about him. Then he turned toward me and patted me on the shoulder and told me to “Go to class. There’s nothing to see here.” Although I followed his directive, I was relieved that the car showed up in the form of a police vehicle. I wondered if the police officers had seen anything since we were in full view of huge open windows. I was never for certain though.
When class was over, my siblings and I prepared to make the walking trek home. When we walked out of the building, there were now two police cars present. Even my brother mentioned that police cars never showed up in that area. In fact, there was nothing in that secluded area but a recreational building used for martial arts and whatever else it was rented for and then a park and pool area that was only used during the summer days. Otherwise, it was a strange place for police to come and park particularly when we had never seen any police presence the entire year and-a-half we had been attending martial arts sessions.
Needless to say, we were about to find out some troubling news, but it would be the kind of news that led to destruction but set me free and unchained my vocal cords at the same time.
Stay tuned for the next post to find out what happened with The Instructor.
My Voice Unchained 