Someone molested me and it’s affecting me more than it ever has before. So I have an issue with speaking, I can’t get words out when I’m nervous. It comes with social anxiety. And that’s why it happened. I couldn’t speak to tell him to stop, and I couldn’t come off as confident enough to discourage him from doing it to me. It makes me feel like such a loser. I don’t want to tell anyone the details because I’m ashamed of not being able to fucking speak. It won’t stop coming to my mind. I can’t have sex without the same feelings coming up. I don’t want to sit in any cabs anymore. I don’t really want to touch myself but that could be because I’m overworked. I’m not even sure it really qualifies as molestation. It wasn’t very overt. I didn’t even acknowledge to him that he was doing something wrong.
It was early morning and still dark. I’d been standing on a train for four hours. I’d been travelling all night and hadn’t slept at all. I was tired out of my mind. I sat in the front of a rickshaw when I got out of the station because there were four men behind already. The driver was overly friendly. He asked me a lot of questions, putting his face inches from mine. Speaking lovingly, like he was talking to an animal. I was scared, and exhausted, and not very verbose. He rubbed my chest with his arm the entire way. It was intentional. I just wanted to shrink and get away but there was no space at all. I wanted him to stop. I could barely get words out. I told him to fucking stop the auto because I wanted to get out. He was so confident that he didn’t have to listen to me. H didn’t even slow down. He just told me I’d have to pay him anyway, and walk. I didn’t want to hear him talk, I just wanted him to stop. The road was dark, empty and uphill and the light of the streetlights was just clouds of smog. He didn’t stop. I didn’t say much else. I tried to shrink away and sit as far as possible and told him I wouldn’t pay the exorbitant amount he asked. He touched me anyway. There was no space to shrink to. I can’t get rid of the feeling of his arm on my chest and having no space at all. I was just trapped there. I couldn’t tell him to stop. I was too scared to acknowledge it. I was scared he wouldn’t let me go then. I just let him speak his words into my cheek while he kept his arm on my chest and tried to think. I couldn’t think very clearly. I wasn’t thinking much except taking stock of the situation at hand, thinking we’d probably reach a less empty area soon. I had no control. I couldn’t jump out of the vehicle. I couldn’t speak. I was frozen. I had no space to move back or away. I’m still feeling his arm on me. I feel so trapped because I’m so angry but he’s not here for me to take my anger out on. And I can’t do anything except accept feeling his hand on me and feeling out of control when I’m having sex now. It’s bothering me a lot, and it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t overt. It wasn’t rape. It wasn’t objectively worse than the handful of times this stuff has happened in the past. Maybe only slightly scarier because I was alone in an empty street and none of the men behind said anything. But not enough that I can’t stop remembering it.
I feel violated. And I feel silly for still being affected by something that’s not that bad and that I could have prevented by speaking more words, which I just didn’t do. I’m not blaming myself for it. It’s just fact that it probably wouldn’t have happened or he’d have stopped if I’d behaved more confidently. Spoken with confidence. I’m tired of feeling trapped inside my mind because I can’t express myself.