Mugged {Along the divide}
November 10, 2008
A few weeks ago I got mugged. Most upsetting was that it occurred right outside my front door.
I got a new job recently and with it a new phone. I’ve never had a fancy phone like this before – and so while waiting for a cab I was checking email and texts and using my time for work before I’d even gotten there. A man came up to me and I presumed he was going into my building, but instead he came right up inside my space and grabbed my IPhone out of my hands with both his hands. I was so shocked I just let go and my first impulse after I realized what had happened was to run after him! Luckily the lovely janitor of my building came outside immediately to see what had happened. He frightened the guy into taking off running with no more than the phone. He ran towards the projects that are on the block next to me.
Even though I was not physically hurt, I felt totally violated. I was shaking all over and really upset when my neighbor and former teaching colleague drove up with her husband. L was a wonderful comfort and voice of reason. She helped me to call the police and waited with me while they came. We called to cancel the phone service and it felt so great to have her support right when I needed it.
The police car pulled up and I reported the crime through his passenger window. As I was describing the assailant I realized that I had seen him before. He had given me a nod and a kind of weird check-out while passing by my entrance about a week before. I had mistaken him for someone who was about to enter the building, but instead he was walking by and seemed surprised by my acknowledgment. It was shocking and disappointing to verify the assumptions made by most that the man was black. It makes me so mad to report that yes – this person was a black male – and further perpetuate that negative stereotype in this already divided city.
I have so many mixed feelings about this now. I have always felt so safe here under the viaducts, in our building. Straddling the borders between neighborhoods comes with its own risks, and I had let down my guard for a moment. Since that day I’ve been feeling traumatized about going outside by myself. Not a good thing when you live alone! I’ve started taking cabs home more in the evenings and I try to coordinate my comings and goings with the maximum amount of people doing the same. I ride the bus during rush hour in the morning now. I’m trying to find a way to live with this and hopefully I’ll start feeling safe again soon.
November 23, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Several summers ago, one of my colleagues was involved in a terrible automobile accident. She was driving out of her quiet Kempsville neighborhood when an SUV slammed into the driver’s side of her Volkswagon Jetta. She survived, but her pelvis was broken, a rib was cracked, and her spine was fractured. That same summer, two weeks before her car accident, I was sexually assaulted. I had been sunbathing on of our Bayside beaches around noon on a Thursday, when a man jumped on my back. While holding me down with one hand planted on my shoulder, he sat on my back and masturbated. I survived, but inside I was broken, cracked, and fractured.
My colleague had a physical therapist who worked with her very other day. With the help of this therapist, she learned how to navigate around her house with a walker while her bones mended. I had a counselor who worked with me, too. She helped me navigate my way out of the trauma of sexual assault, with the goal that I would return to the woman I was before this happened to me. You see, for about a month after the assault, I could go no further than my own back yard. My house and yard were the only places I felt safe. When I did leave, I was right next to my husband, with my hand firmly planted in his. He was my walker.
And I couldn’t talk to anyone about what happened but my counselor and my husband. It was about six weeks after the assault that I drove the three hours north to where my son was working for the summer to tell just him about it, face to face. He quietly listened, saying nothing, but watching my face for every nuance of emotion it might reveal. When I finished, he had a few questions, one of which was how his father was handling this. By then I wanted to lighten the moment for my son, so I smiled and said that his father wants just five minutes alone with this guy. My attempt at humor failed. His eyes kept a steady gaze on mine, and he said “It would only take me three, Mom.”
I also remember sitting in church that summer, surrounded by people whom I trust – people who have helped my through some rough spots over the last fifteen years. If this man had beaten me up on the outside instead of on the inside, I would be in the hospital recovering from the wounds and these good, good people would be praying for my speedy recovery. But it does not work that way for the victims of sexual assault. My inability to talk was not related to any sense of shame; I was spared that. I could not talk about it because of the pain of sexual assault.
It was not like any other pain I’d known; pains I could point to and say “It hurts right here”. No. This pain felt like an iron-cored mass of heavy ooze slithering along my insides. Sometimes it enveloped my heart, and I could not feel things. Sometimes it lodged in mind for the day, and I could not think. And then, whenever I thought to talk about it, it lodged itself in my throat and I could not speak. I never knew when or where it would be next, nor how long before it would move one.
My colleague returned to work. Her physical therapy was done, her bones mended; she was back to her old self. I am just about back to my old self as well. But when I am in any public place, and suddenly find myself alone, my shoulders tighten up, and I start looking behind me. My hand reaches for my bag and the can of mace I always carry now. My counselor assured me that this fear will also diminish with time, and I believe her. She was right about everything else along this rocky path.
The man who did this to me needs counseling. I suggest that he gets it because as his perversion escalates, he loses control, and then he gets caught. Newspapers protect the victims of sexual assaults, but the paper has no problem printing the pictures of the perpetrators. The paper also puts their name right underneath their picture. Then, everyone knows his dirty secret. That’s when it’s his turn to start looking over his shoulder, for there are some folks that want just five minutes alone with him; there are others who only need three.
February 18, 2010 at 11:26 pm
I just got my iPhone stolen in the subway. I was riding the train home after work around 9:30. I was sitting in the first car beside the doors. I was checking my texted messages because at this point the subway passed above ground. As the train stopped, the doors opened, and a man I hadn’t even noticed grabbed the phone out of my hands and ran like the wind. I got up and ran after him screaming for someone to stop him. Nobody helped me. Just stood back and staired. I ran out of the station, but by this time i realized, what if he has a weapon. So i stopped running and he ran into an alley way. I stood there and cried for a few minutes, then realized there were two police cars parked right there. They saw everything and didn’t even go after the guy. I was furious! That man got away with my phone… all my information at his finger tips. private text messages, photos, credit card information! I felt like he stole a piece of me!
February 19, 2010 at 12:11 am
I’m so sorry to hear that Matt. It’s over a year later since mine was taken and I’m still a bit paranoid about taking out my iPhone…I suppose it just takes time. Bear with it and I wish you well overcoming your trauma.
DC