"I'm Sorry That Happened To You"

6 words that can sometimes be worse than the trauma they refer to.

After writing about an experience I had with non-consensual touch a little while ago, I felt better. I always feel better after writing something. My answer to the eternal question of ‘is writing art?’, is always yes.

For some I think writing might not be art, but for me it is the artistic practice of coordinating this brain of mine to come up with some words to match the swirl of emotions that the rest of me feels. Especially when it’s writing about something very personal rather than more dry material like policy or technology.

The first response I received was from a dear friend who reassured me that it wasn’t my fault. Very recently she mentioned she would have liked to smash the perpetrators hand. Both made me feel better. The more analytical part of me wonders why, and thinks it has the answer when I compare that reaction with the rest.

I’ve received what seems like a chorus of the same phrase : I’m sorry that happened to you. The first time I heard it it rubbed me the wrong way, and now it makes me seethe. I’ve no doubt it comes from well meaning people, but it really sounds like I’m sorry you were offended.

Taking things to the extreme (I was not raped), would you tell a rape victim I’m sorry you got raped? Probably not (the fact that this was once the punchline to an Anthony Jeselnik joke is probably a good indicator it’s the last thing you should say). It’s probably all in the awful three letter word of You. From that word, I can’t help but interpret that it’s my fault.

I also still can’t help but feel ashamed and embarassed. Surely, edgy internet provocateur Ivy Astrix would have said something, grabbed the offending arm and offered some witticism that worked out to get the fuck away from me! I did not. In that moment I had no idea what to do. I also felt powerless to do anything.

At this point some part of me thinks it important to tell you that I don’t think there was bad intention to this touch, that it was not particularly sexual, that this person was obviously inebriated. And the rest of me rightly asserts itself: Anyone needing these kinds of qualifiers to ‘I didn’t want to be touched’ is not a reader I am particularly in need of.

I am very hesitant to cast blame. Not because the person who did this is blameless, but because I’m familiar with how prevalent nonconsensual activity is, especially in Vancouver’s nightlife scene. Friends have had far worse happen to them and have had less than supportive responses from the venue.

I feel silly, and stupid, and shame that this is affecting me so much. Too much of all three to say something that sounds equally silly and stupid (to me) to the organizers: “Hi, a drunk guy touched me at the bar on Saturday, I have no idea who it was nor is there anything you can really do to prevent this from happening again! Ok thanks bye!”

I do want to pretend it never happened, but I am made keenly aware, over and over, that it happened. I get panic attacks that were never there before, can’t really sleep normal hours, and a bunch of other unpleasantness.

Writing about it is one of my only outlets. Talking about it with other people is doubly difficult due to being autistic. Autistic of the not hot, not even a girl to some variety means what I can expect is support from a few friends but not much else.

That I got one ‘I’m sorry that happened to you’ and one subtweet which felt to me like ‘it’s your fault for not telling us about it’ from the event really touched a nerve. I brought up concerns about consent very early and really never thought something bad would happen to me, but here we are.

Averaging out everything to about 3/4 of a ‘I’m sorry that happened to you’ makes me feel…. a lot of things that are unpleasant. I’m on the board of directors for a music festival, and I can tell you the reaction we’d get if that was our response to someone (it would not be favourable).

I’m not exactly in a good state right now so I am overly sensitive but I also get this feeling of not being believed (which may just be that people don’t think what happened was really that bad). It is my fault, it must be my fault otherwise someone other than a bestie would say more than ‘I’m sorry that happened to you’.

There’s also probably not much of a point to this post other than I need to get this out so I can write happier things, and also to give a glimpse into what women feel after something like this. What I feel now is a small fraction of what someone who was raped feels, and yet they often have to go through far worse. Not being believed by anyone, questions about why they didn’t react in the right way, police interrogating them rather than suspects.

Robyn Doolittle of the Globe and Mail did an excellent piece on one in five sexual assault cases being marked as ‘Unfounded’, which results in the incidents not being tracked in statistics which contribute to funding for things like victim services.

I watched the video clip to make sure I didn’t miss anything worth mentioning, and was incensed at the segment where Robyn talks about how police questioned Maddy as though the alleged rape was her fault. I feel some of those same feelings that she must have felt in that interrogation room now. I also started thinking about 2 words, rather than the 6 mentioned above: Believe Women.

In my interpretation, ‘Believe Women’ is not a call to abandon the principle of innocent until proven guilty, but recognizing the incredible burdens a victim bears. Even coming forward, much less sustaining things all the way to a criminal trial must seem like some impossible feat of endurance. Imagine being told by an epitome of male power that your assault was actually just a misunderstanding.

I still feel a lot I can’t put into words, but short of learning visual art, I’ll get some therapy and hopefully time will heal what I feel. Some odd bit of gratitude as well for insight into one of the less favourable aspects of womanhood.

Perhaps this mostly bothers me because after writing about it I feel a deep sense of un-welcomeness from a community that’s known for being welcoming, and that unsettles me. As time went on I received more support from my bluecheck circles than anywhere else, so maybe this has just been a marker on my journey of transition outside of gender.

Realizing that I might no longer be one of the weird internet people feels really… weird.