Every time that I am persistently victimized by someone or several people in person, I know that these things will happen:
-I'll tell the person or people to stop. They will laugh and pretend that they don't know what I'm talking about. They will call me crazy, and they won't stop.
-I will report them. Either I won't be believed or the people who believe me and who want to help will be outnumbered by the people who don't believe me and/or by the people who know I'm telling the truth but who don't care.
-The victimization won't stop for months, years or ever. Not only that, but I will be falsely accused of being a liar and the instigator of the problem. Instead of being helped, I will have to defend myself and live with the abuse by the abuser(s) and under suspicion by the people who are supposed to help until it is unavoidably clear that I am the victim and not the aggressor.
-Even if I am eventually able to prove my innocence, privately and publicly, the rumor will continue to be circulated that I did something wrong, and used as an excuse to abuse me in the future.
Every time that something else begins, I know that all of those things will happen again.
Copyright L. Kochman, March 10, 2017 @ 8:40 p.m.
