Red and I did not speak about the text he had sent me on that Sunday morning after the work Christmas party. I figured it was a moot point. I assumed we would never talk about it and go about our lives as if the incident had never occurred. At least, that was my hope. A few days after the first text, Red sent me an innocuous text informing me that he would not be attending some social gathering a group of people from work had planned. I did not respond for the simple reason that I did not want to engage with Red on any level. He had been keeping his distance at work as well, and I felt safe believing his attraction would wither and die out in time.
A few days later, though, I received another text from Red:
Have you thought about inviting me over? I can make you feel real good. I know how to treat you like a real man should.
I remember this text because, immediately after I read it, I decided to get stars tattooed on my hands. It was an impulsive decision, but I desperately felt the need to do something that celebrated my independence from expectations placed upon me from external sources. The guy in the tattoo shop was initially reticent about tattooing me in such an exposed area. His comment, “hand tattoos can kill jobs,” was met with my own quip, “what jobs?” He laughed, shrugged, and commenced to design the stars that are forevermore prominent whenever I reach out into my external world.
The text Red sent me was again in the early morning and I sat at the library, waiting for the tattoo shop to open, while composing my response to him. This time, I was not willing to let the incident go without challenge because I wanted it to STOP. I do not remember my exact words, but I do remember bluntly informing Red that I did not appreciate his disrespect for me by not accepting my previous answer of NO when he asked me if I was willing to be more than friends. I told him in no uncertain terms that I was angry with him for reducing our friendship to sex, and that I was absolutely NOT interested in him. I graciously informed him I would not tell anyone at work about his pressuring me, but that I did not want to be friends anymore. I told him to please stop texting me, that I was willing to work peacefully with him, but I wanted this situation to be dropped. His reply was simple: “Sorry. I misunderstood.”
It was at this point when I began to realize how I might have misled him by answering “yes” to his question about feeling the attraction when he had trapped me in the back office. From my experiences over the years since this moment in time, I can now easily recognize how mindlessly I had internalized my perceived role of what it meant to be ‘feminine’ and ‘polite’ and ‘nice.’ Even as I began to realize my mistake, I felt guilty for having caused the “misunderstanding.” I honestly believed I was partly at fault for what was happening to me. I knew Red was acting like an asshole, but I did not find the fault to be entirely his. Instead, based on my social conditioning, I believed his divorce was to blame, or his drinking, or his pain and distress, or conversely it was my lack of maturity, or my inability to respond effectively to his comments, or my inadequacy in how to handle a situation where a man shows more interest in me than I am comfortable with.
****Please notice how each one of those excuses above focuses either upon Red, as a man, being influenced by negative circumstances, or upon me, as a woman, who is in some way defective or inferior. THIS IS THE RESULT OF BEING BORN AND RAISED WITHIN A CULTURE THAT ASSIGNS MORE VALUE TO A MAN THEN TO A WOMAN. These cultural beliefs hurt women and I am sharing my understanding of how it hurt me.****
At the time, I only told two people at the pool about what had happened. A year or so later, I also ended up telling Bill Kuzmer and Luke, one of the younger lifeguards who worked with Red, because they both asked me why I was no longer friends with Red. Luke eventually ended up taking sides with Red and I lost my friendship with him as well, but he was the young lifeguard who Red had been selling weed to during the early mornings while upstairs in the staff breakroom. The early morning Building Supervisor had told Fryer her concerns about Red and Luke, but Fryer never did anything about the situation. At least, to give him the benefit of the doubt, he never did anything that anyone else on staff could easily recognize as being an action taken against the possibility of drugs being sold on the Park District’s premises.
Luke eventually lost his job as the early morning Building Supervisor a year or so later, after he was arrested for possession of cocaine, but I do believe it was because he quit. He was rehired again some time later, but he quit that time, too. I do not believe he was ever threatened with the loss of his employment, but I do not know. This may seem like an unfounded rumor, but it was only last summer while working with a younger lifeguard, who had been a swimmer on the high school team and was now in college, when the old story came up again in our conversation. He told me during an early morning Saturday shift about Red selling marijuana illegally to someone at the pool years ago. I asked him how he knew about it and he told me that his mom, who had heard it from Bill Kuzmer, had told him. This is exactly how information at the pool is officially shared and communicated: Gossip and Rumormongering.
Bill Kuzmer, on the other hand, simply agreed with me that what Red had said was disturbing, but he never provided me with any advice on how to proceed dealing with the situation. When Fryer finally got around to investigating what had occurred and asked Bill if he knew anything about me and Red, Bill replied, “he asked Sam out on a date and she said no.” At the time, though, when Bill agreed with me that Red’s behavior had been inappropriate, I took this to be validation for being justified in my anger towards Red, and my choice to avoid him at all cost.
My mom would tell me that I needed to tell Fryer about the texts, but I had erased all of the texts. I honestly expected if given enough time, then the situation would resolve itself by simply going away. I was not capable of recognizing what had happened to me as being Sexual Harassment. I had always been taught that Sexual Harassment happened when a boss told you to do something sexual and you were fired for saying NO. I thought Sexual Harassment was nudie pictures on the wall, being called “babe” at work, having my ass grabbed or my tits pinched. I did not understand how being stared at could be a form of Sexual Harassment, and was illegal.
For the next three years, I worked six days a week with Red, and I performed my shifts with an ever-increasing knot of dread, disgust, anger, and frustration growing more solidly within my heart whenever I would catch Red looking at me with his glassy eyes. Every time Red was in the water teaching a lesson, he would find a way to be underneath the guard stand and he would stare up at me. Every single day. Every time I was in the water teaching a swim lesson, I would look up and see Red standing above me on the deck and discussing my teaching techniques with someone else, many times he would be speaking with Fryer. I became so incredibly distressed and uncomfortable wearing my bathing suit at work, that I felt to be blessed with a miracle when I finally switched from syringe therapy to a pump, and could no longer spend time in the water being disconnected from my insulin. The extreme discomfort I felt every time I caught Red staring up at me taught me how to conduct my lifeguard scan while effectively managing to NOT make eye contact with anyone in the pool. It was during these three years when I lost my ability to smile, and show joy and gratitude with the people in my life, and at my job. Three years of being gripped by the detrimental effects of such negative emotions are the basis for my claim of having suffered through undiagnosed PTSD.
During those three years I tried to work through my emotions without professional help. I had been required to speak to therapists while growing up and I came away from those experiences feeling as if the specialists were only good at making me feel worse about myself then I felt before even walking in the door. I struggled with the volatile combination of anger, disgust, and resentment and tried to find a way of simply going to work and not being consumed by my emotional turmoil.
There was one day when Red decided to confront me in the back office to demand that I stop ignoring him. I can still distinctly feel the intense acrimony and rancor I felt as I tried to maintain my dignity and simply told him to leave me alone. I used to teach a classroom full of seventh graders, so I know how to be a broken record repeating the exact same instructions over and over and over again until something finally manages to penetrate the thickest skull. Red intensified his demands to the point of scaring the other staff away, but all I could do was stand in place and tell him over and over and over again, “NO means NO!” until he finally walked away.
This period in time was also the beginning of the severe and pervasive harassment I have received from the administration of the Park District. It began with Fryer ambushing me in the back office, much in the same way Red had done earlier, to tell me about some new complaint he had received about my attitude. I was never given the exact nature of the complaint, a name of who was complaining, or any kind of description as to what I was actually doing wrong. So, not only was I trying to deal with the destructive emotional leftover from my experience with Sexual Harassment, but now I had paranoia being incorporated into my daily perspective of life, and of myself. I lost the chance to develop stronger friendships at work because I was perpetually terrified that anytime I spoke with someone I may be offending them, and I would get another reprimand from Fryer. During this time, I simply stayed away from the people who could have helped me. Hindsight is always 20/20, and it is only with hindsight I can truly appreciate the extent to which I allowed myself to be isolated and ‘cut off from the herd,’ as to become easier prey.
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The only other time in my life I have had such adverse repercussions for my ‘attitude’ was while I was living and working in Las Vegas before my diagnosis. I was angry all the time. The slightest incident would send me reeling into a fit of vitriol. Cognitively, I was able to recognize the absurdity of my quick temper and intolerance, but that did nothing to alleviate the anguish of always feeling and being angry. One night, I even came home from work and grabbed the yellow pages to spend the evening looking up every therapist, psychologist, and psychiatrist I could find, in the hopes of learning what was wrong with me so I could fix it. Luckily (Ha! That’s a good pun), I was soon diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and I learned the anger came from severe and persistent hyperglycemia, which is curable with the administration of insulin.
Unfortunately, beginning regular injections of insulin does not cure the long-standing effects of hyperglycemia immediately. In fact, the very action of insulin dropping my blood sugars to more acceptable levels (or even lower into the hypoglycemic range) also became an instigator for foul-tempered mood swings. After the first year of trying to live with Diabetes, I finally made the choice to leave my job in Vegas and move back to Eugene. I wanted to work at the pool with the people who I trusted would support me through the transition into my new insulin-dependent life. My greatest hope was to have the opportunity to learn how to manage and control my formidable glucose-influenced emotional rollercoaster in a safe and friendly environment.
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During the three years after Red sent the texts, I would also receive complaints from patrons about my behavior and attitude. At the time, I did not necessarily take all of the patron complaints seriously because I recognized many of them as coming from individuals who were associated with Red, either from his role as a swim instructor or as one of the swim coaches. I know for a fact Red encouraged one of his private lessons to write a letter of complaint about me, and to drop it off at the main office, because the early morning Building Supervisor, who was a good friend of mine, overheard Red and told me about it.
Yet, I still did not consider telling any of this to Fryer. My years of association with Fryer had taught me that it is seldom worth the backlash of bringing a problem to Fryer that bothers him, because he will only take his frustration out on the messenger, and rarely do anything to solve the root problem. I believed there was no point in telling Fryer about what was happening unless I told him the whole story about the texts (which I had foolishly erased), and tried to explain how Red made me feel by looking at me. I simply was incapable of breaking past the wall of silence I had constructed, or the feelings of shame and embarrassment, to complain about something that seemed so minor—until I was conclusively pushed into action by the impetus of being verbally assaulted by Red at work.
Dale Weigandt, the Park District Superintendent, ultimately became involved the day I had to sit upstairs with him and Fryer and be told about a nasty letter that had been sent anonymously to the main office accusing me of shouting at and attacking patrons and coworkers. I remember feeling horrified—and being absolutely positive that the letter had been written and sent by Red. Dale told me that he did not put much faith or credibility into anything said by someone anonymously, that he believed such people to be cowards, but that the problem of my behavior and attitude was becoming unacceptable.
If I were to be ambushed by this particular meeting again, as the person I am today and after having learned all that I have in the past three years, I would say to Dale and Fryer, “Why are you bringing this letter to my attention at all? If you give no credence to the cowardly rantings of a person not willing to share their name, then WHY are you sharing it with me?!? How can you possibly sit there trying to convince me that you have no assurances of the validity of an anonymous claim, yet you use it as a way to blame me for the very accusations that the anonymous letter is describing?!” But, as we all know, I was not smart enough, or brave enough, to stand up and speak out for my rights at that point in time. NOW, however, is a much different story!
I did not share my suspicions about the nascency of the anonymous letter to Dale or Fryer. It felt, at the time, as if it would simply turn into a session of ‘he said/she said’ and that is a particular game I have never had any interest in playing, with anyone, for any reason. I was smart enough, at the time, to instinctually know I would never have a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning that game. I may not have been able to articulate my instinct at the time, but I do believe the intervening years have since given me the ability to critically analyze and better understand the social construction of Sexism, which gradually became the dominant discrimination encasing my experiences at the pool concerning my invisible disability.
I can’t elucidate my reluctance to inform Fryer and Dale about my experiences with Red any further. Mostly what I remember is just wanting it to all go away. I didn’t want to talk about it, to think about it, to describe what had happened, or to somehow exasperate the situation even more. I did not believe that divulging my problem to Fryer would somehow help me. At the time I was worried that telling would simply make the situation worse. I did not want to confront Red. I just wanted him to leave me alone!
The LADA Diva 