Sexual harassment- looking for motivation not to quit
Hi everyone, I am a 2nd year ECE PhD student at a top ten university. Last semester, a male student who I thought of as my best friend began sexually harassing me during the death of my grandfather. He honestly had a lot of mental issues, not that that excuses any of what he did, but I’m just throwing it out there because the story sounds very bizarre.
Before the sexual harassment, he had been gradually ramping up the emotional abuse- speaking down to me, criticizing everything I did, wanting control over me, isolating me from other potential friends and my family, berating me about academics, calling me fat and old looking, ruining my birthday, confessing he enjoyed physically hurting people, gaslighting me and blowing up at the slightest perceived slight. One time, he hurt my hand by grabbing a toy slinky I was holding, stretching it to the max while I was still holding it, and letting it go so it smacked me really hard. We also went on a vacation to Yosemite and he left me in a dangerous position on some wet boulders where I was very scared I would fall and get hurt.
When my grandfather died, he began telling me I would commit suicide, he ghosted me for a few days, then he offered support and again suddenly withdrew it, he told me he was the “next Chris” (Chris was someone sexually abusive towards me in my past), he began screaming at me on my way to class (I got scared and dropped the class), he bragged about staining my grandfathers memory, then finally threatened to kill himself and screamed he’d burn everything down. He also said a bunch of weird stuff about how he considered himself to be my dog and I was his owner. He then admitted he was jealous of my will to live and jealous of the fact that I was capable of greiving for my family, because he said he wouldn’t be capable of grieving for his own family if they died, even his kid siblings. He said he was incapable of love or empathy, which was shocking to me because the person I first met seemed so loving, empathetic, gentle, and pro-woman that even though this was clearly not his true self, I was still in shock.
I was really trauma bonded, so it took me a month to consider reporting him. Coincidentally, he also reached out to apologize during that time. Weirdly, he really wanted me to report him to prove how “guilty” he felt. Since he’s a Christian, he said he wanted me to report him to the school so he could repent. I had a brief intake appointment with my school about his behavior because he demanded it. He was right outside. I didn’t tell them everything.
I briefly entertained his apology, because he offered to go to joint therapy with me, and I had no other friends at the time (I’m autistic.) Some part of me missed the person I thought he was, and I stupidly thought maybe he was just having some sort of episode. Well, his “sorry” didn’t last. Within the week, even though he had promised to talk things out with me and we had even came up with a plan to meet at coffee shops to talk about what happened, he became abusive again. He went to his PI and painted me as the harasser, citing petty things like the time I went to his office to invite a different person out for ice cream (she was an almost-friend I wanted to get closer to. Since we work in highly interrelated labs, it wasn’t weird at all that I was in his office since there’s people that go between our offices literally every day.) As a result of his tattling, I got banned from his office, which really hurt because I got all the public blame for the situation. He also told his male PI about the sexual abuse I faced when I was younger, which was humiliating.
During the only time we met up to discuss the “apology”, he became defensive and basically told me I had been asking for it. He told me that I make rpe jokes about myself and would find it funny if I got pregnant by rpe, which was alarming to hear and completely untrue. This made me scared and uncomfortable. He then called me on the phone afterwards and admitted to going to his PI about me, but made it sound like he was confessing his own wrongdoings, so I wasn’t afraid until word got back to me that he was accusing me of harassment. I was really scared and confused because I didn’t know what I did wrong. On that very same phone call, I had been crying the entire time, and he had been screaming at me. He even screamed that he wanted me to hurt him. I said “no, I just want you to treat people better.” I literally did not say anything harassing or violent.
I went to the school’s Title IX office to fully report him after that, but to my dismay, he had got there first and told them I was the problem, so instead of helping me, they got angry at me, told me harassment is often mutual, said my report would go nowhere, pressured me to admit guilt, and gave me a panic attack.
I didn’t sexually harass him. In my state of panic after he threatened to kill himself because of the way he treated me, I sent a bunch of texts apologizing and saying I forgave him and telling him it would be OK. I think it’s really sick that he’s trying to spin some type of stalker narrative about me because of this. I did beg him not to leave me a few times, but he was getting violent and abandoning me when I needed him most, and I was fawning and scared. So even though I didn’t do anything that an objective person would find very serious, I’m scared that if this goes to trial, he will use my texts pleading with him as evidence that he didn’t do anything wrong and that I was the issue. I really don’t think the staff at my school are as “trauma informed” as they claimed to be. Many survivors don’t leave immediately but they treated me with anger and suspicion because I briefly wanted to stay and work things out.
I eventually did leave and block him, and we haven’t had contact since. But to this day, it makes me sick knowing that he got away with abusing me, trashing my reputation, and then strategically playing victim. Thankfully he hasn’t show any signs of stalking me- he just wanted to upset me as much as possible and then coldly leave it seems. But the sight of him makes me sick.
I’ve missed out on 2 classes I needed because of him. I might have to skip a third if I can’t handle my PTSD symptoms well enough by then. We’re in the same tiny field (not exactly the same lab but almost just as bad), so there’s no avoiding him forever. I’ve skipped the inter-lab meetings this entire semester, but I’ve suffered professionally because of it. I’m still banned from his entire office space. I didn’t tell my PI what’s going on because denying that anything happened seemed like the safest way to make everything go away, because I know that if this goes to trial, he will be pointing a finger at me too. I feel like a pariah. I have very little evidence to back up my claims since he was smart enough to not crash out over text like I did.
If you have read all this, thank you. I am left struggling severely with mental health issues. My PhD has been basically derailed. My social life is awful, I’m afraid of everyone. I’m not the same person I used to be. Nightmares keep me up.
If you’ve survived something like this, how did you keep going? How do you handle thoughts that women won’t be seen as equals in STEM? How do you focus while sharing the same room with your abuser?