I Was Seven

I haven't shared my story publicly, but anyone close to me knows it. However, on the heels of Christine Blasey Ford's recent testimony about the sexual assault she endured by then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, I feel I should. Not because I want pity or sympathy or even empathy, but because when someone opens the door to a difficult and important conversation, you don't slam it back in their face. So while yesterday's sad confirmation of Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court attempted to close that door, I'm sticking my foot in the door frame.

Talking about sexual violence doesn't feel comfortable—and it never should; it should always disturb us—but speaking about it feels safer than it ever has before, thanks to Dr. Ford and the brave women who came before her, including Anita Hill, who brought her allegations against Clarence Thomas at an even more hostile time in America. This post is meant to keep the conversation open and to help others feel as though they're not alone.

The Incident

I was seven. I lived in a house on a corner lot in a subdivision of Altamonte Springs, Florida. We were recent Ohio transplants, settling into our new life in this hot land of dry brown grass and palm trees and lizards whose tales came off a little too easily. My mom was a nurse who at the time worked the midnight shift at the hospital. My dad was in sales, delivering live fish from wholesalers to retailers. He sometimes left the house very early in the morning, and I sometimes feared their absences would overlap, but I don't think that ever happened. My two sisters and I each had our own bedroom, which felt like a luxury compared to the attic space we all had shared in our quaint Ohio home. Whether by choice or lack thereof, my bedroom was the first one on the hallway off of the living room.

Late one September night in 1988, when my mom was at work and the rest of us were home sleeping, a man broke into our house through the back porch and entered through the kitchen window. He took a kitchen knife from a drawer and walked down the hallway that led to our bedrooms, which was opposite my parents' room. Probably because my room was the first one he encountered, he came in and sat on the edge of my bed while I slept and used the kitchen knife to cut the crotch of my underwear, which is how I woke. I was more confused than I was alarmed. He wasn't aggressive initially. When I started to ask questions—who are you, what are you doing; questions to which I expected rational replies—he shushed me and told me to be quiet. Ever the rule follower, I did. He told me to follow him and then led me out of my room, exiting the hallway into the main living area and out the front door of the house.

Me at age seven.

He continued around the side of the house until we were in the backyard. By then I was scared, and his tone had changed. He continually told me to shut up, and when I didn't he placed his hands around my neck while pushing me against the exterior wall of the house. I tried to scream, but his chokehold didn't allow my voice to come out, or much air. I started to fight with everything my small body could muster, which was no match for his adult frame. Next he had me on the ground and pressed the full weight of his body on top of mine. I was kicking and squirming while he pinned me down and placed his mouth on mine. That struggle is the last I remember before coming to by myself, still lying on the dewy grass.

I picked myself up off the ground, ran back into the house where the front door was left wide open, and went down the hallway where my sisters' rooms were. In a state of panic, I wasn't sure where to go, thinking my dad might have left for work already, so I stopped first in my older sister's room and, blinded by my fear, didn't see her there. So I went farther down the hall to my twin sister's room gathered her and came back to my older sister's room, where this time I saw her soundly asleep. We roused her and three of us ran across the house to our parents' room, where my dad lay sleeping. I shook him awake and said that a man broke in. He startled to action and called the police.

The Aftermath

My memory of what happened afterward is a jumbled scene of police officers wandering around the house dusting surfaces with a black substance and collecting some of our belongings, a police dog outside the house, a helicopter up above. My sisters and me watching TV and playing board games in the living room for distraction. My mom finally coming home from the hospital, walking into the living room with a look on her face I couldn't quite place—one that was trying to be comforting to me but that I now know was barely covering her anguish. Her hug. My conversation with a female police officer, the details of which are missing. Driving in a police cruiser around the neighborhood to look for the attacker. Going to some cold and sterile facility to have what I later learned was a rape kit conducted (the man did not succeed in raping me). Spending the rest of the night in the living room with the whole family around me, all of us close together on the floor, in sight, real, barriers around me to the now scary outside world.

In the following days, we had more interactions with the police. We learned of other incidents that occurred that same night in our neighborhood, and with all of the testimonies together, the police had an idea of the suspect—a man who'd been imprisoned on a previous charge and was out on a work-release program. An officer brought over a book of mugshots to our house one day and asked me if I could identify the man who'd attacked me. I pointed to someone, but I can't tell you whether I'd chosen the right guy. My testimony was the least reliable of the three victims that night; thankfully the other two—a middle-aged man and an older woman (both of whom escaped serious harm)—gave clearer descriptions.

I never had to go to court; my testimony was recorded on tape, a courtesy extended to me because of my age, I think. A man was eventually charged. We'll call him W. As much as I'd love to blast his name and image publicly, I realize there could be repercussions, even if unlikely.

The attacker. 

W was charged with burglary and assault and sentenced to 15 years in prison, a little more than eight of which he served before being released. He was incarcerated again one year later, for a year. He appears to have stayed out since 1999. Most of his crimes were burglaries. I don't know why he veered into different criminal territory that night. I remember hearing that he might have been on drugs...

Immediately following the assault, I was afraid of all men—neighbors, uncles, even my own father for a short time. It's hard to say when the general fear of men changed, or whether it ever completely did. For a while I slept in my parents' room, having repeated nightmares of running barefoot on the wet grass in the dark, not able to get anywhere, hearing my heart pounding through my chest. Then I eventually shared a room with my twin sister but always slept with the lights on. I must have been 10 or 11 years old before I began sleeping through the nights, with the lights off.

Gradually, as the years passed, our lives became normal again, and we didn't talk about what happened when I was seven.

The Healing

Although I'd made attempts beginning in my twenties to address the trauma through therapy and (pretty bad) creative writing, none really stuck. But this year, a mere 30 years after the assault, I decided to deal with the trauma head-on in a special type of therapy called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). This type of therapy is often used on patients with PTSD, which I'd been told I had by a couple of different therapists but doubted the diagnosis until recently. During my visits, I would vividly relive each moment of the trauma, following the pathways in my brain that the memories led me down, week after week until, several months later, the memory of the assault became less powerful over me.

I won't say the trauma doesn't affect me anymore, but I am more aware of the ways in which it has impacted my life, and simply having that awareness has helped me understand myself and my particular relationship to the world around me. That, to me, is progress.

One of the best things that has happened, however, is that I've had open conversations with my immediate family about the event; after all, it happened to them, too. I think we all sort of carried pieces of this burden throughout our lives but didn't quite know how to lay those pieces down. We don't need to talk about it on any regular basis, but just knowing that we can, that I can, talk about it if I want to without feeling like I'm disrupting the ordinary flow of everyone's lives is a relief.

Sometimes I think about what it would be like to talk to him, to W. I wonder if he feels remorse. I wonder if he cares. I wonder if he'd recognize me. He has an address listed in an area very close to where my family moved after the assault. I can picture it. I think about knocking on his door, seeing him face to face, and telling him ... I don't know what. I run through different scenarios. I wouldn't say, "You ruined my life," because that's not true, even though I've had more challenges than I probably would have otherwise. I wouldn't tell him I hated him and wished him harm, because that's not who I am. Maybe I would tell him, "Despite you, I am a strong person. Despite you, I have love in my life and I love who I am." Maybe he would care, maybe he wouldn't. That's not the point.

Me and My Name: A History

My name is Lee. I am a woman. I am not Chinese. Lee is my whole first name. My name means meadow. It goes well with “bird.”

These facts seem worth stating given the number of repeated questions I’ve received throughout my life about this simple, three-letter name. Recently I went to a massage appointment with a therapist I’d never met. I was seated very near her when she called my name in the reception area, yet she looked past me, around me, anywhere but at me. This is a familiar experience, but usually it's because someone is expecting to see a man. However, after I raised my hand two feet away from the therapist and said, “I’m Lee,” she was genuinely surprised that I did not appear Chinese. After we walked back to the tiny massage room, she asked briefly what my trouble areas were but then, with more focus, she wanted to know whether I was Chinese. I looked at her, with my very Caucasian face inches from hers, and told her no, I was not. I thought that should resolve the issue.

Minutes later, after I was unclothed, lying face-down and ready to relax in peace, she told me she saw my name on the chart and expected to see a “Chinese lady." This I already knew. But in an effort to discourage further conversation, I just laughed politely and said “Oh.” Then, because she must have been having a very hard time reconciling my name with my non-Chinese ethnicity, she said in her heavy Eastern European accent, “A lot of Chinese name Lee.” I said, “Well, it may be a common last name,” hoping to just put the matter to rest. As she continued to sloppily beat the muscles along my back with a technique I’d never before experienced, she said, baffled, “Oh, last name?” I said firmly, “Yeah,” hardly an expert in the subject but wanting to end to the chit-chat.

During the rest of the massage, which was anything but relaxing or therapeutic, I thought about the history of encounters I’d had like this, people having very assured expectations about the kind of person I would, or should, be based on these three letters. I’d had my own challenges accepting my name at an early age, once I realized the particular spelling of my name was more commonly the “masculine” spelling rather than the feminine.

In first grade, on the first day of school I recall my teacher separating the boys and girls into two groups in the classroom before she called roll. (Why, I have no clue.) When she got to my name, she looked over to the group of boys. I was mortified. It was the first of many corrections I would make throughout the years about my gender, based on the spelling of my name. It’s possible, too, that my bowl-cut hair did little to lend femininity to my person. But I should not have needed to be concerned with such things, and someone had made me suddenly acutely aware that there could be any least bit of confusion about my gender, and it troubled me, right or wrong.

You do you, Lee.

In middle school, I’d become so bothered by the assumptions people might be making that I decided to change the spelling from L-E-E to L-E-I-G-H—the more common spelling for female Lees. To further emphasize the femaleness of my name, I added a flower as the dot above the “I.” Of course, I only changed the spelling on my school papers and in notes to friends, and because it did not match the spelling on record at my school, my act of defiance only caused confusion among my teachers, which at least one of them pointed out to me. Ever the obedient student, I went back to plain old L-E-E.

Occasionally throughout my grade school years, a new teacher would notice my middle name was Anne and ask if I preferred to go by Lee Anne (certainly that must be my preference; I was a girl). I liked the idea of that so I said yes, that was my preference. But neither they nor I were consistent about it, and I never tried to enforce it with friends or family, so the new name never stuck.

I eventually grew to love my name, in its masculine, modest three letters. It was unique among all the people I’d ever known (especially for a girl). It’s worth noting that, in my more than three decades of living, I’ve met one male Lee, that I can recall, and at least one female Lee. So the easy assumption toward male Lee is a little baffling.

Today, when I receive email salutations that begin with “Mr.,” as I frequently do, sometimes I correct the sender and sometimes I don’t. If I will meet the individual in person, I usually note that, FYI, I’m a woman. Or in a more formal context I sign my name in the reply email with “(Ms.)” before my name, which seems the gentlest way to make a correction. Nevertheless, people always seem very embarrassed about the error, and I just tell them not to worry; it happens all the time.

I try to make things easy for people who take my name down from hearing it, for example, the baristas and food service staff at shops that ask for my name to go with my order. I always say, “Lee, L-E-E,” just to eliminate the guesswork. (Of course, at most of these places, the staff person has just taken my credit card payment, and I want to point out that they could eliminate the need to ask for my name by just looking at the card, but I refrain.) During one such instance, a friend was with me and began laughing after I spelled my name. Thinking there was nothing amusing about this courtesy I was extending, I asked what was funny. He said that it’s not hard to spell. I KNOW, RIGHT? And yet it was. At least, correctly. For this woman. Prior to this practice, in my less instructive days, the spelling of my name proved difficult for said staff. Point in case:

I mean, of all the options.

Something else people have asked me is whether Lee was my whole first name. I kind of get this. It’s a common middle name. It’s short. It begs for a second syllable. In preschool, kids rectified this deficit on their own, by calling me names like Lee Pee, Lee Jeans, Lee Press-on-Nails. Even though only the first one came close to being a creatively damaging nickname (the others were just actual  brand names of products used mostly by our mothers), they all were said with cruel intention, with mockery, and so they all stung.

At home, however, Lee Bird was the nickname of choice, and it was said with endearment, so I liked it. I still do. And I love birds, in an objectifying kind of way, because they make me think of this family-given nickname. (Also, symbolism, etc.)

Mid-30s, still rocking the "Bird."

But back to middle names. I mentioned that Lee is a common middle name. In fact, my first name is my twin sister's middle name. She has a regular, whole, two-syllable first name. It means grace—an admirable trait to possess. In the same vein as beauty, elegance. My name means meadow, or clearing. An area of land cleared from woods. It's literally a lack of woods. A lack of something. Of course, I know for certain my parents didn't think too deeply about our names and their meanings, so I don't take this glaring difference personally. But, if one were to psychoanalyze the situation, one might conclude that a certain twin's inferiority complex, supposing she had one, is rooted in her name. (Of course, nobody is doing that!)

But what, in general, is with the questioning, the doubting, of a person’s name—especially when they tell you and they show you it’s their name? I must admit now that I’m not immune to such inquisitiveness. I have a cousin named Jenny and, being ever the correcting person I am, even as a child, I told her once that her full name had to be Jennifer; she said it wasn't, it was Jenny. She was older, so I knew she wouldn't lie. I had to accept this uncomfortable fact that challenged my assumption.

More recently, I encountered a man at the grocery store whom I’d just seen at the gym a while earlier, so we recognized each other and made introductions and I told him my name and he told me his: Flex. I paused, having the desire to both laugh and ask what his real name was but somehow found the composure to hold both in, and he, cognizant of my pause, said, “Like the muscle,” and flexed his biceps to make sure I understood. At a loss for appropriate words, I said, with too much enthusiasm, “I love it, it’s great!” A name is whatever you say it is, right?

***

As I was leaving the coffee shop where I was composing this post, the guy who'd taken my order earlier—a new person I'd not seen before, he said, "Bye, Lee, have a good afternoon." He'd remembered my name.