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I just felt like typing this all out because, well, it was a major, horrible suck. I'm just not sure where it should go because it wasn't really in a "business" setting. So if it doesn't go in "off topic," please feel free to move it. 
Anyway. I used to be in this a capella chorus. I started going when I was 15. Also of semi-note for later, this was the time that I was suicidal half the time and self-injured a lot. On my wrists--you could see the marks if I was incautious. Onto the suck:
I was getting a bit disillusioned with chorus, anyway, because I got teased a lot, and to be honest, I hated that. I do NOT like being teased. It's semi-ok if it's someone who I'm very friendly with, and when it feels friendly. This didn't feel friendly. I was told stuff like how I should learn how to talk better and control my voice because my voice is a little high-pitched.
And how I talk like a child and I should grow up, be more mature, and speak up. [Yes, because being told that all the time REALLY makes me want to be more outspoken. 
] I was also told repeatedly that my clothes were too childish, I should wear my hair different ways, etc. I remember one time I wore rainbow tights [I'm bi...although nobody there knew it 
] and one woman gave me the CBF, basically, and acted like I was horrible for "clashing" or something...I don't even know wtf she was on about, really. Although if she'd asked, I'd be very tempted to say, "Because I like girls. Especially kissing them." 
One of the members, Carrie, started bringing her 16-year-old son to practices. Um...ok. That was kind of weird. It was an all-women chorus. He tried to be helpful around practice and all, but it ended up being QUITE clear that he liked me [I was...20 at the time, I believe]. He kept sitting so close to me, he was practically in my lap, and hugging me multiple times. At first, I was ok with it because I really like hugs and I don't really get them anywhere. But I have a boyfriend, and he started making me REALLY uncomfortable. I would tell him to stop and he wouldn't. I told my mom about it [who was in the chorus with me], and she acted like it was nothing. That I should be "flattered" he liked me. Um...why, exactly? It's not like I've never had a bf or gf before.
Finally, we exchanged numbers, he asked if I liked him that way, I said no, and I was thinking ok, that will be the end of it then. Right? Wrong. He asked if we could still be friends and I said sure. That's being nice and polite, right?
Well, it all went fine for a while and then he started doing other stuff, like hitting me [open-handed, so not hard...more like a tap], shoving me, trying to snap my phone closed when I was holding it, sneaking up behind me and scaring me...a bunch of shit. He also did stuff like that to the other young members of the chorus, like even grabbing one girl's foot and holding her off-balance. And shoving me right in FRONT of the director, who then did nothing. At all.
I kept mentioning it to my mom, like, um hey this is bothering me and this is NOT COOL. She said that "boys will be boys" and that it was just because he was young. Right, so if I'D done that when I was 16, I wouldn't have had my ass kicked for it, is that it? Somehow I don't think so.
It finally came to a head at the Christmas party. In one night, he managed to hit the top of my head, scare the living hell out of me when he made a noise behind me [I have PTSD, too, by the way, so my startle response is out of this world. I'd also asked him before not to go behind me and do that, by the way], try to grab my phone out of my hands, grab my wrist and squeeze, and shove me so hard, I nearly knocked another person over.
That. Was. IT. I told my bf about it, and he ended up messaging the boy [Danny] and his mother on FB. He would have just messaged his mother because of Danny being a minor, but his FB profile said he was 19 and to be honest, I wasn't entirely sure anymore about his age when I heard that. For all I knew, he was older than I thought.
Well, Carrie flipped out. Screaming and yelling at my bf about it, saying she doesn't know who or what he's talking about...and then messages me [even before that response] telling me that if I have a problem, I should talk to her about it, and telling me to "stop acting like you're the innocent one and the victim, we all know you're not." What makes that worse is that she works at a victim advocacy place. Oh, and also? I'm a rape survivor. 
I actually spent six weeks with my ex being raped almost daily and abused in every way possible, just about. And I was abused for years as a child. You don't say that to me without me getting both very upset and VERY pissed off!
My bf sends the messages to my director, and we end up compiling a message that's all the stuff Danny has done to me since he started going to chorus practice. It's a very long list.
I try to talk to my director, but she tells me that she's too busy. OK, it IS right before Christmas. But I also email her countless times, FB message her, and call her and leave messages 6 times. All to request a meeting with her about something very important. Nothing. I get totally blown off.
So when practice starts back up after the Christmas break, I decide fuck it, I'm not going until this situation is resolved. I'm sick of feeling unsafe at chorus. It's supposed to be a safe haven, you know? So I don't go, even though my mom bitches me out for it.
Find out that the director talked to Carrie about it. So now only has Carrie's side of the story and apparently couldn't give a fuck for mine. That's great. I try AGAIN to talk to her about it. Nothing.
So with my bf's guidance, decide to email the whole chorus what's been going on. I was very polite--my bf helped me write every damn word. He's like...a genius at saying what needs to be said. So I do.
My only response is a really bitchy one from a woman named Melinda [who's the one who was always telling me that I needed to work on my clothes and hair, and the one who was apparently affronted at the thought of me wearing rainbow tights]. How I should have given them more time, blah blah blah, I never said anything before, bitch bitch bitch.
I gave them over a month. They didn't have to resolve it in the month. I know it was over the holidays. They didn't even CONTACT me over the month. Nothing. Nothing at all from the people who acted like they would always support me/be friends/whatever. Yeah...great way to know who your friends are, I guess.
[I did eventually get another email from another woman in chorus who basically said that I was right, Danny was being really inappropriate, and if I was bothered, then regardless, something should be done. Needless to say, that email was roundly ignored by everyone else.]
So I respond to Melinda [and cc to the whole chorus]. Again...polite but very firm and to the point. And how does she respond? That she's going to leave the chorus and take her daughter with her. Um...what the fuck? Seriously...who GOES there? All this had to do was be dealt with, like maybe...I don't know...stop letting a random teenage boy come to practice??
Oh, and through all of this, my mother is completely non-supportive. She keeps telling me that "I don't know the whole story," and that "I should have mentioned it to her." I did. Numerous times. Every single time, she just blew me off.
So finally, almost two months after the Christmas party incident, I am "summoned" to a meeting to discuss this. It's more like a tribunal. The director actually tells me that I need my values changed if I actually think that someone touching me when I don't want to be touched borders on sexual harassment.
The whole chorus isn't there, but of everyone who IS there, they ALL contrive to yell at me and tell me how "hurt" they are by my actions. Oh, so I'm not allowed to be hurt by their INaction, am I? One woman actually tells me I should "put my big girl panties on," castigates me for having my bf help and in the same breath, tells me I should have had my mom help. Yeah...that doesn't contradict itself at all.
Oh, and my mother? She came along with me "for support." I would have been better off with a rabid, slavering wolverine for support. She spent TEN MINUTES yelling at me about how horribly I handled it, how "upset" she was, and on and on.
And why Danny was coming to chorus apparently was because he was suicidal. So, you know, going to practice with a bunch of women like cures that. Instead of...I don't know...therapy. Oh, and then you know what was great? They told me that he had attempted SU over the holidays...and it was my fault.
Never mind everything that he had done to me, how I could have probably gotten him arrested. No, I somehow managed to...I don't know...force him to hurt himself?
And that's where everything I said about my mental health in the beginning comes into play. My mom, incidentally, was the one super concerned about Danny. Because he was SU. Meanwhile, I told her when I was 15 that I was self-injuring [she said she couldn't deal with that right now], and when I was 19, my friend called the police on me for being suicidal. I told her. Neither of my parents really gave a fuck. It took almost three months after that to beg her to let me go to therapy [it was on her insurance and everything]. My friend in chorus, Jenny, told me that she, the director, and some other people knew I had emotional problems and was depressed. No one did anything to help ME. But all of a sudden, it's my fault that the boy who was harassing me tried to hurt himself. I'm sorry he felt that way. I really am. That doesn't make it my fault. At all.
So after that, I got more bitching and yelling about how I had made it a perpetrator-victim triangle, wanted a "rescuer," and how I'd somehow made Danny the victim. And then I was told they took a chorus-wide vote and I was kicked out. For you know, not wanting to be harassed anymore.
I still wish very much that I could have just stood up at the beginning, said "Fuck you all," and walked out.
Oh, and this was an international chorus organization--my bf called them and described the situation--and they said the chorus I went to was unbelievably wrong in how they handled it--and I still wish I'd gone to regional. Damn it. >.>
But yeah. That's my extremely long and involved story about suckage. I'm still kind of pissed about it sometimes.
Cookies? *hopeful look* Or I can...like give them to other people...for reading that ginormous wall of text.
Anyway. I used to be in this a capella chorus. I started going when I was 15. Also of semi-note for later, this was the time that I was suicidal half the time and self-injured a lot. On my wrists--you could see the marks if I was incautious. Onto the suck:
I was getting a bit disillusioned with chorus, anyway, because I got teased a lot, and to be honest, I hated that. I do NOT like being teased. It's semi-ok if it's someone who I'm very friendly with, and when it feels friendly. This didn't feel friendly. I was told stuff like how I should learn how to talk better and control my voice because my voice is a little high-pitched.
And how I talk like a child and I should grow up, be more mature, and speak up. [Yes, because being told that all the time REALLY makes me want to be more outspoken. ] I was also told repeatedly that my clothes were too childish, I should wear my hair different ways, etc. I remember one time I wore rainbow tights [I'm bi...although nobody there knew it ] and one woman gave me the CBF, basically, and acted like I was horrible for "clashing" or something...I don't even know wtf she was on about, really. Although if she'd asked, I'd be very tempted to say, "Because I like girls. Especially kissing them." One of the members, Carrie, started bringing her 16-year-old son to practices. Um...ok. That was kind of weird. It was an all-women chorus. He tried to be helpful around practice and all, but it ended up being QUITE clear that he liked me [I was...20 at the time, I believe]. He kept sitting so close to me, he was practically in my lap, and hugging me multiple times. At first, I was ok with it because I really like hugs and I don't really get them anywhere. But I have a boyfriend, and he started making me REALLY uncomfortable. I would tell him to stop and he wouldn't. I told my mom about it [who was in the chorus with me], and she acted like it was nothing. That I should be "flattered" he liked me.
Um...why, exactly? It's not like I've never had a bf or gf before. Finally, we exchanged numbers, he asked if I liked him that way, I said no, and I was thinking ok, that will be the end of it then. Right? Wrong. He asked if we could still be friends and I said sure. That's being nice and polite, right?
Well, it all went fine for a while and then he started doing other stuff, like hitting me [open-handed, so not hard...more like a tap], shoving me, trying to snap my phone closed when I was holding it, sneaking up behind me and scaring me...a bunch of shit. He also did stuff like that to the other young members of the chorus, like even grabbing one girl's foot and holding her off-balance. And shoving me right in FRONT of the director, who then did nothing. At all.
I kept mentioning it to my mom, like, um hey this is bothering me and this is NOT COOL. She said that "boys will be boys" and that it was just because he was young. Right, so if I'D done that when I was 16, I wouldn't have had my ass kicked for it, is that it? Somehow I don't think so.
It finally came to a head at the Christmas party. In one night, he managed to hit the top of my head, scare the living hell out of me when he made a noise behind me [I have PTSD, too, by the way, so my startle response is out of this world. I'd also asked him before not to go behind me and do that, by the way], try to grab my phone out of my hands, grab my wrist and squeeze, and shove me so hard, I nearly knocked another person over.
That. Was. IT. I told my bf about it, and he ended up messaging the boy [Danny] and his mother on FB. He would have just messaged his mother because of Danny being a minor, but his FB profile said he was 19 and to be honest, I wasn't entirely sure anymore about his age when I heard that. For all I knew, he was older than I thought.
Well, Carrie flipped out. Screaming and yelling at my bf about it, saying she doesn't know who or what he's talking about...and then messages me [even before that response] telling me that if I have a problem, I should talk to her about it, and telling me to "stop acting like you're the innocent one and the victim, we all know you're not."
What makes that worse is that she works at a victim advocacy place. Oh, and also? I'm a rape survivor. I actually spent six weeks with my ex being raped almost daily and abused in every way possible, just about. And I was abused for years as a child. You don't say that to me without me getting both very upset and VERY pissed off!My bf sends the messages to my director, and we end up compiling a message that's all the stuff Danny has done to me since he started going to chorus practice. It's a very long list.
I try to talk to my director, but she tells me that she's too busy. OK, it IS right before Christmas. But I also email her countless times, FB message her, and call her and leave messages 6 times. All to request a meeting with her about something very important. Nothing. I get totally blown off.
So when practice starts back up after the Christmas break, I decide fuck it, I'm not going until this situation is resolved. I'm sick of feeling unsafe at chorus. It's supposed to be a safe haven, you know? So I don't go, even though my mom bitches me out for it.
Find out that the director talked to Carrie about it. So now only has Carrie's side of the story and apparently couldn't give a fuck for mine. That's great. I try AGAIN to talk to her about it. Nothing.
So with my bf's guidance, decide to email the whole chorus what's been going on. I was very polite--my bf helped me write every damn word. He's like...a genius at saying what needs to be said. So I do.
My only response is a really bitchy one from a woman named Melinda [who's the one who was always telling me that I needed to work on my clothes and hair, and the one who was apparently affronted at the thought of me wearing rainbow tights]. How I should have given them more time, blah blah blah, I never said anything before, bitch bitch bitch.
I gave them over a month. They didn't have to resolve it in the month. I know it was over the holidays. They didn't even CONTACT me over the month. Nothing. Nothing at all from the people who acted like they would always support me/be friends/whatever. Yeah...great way to know who your friends are, I guess.
[I did eventually get another email from another woman in chorus who basically said that I was right, Danny was being really inappropriate, and if I was bothered, then regardless, something should be done. Needless to say, that email was roundly ignored by everyone else.]
So I respond to Melinda [and cc to the whole chorus]. Again...polite but very firm and to the point. And how does she respond? That she's going to leave the chorus and take her daughter with her. Um...what the fuck?
Seriously...who GOES there? All this had to do was be dealt with, like maybe...I don't know...stop letting a random teenage boy come to practice??Oh, and through all of this, my mother is completely non-supportive. She keeps telling me that "I don't know the whole story," and that "I should have mentioned it to her." I did. Numerous times. Every single time, she just blew me off.
So finally, almost two months after the Christmas party incident, I am "summoned" to a meeting to discuss this. It's more like a tribunal. The director actually tells me that I need my values changed if I actually think that someone touching me when I don't want to be touched borders on sexual harassment.
The whole chorus isn't there, but of everyone who IS there, they ALL contrive to yell at me and tell me how "hurt" they are by my actions. Oh, so I'm not allowed to be hurt by their INaction, am I? One woman actually tells me I should "put my big girl panties on," castigates me for having my bf help and in the same breath, tells me I should have had my mom help. Yeah...that doesn't contradict itself at all.Oh, and my mother? She came along with me "for support." I would have been better off with a rabid, slavering wolverine for support. She spent TEN MINUTES yelling at me about how horribly I handled it, how "upset" she was, and on and on.
And why Danny was coming to chorus apparently was because he was suicidal. So, you know, going to practice with a bunch of women like cures that. Instead of...I don't know...therapy. Oh, and then you know what was great? They told me that he had attempted SU over the holidays...and it was my fault.
Never mind everything that he had done to me, how I could have probably gotten him arrested. No, I somehow managed to...I don't know...force him to hurt himself?And that's where everything I said about my mental health in the beginning comes into play. My mom, incidentally, was the one super concerned about Danny. Because he was SU. Meanwhile, I told her when I was 15 that I was self-injuring [she said she couldn't deal with that right now], and when I was 19, my friend called the police on me for being suicidal. I told her. Neither of my parents really gave a fuck. It took almost three months after that to beg her to let me go to therapy [it was on her insurance and everything]. My friend in chorus, Jenny, told me that she, the director, and some other people knew I had emotional problems and was depressed. No one did anything to help ME. But all of a sudden, it's my fault that the boy who was harassing me tried to hurt himself. I'm sorry he felt that way. I really am. That doesn't make it my fault. At all.
So after that, I got more bitching and yelling about how I had made it a perpetrator-victim triangle, wanted a "rescuer," and how I'd somehow made Danny the victim.
And then I was told they took a chorus-wide vote and I was kicked out. For you know, not wanting to be harassed anymore.I still wish very much that I could have just stood up at the beginning, said "Fuck you all," and walked out.
Oh, and this was an international chorus organization--my bf called them and described the situation--and they said the chorus I went to was unbelievably wrong in how they handled it--and I still wish I'd gone to regional. Damn it. >.>
But yeah. That's my extremely long and involved story about suckage. I'm still kind of pissed about it sometimes.
Cookies? *hopeful look* Or I can...like give them to other people...for reading that ginormous wall of text.
*om nom nom* I have like the Sweet Tooth of Doom and a particular disadvantage when it comes to cookies. 
If they are in the house, I will eat them.
And all the accusations that I was this horrible, aggressive person. Like...the director even brought up emails I wrote in 2008 when I was with that abusive ex, actually, and so in a horrible frame of mind...and said those were "aggressive." They weren't. She based all that on how I changed my email signature to this Nietzsche quote:
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