#MeToo stories feel like gut punches to me

Me, too, of course.

I tried to recall the first time it happened to me, and questioned whether an incident when I was 7 should count.

Is it sexual harassment when the nuns at your Catholic school tell you to take off your pants because you broke the dress code? Maybe. Probably. (I refused, by the way. Even at age 7, I knew something about that was very, very wrong.)

And then, when I was 12, something worse happened. I was with friends — twin sisters — doing a community service project for the Civil Air Patrol. My father dropped us off at a rest area along Interstate 87 in upstate New York. I can’t recall exactly why we were there. My friends don’t remember, either. What we do recall is the three of us being alone when two men pulled off the freeway. They tried to get us into their car. When we refused, they chased us around the building. We were screaming, but there was no one around to hear us.

They trapped us in a bathroom, pressed against a wall. There was no way out. We were three girls, arms wrapped around one another, crying, screeching, petrified. I remember one of them singing Lionel Richie’s song Hello as he tried to tear us apart. A couple were our saviors. The husband chased off our would-be rapists. His wife sat with us, drying our tears until my father came back. We were lucky.

To this day, one of my friends is still afraid to stop at rest areas. For me, Richie’s voice triggers that incident and others that followed like tally marks on a sadistic mental scorecard.

I’ve seen hundreds of stories like mine this week. Women I respect and admire have taken to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram using the hashtag #MeToo to share their truths. The intense blast has made it all too clear that sexual assault and harassment are as pervasive in American society as the flag itself. It’s also devastating.

It feels like a gut punch every time I see another friend post her story. I find myself reliving all the instances in which it happened to me, instances that are worse — unbelievably — than that day at the rest stop.

A campaign that’s supposed to be empowering, and it clearly is for some, to me feels like re-victimization. It feels a little like pushing women who might not yet be mentally ready to tell their stories to tell.

Just because a woman has not posted #MeToo to her social media pages doesn’t mean she hasn’t also lived through some really awful things. Just because a woman isn’t telling her story of sexual harassment or assault doesn’t mean she doesn’t have one (or many). Nor does it mean she doesn’t care.

Survivors have precious little power over their assaults. Often, the only power they wield is when — or whether — to tell. We should respect their silence.

And we should demand action. We need men (and women) who have been harassers and abusers to stop. Own up to your behavior. Apologize. Do better. And if you’re out in the world and see that something is happening that shouldn’t be, intervene. Be the couple at the rest stop who turned around a horrifying experience for three 12-year-old girls.

Kristen Jordan Shamus is a columnist at the Detroit Free Press, where this piece first appeared.