Member-only story
Self Defense Won’t Protect You from Violence
Then why bother learning it? The reasons are more important than you think. [TW]
In July of 2000, I became a statistic: I was violently attacked in my home, in the middle of the night, by a complete stranger. It was clear to me during the attack that I was fighting for my life. Except I didn’t know how to fight, or defend, or how to do much of anything other than scream. I was saved by my upstairs neighbors, who heard my screams. The attacker heard my neighbors’ footsteps racing across the floor above to come help me, and he ran.
He was never caught.
The attack lasted maybe five minutes… maybe fifteen. It felt like an eternity while it was happening, so I have no real idea of how long it lasted. What I do know is that the trauma I suffered from that event stayed with me for life. And for the first decade after the attack, despite therapy and a lot of internal work, I had no real idea how to manage that trauma; instead, it chipped away at the life I was trying to build for myself, constantly undoing everything I tried to achieve.
The long-term effects of trauma were ruining my life.
From the outside, it looked like I had a fear of success, or low self esteem, or just a…
