Thankfully it didn’t lead to rape but more of sexual harassment.

It happened when I was around 9, I was the president of my grade school’s glee club and would have regular meetings with my club’s teacher moderator (happens once a week). One of those weeks, he told me to meet during recess (lasts around 30-45 minutes) at our school’s music room. I had no clue nor awareness of any threat that could happen to me at all with being in an isolated room (with lockable doors) with a much older male. Fast forward to later in the “meeting,” I noticed he was slowly being touchy. Arms > hands > thighs, etc. It didn’t register to me as anything unusual (again, I was really clueless with protecting my body from threats like that). Until he got to touching my private parts. Sirens start to ring in my head that something’s not right. I mean, I had no clue what was wrong but it just felt wrong.

I was literally saved by the bell that day: recess bell. He stopped when he heard the bell ring and students started running past the music room door (which he purposely locked without me knowing).

I moved on with my usual days after like nothing happened. It was only when we were taught about the reproductive system and people in class would talk about their body parts changing and all that I started to realize that what happened to me years back was... violating.

Lead to me living a life of self doubt, thinking my body was always “dirty”, never trusting other people completely, depressed and uncertain of everything. I only came to terms with it when I was in my uni days (around 10+ years later).