Growing Pains

SUNDAY.

SO, I’m going to be completely transparent, I’ve gone back to eating Frosted Flakes with all their 100g-of-sugar-in-every-serving glory. I’m still working out as regularly as I can. Sometimes I have such a busy school week that not a single workout is had, and then other weeks I can really kick my own butt five days in a row and love every second of it. This past week was one of those weeks where I never made it to the gym. I know it’s not great that I’m stopping and starting like this, but I’m giving myself some grace because at least I’ll still start again. If this was four years ago, I would’ve just stopped entirely.

I haven’t written in awhile. I caught the writing bug again and practically ran to a Philz Coffee shop. I’m currently sipping on a warm, sweet Mocha Tessura, and I won’t move from my seat until I’ve written all I need to write. Things have been kind of heavy lately and I wasn’t ready to speak on it until now.

I had a safety scare that truly left me wondering if I was being stalked. For a while I put all of my social media on private, and I didn’t want to exist or be accessible to anyone online. I even hated myself for having this blog because I wondered if maybe talking about my personal life was what betrayed my sense of security.

Back in December, I was relaxing in my dorm one night when someone had knocked at my door. School policies are that no one is allowed in the building except for students, unless they’re a parent or immediate sibling of a student. Even then, you have to sign in, leave a valid form of ID with the front security guard (who has to check to see if your guest was pre-approved by the head of security to accompany you in dorm buildings), tell them what room you’re going to, and you must be out of the building by 11pm. I say all this to explain to you why I had no reason to suspect that a complete stranger would be at my door.

The security guard at the front desk wasn’t paying attention when a man slipped in through the front door while some students were coming and going. I found out later after speaking with administrators that this person walked right in, went straight to my door, and knocked. He was taller than me, a little bit built, he was at least 35 years old, and he had a black, Nike hoodie on with the catchphrase “Just do it” printed across the front.

He asked me if he could come in, I told him no, that’s okay, he can stay where he was. So, he planted himself in my doorframe. He handed me a poster with all of his social media on it, and started to tell me that he was an aspiring rapper trying to get his music out there, that he had upcoming gigs and stuff. I was so confused by what was going on, wondering if this man was with another student, or if maybe he was just a really old student I hadn’t seen before. At this point I don’t think I wanted to accept that this guy had simply snuck in to the building. I was so in my own head that I didn’t even hear him when he asked me for money.

I said, “Excuse me?”, to which he responded, “Yeah, I’m accepting funds at this time for this, so… do you have any money?” I told him all I had was five dollars in cash, and that I would get it for him, because I wanted him to leave as soon as possible. He asked again if he could come in while I got the money, I told him no. I partially closed the door, I couldn’t close it all the way, he held it open. I remember not even wanting to turn my back so I could go and get my wallet, but I did, and I walked into the kitchen.

I was very aware at this point that all of this wasn’t okay. One of my roommates was standing in the kitchen, she looked confused and concerned. My mind was racing so fast that I couldn’t even tell her to call security, a friend, anyone— I just mumbled utter nonsense to her and then walked away to get my wallet. But she knew something was up, and she stayed in the kitchen.

I gave him five dollars, thinking this should be the end of it, I can close my door now and call security, but he stuck around and asked me more questions. I’m just going to write them all down below because in truth I can’t remember what I said anymore. All I knew was I was trying to get the conversation to end casually and platonically. I didn’t think he was here for money anymore, he had what he wanted so he should’ve left. I could sense that he was stalling, and I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for him to (for lack of a better word) pounce.

“So is this like a music school? What do you study? Are you laying it down?”

“Oh, but this is like a dorm room though. I see some bunk beds and stuff, this is a nice room. How many of you live here?” He kept looking past me at this point, casing the room.

“There’s four of you? Huh. Oh, this is all of you guys.” And he pointed to our names that were printed on the door. “So who are you? Are you ___?” He read the name of one of my other roommates, I lied and said I was her.

“So where are the rest of ‘em? Are they here?”

“Are you alone?”

My roommate stepped out of her hiding place in the kitchen when she heard that. She told me after the fact that she was making a point of being seen by him, so he would know I wasn’t alone, and she’d been listening. He looked at me, at her, and at the room for another moment.

“Can I come in and throw this away?” He took a white piece of paper out of his pocket. It was a school poster that said student’s can’t hang things in the halls without the RA’s approval. I pointed to the small plastic bin that sits by my dresser, right by the front door. I told him he could toss it into there from where he was, and he did.

He looked at me again and then just walked off slowly. I remember closing the door and even locking it slowly, so that he wouldn’t hear.

I called security immediately, told them there was a man in the building who wasn’t a student and gave them a full description of everything that happened. They called the RA, she did a sweep of the floor and didn’t see him. I texted all of my friends and my other two roommates an all caps ‘DON’T COME HOME’ text, because I expected that they would be home any minute and didn’t want them to be caught in the hallway with this person if he was still around.

The resident security officer came to my room a couple minutes later and told me they escorted the man from the building, and that he claimed to be a guest of a fellow student I’d never heard of. I found out later that both of these were lies. This man left the building of his own accord and the security guard on duty happened to see him on his way out. To my knowledge he only asked who he was here with, he didn’t detain him or ask for an ID. Also, the student this man claimed to be with had never even seen or heard of this man before.

The school’s administrators were really remorseful about everything. They fired the man who was on guard that night, and they hired more security officers. Now, there’s a second officer who sits right outside the front door of the dorm building. The school also said they would reimburse me my five dollars, but that hasn’t happened yet.

When I was told he walked in and came right to my door, I was afraid that maybe he’d been stalking me or other students online. Maybe that’s how he knew what name to give when he was on his way out the door. Since he’d given me that poster with all his social media (which I gave to security), I looked him up on instagram and blocked him. He didn’t have much in the way of personal information, not so much as an actual name on his profile, just his stage name. I couldn’t figure out what made him come to my building, come to my door, give the name of a student who didn’t know him— nothing.

There’d been two different reports the week leading up to this night of female students being approached and harassed by men in vans. In my most paranoid moments, I wondered if maybe the guy who snuck in was affiliated with these people who were parking outside of our dorm buildings and harassing the students, maybe it was all some big plot to traffic kids from my school. For my own peace of mind I had to chalk these ideas up to pure anxiety.

“I can’t help but feel that if any of what I’ve heard is true, and all these people said nothing, then they’ve all failed me.”

After everything that happened, I also heard a lot of rumors. That’s the downside of going to a drama school with a very small community. I’d heard that this guy knocked on three other doors besides mine, but officially, all I heard from administrators was that according to what they could see on the security footage, he went to my room first and then briefly another; he was only in the building for 12 minutes maximum. I’d heard that other students had seen him hanging around the building or spoken to him prior to the night he actually snuck in, but no one ever said anything. Just the other day I gave a speech on this whole incident in class, and one of my classmates told me afterward that this guy was in her friend’s room for two hours. I asked her if her friend had told the school that, and she said yes. It made me wonder who was right.

To this day I don’t know what’s true and what’s not, and I don’t think I have the capacity to care anymore about any of it. I can’t help but feel that if any of what I’ve heard is true, and all these people said nothing, then they’ve all failed me. It makes me angry.

Now, my roommates and I keep the door locked at all times. Even when we leave and there’s other people in the room, we lock it. We keep pepper spray hanging up on the wall right next to the door. The school put peepholes in, too. I ripped our names off the door that night, and at the start of the new semester when everyone’s names had been reprinted and taped up, I ripped them off the second I saw them. I understand that in an emergency it’s helpful for the RA’s to see who lives where, but in my emergency this idea screwed me over, so no, my name will not be on my door. I’m lucky that this man guessed wrong, it gave me the forethought to lie and say yes.

Reading all of this back, I realize how scary it doesn’t sound to people who might’ve experienced worse. This exact idea had caused me to have a lot of doubt in how I’ve felt about everything. Ultimately nothing happened, so in theory I should’ve felt fine, but I really didn’t. To this day it’s still kind of a big deal to me. It took me some time to accept that I was going to feel scared and paranoid for awhile. This was the first time I’d ever been in a situation where I was unsafe, and it was entirely up to me protect myself. That’s obviously going to leave a mark.

I also had to learn to trust my instincts after this. I’d gotten some comments about how I should’ve slammed the door in this man’s face or made him leave. Hearing all of that made me feel guilty and wrong about everything I did, but I learned that what I did was right. I’m a 20 year old girl who’s never thrown a punch, I wasn’t about to escalate a potentially dangerous situation against a man who definitely would’ve won. I was right to keep things platonic and ‘de-escalate’ the situation, that was the only real tool at my disposal. In the moment I knew deep down he wasn’t just soliciting for donations, he was there for some other reason. I had to trust that I was right to think this, so I was right to feel scared.

I’ve been doing better since everything happened, and I’ve been extra alert whenever I’m out. I’ll cross the street when I think I need to, I’ll take the school shuttle to and from school buildings, I’ll take an Uber anywhere else. I often run errands or go out for a coffee with a friend instead of by myself. (Today actually is the exception, I wanted some me time so I went to a shop by myself— I told my roommates where I was going though.) I’ve even gone so far as to tell my roommates when I’m going to go grab my Uber Eats delivery downstairs. The common catchphrase is “If I’m not up in 3 minutes I’m dead.” I know that’s kind of bleak, but I enjoy the dark humor, although my intention is serious.

I made my profiles public again because, as an aspiring actress and singer, I don’t want to make myself unreachable online if a potential job opportunity is coming my way. I’ve been careful not to tag my actual locations publically, ever. If the topic of location is unavoidable, I don’t make it known until I’ve left that place. One time I think I tagged a Dunkin’ Donuts in Ireland when I posted a picture of my hike to see the Hollywood sign, and I didn’t post the actual picture or my subsequent stories until I was long gone. I’m also not going to publish this blog post until I’ve actually left the coffee shop I’m writing it at. I’ve learned you can never be too careful.

I’ve also thrown myself into my faith. Before everything happened I was reading my bible every morning and praying the rosary every night. I think God was leading me to establishing these habits so they would be in place to help me know how to find peace and clarity when I needed it most. Ever since this happened I think my desire to deepen my faith has increased ten fold. If I didn’t know Jesus and I wasn’t praying my way through this, I can promise you I would not be okay right now.

Sometimes I still get nervous when I hear a knock at the door. Last night I saw a picture hanging up at one of the guard stands of the man outside my door, (it must’ve been a screenshot from the security cameras), and it really threw me off. I’m fairly certain I had another bad dream about it last night, but I can’t really remember anymore.

These are all just growing pains, but I know myself. I’ve got this.

Until the next cup of coffee,

-Ken.