I’ve been thinking about buying a taser. Or maybe some pepper spray. Maybe both.
I felt anxious walking alone through a parking lot alone—broad daylight, but it didn’t matter. It was only the second time I’ve been truly “alone” in public, meaning no one drove me to my destination, and no one was there to help me across a busy, intimidating intersection. No one was there to hold my hand (figuratively, of course) as I passed groups of men.
The only thing that made me feel slightly safer was calling a friend or my boyfriend. But the truth is, no one can jump through the phone to save me if something actually happens. Physically, I am still alone.
When I was little, my mom told me she had been raped. I didn’t understand what that meant at the time. I only knew it was something terrible that had happened to her, something she feared would happen to me too. Even now, my parents worry whenever I go out alone: “Where are you going?” “Be careful—there are a lot of weirdos.” “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”
And yet, the irony is that by the time my mother first told me about rape, it had already happened to me.
For years, I thought I had “had sex” with a relative. That’s the only way I could make sense of it. I didn’t know rape could come from family. I didn’t know I was a child who had been abused. Instead, I blamed myself. I thought I had done something shameful.
I remember being thirteen, typing into Google: “Am I going to hell because my [relative] had sex with me?” I found a post where someone explained what “nonconsensual” meant, and for the first time I read the words, “It wasn’t your fault.” Even though the words weren’t written to me, they felt like they were.
That was the beginning of healing—at least a little. I remember being nine years old and praying for God to forgive me for what I thought I had done wrong. But the truth is, something wrong had been done to me.
And that brings me to now. I’m twenty-four, finally learning what it means to be “alone,” and yet, I still feel the scared child inside me. She’s still there, afraid of the world.
Sometimes my ideas feel excessive—I’ve even thought about hiding an AirTag in a hair clip and sharing the location with my boyfriend. I don’t mind if he knows where I am at all times; I have nothing to hide. But it feels too invasive to share that with my parents, so maybe just my boyfriend.
I’ve also considered self-defense classes. The problem is, I can barely work up the courage to attend a painting workshop or a yoga session at the library. I’m painfully shy. Still, I keep telling myself: baby steps. Little by little, I’ll try more things, and eventually, I’ll get there.
When someone suggested self-defense to me years ago, I dismissed it. I thought it was useless. What they didn’t know was that I had been raped—and that I had tried to fight back. I had tried to escape. It didn’t work. Sometimes it even made things worse. Once he hit me when I resisted. Another time he held a knife to my head, maybe just to terrify me. It worked.
But recently, I was reading Easy by Tammara Webber, where the main character attends a self-defense class after a near-assault. Something a character said changed my entire perspective:
“The purpose of self-defense isn’t to defeat your attacker—it’s to buy enough time to escape and find help.”
That shifted everything for me. All those years, I measured myself against an impossible standard of “fighting back.” I remembered the moments when I paused mid-assault, catching my breath, then tried to surprise him by struggling. It never worked. I felt useless, powerless.
But maybe self-defense isn’t about winning. Maybe it’s about reclaiming even a fraction of power—about knowing I have a chance to escape.
It’s been almost a decade since the last assault, and I’m finally reconsidering. Maybe self-defense really can help. Not by erasing the anxiety, not by undoing the past, but by giving me tools. By reminding me that I can take steps toward safety, toward peace of mind.
The fear may always be there. But maybe I don’t have to let it control me completely.
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