In order to get my graduate degrees in the program I had been admitted to and chosen, I had to take classes in my department. I had no reason upon enrolling to believe that this would be a problem. But it was.

It was the kind of abuse which is very difficult to describe and even when one does, one worries that one sounds crazy or will not be understood or taken seriously. And in a situation where others have already called one’s mental health into question it’s impossible to talk about. It took me years to be able to call it what it was.

In retrospect, I can see that one of the main things my abuser wanted was control: of me, of the situation, of anything pertaining. And her job gave her that, but again and and again and again she overreached, in ways that were never actually about helping me.

I took a class in grad school which would have been my cup of tea: women writers. But it became very strange very fast. I did all the reading. I came ready and prepared to class. I was interested in the material. The professor asked questions I was really interested in discussing. But when I raised my hand, she did not call on me. She ignored me. And called on students who had not raised their hands instead. I wondered if I was being too forward. So the next time I waited until the first two questions had been answered to raise my hand. But I was still ignored. And after a few classes she asked questions which were along themes I knew very well, so specific that it was almost like she’d gotten information about what I liked. And so it was like with the question there was candy dangling in front of me, but when I reached for it she ignored me, and made sure that it and the credit for answering went to another student. One time I did get to answer a question and she told me that I was wrong (though I had done enough work to know that I wasn’t), insinuating that I was stupid for thinking that.

Everyone else in the class got to participate. I had been stood in the corner with a dunce cap and I never knew why.

The one time I was asked to participate was memorable. We read The Piano Teacher and there was a segment where the student fancies the teacher and describes this. The professor went around the room and assigned students segments to read. She started in the middle of the room, and landed on me to read the graphic sexual segment, to read aloud and comment on. I was uncomfortable, but simply did the reading and stopped.

I had to wait more than a year and ask many times before getting my term paper back. Other students I talked to got theirs back much earlier, and were allowed to rewrite for a better grade. I was never clear what my grade was based on. I was not allowed to participate in class. I was told I could not rewrite my paper. My ideas were never engaged with though I engaged with the subject material.

I was a grad student and needed to prove that I could uncomplainingly hack it. I felt that my chits with other professors had been used up already on a conference in my program during my first year, someone else had already spent them for me to “support” me and I did not want to be a crybaby or needy (asking others to help me with my needs) although I didn’t know what to do. One professor had even reached out to try to help me. But I so badly wanted her to think of me professionally, to show her I could hack it, to be able to stand on my own feet, that I didn’t want to share my troubles. I didn’t want her pity. I didn’t see what she could possibly do to help me.

I just stopped feeling safe, and I learned that I had no real recourse to address any of it if I wanted my degrees. I tried in four or five different ways to work around it but in the end, my program only protected my abuser.