The abuse that was my university experience

Trigger warnings for aba, gang-stalking, abuse of power & the casual mention of rape and suicide.

It started on my first go round as a blooming adult. The agriculture advisor that instructed me that women will not succeed being a forrest ranger. I dropped the second major then. Why fight a system the already won enough to take powerful positions? I was young and tired of fighting to survive already.

But it wasn’t just the agriculture department that had issues. My second major then was art with a focus in painting. It took a little longer but eventually that hammer dropped too: you must paint nudes from a live model. Unfortunately this demand was presented to me directly after I had been raped and experienced a connected mental health break down (yes suicidal and hospitalized). I attempted to protest even sighting mental health but they were insistent that if I continued my education in art I must be present with nude bodies. I dropped out for many reasons and both of these are part of it. The other part was being in a relationship with a control freak but that’s unrelated.

Huge gap in my collegiate education follows, seven years. In that time I had gained more trauma, wisdom, and had decided I could & needed to choose my boundaries. It was the only way to heal what was cut open inside me. I came back to the same school knowing my credits would be lost in a transfer. I was determined to overcome myself, communicate, and graduate successfully.

I started with a dual major: agriculture and art. This time with minor changes to focus in horticulture for the opportunity to work in a arboretum and a focus in sculpture. Sculptural gardening a concept that entranced me.

Of course, advisors were the first to meet. The horticultural focused agriculture adviser came with an understanding of agoraphobia from his family; according to him in our first meeting. He spoke of how they would never overcome themselves while looking at me. I defended my capacity as he dismissed my eagerness to overcome self. Still, he gave me the information I needed to begin. Including informing me of the opportunity to volunteer and eventually work at the college’s arboretum. He explained then that the volunteer work could be anyone in the community but the work was more like an internship. He never let me volunteer though (even during covid when they were barely able to maintain) and claimed it was because I had yet to take his courses.

After a year or so he refused to respond to emails. Maybe my inbox was not sending, maybe his wasn’t receiving, whatever the case the lack of communication left me without the advising needed to move forward. The next advisor was more forward with his declarations that he could see me working alone in a wooded area secluded. My heart crushed. I wanted to heal and connect. Still he advised and occasionally mislead me. I remember specifically asking for a course that would lead me to a certain certification. He gave me the number of one that briefly touched into the topic but it was not a course required for the certification. He used his position to gain trust and then wasted my money in misdirection. I did not further pursue said certification, as I was limited in scholarships remaining. He was aware of that side as well. There was no true reporting to the head of the department all though he had been more accepting this go round, he was the advisor I had in my youth that had declared females didn’t belong in careers in the outdoors.

This was about the time that things got sketchy all around. I had been diagnosed autistic and came out publicly as if it meant nothing because to me it was relief to understand my whys. The community I was in saw it as an opportunity to first dismiss me about my own health and then to shift their expectation and chosen interaction style. So first, people that I looked to demanded and mocked me for considering I was autistic. Then, those who had authority and ability took action to “help” in accordance with that diagnosis without my consent to style. So obscure considering when I asked for space to communicate my grief and pain around my trauma, there was no space save to silence me. Shaming me for my artistic exploration of my traumatic experiences.

Just the same, the onslaught of ABA began. I’m talking about professors laughing in my face when I asserted learned facts. Professors choosing to let people interrupt and mock me during my assignments to speak to the class. When I asked why people were told to self control for others and not me, I was told to just ignore it. The triggers I shared with those in charge or that feigned friendships became targets for constant exposure therapy. Some thinking my issue with nudity extended to images and choosing to use that as their artistic focus for the semester. Another choose a fake name to harass me because it included a trigger.

The fake friends were saturating. People just gaining information to laugh and set up situations to harm me in. Conversations that were meant exclusively to manipulate my behavior with topics about everything from not giving compliments to how clownish my make up was and in what was I needed to change and be like them. Typical childish stuff that illustrated the common complication in youth that is summed up with “ if everyone jumped off a bridge”: ie the idea that inclusion was only offered to those who were the same despite the clear illustrations of groups that had differences, my different was too much from their viewpoint. This is how I knew ableism was afoot. The social rules changed when they applied to me.

The professors continued to abuse with their authority. One class presentation was met with a professor that never let me finish a sentence. The class was one set up to illustrate that women are in their place for a reason with the deception that it would be an empowerment course. The course numbers on repeat clued me in to the misguide as just the semester prior I had been mocked for setting my prices similarly. I was prepared for harassment and ignorance, yet when it happened in a room full of women my heart hurt. Rage surfaced in defense but I squelched it. Over half my report was not given but the professor had notes on what I left out as if the whole had not made an effort to prevent my speaking. As if I had the authority to get them to listen when I spoke, when she (the professor) wouldn’t let me finish a sentence. After class another student attempted to defend me. The same student was kicked from class and the next meeting the professor made sure to pull me aside and comment “I don’t tolerate disrespect to my authority in my classroom” as if I had stood up for myself…poker face made to survive yet another slight against my human rights.

Another professor decided that he was going to feign to protect me from in class nudity exposure. I trusted him as it had been a few semesters of communication. He had been kind during my panic attacks which implied he understood the hell I carried. This day must of been a fluke. Just the same I was in the main part of the classroom in the middle of a time sensitive mold process that began with having my whole face covered. Pretty traumatic but I overcame it. Still, I didn’t hear his announcement that someone was going to be nude in the main classroom. He didn’t come to me to tell me. He didn’t ask them to use the other room with a sink. He just decided I would be exposed. I fawned because my work needed to be done and I had no desire to redo the mold making, in the end I had to. When I reported the issue, meeting happened. Mostly dismissive and explanatory meetings where I was blamed because this was a course expectation. As if the professor hadn’t communicated with me at the start of the class. As if I wasn’t part of the campus disability accommodations group. As if there was no validity to my right to have boundaries from the understanding of what my limits to tolerance are due to my traumatized mind. I thought bringing in my school therapist would help. But she was just another piece playing her part. Afterall, nothing in the syllabus changed. They still declare they have the right to force nudity for those seeking art degrees.

See the school therapist had played devils advocate with me on the regular. She offered little support and instead lead our meetings to be about her life. Of course in the beginning she tried to get me to see someone else entirely. I was struggling with my PTSD and her inability to be on time or consistent. Then it was because we had differences religiously and politically. Whatever the case, each time I said “no thank you I will work on my avoidance of differences in this professional connection”. After one of our therapy meetings where I complained about silent protests being harmful to victims because its supports the perpetrators, she orchestrated one on campus and invited me: I went and talked most of the time. Our last conversation was her laughing at me wanting to talk to a lawyer from the illegal therapy that had been applied by the school’s environment. She hugged me and told me the name of one of those lawyers that advertise on TV.

Another instance was disguised as support. Requesting that I help another student in weaving. By this point I had started to see what was up and began planting seeds to see where the leaks were. The tutoring session was another autistic person who refused to focus on learning weaving and instead spent the whole time talking about how much more important making money was. The seed I had planted involved some implication that I didn’t want to work again; something easy to see through as I had two majors and constantly discussed my excitement to work and live around gardens for life. Alas, they chose to believe me and to send someone to convince me otherwise. Even had her suggest payment for my help, which I declined thrice from her and once from the department head. She did one weaving for the whole semester (typically 3/4 are required); this revealed the whole truth beyond my assumptions. She wasn’t seeking weaving, she was told to deceive me with a gang-stalking add on of attempting to embed monetary seeking into my head.

There were so many more events. More micro-aggressions. Some even to prevent my coursework by damaging the equipment like a loom with a clean break through 1.5 inches of iron and missing more than 3/4 its heddles. It was a constant hoop I had to tolerate and compensate for no matter how far my mind had slipped onto despair. Eventually I dropped my agricultural major and decided it was time to get free before my mind started to agree with my abusers. I had just found myself before returning to this space, I was not about to give it away based on those who demanded my silence. In the final weeks the art department head gloated in my senior studio: if you hadn’t shared your weaknesses this wouldn’t of happened. A passive admittance to her victory as I had given up on a degree I was very much in love with as my body and mind refused to preform more in more in an environment that was toxic to behold.

If only moving were successful. Unfortunately, I discovered those that were helping me escape were entangled, their medical marijuana connection held the last name of my agricultural advisor, and guess what, that man doesn’t leave his home. Its harder on the regular for me to overcome my trauma to interact, especially with the ongoing gang-stalking by people calling themselves professional who refuse to examine their own internal bias.

I bare witness to the existence of those granted power can become so entranced with their achievements they fail to self check or to allow anyone to report a difference of impact to their intentions. I bare witness to their willingness to mock me for that which I was attempting to do in my life: heal. I bare witness to intentional exclusion and manipulation based on a diagnosis that changed nothing about who I am or my capacity. Yet it was always the reason for both prior as humans have the capacity to tell who is different without needing it labeled. Just as we have the capacity to choose to accept those that are without knowing the name for what makes them different. Ableism is something that has justified my exclusion and targeted abuse since preschool. The easiest way to check the waters for it is to agree with someone and watch them argue against themselves with me…

None of this is to say I was the perfect student. I had triggers that won. Days I couldn’t communicate even when at home alone. Moments when the professor screaming at me only perpetuated me to join in on their manipulative communication styles. What else could I do? My direct disagreements and boundaries fed them just as ignoring it did… what else was left but to mirror them and leave as soon as possible? Without any person willing to betray their cause, I had no evidence and therefore my only justice was peaceful retreat. If only I had found peace where I ran to. But I guess that’s what happens when we object loudly, the silencing becomes deafening.