“One night, close to Halloween, I was walking through the UCSC campus near one of the colleges on a paved path. All of a sudden three guys in scary costumes jumped out from behind some bushes. They were all yelling, one had a chainsaw and revved it up, one had an axe and one had some kind of pipe or stick. The chainsaw was very loud. I was extremely startled and scared and I screamed. They held their scary poses for probably about 20 seconds – which seemed like a lot longer to me at the time – then stopped, and laughing, went back to where they had been hiding in the bushes. I assume to lie in wait for the next person to come along.

I left quickly, pretty shaken up. A day or two later I overheard some other students talking about it. It turned out that a guy I knew had heard one of the three guys bragging about it. He told me who it was. A few days later I worked up the courage to go confront him. I went to his dorm room, knocked and he answered. I was really nervous and my lips were shaking as I spoke but I did it anyway.

I told him that what they did was not OK. I told him that violence against women is a reality and that when they jumped out of the bushes I thought I was really about to be attacked and that it was extremely scary. I told him that it was not funny. It was not a joke to me. I could tell that he felt really uncomfortable with my telling him all that. He seemed to feel really bad about it and said he was sorry.

I feel good that I was able to say something. Partly because I think he learned something and likely won’t do anything like that again, but mostly because I was brave and stood up for myself.”

Jade,
Friday night an incident occurred that I feel is worth telling and would make a good contribution to your collection of self-defense stories.
Friday night after dinner I told my boyfriend, who was living with me, that I had kissed another guy during a one-week period when we had broken up. There was no problem at that moment. I decided to stay home while he went out to the bar that night because I had a cold and wasn’t feeling well. He returned a few hours later after a few beers while I was sleeping. He woke me up and told me to have a beer with him. I told him that I was cold and did not want to get out of bed. He then turned on the heater for a few minutes and then told me to get out of bed. I then told him that I was just not feeling well and did not want any beer. He flipped out at this point and started accusing me of “f* with his head” and lying to him. “So which one is it!?! Are you cold or not feeling well!?! Why do you have to f*with me like that!?!” This was followed by ranting and raving and threats, all of which I had heard before and really weren’t too out of the ordinary.

Any other girl in my position would have gotten up and ran out of the room because of the way he was acting. I was so used to it, though that I just ignored it and figured it would pass without too much harm. NEVER underestimate the threat of violence!

I don’t know how it got to this point, but he finally really lost it and got me in some kind of choke hold. He finally let me out after I did an eye strike (a move I will never forget) but was still on top of me and acting crazy so I started screaming for help and banging on the wall. (I realized the next morning that my neighbor just moved out). He covered my mouth and told me I needed to stop, and then he started choking me again. He was rambling on about something like how he knew I would never forgive him and if he couldn’t have me nobody could. After that he choked me one more time. This time until I couldn’t even move anymore and thought for sure he would kill me. He let go again but kept on trying to grab me. I stayed in the defensive position though, with my arms up in front of me. Defensive stance is another thing that I will never forget. In this position I could at least strike his hands away if he tried to go for my throat again. I eventually coaxed him off of me and I moved slowly towards the door and went down to a friend’s room.

I was actually very surprised how some of the smallest things that I learned in your class helped me the most. The defensive position I have found not only prepares you to strike, but protects vital areas like face and throat. I was so reluctant to move my arms away from my throat that I wasn’t willing to strike him. Right now he is staying with friends and is under the care of a psychiatrist. I refused to press charges because I don’t want to put myself
through that and I feel that he needs mental help. I do have pictures of the injuries if I need it at any point, though. One thing that I have learned from this incident though is, as I wrote earlier: Never underestimate the threat of violence!

I should have seen this coming before. He has attacked me and choked me before, but his outbursts were so
common that I came to disregard them after a while rather than take them seriously and as a warning sign that things were escalating and I was in serious danger. I hope that others can learn not to make the same mistake after reading my story.

Always,
Shelsea Hodge

Thank you so much Shelsea for sharing your story! It is a great example of the reality of dating and domestic violence and a great success story. Shelsea gave me this story about 11 years ago. She was in her early 20s.

Julia took the beginning women’s self-defense class at UCSC. She shared this story in class and wrote it down for me.

“When I was seven years old I was in the second grade and my sister was in kindergarten. We lived just around the corner from the school we attended. On the other side of the back fence in our backyard was the school’s kindergarten playground. My mother would allow us to go play in this playground unattended because she could hear and talk to us from our backyard.

One day when my sister and I went to play we saw a male classmate of mine and his older brother playing in another playground. We said hello to them and went to the kindergarten playground. After a while the two boys came over to where my sister and I were playing. My classmate had been trying to kiss me during recess and after school for quite a while but I didn’t think he would try now because his brother and my sister were there. I was wrong.

The two boys came up to me, got me down onto the ground and held me there. My classmate held my hands down and tried to kiss me while his older brother straddled my legs and tried to pin me down. I struggled against them and was able to get my legs free enough to knee the older brother hard in the groin. He grabbed his crotch and rolled off of me groaning. I yelled for my mother’s boyfriend who was at our house at the time. He came to the back fence of our house and yelled, “Get off of her!” They ran away and my sister and I went home.”

This story is an example of defense against multiple attackers and a great example of the knee to the groin as part of ground defense. It is also an example of a young girl (Julia) defending herself against two boys. The assault was a sexual assault in that the reason they were holding her down was so that one of them could kiss her. These boys may not have intended to do her any more physical harm – but they COULD have. She was in imminent danger of serious bodily injury and within her legal right to fight back.

It is important for us, and all girls, to know that girls can be sexually assaulted by boys their age and older. We must not assume that because of their youth and relative small size, boys cannot do serious injury to another child- boy or girl, sibling or other child. I know of girls who have been sexually molested and raped by young boys. We must not be in denial about this reality. We must encourage girls to fight back and we must teach boys to be respectful of others.

This story makes me wonder….What could this assault have looked like if they were all teens? Where did these boys learn this behavior? Had they been similarly assaulted? Had they personally witnessed this type of power and control by a male over a female? How often had they seen this kind of behavior on television? Did they ever assault another female again or did they learn that girls are powerful and can hurt them if necessary? How can we teach boys to express their sexuality in appropriate and respectful ways? How many of us women lost this instinctual power to defend ourselves (that many of us had at the young age of seven) as we were conditioned to be “ladylike” and told we were physically helpless? By reading this handbook and these success stories now, are you regaining that sense of power and confidence to defend yourself?

It is important that we do not take these stories as formulas. I am not saying, “OK, if this ever happens to you just do exactly what she did and all will be well.” What I hope is that by knowing these stories we can all learn to trust our instincts and intuition better and not let the rational, conscious mind interfere. Also, knowing basic aspects of the psychology of the attacker, we can consciously use that knowledge in our self-defense. For example, we can consciously choose to do something that is unexpected knowing this can be a very effective strategy.