Harm

Secreto
I learned today that someone I knew, not well, but over many years, someone I appreciated, who was always cheery, who always asked about my boys, who seemed absolutely fine, recently took their own life.  They had retired and I hadn’t seen them for a few years.  I asked after them and that’s when I heard. You just don’t know what is going on with people, what burdens they bear, what secrets they are trying to manage. How does it come to that?  Is it a turning-in on the self, a retreat from people? There is no doubt it is the darkest of secrets.

Walking home, with this on my mind, the lovely tango Secreto began playing through my headphones.  In the story about this song, the man nearly kills himself but is saved by a friend. The song is about a happily married man, living  a straightforward, family life. His secret is that he falls hopelessly in love with another woman.

Quien sos, que no puedo salvarme
muñeca maldita, castigo de Dios…
Ventarrón que desgaja en su furia un ayer de ternuras, de hogar y de fe…
Por vos se ha cambiado mi vida - sagrada y sencilla como una oración - 
en un bárbaro horror de problemas
que atora mis venas y enturbia mi honor.

Who are you that I cannot save myself
cursed doll, punishment from God…
A storm that in its fury tears apart a past of tenderness, home and faith.
Because of you, my life—sacred and simple as a prayer—
has turned into a barbaric abomination of trouble
that clogs my veins and clouds my honour.

That phrase, 'Muñeca maldita' has a particular ring, in Spanish.

A recent post was about people finding refuge from class in a practica. Another early track is the sweet Mi Refugio, by Orquesta Adolfo Carabelli, a piece full of wonders, previously mentioned here. It was covered in another danceable version by  Carlos Di Sarli. I have particular affection for the sensitive piano accompaniment in the Carabelli even though the instrument sounds as though it's on its last legs.  

Refuge
The práctica I run is my refuge of sorts, from tango dance class, from industrialised tango, particularly from the kind of second rate music I don't like to dance to and that is played too much here in Europe.  Also, I suppose from controlling types, from sign-in lists on the door, from chilly, sink or swim atmospheres.  I have written about difficult times in the milongas, times, alone, where doubt creeps in and self-confidence fails you. But it was in my own refuge that I came to harm. 

Contrary to my generation’s stiff upper lip inheritance from our wartime parents’ generation, even while I find the self-obsession of Gen Z toe-curlingly revolting, it is time to say I am not that fine, not since 12 February when I ran my second practica of the year.  It is time to let in some light and fresh air on my own secret about being harassed. I harboured it for weeks from New Year because I didn’t want to burden my dancing friends or cause discord in our nascent tango community.  But the harassment increased and ultimately put me in hospital. My health has been damaged and I have had to give up the new career that was going to finance the hole in my pension since I stopped work to raise my children and focus on my family.

I have felt a need to tell this story, not particularly to the police or friends or family (though I have had to) because it is stressful reliving that harassment each time I have to tell it. Perhaps if I write it, not just write it down, but speak out, even in some limited way it will unlock the prison I have been in since this harassment began.  I need to move on and until I tell the story, it feels as though I can’t. But this person has proven themselves dangerous so this is not so much about those six weeks of harassment and how it came about. It is mostly about the aftermath.

Someone who had learned the dance from me, at my practica, and from the people I introduced them to and in the places I took them to, became fixated with me. They used a different word.

There was no charge.  I helped them freely because I love when people learn the dance from other social dancers and because I would like there to be a local tango dance scene.  But after a few months their behaviour turned unsavoury and downright alarming.  I withdrew contact and when that didn’t work, blocked them.  That didn’t work either.  I told them my reasons, thinking that would give them the “closure” they demanded but that still didn’t work.  In the end, over six weeks, they tried contacting me via at least eight different channels. 

I contorted my life to avoid them, initially cancelling my events, avoiding places I knew they would be, believing their reassurances that they were going to leave tango and leave me alone but they kept trying to contact me and turning up at my events. 

The next time I ran a practica, 12 February, this individual turned up again, more than half an hour early when they knew I would be setting up.  That date will henceforth be metaphorically bordered in black for me edged with the words:  control, manipulation, egotism, lies, ambition, narcissism, disguise: warnings of harm and a rejoinder to myself not to have to learn that lesson again.

I said: What do you think you are doing?  How can I make it any clearer?  I don't want to see you, or hear from you and I certainly don't want you at my events.  I don't want you, your friends, your music, your anonymous comments on my blog, your food.  I want nothing to do with you and I want you to leave me alone. I told them to leave immediately.  

But they refused, even after I put their bags outside the door.  I asked, increasingly distraught: Have I been unclear? Do I look like I want you here?  Do I look like I will ever change my mind? I felt totally trapped.  My horror, shock and disbelief and the stress of the situation clouded my judgement which would have been to call security.

They later said in another message from yet another channel, that they would never "corner" anyone again. But even that message talked in chillingly controlling language that they were "not going to allow another miscommunication" - as if, after everything, there was still some future. How could anyone be so blind, so deaf, so insanely intent?   

I had told myself that weeks of blocking them repeatedly, as they found new channels of harassment, was not bothering me much but that constant pressure must have been having an effect.  As I asked and then begged them to go and they insistently refused I felt a stabbing pain in my chest. My Fitbit showed my heart rate had doubled from 70 to 140bpm.  I was scared and in pain.  My hand sought my chest.  My face burned and I felt my cheeks.  Look at my face, I said.  You must leave. I wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like.

Any normal person would have got help and made themselves scarce, seeing the effect they were having but, extraordinarily, they still refused to go.  You are bringing this on yourself was all they said.  What I most remember is the total lack of emotion in that bloodless face.  Later came the realisation this wasn’t about an obsession with me, about care for me, whatever they might say.  It seemed a vampiric need to get what they wanted, needed, could take for themselves. 

I had to stop setting up the event and, since they refused to leave, I was forced to leave to sit in another room to try to calm my heart. I went back to get my phone.  To my astonishment I found them setting up their food at my event.  What do you think you are doing?  I said again.  Leave! But again they refused.  I felt too unwell to argue and again I had to leave the room and the music I should have been preparing. 

I returned at 3PM when people were expected.  That individual were still there, lingering by that martyred offering of food.  It was obvious I would be too busy welcoming my guests to be able to get rid of it. The thought of that food sickened me.  Shortly after the event started, that individual did leave, to my enormous relief. They had been there for about forty minutes.

But the damage was done.  I got through the event but my chest ached all afternoon.   Still I still said nothing to friends, but they were concerned.  Are you Ok? You look overwhelmed, one said. 

At the end of the event, before people left, the harasser returned to pack up their things, knowing the questions it would raise:  Why wasn’t X here?  Did they provide all that food?

The next day I still had chest pain, and now crippling muscle pain in the left shoulder blade, neck, collarbone. I had had the same physical experience I had had last summer in Italy after being physically and psychologically trapped by a manipulative older woman, although I was in so much discomfort that I didn't remember until later.

To the same friend: 
Seems I have a powerful reaction when cornered  / trapped.  Similar thing happened in Italy last year when I got COVID. My millionaire employer tried to trap me in her property, surrounded by a fence, locked gates and roaming rottweilers and to blackmail me.  Got chest pain (albeit not with the dangerous statistic they found this time).  Took about two months to get over that.  

Another friend: “You attract sociopaths, don’t you?” I hadn't prompted them with the descriptor but the same one had occurred to me.  Don’t you see though, that when you try to withdraw from their games, that’s when they get nasty, try to trap you?

I hadn’t. I had told the harasser the day before that they were ill, needed help, but in the end it was I who fell ill.

Danger
This time it was more serious.  By the evening of the day after the practica I was in A&E still with the chest pain.  The doctors were concerned the electricity going through my heart was too slowly.  The number  they measured was so high it led them to think I had had a heart attack, an overdose or a biochemical imbalance, none of which they could subsequently find evidence for.  The concern though was that my heart could tip into arrhythmia.  From there, the danger was cardiac arrest.  

They were concerned about stress and recommended I call the police for help with the harasser so I did, there and then in the A&E cubicle while I waited for test results.  It didn’t look like I was going to get out of hospital.  I cancelled work the next day and decided to tell some friends what had been going on.  Once I did these things, I felt relief. 

Hours passed.  The doctor decided to repeat the test that had given the worrying results.  To their surprise, the number came down to within acceptable limits, but far above what it had been in the summer.  I was desperate to go home and they let me go, with a recommendation to repeat an ECG in a week. 

Aftermath
The chest and intense muscle pain continued through the week.  I had to stay off work and lived very quietly over the next week but when I repeated the story to the police, to friends and family I felt worse, reliving it.  Unsure whether I could take prescription painkillers I turned to alcohol, not much, but something, every day. Towards the end of the week I had trouble getting a full breath. I knew this was probably anxiety, maybe due to the continued chest pain. Why wasn’t it going away? Was I going to get that high number again?  How would I know?  Aware how hard it was to get a GP appointment I decided to wait til the next ECG scheduled for a week after the first attack.

I took walks, could bear no music stronger than the soft, reassuring voice of Argentina's national folk hero, Atahualpa Yupanqui, whose songs and solo guitar were like balm to the soul.   

The next ECG came back satisfactory but, contrary to initial advice, no one was available to discuss the results.   I had to make a decision that day about what to do regarding my course because you can  only miss so many days of placement.  I still felt terribly unwell and had questions about the worrying number from A&E.  I paid £50 to see a private GP for 10 minutes to understand the ECG results but all they could say was that the number was within normal limits. They said I should be examined by my own GP . I still couldn’t get an appointment. 

The pain continued into the second week and wasn’t improving.  Eleven days after my practica, I was able to see my GP.  He explained this dangerous number was associated with stress but that the danger of arrhythmia was when this number was prolonged. The danger area is above 460.  In A&E my number was 520.  After I made my stress-reducing decisions while in the hospital it reduced to 430.  A week later it was about the same. The previous summer, it had been 300.   

He said while the ECG was reassuring, it would be reasonable to repeat it in time.  So what was causing the chest pain brought on by that confrontation? I asked.  Stress, he said again. Nevertheless, that clarity was helpful. I felt the pain in my chest lift a bit.  The sky was blue.  The spring flowers were everywhere, the heather was blooming.   It was a good day.  I put on salsa for the first time, fun, uplifting salsa. 

Future
But I have had to leave my teacher training course. I still feel too unwell and in any case have missed too many days of placement from chest pain and the attendant problems. I went in to A&E still planning my next day's lessons but came out profoundly sobered by the physical damage people can inflict. I put in six months of profound hard work.  The previous October, for the first time in 16 years, I put my work first instead of taking my son abroad for a formative cultural and linguistic experience because I had to submit an assignment. I submitted two of these at Masters level receiving a grade of First Class.  It has all been for nothing. Six months of work, my future career, my imminent financial independence, it has all gone.  But if that person had not come there that day, or even if they had left when asked I wouldn’t have got the chest pain, ended up in A&E and so on.

Twelve days after later the chest pain and severe muscle pain on my left side continued.  I still had trouble breathing.  I felt knocked for six, lost my appetite, got upset easily, tired easily, was anxious near people, even walking in to town.  I was anxious too if left in the house alone while I had the pain.  

Towards the end of the second week I decided to go to salsa, anyway, knowing with relief that person would not be there because they were away. I thought it might do me good, knowing it might be my last chance before they came back.  But sometimes when I found myself chatting to people my heart started racing and I had to leave to stand outside, stretching and breathing and lowering my heartbeat.  This had never happened before.

Nearly three weeks after that ill-fated day I now get chest pain mostly if I think about what happened. This is why I need to get this story out and draw a line under it.

But, aside from the pain, my heart still flutters about in my chest,  flighty as a bird only nothing like as romantic.  Since the pain has eased, it has been replaced by constant palpitations.  I ignore them, knowing only time will fix this but they haven't improved yet. I still have muscle pain on my left side in my back, neck and along my collarbone. I have had to turn down offers of contact or activities with people I don’t know well, not trusting them and am especially nervous around those I think may not be wholly stable.

A friend who knew about the two entrapments, last summer and this year remarked:
You must be giving out the wrong signals unintentionally?
...provoking the rejoinder:
It's my fault!!!!!???

But I know I shouldn’t have to defend myself.

In a letter regarding my course withdrawal, a course leader had talked about the "resilience" required for teaching.  I know he meant well, only that it would be in my best interests to be fully well before any return, but it could also sound like: "end up with heart problems and you're obviously not resilient". I can't imagine returning. I feel so fragile now. I had a really successful first placement and passed. I was one of the better student teachers my mentor said. I enjoyed the discussions about literature and social issues with colleagues and pupils, but since 12 February there is no way I could now handle that pressure or that of an assignment.

Yesterday, a teenager accosted me in the street, looking for trouble to impress his friends.  I ignored them and no harm done.  But even as I knew teens sometimes do this I remembered my friends' words and those of the course leader.  Is it really my fault?  Do I attract these people?  Do I give off "manipulate me" signals? Does heart trouble mean you're not resilient, not as good, worth less?  Thus self esteem crumbles away and the damage of abuse is compounded by ignorance and insensitivity.

I have worried for my safety and that of my family.  Upon my arrival in the harassar's town to run my event, even though I believed they were away, I feared they would appear around every corner. I walked into the bar in the building where I hold the event.  In a horrible reversal of the situation where the lover believes they see the beloved everywhere, I saw people sitting at tables wearing the same colour tops the harasser would wear. My startled gaze jumped doubletakes from table to table.  My nerves jangled warnings.  Good Christ! I thought, When will this end? As I set up the room last weekend, I kept watching the door, starting at shadows.

Life is circumscribed now.  No outside work. I am too jittery to drive much. I don't feel ready to start from scratch again and seek private clients for language work. Even my social life, which was around dance, has been curtailed. The thought of going to any tango or salsa event fills me with dread in case the harasser is there. Even if they were not, that dread and worry embitters the experience. My heart jumps about just thinking of it.  I still worry the harasser will turn up at my own events because I know they don't take no for an answer.  I have seen that they don't know when to stop.

A:  I've developed an avoidant personality of late, especially regarding folk I don't know.
B:  That's not like you from what I've seen!
A:  Indeed, no. 

My trust in people, never too robust, hangs by a thread. Saddest is the impact on helping others. I will never again do that so freely, nor enjoy someone's development in the same way because I have seen how they can take that gift, twist into something ugly and damaging.  It will always be at the back of my mind.  Might they...? How unstable are they? How dangerous? It staggers me that all this harm was caused by a mere chit, albeit with the energy of someone three decades younger. I am a shadow of the self I was.

In the play “An Inspector Calls”, a family, separately, all interact, in negative ways, with someone who, under the cumulative assaults of these disparate individuals, commits suicide.  The family members try to absolve themselves to each other.  The Scots novel, "Scabby Queen", also portrays the characters who interacted with each other and with a woman, who, at the start of the book, we discover has killed herself. She seemed to turn in on herself. 

Therefore, it is important to speak out. I am not sure how important it is to whom you speak.  But it is important not to be left in the dark with abuse and harassment and bullying. It is important to let in the light and the air.

Many people still think: You are not responsible for your effect on other people.  What they think, do, feel, has nothing to do with you or what you do to them or say to them.  Somehow, our society, for the most part, believes you cannot harm someone in any significant way unless you touch them.  Or unless it is in clearly defined categories like domestic abuse or sexual harassment, both of which can be verbal. What a bizarre and foolish misapprehension it is, for this same damage of one person by another clearly extends more widely.

I had read not long before that anger is a punishment you give yourself for someone else’s bad behaviour. I am sure there is much in this.   Yes, I was profoundly and irreversibly disappointed but more than that, I could not fathom how someone would force themselves, psychologically, on someone else, still less turn up where they knew they were not wanted.  In physical terms we call that rape, or assault.  Outside domestic abuse situations, or in rare, difficult-to-prove cases, at work, we don’t yet fully accept the physical damage someone’s words or actions can do without actually beating you.  Would that in the future the psychological and the corresponding physical harm someone causes another is treated with the gravity that today is accorded to physical attacks. 

This could have happened anywhere I suppose, at work, at some other club. But it happened in the world of tango, where I go to meet people, connect, enjoy their company and to help them if they look for that.  It happened in the room I use for my practica, that is now tainted with that memory.  People I have told since have been supportive.  I realise I am not alone in seeing how certain individuals use all their wiles to get what they want.  I have people who will help me if they try to turn up again.  There is security in the building.  The police have said I can phone. There are at least three layers of defence, plus now more people know and just that helps.  It is extraordinary to me that I now need to think this way.

A:  I have realised that when it comes to bullish undesirables, no matter how fine the packaging, what you actually need is bouncers or security - ideally several levels of it in case one doesn't work in case one doesn't work.
B: I found that out a looooong time ago.

I wonder though, how might things have been different had I told someone in my local community, earlier?  What if I had asked someone to be with me that day, in case they turned up, if I hadn’t tried to cope through six weeks of harassment on my own, if I hadn’t held on to this dirty secret alone in the metaphorical dark?  There would have been no confrontation.  I wouldn’t have got chest pains nor ended up laid up for weeks with a fear of people that leaves me shaky and unable to cope with situations I won’t be able to walk away from.

If there are two main conceptual preoccupations in my life, these have long been freedom and death. Freedom starts with 'freedom from', before it becomes 'freedom to'. That includes freedom from harassment.  Confronted with the deliberate infringement and circumscription of that freedom by someone else, it has thrown the fragility of life and good health into sharp relief.