Insight: I was targeted when I was a young, vulnerable deaf teenager (BSL)

This blog has been written anonymously as part of the Insight series – where readers are invited to share their story or news about their interesting job with The Limping Chicken. If you have a story to share please email rebecca@rawithey.com 

(Trigger warning: this article contains references to grooming, sexual abuse/rape) 

Lately everyone has been raving about the Netflix series, Baby Reindeer. It’s a really gruesome series, especially as it touches a nerve for me personally. The series follows a man’s experience as he is stalked by a woman and we find out that a few years before he was sexually abused by a man who he thought highly of.

When I watched the series I felt like I could relate to it. I don’t want to reveal my identity as I feel it’s a very personal thing but I also want to make other young deaf people aware of the sort of things that can happen to deaf people if you’re not aware.

In the series Baby Reindeer the main character wants to succeed as a writer. So when a big name producer takes a liking to him, he eventually grooms him and drugs him and ends up doing all sorts of awful sexual acts to him, without his permission. So really he has been raped but he feels powerless because of the power this other person has on him.

I felt like that a lot growing up, that I was powerless and other people were stronger than me. I wanted people to like me and because I grew up as the only deaf person in my family and town, I felt like I had to go above and beyond to please others and make them like me.

I didn’t really have any true friends growing up, then later on in life I went to a college where there was a bigger group of people. Most of the other students didn’t take an interest in me. I didn’t have much confidence in myself and found it hard to make friends and open up to others.

However I did begin to notice that a member of staff took an interest in me. He taught my favourite subject at the college and was always praising me and complimenting my work, which I felt really proud of. I really enjoyed my lessons with him and would look forwards to them every week.

As time went on we started chatting more when class had finished and he began making comments about my appearance and saying things like I shouldn’t tell anyone that we had been chatting.

Eventually he gave me his number and I would text him whenever I could. He made me promise not to tell anyone. These were the days when we had to top-up mobile phones so I would spend all my spare cash on just texting him. He made me feel good about myself. I was only sixteen though and he was a lot, lot older.

I had one girl friend who I would sometimes meet up with and even she would ask me who I was texting all the time. I would try to hide it from her because secretly I knew I was obsessed with him. He told me everything I wanted to hear and made me feel as though he was the only one who understood me.

The texts got more flirtatious and he mentioned doing sexual things with me. I wasn’t sure about this but I didn’t want to stop talking to him for some reason.

Eventually though I made the biggest mistake and on a weekend when my parents went away I agreed to go and meet him. He picked me up in his car and took me to an abandoned car park about 30 minutes drive away. It felt weird and I knew I shouldn’t have been there but he had a strange hold over me.

Without going into too much detail eventually he did have sex with me – it was my first time and it hurt so much that I cried for hours when I got home. I told him to stop once but he ignored me and I felt frozen as though I couldn’t say or do anything to stop him.

After it, he dropped me back off and he didn’t text me again. At college he blanked me and wouldn’t even look me in the eye. I was so confused. I stopped going to college, and my parents noticed I wasn’t myself. I dropped out of college and I jumped at the chance to move away to another relative’s for a few months as my parents thought a change of scenery would do me good and give me a break from the ‘hard work’ they thought I had been doing.

When I got back home, I found out that he had left the college and I was relieved. I pretended to my parents I had lost my phone by dumping it in a bin so he would never be able to contact me again too.

As time went on I started to process what I had gone through and learnt so much about myself. I realised it was never my fault, that he had seen me as a vulnerable lonely deaf girl and he had targeted me. He had groomed me into getting what he wanted.

A few years ago I decided I wanted to report what had happened, even if it was a long time ago, but I found out that the man had since died. I kind of have my closure now but I also want to make deaf students and deaf pupils aware that they can always talk to someone they trust and please dont be pressured into doing anything they don’t want to do.

If someone asks you to keep your conversations a secret – speak out! If someone singles you out, tell a friend. Please don’t allow them to manipulate you or depend on only them. Have confidence in yourself and if you feel like something is ‘off’ please trust that feeling and owe it to yourself to stand up.

This blog has been written anonymously as part of the Insight series – where readers are invited to share their story or news about their interesting job with The Limping Chicken. If you have a story to share please email rebecca@rawithey.com 

Image courtesy of i-stock photos.

If you have been affected by this blog please see the following links: 

https://dsahelpline.org

https://signhealth.org.uk/videotags/rape/