Me, Myself, They

by Joshua M. Ferguson

  That morning, I told my parents what had happened. They responded with tears and anger. How could I have been so careless? They took me to our family doctor. I was feeling things in my body and on the surface of my body that seemed unusual. To this day, I still don’t understand why my family doctor didn’t call the police, why my parents didn’t call the police. I told them not to, but they were the adults and in their eyes I was just a child — a child who had been sexually assaulted. I was scared and confused, and felt dirty and guilty. And my family physician also implied that the assault was somehow my fault with his cold and uncaring demeanour. My family doctor examined me and ran a whole host of tests at the pleading of my parents, who were deeply worried about the possible permanent impact on my health. The HIV test was the scariest. At the time, results took weeks to process. I dreaded that call, but, thankfully, the tests all came back negative.

  In the aftermath, all memory of the assault was swept under the rug. I told no one beyond my parents and our family doctor. And I know now that it is a critical part of my story. I was the victim of a sexual assault that night. It happened, and then it happened again in another city with another man just a few months later.

  * * *

  • • •

  I was adamant about travelling to Ottawa by train from Napanee. I had been chatting with an older gay couple from the “big city” who lit up my mind with their stories about living life openly and proudly, visiting bars, and being free with their sexuality. They were warm and friendly, and to this day, I still think they were just trying to help me find relief from the small town of Napanee and the bullying that I was experiencing. My parents tried to keep me from going on that trip, but I was sixteen. I don’t blame my parents for wondering why the hell two gay men in their fifties would want to pay for a sixteen-year-old to stay with them for a weekend. It must have been terrifying for them not to be able to keep me safe. I was making very poor choices, and there was nothing they could do about it.

  The couple greeted me at the train station in Ottawa. I was a bit nervous to meet them for the first time, having only chatted online and spoken on the phone with them at that point, but it was thrilling to get away from the confines of my small town. They had a beautifully decorated home in an affluent area of the city. I was escorted to the guest bedroom they had prepared for me. The scents of spice coming from their kitchen in preparation for our first meal together hung in the air. And then the smell of alcohol followed. They offered me a drink. I continued to drink for the rest of the night, motivated at first by my desire to loosen up and have fun, and then excited by the new feeling of being surrounded by incredibly attractive men while I was paraded around the bar they took me to.

  I was wearing a tight T-shirt with the Batman logo. My hair was coiffed, and all eyes were on me. Fresh meat at the local bar, someone new walked in for their gaze. I remember being shopped around, in a way, introduced to some of the attractive men there by my hosts. I gravitated to a very handsome man in his mid to late thirties with short blond hair, tanned skin, and defined muscles. He had a beautiful smile. I was entranced; no one like this existed in Napanee.

  Immediately attracted to each other, we made out at the bar. I think someone told me he was a professional hockey player, but who knows, really. It was all too exciting, and my sexuality felt alive. And that’s where the memories fade and the feelings emerge. The rest of the night’s details are fuzzy, although I know that we made our way back to the couple’s home. I remember feet pounding on the pavement, holding his hand, a taxi ride, and then my clothes were off. Something felt wrong, and I reacted by trying to stop. He kept going. But this time, my body saved me from further harm. It wouldn’t allow this to happen a second time. I threw up all over him and the bed. His disposition changed immediately. The smell woke him up from whatever dark vision had fuelled him to keep going when I was so obviously falling into unconsciousness. I cowered to the corner of the room, vomited again, cried, and asked for help.

  I was embarrassed and I was scared. I was alone in this big city, staying with a couple who were practically strangers, and I was with this man who should have stopped when I asked him to. The couple and this man tried to calm me down. Likely the fear of what I would do, or who I would tell, terrified them. I was freaking out. They sat me down and offered me a joint. The energy shifted very swiftly in that apartment. They assumed a serious and controlled tone, obviously meant to prevent the emotionality of the experience from taking over and potentially ruining their lives.

  I didn’t tell anyone about that night, not even my parents when I returned home to Napanee. I worried that they would say they had told me so. And in a way they would have been right: what happened validated their fears. Until I wrote this, only Florian knew about the incident. And only recently, as the #MeToo movement has gained momentum, have I felt the strength to share my experience with others. I watched a television show recently in which one of the characters said something about traumatic stories that resonated with me: he said that he hadn’t told his story before because, once he did, he would have to let it go. I don’t think I will ever be able to let the stories of the attack and my sexual assaults go, but I do hope that I’ve treated myself a bit more humanely here by sharing what I had kept secret for so long.

  four

  The Alchemist

  Everything changed when I began attending high school in Kingston. There I embarked on a journey of self-­discovery in an intensive dramatic arts–focused program called Theatre Complete. This was a time of healing for me; I felt safe to exist around people in the program. We were all similar because we were unique in our own ways, and some of us were more obvious outcasts, due to our visible differences, than others. Some members of our group harnessed their truth, owned who they were, and expressed themselves in wildly beautiful ways. The teachers of this program, Al and Susie, created a space for people to be free, to be ourselves — an element unfortunately missing from the mandate of many high school educators, or at least the ones I have encountered. My new school was still a dangerous space, with its own set of bullies who would taunt me while my friends and I smoked in front of the school.

  In Theatre Complete I met a person named Eve, who would enter a room and set it ablaze with her intense, focused energy. Everyone was captivated by Eve’s honest expression. She was connected to a higher frequency. I had never met anyone like her before. Her expressive fashion sense and free spirit were a salve for me. Eve’s infectious spirit brought light and joyful vitality into my life. There were others in that program whose loving energy also acted as medicine. Jana, who shared the healing of music and curiosity of thought with me, and the kind and gentle dancer Beth, who rekindled feelings of freedom through dance that I had repressed from childhood.

  I toured around Ontario with Theatre Complete. We performed a play that included a monologue that I wrote about my experiences being bullied as an openly gay teenager. I had the opportunity to stand proud and tall in front of thousands of students in schools across the province to tell my story of resilience. I started to feel strength returning to my body and to my spirit while I was in Theatre Complete. I was still lost inside the pain and confusion, but there was an emerging horizon of hope beyond the illusory protective shields that I had built up around myself for years.

  I found my way back to myself by returning to the beginning. I became an alchemist by harnessing all the trauma of dehumanization and hate into a power that I could control. After my studies at Theatre Complete finished, I decided to face my fear and go back to Napanee to complete my last year of high school. I was terrified to go back. Strength had returned to my spirit after Theatre Complete, and the abuse I had faced during the three years I bounced between high schools to avoid death threats and to appease institutions had given me some very thick armour. But was I truly ready to face the same bullies who had treated me so inhumanely? How would I confront these demons? At age seventeen, I was expressing m
y gender in an explicitly feminine way, wearing makeup and adorning my body with unique pieces of what most would consider feminine jewellery. I wasn’t going to change myself. The classmates and friends who had been a part of my life during elementary school and in grade nine were now in their senior year. Would they welcome me, or continue to abandon the friendships we had developed during our years in elementary school?

  During these years, 2001 and 2002, I kept a record of my thoughts in a journal given to me by my mom. I wrote a list at the beginning that highlights a return to myself. The list, entitled “5 Things I Like About Moi!” included “my creativity, my values, my individuality, my fashion sense, and my loving personality.” This journal, in which I wrote nearly every night to process my thoughts, is one of the only artifacts I have from my adolescence that begins to make up for the many memories that are lost to me. Returning to Napanee was an important moment in my life, and I wrote at length about the decision to return to a school that still scared me. I was focused on myself again at the age of eighteen, but in a way that I had never been before.

  I want to take you through the roller coaster of emotions that I was experiencing in early 2001. This is when I decided to take action, to transform the suffering from the years prior, and to channel it into this new stage of my life — the journey into adulthood. On January 28, I wrote, “From now on follow the rules Josh. No more fuck-ups. Be strong.” Two days later, “Today I looked at you in the mirror and you were so beautiful. Your eyes were glistening and full of life. It’s inside of you. You just need the KEY.” I cried when I recently read this journal entry. I loved myself at that age, despite all the anger, disgust, and hatred directed at me by others.

  On February 2, I started to become aware of the defences that I would require to properly protect myself upon my return to high school in Napanee. “Some shields protect, but are shields that necessary? To be open is to be strong. But I might leave myself in too vulnerable a situation. Do what you think will benefit you in the most positive, balanced and forgiving way. Think positively of the journey ahead. You are a strong spirit.”

  On February 5, I wrote, “You made it through your first day. Wasn’t so tough, now was it? On with life, on with the march. On with the parade. I am so proud of you, Josh. You have been through so much over the past few years. You have made so many positive, responsible, and mature changes that were very important for your growth cycle. Be strong, Josh. I am the Master of my own life!” On February 8, I noted that “it’s been 3 days and not one single negative remark yet. The school has matured and I think it is a visualized reflection on how society is evolving.”

  My optimistic feelings aside, there were many people who didn’t want me back at that school, and I’m sure they were surprised to see me. I arrived back in Napanee unexpectedly, and the administration seemed to be on high alert. My final year of high school demanded a collaborative effort. It was still an unsafe place for me, a dangerous place where I was being taunted and bullied. But I gathered my friends. They were, indeed, powerful people, mostly women, popular in the school, who protected me and cared for me. Their friendship enabled me to complete my final year and helped me to handle the daily bullying. My Amazons were Chantel, Amanda, Becky, and Jenna.

  My idea of an Amazon is related to the experiences of many women and non-binary people around me, and is based on a concept specifically learned from Greek myth and popularized by the phenomenon of Wonder Woman. An Amazon, for me, can be a woman (both cis and trans) or non-binary person who does what it takes to survive, who knows what it means to come together with others who might be “others,” and who is powerful in their expression. The defining factor is an ability to take a stand and to fight for what is just against misogynistic and oppressive measures. Chantel, Amanda, Becky, and Jenna were strong, fierce, and beautiful young women who carved out their own spaces of respect where only the strongest survived unscathed. I made it through those final months by carefully avoiding the bullying when I could, and dealing with it head on when I was presented with no other options. And I survived with the support of these Amazons.

  On February 14, I wrote, “Allies. Powerful allies and powerful contacts.” I also noted that I was “back to being the true me. No more being false. Just being true.” About a week later, my experience at school made me feel thankful. I listed thanks for life, love, understanding, compassion, strength, friends, enemies, family, for all growing, evolving, and metamorphosing.

  I was in a very powerful place in the winter of 2000 at the age of eighteen, facing down the hatred that had forced me to change high schools four times, make new friends, and acquaint myself with new teachers, spaces, and classrooms. On March 1, I wrote of closure on old experiences, starting over, and acceptance of the new parts of my life: “March is definitely a positive-direction month. A time for new beginnings — new beginnings in friendship, work, love partners, change, evolution, appearance, and family. All aspects of my life. Everything evolving. Goodbye to being unhappy. Hello to you. Hello Joshua. Beautiful Josh. I love you.” A sketch of a heart ends the passage.

  I completed my high school education with many wounds — from my elementary school friends who turned away from me when I came out at fourteen, from the administration and the teachers who shamefully stood in silence and escaped responsibility, and from the bullies who feared so much for their own identities that they tormented me to make their own sick salve. Fear is the root of the poisoned tree that grows within us. Left unchecked, the tree grows and eventually the poison can overtake us. I have empathy for the people who verbally and physically assaulted me during my high school years. I can remember most of them, especially those from Napanee who took out their innermost insecurities and fears on me. I have always been an easy target. To revise a Japanese proverb (“The nail that sticks out gets hammered down”), I am the alchemist, the nail that sticks out and will never be hammered down. I have never remained in the position of victimhood. The journal entries from these years show that I never gave up on myself. Every trial and injury that I experienced during high school added another layer to my chrysalis, winding me up tight within myself to protect and empower the core of my soul until the time came to emerge.

  In the thirty-fifth year of my life, in 2017, two decades after these experiences, I decided finally to face the trauma of my childhood. With Florian at my side, I visited my old home in Napanee, my first high school, and the school I attended in Kingston. I knew the pain would still be there. But I wanted to process it through the lens of my truth. I knew that I needed to return to my feelings, not just my memories. And I knew that this would never be possible without returning to the physical space where the trauma occurred.

  We decided to visit the scene of my attack on the night before we were set to return to Napanee. Approaching from Kingston, I saw the familiar Tim Hortons coffee shop that had offered me shelter more than a decade before. As we approached the train tracks, beyond which lay the ditch where my car was stuck that night, the red lights started to blink and the crossing gates came down. A commercial train roared past us. I would have to sit powerless, very near to the place that brought back so many memories of pain and fear. I sat with my feelings, watching the train cars blur before my eyes. The red lights brought with them conflicting signs. They made me wonder if I should have come here in the first place. Was I doing the right thing, making the healthy psychological decision, in returning to this traumatic site? I didn’t have a choice. I came to the realization that sitting with the trauma like this was part of the process, a preparation. For a short while I was being given distance, while being the closest I had come in a long time to facing my fears. It seemed to take an hour for the train to pass, but finally we were let through. We drove slowly past the ditch, but I didn’t feel the need to stop or get out. Driving by was enough to excavate the sharp feelings of trauma within me.

  The next morning, we travelled to Kingston. To my surprise, when we arrived
at the location of the Kingston high school where I was enrolled in Theatre Complete, there was nothing left. They had completely demolished the school. A crew of construction workers and landscapers were redeveloping the land.

  I got out of the car and walked across the street to get as close as possible to where the building had once stood. This high school had provided me with a relatively safe space, among other “different” people, to work through the trauma of being bullied. My time there in Theatre Complete had empowered me to return to Napanee, to face my fears, and complete my high school education. Now standing there, looking at a flattened property, the place I knew in my memories was no longer real. The empty space was a sign to surrender to an important realization: the pain I had experienced when I was seventeen and eighteen would always be a part of me but was no longer real in my present. This was an awakening of sorts that reinvigorated my spirit and prepared me for the next part of our journey, to Napanee.

  * * *

  • • •

  Our first stop there was the old high school. The parking lot reminded me of having to walk to the school bus every day to travel home. I hated those buses. I dreaded the walk from the school, where I was being bullied, to this yellow-orange, old, and smelly bus where I was then forced to endure more abuse — being tripped while walking down the aisle, people’s bodily fluids and their chewed gum thrown in my hair.