Abuse doesn’t always have to be labeled

After a few months of banter, visits, and emotional vulnerability, I painfully and tearfully began to realize that my relationship with a professor was reaching inappropriate and abusive territory. 

Typically, teachers who engage in these behaviors do so by selecting a student who is already emotionally vulnerable—someone who wants to feel special, who craves validation. I was one of those vulnerable students. 

Before college, I was body shamed by three different teachers: once in middle school and twice in high school. Each one felt entitled to comment on my weight: comparing my size to my twin sister’s, telling me to “push the plate away,” and asking how much I weigh so he can find an “easier” way to discern my sister and me. 

While these behaviors didn’t blur or cross lines in ways I faced in college, these teachers wore away at my trust in authority figures, especially in academic settings. I was primed to believe that, if I was going to be noticed by a teacher, it would be for the wrong reasons. 

When I got to college, my needy, emotionally bruised, middle- and high-school self was drowning in invalidation, desperate for someone who would finally value my ideas, my personhood. 

I value the professor-student relationships I have, particularly the ones in which there is a safe balance of both personal and academic trust. 

What I thought was a valuable professor-student relationship was, upon reflection, riddled with moments that slipped under my radar. From sharing a heavy, emotional secret to asking about my relationship status three separate times, I rationalized every moment. 

It started out subtly with questions, on at least three different occasions, about my relationship status. He asked my friend, when I wasn’t around, how long we had been dating. He implied another time to my friend and me that he “knew what was going on” since we were “attached at the hip.” 

After he told me a heavy, personal story about a past relationship, he asked me if I was seeing anyone.  

As we became more familiar with each other, he, in response to a previous article in which I publicly named another professor as having sexually harassed me, said that he had purposefully avoided me because he’d thought I was “a lawsuit waiting to happen.” He later told me in strict confidence that he was afraid of becoming that professor. 

After a campus event one night, he offered me a ride back to my dorm since it was dark and my ankle was injured. I told him I was fine since I had a raincoat and an ankle brace. He insisted, so I accepted. I thought to myself, “I should not be here,” as I cleared out the passenger seat of his car, throwing various items to the floor and backseat. 

He offered another ride months later while I was in the parking lot after I’d already said I was going back to a class building. 

Once, we were discussing the previous professor I’d publicly named, the one he feared becoming. This led to a conversation about that case and professor-student boundaries. 

But rather than talking about boundaries, he instead detailed an inappropriate relationship between a previous division head and a student, telling me not how inappropriate it was but rather the clever way they avoided getting in trouble. 

He also told me about a past report he’d gotten from a former student. He labeled it as “ridiculous,” leaving me no room to disagree, reaching the verdict for me, as though he knew I wouldn’t challenge him. 

One time he randomly felt compelled to recommend a local dentist. He then reached his fingers into his mouth to show me his teeth before removing them and saying, “Show me your teeth. Smile.” I said, “No! This is weird,” through nervous laughter. “Why is it weird?” he responded. “You smile when I make you laugh.” 

One day when I walked into his class, he called me over to him. I stood in front of him as he was seated, but he kept telling me to come closer, around three times until our faces were very close. He then whispered my family nickname to me, seemingly enjoying watching me rack my brain to figure out where he could have learned that name; he’d memorized it from my GAView profile. 

The final straw was a joke he made about me in front of an entire classroom. I won’t provide specifics for the sake of anonymity, but one does not need details to conclude that a professor should not make a joke—in any setting—about a student being in a particular sex position. 

Looking back, one request he made to me stands out: “Please tell me if I ever say anything that makes you uncomfortable.” 

With this request, he was shifting his own regulation and self-management onto me instead of monitoring his own behavior—an extremely tall order and inappropriate role to place onto a student. 

I actually had a dream about this recently. In the dream, I described such a request as giving someone a band aid not because they’re bleeding, but because you know you’re going to make them bleed at some point—you just don’t know when. 

Instead of making sure you don’t make them bleed, you give them a band aid to show a false sense of caring and self-regulation before the moment that you inevitably make them bleed. 

The entire situation triggered emotions and thoughts from what I went through with the previous professor—emotions I thought I’d healed from. I was wrong. 

I could not handle that anything remotely similar was happening again. I could not handle that my trust had yet again been crushed in what I once considered an extended hand of mentorship and connection. 

My grades dropped, and I dropped classes. I would go full 24-hour periods without eating. When I did eat, it was very minimal, usually something safe and accessible like a box of vanilla wafers or a banana.  

There were days on end that I did not get out of bed. When I would go out for class, I would return straight to my dorm and go back to bed. I either slept for 12+ hours or not at all. 

I ignored messages from family and friends. I neglected my homework and emails. My entire world stopped. I couldn’t handle it. 

I hit a breaking point when I had to go on medical leave for my mental health.  

That’s what distrust does, especially when it’s repeated: The inevitable pain and reeling come back stronger than they were the first time. You might think you’re stronger than last time, but the pain comes back stronger, too.  

I wish I had been able to catch it sooner. I didn’t realize what was happening until that joke, the final straw. I was heartbroken and devastated when I looked back and saw how everything had played out right under my nose without detection. 

With each moment, I had a justification, even as it escalated. I refused to acknowledge that I could be experiencing something inappropriate again. 

Even though I wish I’d caught it sooner, I feel empathy and gratitude for that version of myself—she was just trying to protect me, clinging on to any sense of hope that maybe this was okay.  

I don’t know what to call what happened. It was inappropriate. It absolutely crossed lines and boundaries that professors shouldn’t even tiptoe around. 

Some people might say it looks like a pattern that mirrors grooming. I’m not here to label it, and that’s okay.  

No matter what you might label your own situation, if my words feel familiar to you—if you feel that same sense of confusion, of being trapped in a grey area—you aren’t imagining it. You aren’t alone, and you don’t have to stay trapped. 

Fortunately, administrators within ABAC were extremely supportive, and there was never a moment during the reporting process in which I felt unsafe or doubted. I was offered support, resources, reassurance, and several options going forward. This situation was handled with care and within a timely manner. 

If you feel you or someone you know is experiencing inappropriate behavior, or being groomed or harassed, contact ABAC’s Title IX coordinator Richard Spancake at rspancake@abac.edu or visit his office in Herring Hall, or visit the Counseling Center in the Health Sciences building.