PersistenceByPri: Against All Odds

I had planned this piece entirely since senior year began but knowing college was cut short by what was supposed to be the best 8 weeks of all of it including graduation, has only made the intent of my piece clearer.

As most people's journeys, college has been incredibly draining yet ten times the more rewarding. I had a unique one that faced the most incredible people of my life and was lucky enough to go to two universities and create families and memories at both. Those people and the times were so great, they masked what should’ve been some of the worst points of my life and lowest points but regardless I couldn’t be here without them. They gave me love, safe havens, and bundles of happiness in places I can call my home away from home.

Freshman year began at the University of Maryland where I knew a total of 2 people amongst 50,000 faces in a state completely different from anything I’d ever known before. Finally, the time was here to escape from New Jersey. I hoped it would be a new start and the past would be left behind. The past, which I will one day gain the courage to elaborate on. Suffocating and abusive, nonetheless, I was constantly terrorized and people around me suggested to start over and get far far away from here. I took the advice and moved to Maryland, hoping that constant terrorizing would halt and I could start over and live the normal life anyone deserved.

From the first day it was such a freeing experience and I had never felt better. Normally, moving to a new state and beginning college would be incredibly terrifying. However, I was finally given the chance to start all over and to this day, it has always felt like my safeplace and home. I would now be able to see new faces who didn’t know me for my trauma, people who got to know me, for me.

Three weeks after school started, everything took a turn. My mom called me frantically one day telling me that she had been receiving texts from anonymous numbers that stated

“Your daughter is a slut.”

“She’s been sleeping around”

“You raised an alcoholic whore of a daughter”.

We tried to ignore it, hoping they were random prank messages being sent, until mid october when these texts turned to include pictures of me and started going to my father as well. These were pictures I didn’t even know were taken of me. How had he taken these pictures? Why was he tormenting me? I realized who HE was. I realized that these texts and pictures could have only been sent by one person. The abusive and manipulative highschool ex, the only one who would have had the opportunity to take these. These pictures that were illegal in every sense imagined. Not only was I minor but also these pictures were not consented to. They were taken without my knowledge and distributed. My world started to turn upside-down.

I started getting texts as well. They were FRIGHTENING to say the least. These texts compromised my sense of safety, well-being and future. Everyday, I would get messages saying hurtful things, pictures of myself, and threats. Hurtful things such as slutshaming or degrading me constantly. Pictures of me as in compromised positions and under-aged. As a minor or not, these were unconsented to, illegally obtained and distributed. The threats were the scariest. I was told I was going to be kidnapped,physically harmed, and that my future employer would get a hold of these pictures one day. I started to break down.

It was at that point I decided to go to the UMD Police Department to get help. I barely had it in me to explain the entirety of everything, first to an officer, then again to the lieutenant and then to a detective. It had taken quite a while to put it all in writing, and then re-read it on paper in my statement. Talking about it was one thing, but to see it, was gut wrenching. It wasn’t that simple, however. This had consumed my mind and everyday activities to the point where although I went to class and went out at night, my close friends had to make sure I ate and slept. Although, I was trying to carry myself normally all I could think about was this pain. I was in class, not learning, instead in agony and anxiety thinking what would happen next. Not even what could happen to me, but rather to the well being of my parents. I tried to tell myself “everything is fine”, but right when things seemed their worst, the cops found a way to kick down the little energy that I had mustered up to stay afloat and just leave my room each day.

I had gotten a call to come back down to the police station only to be lectured by the head detective that一

“This case is a lost cause.”

“I have 3 daughters, and I always have advised them to wait till marriage for certain things”

“There isn’t much we can do.”

And this translated to, “I don’t care enough to do anything. You are not worth it.”

It took so much to wrap my head around what happened. I quietly left the building, and the wind outside slapped some sense into me. Never before had I felt this much confusion, rage, and defeat all at once. How could you tell me a professional, an adult, a person whose job on a college campus was to literally “protect and serve,” that they had not a care in the world about the situation. How could you tell me that distribution of child pornography, harasssment, stalking, death threats, defamation and cyberbullying couldn’t be worthy of attention. Worthy of change. Worthy of my protection.

To ignore caring for my wellbeing and mental health was one thing, but to not even give me a sense of reassurance was exasperating. What about my physical safety? My future? Of course it was incredibly upsetting that he couldn’t give me the time of day. But, how could he not worry about the anxiety and fear my parents were consumed by? He was a parent himself, after all.

I thought the rejection from one organization was bad enough but imagine fourteen offices. Fourteen different professional resources that specialized in helping with student’s situations and all I got were shrugs and another referral. One office to another, I was sent looking for answers and everyone told me that they had someone else who could help me. This was an ongoing cycle that would never end. They told me that it’s a mental health issue. They told me I needed to take my mind off things, eat on time, focus on going to classes, and make sure my sleep schedule was alright. Was I speaking a foreign language? In every which way I conveyed the issue all I was bombarded by was suggestions to my own lifestyle instead of action against the perpetrator.

Everyone thought I needed help and would try to find answers for me by mentally dissecting me. Yes, I needed help. Sure, I needed to recover mentally. However the issue at hand were these outrageous illegal acts and threats that no one seemed to even understand the gravity of.. Sure, my mental health suffered as I watched him attempt to strip me of my sense of being. However, what about my physical safety, the constant threats and harassment to my parents, and the unsolicited images that would strip me of what some would call the bare minimum. I thought proximity could possibly affect the situation. However the farther I went , the farther he would go to ruin every sense of peace I had.

I realized running away to Maryland wasn’t going to solve the issue. I had to nip it in the bud right where it had started. Maybe, Jersey authorities would have better jurisdiction. The only changes made were that the rest of my friends and family members from the past 18 years of my life had started to get these explicit texts. Images and shaming messages to my brothers and cousins to my childhood neighbor and to my highschool friends. It was now my third month of college and I realized I had to reach out to Jersey officials themselves. No one in Maryland seemed to care about the overarching issue. Not… Prince George's County Police Department, CARE to Stop Violence at UMD, Student Conduct at UMD, Res-Life at UMD, Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct at UMD, North Campus Case Manager at UMD nor the University of Maryland Police Department, to name a few. I didn’t comprehend what was so hard to understand about basic human rights, basic human safety, and the basic discernment of right from wrong. Not one of them could help me. How fucked up is that?

It was only three months into my freshman year and the situation got so bad I had to apply to transfer back home. This meant moving back close to my perpetrator and starting over yet again at a new University and studying the next three years in a place where my safety and wellbeing were jeopardized. I wasn’t transferring to save my grades, despite everything I had still managed to be on track in Computer Science, cyber security specialization. On top of meeting with so many “professionals” and “referrals” every single one of my deans and professors had been made aware of my situation without my knowledge, and would invite me to meetings to say the same thing again and again . “Why don’t you drop out for a year?”. They advised me to take a W for this semester and as per their “professional from the heart” recommendations.

If you thought moving would make it easier you're wrong. I can tell you about the plethora of offices I visited, however, the same thing happened again. No one took the time to understand the real issue …my safety was more risked in the same vicinity as my perpetrator and the next threat was thrown at me, just one month into my time at Rutgers. I got a DM on social media with images that were blurred out due to explicit content. You guessed it, these images were taken of none other than me. My underaged images, but this time screenshots of it on Pornhub. They were sent to my dad as well and it took me 2 hours, but thousands of views and disgusting comments later, to get it removed.

After this, I knew things had to change and although I was one tiny brown girl in a new world, I did not want to lose any more of my what were supposed to be “my best years”. Many of you know a year later, I was assaulted at Rutgers and I had to take the fight against the fraternity into my own hands, as the offices and resources provided by my university failed me yet again. In fact, my perpetrator tried to have me investigated to be expelled. In “No Does Not Mean ‘Convince Me’” , I touched upon my assault story and as well as the reflection piece “One Year Later” which dealt with the aftermath and processes.

I wanted to use this piece and the two year anniversary to reflect on my college career, where despite everything, I finally began to find peace and purpose in my life. I've prevailed when all odds were against me, and within that is my glory. Despite all the cops, investigations & stalking, I somehow made it. Despite every dean and professor telling me to take a year off of school or that college was not for me, I made it. Took 18 credits every semester and had extracurriculars and jobs and still made it. I never took a summer or winter course and despite it all, I still made it. Even though transfer students are said to have lower GPA’s and take an extra few semesters to graduate, I made it in 3.75 incredible years, and I finally experienced feeling proud of myself.

Honestly to this day I know damn well I could not have done this on my own. The friends I had held me up when I could not stand on my own and I owe it all to them. I owe it to my family for never once judging me and always fighting the good fight with me, making me into the woman I am today. Launching The Priya Project was an incredible feeling in itself, to finally open up and share with you along my journey. For me it was an outlet that ended up building a community, and everytime I heard from you guys, it motivated me to push forward and change the system even harder. Sharing my experiences, as cliche as it sounds, made me so much stronger. I learned that every time you use your voice, in public or in private, you work towards recapturing your power and help others to capture theirs. There’s PTSD and there’s also post traumatic growth and they do cross paths!! It’s so important to recognize that you’re going through that growth, and take it easy. And most of all, thank YOU for everything.