The following story is of my wife (let me call her Sly) using self-defense when she was a kid! I should explain that she came from a large family with a single working mother for most of her teenage years. Her mother was away a lot and the kids went unsupervised. I have edited this account to remove much of the identifying information.

I decided to publish this becuase there are probably lots of young girls living in unsupervised conditions due to single working parents. Sly has been a fighter ever since we met and had to use her wits to escape many times when she was younger. I will publish self-defense stories of people not trained in karate to show that anyone can use their wits to increase their chances of survival! This is written in the first person – I will hold my comments until the end.

Watch out for those peeping-toms!

When I was thirteen, I was in constant company of, shall we say, unsavory types of people. One of my sibling’s friends was a low-life, having his friends over and partying – while my mother was at work and had no knowledge of what was taking place right under her roof. 

 

  

I met his cousin and being so young, I was inexperienced and had low self-esteem. So when this older, good looking man (he was in his late twenties) started paying attention to me, I was elated. 

 

  

He gained my trust in small ways in the beginning. First he offered me cigarettes, which I gladly took. Then alcohol. Over the weeks, he would come and visit every day and talk with me for hours at a time. He constantly gave me compliments and brought me little gifts. 

 

  

Being naive, I thought this individual was trustworthy because he was one of my sibling’s, friend’s, brother. I assumed he was a friend because we would confide in one another about many things. As he gained my trust, he decided it was time to do what he set out to do. 

 

  

One afternoon we went up to our secret “drinking” area in the back yard which was a tri-level yard and very far up and away from the main house. Once we drank our wine, I was drunk and at a disadvantage. One minute we were laughing and talking, and the next, he was on top of me trying to rip my clothes off.  

 

  

I started screaming and kicking like a mad bull and when I couldn’t get him off of me, I used my nails to dig into his back and pulled his hair. I bit him in the chest and shoulders and when he tried to cover my mouth, I bit into his hand.  

 

  

Next thing I knew, we were rolling down the hill tangled up like two cartoon cats and I never stopped fighting and scratching. By the time we made it down the hill, he was pretty scratched up and bleeding. He cussed me out and went running off like the sissy that he was. 

 

  

I thought that was the end of this pervert, but I was wrong. 

 

  

He stayed away for about two weeks and I thought he was forever gone. I was sadly mistaken. One evening, as I stepped out of the shower and had a towel wrapped around me, I walked into my bedroom and sat at my vanity. 

 

  

Back in the seventies it was popular to have mirrored ceilings, and my room was the coolest in the house. This also probably saved my life. As I sat in front of my vanity singing along with the radio, I hadn’t noticed the man outside of my window.  

 

  

He had managed to lift my window up silently while I was unaware. For some strange reason I got a bad feeling inside and I looked up at my mirrored ceiling.  

 

  

While brushing my hair, I noticed two hands inside of my window pane. As I looked closer, I saw a set of eyes staring from outside the window in the dark. He was back.  

 

  

He had climbed on a trashcan and was in a position to pull himself into my room. He tried to stay hidden from my view, but his hands gave him away. 

 

  

He was waiting for that opportune moment when he could pull himself in and attack me. At thirteen, most girls would have screamed and run away.  

 

  

I acted very casual and played it off like I hadn’t seen him. The little actress in me suddenly took center stage.  

 

  

I got up off of the chair I was sitting in and turned up the music. I began singing louder and danced to the music as I made my way closer to the window, all the while very aware of his every move.  

 

  

He stayed at the window, in the shadows, watching me dance in circles toward the window. I used my hairbrush like it was a microphone and acted like I was singing to an audience.  

 

  

He must have thought he was in heaven at that moment. I continued to spy my vanity mirror and ceiling mirrors very carefully while still moving closer to the window.  

 

  

His hands were now inside the whole pane, he was gripping it hard. I turned toward the window and acted like I was closing my eyes and singing. A split second later I made my move for the window. He never expected what happened next. 

 

  

I pulled down the window as fast and as hard as I could, on his hands! I had never heard a man scream like a woman until that night. I continued to hold down the window on his hands and fingers.  

 

  

He was screaming and crying like a baby, begging me to open the window. He tried pulling his hands out and it only made it worse. The more he pulled, the harder I pushed the window down on his hands.  

 

  

They were a bloody mess by now and his fingers were stuck under the window. I screamed at the pervert and continued to hold down the window. It was a vicious struggle for about two minutes, until he eventually managed to pull the shredded remains of his bloody stumps out of the window pane.  

 

  

He fell off of the trashcan and hit the ground running for his life. I locked my windows and closed the curtains after that. I was shaken pretty bad but had managed to survive this man twice.  

 

  

I never saw him after that, but I was always watchful and careful about leaving my windows unlocked in the future.    

Let me be the first to step back and say Wow! Sly got out of two bad situations… the first one where she had trusted the wrong man and the second where the guy was lying in wait for her.

Now I am a believer of putting the blame where it is due but in many situations that does not really matter. What? you may be thinking? Yes young girls should not be partying with older men and be in compromising situations, but that has nothing to do with a young girl, finding herself in a pickle, and having to fight her way out of it!

So putting prevention aside, in the drinking on the hill with a man incident - Sly all of a sudden found her self being attacked! She did exactly what she had to do, to get away… FIGHT BACK! I especially liked the scratching – biting and continuing to fight as she was rolling down the hill.

Now the scarier situation here to me is the guy on the trash can, at her window. Apparently Sly had some sense of security being higher than ground level. The man found a way to take advantage of the feeling of security and found the window open. She luckily noticed the man in her window and formulated a quick plan. I think (but I don’t know) that very few girls have humiliated a bad man quite like Sly did here.  I also think it is a good thing she was able to counter attack because the guy would have probably attempted to knock her out if he had gotten his hands on her. While I am glad she made the guy pay dearly – that other option of screaming and running for help may not have been a bad option… but like I said – Sly is a fighter

The take-away here is as always – try to avoid bad situations, young girls should not party with men at a minimum. Parents should try to find a balance between working and supervising their kids (this may be easier for me on my soap box, than a parent in a bind), and kids should work on awareness. An old saying, ” An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” seems applicable but also, If all else fails, do whatever it takes to keep yourself safe!

I would like to thank my wife for her real-life story that will hopefully help raise awareness in young women.