Do I Dare Snicker?

My massage teacher sent me a note that he's been summoned to court.

I cannot help but be amused. It the tucker hadn't decided to grab my nose a second time, denied that he'd hurt me and put me down when I said that no one but my husband touched my face, this wouldn't have happened, now, would it have?

I think it is out of my hands. In my state, when you report something like this, the police and DA take over. I haven't been contacted by the DA and I was just happy that I'd created a paper trail so he'd think twice before he did it again. He said that he grabbed people's noses all the time-- I seriously doubt it. I read my posts from that time, and I kept saying that he was a nice guy. He's an arrogant prick! I can't find him in the court system so I wonder if he is just being a jerk trying to make me feel badly for him. I never did. I started laughing when I read it. My husband cashed in a week's vacation to pay part of the tuition and I won't even be finishing my 500 hours with him. I probably won't finish massage school. The people who do it are mostly flakes. Massage feels good. There are some great people out there who are consummate professionals, and this guy probably was at one time. He is flying fast and loose and his ego has gotten in the way of his gift. He's slick!

Massage feels great. It cannot perform miracles.

Supposing that he has been actually summoned, the judge will see that he didn't break my nose but that he did invade my space after I told him not to and slap his wrists and give him a fine that him being an MD will laugh at. I wanted to not go back and I didn't know if it would get worse so I filed a report. The man broke his word when he did it again and has a problem hearing no.

We hugged and made up but I was never back to being a member of the class and I was trying to figure out that maybe I did have a problem. I appologized but I can't figure out for what. For not liking my face being touched, telling him to not do it again and warning him that I'd report him then following through when he did? He made a huge deal that I had nine children-- he has to know that no parent of a family this big makes idle threats! For two weeks that whole thing seemed surreal. It was so unprofessional-- how does one react to that? What he did was classic abuse, belittling me afterward, telling me that no one on the class took me seriously and that i was just over reacting, holding on to emotional pain. If I get my Girl Scouts harassing each other, I call parents, I don't tell the victim of an incident that she is holding on to emotional pain.

He reminds me of Jimmy Swaggart, a famous televangelist when he'd take people up on stage and command that they "Heal!" but it was staged. Was that Jimmy Swaggart? I think it was. This emotional release BS is such a joke. "Come to my school and I will teach you how to get a court date!" He'd said that if I publicized it that it would only show people how good he is. Maybe it will. I don't doubt that there will be followers.

This is so silly. If he has been summoned, all he had to do was not grab my face. I warned him. He's rich and he'll get out of it. Jerk. I am paying him off and that is all that I am obligated to do for him.

I finished it

My husband is proud of me but the past few days have been hard. My nose hurts-- it's a one on a scale of one to ten, but it hurts. My teacher has strong hands.

I feel so sad and so angry!

Why didn't he handle this better? I am not wrong for feeling like I was being attacked and running. I had to go back and deal with him and I didn't want to. He is catty! First he rambled about cranial sacral massage and how great it was when I went back-- he did everyone but me. Of course I'd filed a report on him, but I felt assaulted. One of the benefits of the class was that he worked on all of us. Why didn't he say to me that he would work on me BUT that if I felt he was doing anything wrong to say, "Stop." and he'd stop? I asked him in private if he'd work on me and he said no-- did his no empower him? I respected his no, why couldn't he have respected mine?

As the class kept going even to this morning, he was working on others and he'd take sly glances at me and raise an eyebrow. In effect it was, "See what the other girls get that I won't give you because you felt assaulted?" Well, a massage is different from flying at my face! He had said that he'd work on me for my scoliosis-- he never did.

He put me into defense mode-- I have never felt so scared as I did in those less-than-20-seconds that he was grabbing my nose, laughing, then grabbing it again. Why wasn't anyone standing up for me and saying, "Time out! She needs you to stop!" Before he did the exercise he should have told us that if we needed to stop to just say so and he would. The fact is, I told him to stop and he laughed and did it again.

He told me that he'd do the emotional release on me yesterday which I in fact was curious and was ready to do. He put it off several times, first, in a few minutes, then at lunch, then after dinner-- last night at the dinner break, his SO's birthday, he told me he'd work on me this morning before the test. We made eye contact a few times and he'd walk away. What gives? Is he that catty? Why couldn't he have just stopped when I told him to stop? After he grabbed my face on Thursday night and he agreed to never ever do it again, I trusted him! Why was I wrong for freaking out? I am the student-- he is the teacher. Shouldn't he have control? He hurt me-- whether anyone agrees or not, he did hurt me, and I was scared of bodily harm. At first when I said stop, I wanted to just sit back down. When he wouldn't let go of me, I just had to get out. He was not my massage teacher then-- he was something to get the f--- away from.

This is so stupid. I am going over this like it was a car accident! It took just a few seconds and I am ridiculously upset! The thing is, it feels like it was a car accident! There was damage-- and I alone have to work it though. Couldn't he have planned for a bad reaction and made sure that I wouldn't be so freaked that I'd run?

The test lasted two hours-- I worked on my former :( yoga teachers' assistant who owns a cute puppy. Basically, the technique only mattered in how I helped my client. We all passed.

The assistant and I spoke a bit-- she just knew that I reacted badly and I don't know if she was really sympathetic. She says that my teacher for yoga is distancing herself from her massage therapists because they are really-- they sound catty.

I got a massage table out of the deal-- that is great! And some awesome books. I just wish I still had my yoga teacher as a friend (we weren't shopping partners, but I thought of her as a friend and had she ever called me in the middle of the night, I'd have been there for her, but she didn't feel like that for me and it's OK) and that I'd have been friendly with my massage teacher.

Is his "emotional release" a fraud and he knows that since I can't worship him that I would see through it? How do I approach a massage therapist and explain that I have had trauma but that it was caused by this alleged god? If I had a problem with this demigod, I must be terrible.

I'll shake this off. I have to put it behind me. It was traumatic-- what gets to me is that it affected me like it did.

He is to come back here in December but he didn't tell me that he hoped to see me. My investment is down the tubes.

I was freaked out about what I owed, but I was looking forward to paying it and loving the class. May I pay him off quick and may it bring him black fruit if I am truly wronged. While he patronized me in saying how sad he was for what happened, he has already forgotten this and lost no sleep. He will grab the nose of the wrong person. His position as a top massage school person will get knocked down and it will happen from situations like this.

In class he would speak of how students were mad at him for something and that they'd later say that he, the wise master, was right over. I don't know how I can ever think that this is right unless I tell my children about it and explain how people close to us can harm us and why we need boundaries.

My husband said that he was arrogant and self serving and that he is begging to be shot down. It sounds as if he may have been shot at and he likes proving himself for the time being and that this almost gets into an addictive habit. He likes accolades from his acolytes and this frustrates me-- I am not an acolyte or a sheep or someone to follow him or anyone else. I suppose I should thank him for sending me into a bout of fear so at least I know what that is.

Now I need to think about whether or not I want to plead my situation with him and finish school with him or forget about this. I keep thinking, "Only I could pull this crap out of a man revered for his gentleness." WTF? Maybe he is not as gentle as he thinks he is. "The emperor has no clothes!"

This is an excellent article on emotional release. It really seems to emphasize that you need psychological training for it-- certainly it's not for newly minted massage therapists!

Isn't this abuse? This was my vacation-- my time for me. Did he choose to pull the extreme on me because I was the lone sheep in the group? What didn't he just respect my space and let me keep getting the good things that everyone else got? I was the one who asked him to come to Alaska this second time-- I couldn't wait to meet him. So much for his love of all mankind.

I should have listened to my husband when I wanted to do this. He was right. He was so damned right-- about people who do massage and about the profession.