Content warning: this post discusses sexual assault/abuse. Names have been changed in my account to protect the innocent and the guilty.

Almost a year has passed since Trevor grabbed me.

Last summer, I let a friend—let's call them Andy—stay at my place for a couple weeks while they figured out an unstable housing situation. A couple days into Andy's stay, a mutual acquaintance, Trevor, called them asking for a place to stay. Without getting into unnecessary detail, the three of us had all been through a difficult experience together, and as a result we'd forged a level of friendship and trust that belied how short a time we'd known each other.

The first couple days passed without incident. We were happy to spend time with each other in an environment that felt normal, safe, and stress-free, particularly compared to our previous time together. We discussed our future plans, some of which intertwined, while we played Cards Against Humanity and the two of them drank Blue Moons. We even grabbed lunch with my parents.

On the third night, Trevor wanted to smoke weed. I have a medical card. We went upstairs to my office to give Andy, who stuck to cigarettes, space from the smell without bothering the neighbors.

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As you are probably well aware by now, Robert Anderson, the late doctor who spent 35 years at the University of Michigan, is accused of sexually assaulting his patients during exams throughout his time on campus. He'd been fired by one university department for his alleged misconduct with male students in 1979, only to find a safe haven for decades working mostly with the athletic department.

As more and more former athletes hire lawyers and come forward with their stories, it's becoming clear Anderson didn't operate in secrecy. Former wrestler Tad Deluca came forward as a whistleblower in 1975. Instead of being taken seriously, he was kicked off the team:

So Deluca blew the whistle — writing a letter to his coach at the time, Bill Johannesen, and then-athletic director Don Canham. The nine-page letter outlined the abuse.

"Something is wrong with Dr. Anderson," the letter reads. "Regardless what you go in there for, Dr. Anderson makes you drop your drawers."

The coach and athletic director then threw Deluca off the team, he said during a news conference Thursday in Southfield with his lawyer, Parker Stinar, and two other former wrestlers who are accusing Anderson of sexual assault. Both Anderson and Canham are deceased. Johannesen has denied Deluca's account to other media.

Anderson was also "widely known" in Michigan's gay community at the time for helping students avoid the Vietnam War in exchange for sexual favors, according to allegations in another Free Press story.

In a statement made after Deluca's press conference, the University said they and school president Mark Schlissel are "deeply sorry for the harm caused by Anderson."

[Hit THE JUMP]

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Our conversation started normally enough. Trevor and I talked about how excited we were for our respective futures. I sat at my desk; Trevor chose to perch on the ottoman next to me instead of sitting back in the chair behind it, which made sense since we were passing weed back and forth. We burned through one bowl and I packed a second. I felt a sense of calm.

Trevor then began discussing who he was attracted to in explicit terms. While I was uncomfortable with some of his language, it didn't raise an alarm until he positioned himself right next to me. He sat with his legs spread, nearly touching my desk chair, as I half-turned away from him, pretending something had come up on my laptop. He smiled at me in a way he hadn't before.

At that moment, I became acutely aware of the situation for the first time. Trevor had a good four inches, 60 pounds of muscle, and countless workouts on me—he'd fashioned himself as a personal trainer and looked it. I'd closed the office door to keep the smell of weed from spreading through the house. I remembered hearing the front door open and shut a few minutes earlier, meaning Andy was outside smoking a cigarette.

Before I could gather my thoughts into something coherent, Trevor reached over the arm of the desk chair, grabbed me between the legs, and asked "are you big?" A rush of panic unlike anything I've felt before or since came over me. I blurted out "no!" before I'd processed his question, then a pang of embarrassment momentarily cut through the fight-or-flight. After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds, Trevor released his grip on my genitals. I had no idea what he'd do next.

The moments after that are a haze. I think I blurted out something about wanting to check on Andy but I couldn't testify to that in court. Somehow, I got downstairs without anything else happening. Trevor's demeanor had snapped back to his norm so fast it made me doubt what had just occurred. I tried to follow suit. I had no idea how to process the moment in real time or what would happen if I confronted Trevor, so we went through the rest of the night as if there was nothing out of the ordinary.

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Many of the figures in the athletic department who were around at the same time as Anderson are dead, but not all of them. One of the living is assistant athletic director and head athletic trainer Paul Schmidt.

When news of the accusations against Anderson became public knowledge in February, Schmidt was one of a handful of Anderson's former colleagues—along with Lloyd Carr, Jack Harbaugh, and Jerry Hanlon, among others—who told investigators they weren't aware of Anderson's alleged abuse. Schmidt went so far as to call Anderson "a very incredible doctor," and a "personal friend."

In March, a former football player filed a federal lawsuit against Schmidt, claiming he not only knew of Anderson's abuse, but even laughed about it:

The former football player said he was a freshman who got a required physical from Anderson. During the appointment, the man alleges, the doctor groped his penis and testicles "for an inordinately long period of time." Afterward, he ran into Schmidt, then a football trainer, according to the lawsuit.

"{Schmidt) laughed and told Plaintiff, 'get used to that' — which Plaintiff understood as referring to Dr. Anderson’s putative medical treatment," according to the lawsuit.

Former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who is representing the former football player, said there was a group of trainers present, and they all laughed too.

Within a month, two more former football players came forward with similar accusations against Schmidt:

The two anonymous former players say that assistant athletic director/head athletic trainer Paul Schmidt and another employee identified only as "Murph" regularly told players who had to see Anderson to "go back there to Dr. A to drop [their] drawers." Anderson, who died in 2008, has been accused of sexually assaulting many former patients by conducting unnecessary rectal exams and "excessive genital fondling" during his 35-year career at the university.

"It was always just, like, hey, go see Dr. A. Go drop your drawers. I specifically remember Schmidty's laugh about it," one of the players said. "Like I can see him doing it. Murph was a little more quiet. I definitely remember Schmidty laughin' and cacklin' about it."

Schmidt is the first current athletic department employee to be implicated as being complicit in Dr. Anderson's abuse. He's denied all knowledge and his employment status remains unchanged.

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Nothing prepares you for the fallout. I grew up with a psychologically abusive father. My chronic illness has put me on death's door twice. I quit drinking 16 months and eight days ago after years of battling a one-sided relationship with alcohol. I went through a week of opioid withdrawal after undergoing surgery two years ago and months of benzodiazepine withdrawal after a failed attempt to wean off klonopin last year. I consider myself a mentally tough fucker.

I've been conflicted about telling my story because it felt like a "lesser" assault. I didn't suffer physical harm, after all. It lasted all of a few seconds. Trevor was out of the house within a couple days and he's not a part of my life. I haven't seen him since.

An assault is an assault, however. In a moment, Trevor changed me. The couple weeks following the incident were the most stressful of my life. I looked out the window every few minutes, waiting for the moment he'd come back to either try again or stop me from telling anyone. He knew where I lived; I had no idea where he was, or if he'd come back, or how many people he'd done this to before, or if he was doing worse right now, and I'd failed by not going to the police to file a report on a man who'd disappeared into the night.

I couldn't sleep for long. I'd have vivid nightmares of that evening, those few seconds, and then I'd wake up soaked in sweat. Those have become fewer and further between as time has passed; they have not gone away. I didn't know who to tell. Andy had been through a great deal in a short time and I didn't want to pile on. I didn't want to alarm my family, though I eventually told my mom and my brother. I told another friend and never brought it up again. Nobody brought it up again. I'd been looking for a therapist and dropped the search because I was overwhelmed; thinking about seeking therapy meant thinking about that moment again.

I've worked less in my office and more on my couch. I do a panicked double-take if I see someone bearing even a slight resemblance to Trevor. At moments I can never predict, my mind will go back to those few seconds. A combination of anger, paranoia, and shame fills my body until my hands shake. I feel rage at a world that allows this, and while that often seems justified, it often sends me spiraling instead of turning into righteous productivity.

I don't know when I won't feel this way. I'm not broken. I am different.

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I've been fortunate enough to be believed and supported by the people I've told. Anderson's alleged victims haven't always been afforded that basic human dignity. Now their alleged abuser is long dead, along with many of the people who could've, and should've, known about his assaults, as their stories come to light.

It's been weeks since the accusations against Paul Schmidt hit the papers. While the world has stopped for COVID-19, Schmidt remains in his position as assistant athletic director and head athletic trainer. Given the appalling allegations against him, Michigan's leadership must show they aren't just paying lip service to Anderson's alleged victims. As we've seen with Michigan State, USA Gymnastics, and their collective mishandling of the Larry Nassar scandal, failure to take the right action can be re-traumatizing to both the direct victims of the accused and also the broader population of sexual assault survivors.

While the investigation is ongoing, Schmidt must be on paid leave. It's not an admission of guilt; it's an acknowledgement of the severity of his alleged behavior and the need to look into it before trusting him to be in contact with students again. Any less would be a failure of the institution's responsibility to protect them.

Mark Schlissel and Warde Manuel, it's past time to take actions to back up the school's words. We're watching and waiting.