Harassment by Physical Trainer. How do I protect myself & get her to stop?

Edit: please pardon my grammar below. I have spent several days to gather myself emotionally to get myself together to spend the whole afternoon to write this in detail.

30F

So for background, I come from an abusive upbringing with shit ton of abuse- physical violence & psychological abuse. I'm currently not on talking terms with family members and living alone in a different city. I have been working on overcoming the trauma& my mental health issues and after 5 years, I'm now at a place where I can earn a basic living and fill my stomach & make ends meet without mental breakdown & falling apart. I want to overcome my abusive childhood and it's really hard inner fight, let alone people adding to the struggle from the outside.

I realise I've grown up to feel very afraid of people, even of being physically around them. I always have my mother's voice playing in my head that that makes me feel weak and powerless about myself as a human and woman in society. My mother torn down all my self esteem and sense of self down to nothing. Even after leaving home, I felt paranoid around people and feared that they would thrash me up randomly for no reason like with my parents... And I won't be able to do anything to protect myself.. like with my parents.

Earlier this year, after some spiritual healing work, I decided to take steps to overcome my fear of violence, and learn self defence course at a local physical training institute to build my confidence. I looked up and visited many institutes. Most of them were run by men. There was nothing wrong with it, but given my case of overcoming actual trauma from abuse and also history of narcissistic father & toxic ex, I thought a woman would understand me better and I'll be more comfortable with her. So I found a training institute run by a woman who happens to be national level achiever and played for India and also national level judge. I thought her being able to achieve all this as a woman was a great motivation for me to come out of my past experience and build a new life for myself and also she would be able to understand me and my story as a woman to provide the much needed internal support in my training.

I was expecting that I'll feel safer around a woman leader and my training will be easier, emotionally because I'll be understood. Also she had a sparkling medallions to show off at her office so I'll be training from someone who knows her stuff.

At the very beginning itself I called her and told her about myself briefly that I've come out of difficult circumstances and want to learn self defence to build my life up and overcome fear. In that one call we spoke for an hour. It was all very new and unfamiliar for me and I was genuinely scared about what am I even stepping into. She listened to me and counselled and said she counsels other students in her academy as well so it's normal for me to feel this way. I told her that I want to start slow and hence will only be taking class twice a week and will gradually increase classes as my body stamina increases over time. I didn't want to shock my body by suddenly adding daily workout and I knew I couldn't commit to daily classes. Also, money was a constrain for me since I could barely make ends meet. She initially insisted I come daily & quoted higher price but I could see she was desperate to have me enrolled. I don't know if it was because I narrating my story for 30 min or some other reason, but she agreed on decreasing the price (only now I know that this discounted charges were still twice the amount charged by other institutions in the city for the same course) but that time I thought i really do want to learn and had already spend so much time looking up nearby institutes and she met my two criteria- 1. woman and 2. skilled trainer. So I didn't want to delay my training and enrolled with her.

But after I enrolled, things changed. There were no proper trainers in my batch. There were no other trainees in my batch. There was no proper course. No proper schedule. There was no receptionist or communication channel. I used to go to the institute and sometimes the trainers were present and sometimes I had to call the lady to inform that there was nobody. The institute ran inside a school basement so it wasn't a shady place and I was not unsafe while waiting, but the delay did bother me. Sometimes I was also late since the place was 20 min drive from my place and I had to book a ride. I called her in the first few weeks after enrolling to get updates on the discrepancy I was experiencing at the institute. She attended my call once and said that staff is currently not available and trainers are busy with other tournaments and things will get more structured from September onwards. I (was naive) believed her words and thought this was a one time thing and she needed time to fix this. This kept going. No response & pure mismanagement. When I messaged the owner, she just told me in DM that things will get better after a month as trainers will be finalized and ghosted me. I kept waiting but nothing changed.

September came and the only thing that changed was they now had a new receptionist who was very impolite. She would interfere my training sessions and had opinions about how I should do things... Even when the trainer and I were fine with the way I was going.

I was facing with lack of proper practice since the trainer were all men and would only teach me the technique but won't practice with me. In fact, there was no proper structure to the classes and I was the only adult in the "batch for those working/in a job". Every time I went for class, a new trainer was present and they would ask me about what do I want to do next. I used to think how am I supposed to know this because I was myself knew and didn't remember everything from the last class. I wanted to discuss this with the owner and called her but she won't pick up my call for even such genuine issues. She told me off asking me to not call her since she's busy and only contact the receptioist for any issues because "she didn't have time for my issues". I didn't knew what to say to her. I thought I did something wrong and perhaps I was complaining too much. So I didn't call her and only communicated with her via WhatsApp message.

It took a lot of mental energy in me to face the receptionist to inform her about the obvious issue with lack of practice and relaying it to the owner lady. She rather lectured me about how I need to do better and everything in doing wrong. I don't know why were they behaving as if it was trivial and insignificant. I was literally burning up to pay the institute fee (1200 for 8 days) and transportation fee to reach there (1200 for 8 days) when I barely made 4-5k per month via tuitions and had 0 earning in the month of September & october.

Only the trainers agreed with my point about lack of practice. They said that the protocol is that students practice with each other but since the was no other student in my batch, there was no practice. They said that they would relay it to the owner lady as they can't do anything and she is the decision maker and they just do what she instructs them.

I also felt like the trainers were all male and didn't want to practice with me as a female because of a prior incident during my initial training days when I was doing a stretch with a young male trainer who perhaps didn't knew when to stop and went on intensely pushing my body with his hands even when I vigorously repeated to him to stop. Later I had to complain about him to the owner and she said that he is a new trainer and not quite experienced.

I texted the owner and she said that I'm the only one complaint so much and no one else ever had so many complains. She said I need to learn to practice by myself since I want to do self defence/ street fight course and that requires me to learn to practice with my body so I should practice BARE HANDS on the punching bags. She said she is busy with national tournament and doesn't has time for petty complains and that trainers will be fixed from October. I felt embarrassed and yielded.

Now in hindsight I realise that no one compained to her about this because I was the only students in the whole damn class and other batch were only school children, who she was touring with and apparently had full attention over. She was really arrogant about her image and sold the course over that image, instead of actual real results or training. Now in hindsight I can see that I was so naive that I trust her blindly and kept going for training. I should have left the place then itself. But I stayed thinking she's a national athelete and things looked promising so I told myself perhaps it's just a one time issue and will get fixed.

October came. Same situation. I paid the October fee but nothing changed. They even took off for 10 days for diwali. A part of me was reluctant to even approach the owner about the issues at this point because I knew she'd blow up and harass me or blame me about complaining. I really became a doormat and she walked all over me. That's just an abuse survivor's psyche, so I'm not gonna beat myself up for not seeing the red flags.

But this time, I decided I'll confront this with her and if it still doesn't change, I'll look for some other institute. I gathered some courage in last week of October to clearly ask her in the message about asking for someone to practice with and also mentioned about reluctance observed from male trainers and asked her if she can send female trainers instead. At the end of October, she replied that from November, there will be proper trainers and proper training schedule and another girl will be joining for training so I'll have a partner to practice with. I felt like finally things were getting into place.

Around this time October last week, one day during the practice, my knucked literally bled after practicing in punching bag. They took extra "registration fee"at the time of joining saying that this is for the institute equipments like gloves etc that I'll be using during my training. But the trainers said to practice without gloves because my course is about learning to prepare for impromptu attack. That made sense. Trainer asked me to buy crepe bands instead. It was affordable 150₹ thing so I got it the very next day. I was getting excited about my training and started enjoying it.

November came and the new girl and I would train together. But as November started, they introduced a new model where they told us to purchase a whole new kit (8k) in order to continue. I was shocked. They were trying to softly push us to buy their equipments. I countered them by quoting how they earlier told me that street fight needs to be done without equipments to which the trainers had no response to. They just went on a broken record about "trying" it since the institute equipments are "dirty" & not allowed to use anymore.

When I spoke to the other girl student training with me, she agreed outside the class that they are just indirectly trying to sell. She said that she anyway will be leaving the city after a month so won't buy or continue classes.

I was like wtf is going on. I realised this is getting too stretched one thing after the other and perhaps I'll have a final word with the trainer and if it doesn't work, I'll leave since it was also the end of my monthly payment cycle. Also, at this point, I was also goddamn broke with only 0.99 rupees in my bank account. Literally. I didn't had money to buy groceries for myself or for travelling to the institute. My bank account has a time stamp proof of 0.99 rupees in Nov 4.

I texted the owner again on clarity about how she herself told me to practice bare hands and without guard, to prepare for street style authentically and I asked for a clear roadmap for practice schedule in the future since I knew that she knew that the other girl will be leaving after a month. She said she's busy with tournament and will reply after a week. That forced me to start the new month cycle. I kept did the classes for that week while I was waiting for her reply.

She didn't reply me but after a week, the receptionist communicated that the classes will become more structured and again insisted us to buy the kit. This happened in the second week of my monthly cycle. I had taken 3 classes by now and I realised this is not gonna work.

At the end of the 2nd week, I was in a real financial crunch and wasn't sure where things are going because honestly, it was really annoying to go to the class and have the trainers and receptionist nag me about buying the kit. I thought of having a final word with the owner at this point and asked about the kit and practice plan. She flipped her previous argument saying that equipments are important for practice since if someone attacks at me during practice, it will help me protect myself from injury. She dodged my question about the future practice structure. I mentioned my financial struggle & asked again about clarity on practice but she said it's mandatory to buy the kit to practice and gave no proper reply on practice, only beating around the bushes. I thought that she had a point with the equipments since I got badly bruised knuckles due to practicing without gloves & had to stop practicing punches for 2 weeks. I certainly didn't want my practice to stop. But I also didn't had money to buy that. And also, after 4 months of waiting, she still didn't had answer to my primary question about practice. I found her insincere and unprofessional and thought of discontinuing.

At this point I was half way into the new month cycle (2 weeks) and had taken 3 classes out of 4 classes scheduled for me (twice a week). (I had periods so couldn't go for the 4th class) Also, I had 2-3 classes pending from previous month (including diwali break) which they had told me that I can cover them as extra classes in this month.

But I wanted to be fair as I wrapped up. So I decided that since I've informed her about discontinuing at the middle of the month, I'll pay for half the month. I paid even for the 4th class that I didn't take and obliged the pending classes from previous months.

I had just 0.99 rupees in my account. I couldn't even buy milk for myself. But I wanted to end this shit drama and it was really getting on my nerves. So I paid half the fee (₹600) from my credit card (don't judge me, it's easy to get no lifetime fee free credit card these days. The scary part is figuring how to pay it back).

I told her that I agree that the kit is for protection but I can't afford the kit and hence will discontinue the class and have paid her for half the month till that point.

Now comes the harrassment part.

The woman flipped again and instantly said that it's not necessary to buy the kit and that I have to pay the full month fee since that a "clause". I was still her hook and mentioned that my real reason is due to no proper practice structure. In my mind, I was still considering to not leave and thought of paying via credit card and was just hoping her to give a sensible reply for practice structure in future.

Her response blew me away. I was expecting her to get soft and gentle and consider my pain point as any other business would do while losing a customer. Instead, she fully blew up on me, blaming me to be a 'bad' student and accusing me for pointless imaginary reasons like bothering trainers by 'asking too many questions" and not chup-chap practicing.

I was literally shocked. I mean, one thing I have learned in my life is that asking questions is the key to learning something new and understand. And teachers who discourage curiousity are losers who don't know shit and are scared of being exposed. I mean I'm not stupid enough to ask stupid questions to the point that it starts disturbing the flow of the class. I know she knew that I wanted to learn. She was just citing one incident when I might have asked a couple questions and now she's streching it out disproportionately.

I decided not to respond because she knew what she was doing. But next day, the receptionist started calling me and texting me to pay the fee. I didn't answer and blocked her number everywhere.

Some days later, the owner texted me to pay the 600. I told her that I'm not liable to pay her any money and asked her to not contact me again and blocked her.

Few days later the receptionist called me from her personal number. I blocked.

Then the owner texted me from new number that I have to pay the full month fee remaining 600 and threatening that I have been 'blacklisted'. She even sent me an invoice over some billing system she uses in her institute.

As if I gave a shit about her and her list. I wanted to clap back and ask her to stop harassing me and play some music about how shallow of a person she is but I knew it's pointless to engage with someone like her so I ignored and blocked again this new number.

This has been going on for about 15 days now. She's harassing me from different numbers. Even today I got a call from an unknown local business number. I don't pick up unknown numbers at this point and it's started to haunt me if it's gonna be her or someone from her team who'll yell at me for ₹600. I don't remember clearly but I think they made me sign a paper while taking the ₹500 registration fee. I'm not sure if that paper had any such clause. Whatever it is, I don't think it's appropriate for a national level athelete/ business person to harass someone for just 600₹, especially when I didn't take classes for the remaining month and when her services have been an absolute shit-show for more than 4 months.

If you read my post till this point, thank you for sticking through. I am sharing this here because I'm scared at this point of the online harassment I'm enduring from her in the form of calls from unknown private numbers. Now that you know my situation and the background context, I want to know as a young Indian women trying to get up on her feet, what are my legal right to deal with this situation and protect myself from this woman and her harassment and live with peace, justice, and dignity? Thank you.

PS: in the whole story, I know I might have come across as a stupid coward. All I can say in my defence is that it's easy to read and write about stuff when we know we are safe, but if you know anything about survivors of traumatic abuse or cptsd, you'll know that people like me grew up normalised to traumatic levels of abuse as everyday thing in our family by the hands of our own parents. We have screwed up attachment patterns with abusive people. Hence in my brain, the power of discretion and making healthy judgement about who is safe and who is not is very screwed up because of deep rooted attachment with extremely abusive people (parents) for survival. Also, I'm neurodivergent to add to the mix. I'm working on healing this traumatic side on my own with help from some free online recovery programs because mental health support in India is a shit-show and actual good help for trauma is only available for wealthy people. I don't know about when will the system change, and frankly, I can't care less at this point. It's very much boiled down to taking care of my own life at this point and that's all that matters to me ATM. If anyone here could help and guide me with a genuine advice to deal with this situation, I'd be grateful and really appreciate it.