Distressing encounter reveals problem ‘men don’t understand’

It took years for Casee Brim’s confidence to run alone to return, and just moments for it to be ripped away again.

Confidence to go jogging alone was obliterated almost immediately for Casee Brim this week when she was subject to a terrifying act that “men will never understand”.

For years, the Brisbane woman put off going “out into the world” on her own, having felt too unsafe following a previous traumatising incident.

Ms Brim braved a morning run on Monday, but quickly had it ruined by a man who for “blocks and blocks” followed her in his car.

Confirmation he was following her came when she pretended she was on the phone to her husband and described the car along with its number plate.

“The only reason he sped off and f***ing flew past me is because I pretended to be on the phone through my Airpods with my husband. And I had to literally be like ‘yeah there’s this red car following me with the number plate … and then he f***ing flies off,” Ms Brim explained in a TikTok.

Casee Brim said she was followed on Monday. Picture: TikTok/caseebrim

She hit back at people accusing her of being dramatic. Picture: TikTok/caseebrim

“So it goes to show he definitely f***ing was following me, and that’s just cooked.

“I’m just so over being a woman.”

She said any optimism she had about being safe to exercise alone was instantly “wiped away”.

Ms Brim tried to lose the driver by taking different roads, but said he kept “just trailing me”.

“I f***ing hate being a woman sometimes,” she said.

Dozens of women shared similar experiences in comments to her video, which she captioned saying: “I’m so tired of never feeling safe”.

In a comment, she pointed out, “men will never understand this feeling”, with the video having since been viewed more than 200,000 times.

“This is so scary! This happened to me on my way home from school once,” another traumatised woman wrote.

“This happened to me when I was about 15 and he even knew my name,” someone else said.

“Everyday I fear for my life because I got followed home at 16, I’m now 25,” another wrote.

While countless women shared similar horrors, a few men chimed in to accuse Ms Brim of being “dramatic”.

In a separate video, she addressed people who had attempted to invalidate her experience.

“Even the supportive men in our lives will just never truly understand. They can empathise all they want, but the fear is impossible to put into words,” Ms Brim said.

Ms Brim said her experience was far from unique and it was something men would never understand. Picture: Instagram/caseebrim

She hit back at people with the belief that “crazy women” were responsible for “perpetuating violence on men out of nowhere”.

Ms Brim recalled having her leg sliced when a man threw a glass bottle at her, being held captive by her ex boyfriend and having a drawer of knives thrown at her, and earlier, being driven to where there was no reception and punched in the head when she tried getting help.

“Women face experiences like mine all the time or far worse every single f***ing day,” she said.

“So the reason that we don’t feel safe around men, isn’t because we’re dramatic and we’re perpetuating violence on them for the hell of it. It’s because we have lived experiences that teach us that we are so often not safe.”

She said women had no choice but to be persistently alert while going about their normal routines.

“Just because the situation I ended up in yesterday didn’t actually eventuate to something violent, doesn’t mean that the threat wasn’t there.”

Keep the conversation going, email [e-mail]