A sub-zero plunge in the nude was never part of my plan. When a ragtag group of friends gathered me up with their exhilarated shouts, planning to jump into a hole drilled through sea ice in 2011, I had only agreed to come along and watch. I would not partake.

I hadn’t gone to Antarctica to take risks. If anything, I’d flown to the bottom of the world to do the opposite, to play it safe after a pair of sexual assaults in my early 20s. I was the third generation in my family to work at McMurdo Station on Ross Island, and planned to keep my head down, work hard in my role as a janitor, save money and blend in.

This plan had derailed immediately. There were three bars in town and an endless rotation of parties. There were live bands and drinking games and body shots. I made friends fast. But then one day I found a used condom stuffed into my work glove, waiting for me in my bucket of cleaning supplies. It quickly put me back in my place.

The night of the polar plunge, one of my co-workers overheard that there was a hut out on the ice, tucked just out of view. It was the kind of small shack used for divers to access the sea below, re-emerging with samples of strange, spiny specimens and photographs of otherworldly secrets. And most importantly, on the shores of the coldest continent, the hut was heated. “It’s basically an invitation,” a friend said as we marched towards it. “They would lock it if they didn’t want us to use it.”

We made our way to the edge of town, down the slope of volcanic rock to the craggy edge of frozen sea. Weddell seals dotted the ice in blobs of black, seemingly deflated and lifeless, mirroring how I felt. After the condom had come an onslaught of notes. Scribbled across paper towels, the threats and slurs were left outside my bedroom door or stuffed in my coat pockets when it hung unattended. The stalking was relentless and terrifying. I felt like prey.

For every female scientist or support staff sent to Antarctica, there are two men. Any woman who has spent time in a space made up mostly of men understands the mental toll. That night, tip-toeing across the sea ice, I was with five co-workers, including my boss – all men.

A space heater buzzed inside the hut, pumping heat through a plastic tube dangling over the hole that was drilled into the centre of the floor, keeping it from freezing over. The hole was maybe a yard or so wide and at least six feet deep – or so we’d heard.

​​In the past, polar plunges had been a sanctioned activity. Participants would strap into harnesses before jumping to prevent them getting swept under by the tide. Emergency personnel would stand at the ready with defibrillators in case anyone’s heart stopped from being submerged in freezing cold water. That night, we were off the books.

One of the men moved the plastic tube out of the way. In just moments, the water was freezing over again, hardening before our eyes. Antarctica could do that to something – to someone. While enduring weeks of sexual harassment, I’d withdrawn. The notes felt like punishment for daring to live loudly, and so I retreated. I opted for more subdued clothing, I was slower to share the tender parts of myself. The wind would howl its lonely song outside my window and I’d long to wander out on to the ice, alone. I was closing myself off.

One by one, my friends stripped off layer after layer and jumped. I held my breath each time, bracing for the worst before they shot out, hollering with unbridled joy. Even as I reiterated that I wouldn’t be jumping, the hole called to me, drawing me in like a magnet. I sidled forward slowly, shedding clothing with trepidation. When I’d stripped to my underwear, I curled my toes at the edge, and wondered what would happen if I jumped and never came back up.

In that moment I believed I had nothing to lose. But then a shadow flickered below me. I rubbed at my eyes, straining into the dark. It filled the entire hole as it surfaced, and finally I recognised it as a Weddell seal, one of the 500kg blobs we usually saw sunbathing on the ice. This creature was anything but lazy. The men in the hut, the men in town, the man stalking me – all of them faded away, leaving just me and the seal. Its eyes locked with mine, curious, its expression open. It looked at me as if it really saw me, with its own face void of fear. Its whiskers twitched with a deep breath and then it sank, disappearing back from where it’d come.

A moment later, I shed the rest of my clothing and jumped – not out of resignation, but in exultation, seizing that moment of connection. The water embraced me in a shock of cold. Salt choked at the back of my throat and my eardrums roared with adrenaline. I clawed my way back on earth, my bare skin against solid ice, crying with delight like my friends before me, thrilled to be alive.

Wrapped in towels, I wrestled back into each layer of protective clothing, but my interior had thawed into something stronger. I understood there was resilience in maintaining my vulnerability – there was strength in remaining curious and open to the world. I could survive anything if I remained soft.

• Elizabeth Endicott is a Denver-based writer and multi-disciplinary artist. You can find her on Instagram @weirdbirds