harrasment and wearing hijab

Dear sisters I'm so glad I found this forum. I am Western revert in my early 20s and islam is best thing ever happened to me. I have embraced my new faith step by step. I stopped drinking alcohol and eating pork already before my shahada, I have fasted during ramadan, I pray daily and use my little free time to study islam and now I am also learning Arabic.

However, I am not yet wearing hijab. The main reason for this is that it would be a problem in my job. I am very much depended on this part-time job at the moment as I need it to support myself until I graduate. I will get my degree inshaAllah by summer and later this year I also hope to complete my deen and get married inshaAllah. My plan is to start wearing hijab after these life changes.

I do, however, dress modestly already now. I always wear long sleeved and loose clothes and use scarfs to cover my neck.

Despite this I recently faced a nasty situation. I was sexually harassed by a man. It happened very surprisingly in an everyday situation. Suddenly, in a situation where I was unable to defend myself, a man touched my in a very dirty way. I was of course shocked and the vulgarity almost paralyzed me. Luckily I was able to walk away from the situation and got rid of the man almost right away. However, I still feel shocked and disgusted and also a bit scared.

I also feel really confused. I keep blaming myself... Maybe I could have prevented the situation somehow... While I didn't do anything to provoke him, I still keep thinking maybe I did... Maybe hijab would have protected me better? Maybe this was sign from Allah that I do wrong by not wearing it? I feel guilty and I feel like I can't talk about this to my Muslim sisters or anyone because of all the shame. I also feel so dirty because of the event. How can I overcome this? And what should I do with the hijab? I really don't want this to happen again but I also feel like that it would be challenging in my current situation.

Salam sis Alhumdallah u are at least a Muslim..Allah knows your heart you shouldn't be sooo hard..even during the Prophets time when the people became Muslims they did things gradually it didn't happen overnight..sister I have had some crazy things happen to me as well and I wear hijab..so no previous poster there is no way you can say if she was wearing hijab it wouldn't happen..there are sick people out in this world, and could care less about a piece of cloth over her head..that cloth can come off just like the rest of our clothing..May Allah protect Muslimas inshallah