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In the last chapter, I spoke of meeting a girl shortly after midnight on Monday. It was December 16, 2019. Kira was her name.
She asked, "you can't sleep either?"
That was a simple question that had a great deal of compassion wrapped up in it and the next few words that I heard. Over the next half hour or more we talked. At some point, I began to describe the injustice that I had experienced. I explained that I had worked so hard to be a clinical social worker and it meant so much to me.
At least she wasn't telling me to move on with my life.
As an aside, I was about to tell my story for the first time to some others there. They would offer their condolences and compassion for my suffering. Only one of those individuals would state or imply that I should move on and not be obsessed with justice and truth.
I am stating this to make it clear that no matter how much it might seem to be the case, I am not obsessed with the pursuit of justice. I am however living with the aftermath of what happened and I don't want anyone to ever tell me that somehow they know exactly what I have experienced. I can empathize with the pain and suffering of you, my friend, my reader, without claiming to know exactly what you have experienced.
Anyway, this was about to be a transformative experience. Kira had listened. Just listened. I could feel her holding my pain in her and sensing my profound and desperate need for friendship and support. No guidance or advice. Just someone to listen with empathy.
She gave me the words that I also needed to hear. She said with regard to my claim that I never harmed anyone in any way, "Oh, I believe you, 100%." And I thought, "of course, you do."
Granted it would have been easier to hear those words and realize that truth 15 years earlier. With the proper emotional and psychological support and strength, I would never have accepted a plea deal that would end my life as I knew it. I would never have pleaded guilty to anything because I had done no wrong and had not even been able to defend myself.
Anyway, no one was listening to me like this.
Kira was listening in the early morning hours of December 16. She spoke about how I should join her at her table for breakfast and at all the other meals. I needed this.
I didn't realize that she was offering too much for someone as needy as I was. She was so young, so no, I wasn't thinking of her in a romantic way. She was a special friend who made me not want to end my life. She was the first to make me want to live. Because she listened to me.
I had another opportunity to share my "story" about what landed me in a psychiatric hospital. We were watching Law & Order: SVU. There was a story about a guy who loved teaching children. He was falsely accused of sexually molesting some children. That kind of thing destroys a person. We need something more than just justice. We need truth. We need the world to know us as we truly are for us to live within the world.
I walked out of the room and approached two or three women who had been in the room watching the show and who I had become friendly and comfortable talking to them. I said, "I need to tell you something... I can relate to what we were watching."
I told them that something like that happened to me, too. I believe they understood why this has led to my suicide attempt. I heard the words "I am so sorry that happened to you, that's horrible."
I thought "thank you for understanding." I was thinking over the years about the ability of someone to hold the pain of this kind of thing and sit with it. The darkness within the souls of humanity is so disturbing and the abyss of evil that exists... the evil that lies within the heart of someone who would harm a good person with such a vicious lie - that is evil, true evil.
In the TV show, the falsely accused individual was someone who loved teaching and children - loved in a pure and good way. That is something I have understood. The shame can run so deep and be so everlasting. Shame sometimes implies guilt but shame can arise even in the purest hearts and within victims. A victim will feel defiled by the perpetrator that harmed them and it takes such a great deal of effort on the part of the therapist or other members of society to demonstrate to that person that what was done to them does not reflect upon their true goodness and the purity of their selves.
I know I have tried for many therapy sessions to convince a victim that they are still pure and unblemished by the deeds of another person.
The entire experience in the hospital was transformative. I had not even shared my story of injustice and the years of pain that I had carried alone or nearly alone. I had longed for a decade and a half to be unburdened of this weight.
Now, what can be done with the knowledge of the truth of these things? Many might say that it's impossible to prove it in a court or in the medium by which records of the lives of people are maintained.
I have more to tell about my hospital stay. I was participating in a therapy group and we were asked to pick images of words that conveyed our feelings at the current time in our life. I had picked images of words like "outcast," "invisible," "unnoticed," "hidden," "outsider."
The response that I got was so shocking that it literally caused my jaw to drop. I was speechless and my surprise was profoundly genuine for all to see. I was told that I was the center of attention. One individual reminded me that I talked him into attending the group.
I heard someone say that I was the center of attention at all times.
Someone else said, "you are like a social butterfly" adding, "I noticed you were there at a table when someone's family was visiting them." It had seemed natural for me to be part of the visit this patient was having with her family.
Maybe there is hope.
The actions of a person named Ana had been an attempt to make me a pariah and an outcast - or so it had seemed. Ana's accusations if true would have made me an outcast and a persona non grata, a displaced person who is undesirable. But something of my true nature has shined forth while I spent time under lock and key because of suicidal ideation that took my mind captive.
I know dear reader, you want to know about what actually happened years ago. In the next chapter, I will begin to describe the events that set in motion years of despair, depression, anxiety and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
These are the events that are the focus of this book.