March 04, 2004oblivion [memory]Memory, the warder of the brain. MacBethi had a lot that i wanted to write about this.
somehow, in the span of two days since it happened, i guess i've forgotten much of it.
no. i know better than that. there's no guessing involved. instead, i'm sure that i've, instead, found a way to conveniently push it away to some backroom filing cabinet in my head so that i can easily overlook it during the course of a day's events. it's that dash cunning defense mechanism i talked about.
i'm sorry sir, you don't have a key to that particular filing cabinet. access. denied.
was called into jury duty on monday. figured that since i've gotten out of it since i was qualified to serve with one excuse or another, i should probably go and suffer through the day for the cause of civil duty and keeping the karma flowing and whathaveyou. brought a book and soda - ready to wait out the day sitting in the assembly area. talk about karma - i was shuffled into a courtroom in the first group called a 9 bloody am.
wouldn't it be funny if they assigned you to a case about....
it was goddamned hysterical, thank you very much.
as soon as i walked into the courtroom, only having been told it was a criminal case, i knew. without. a. doubt. what the accusations were. all i had to do was look at the defendant - the way his back slumped, shoulders rounded, head tucked in a mockery of submission because he'd been caught. i've seen that look before. i know what it means. it was all i could do to keep from switching to a state far less considerate of consequences and vaulting over the railing to go after the son of a bitch.
needless to say my hand shot up when they asked if anyone had an answer other than no to the series of questions revolving around childhood molestation and sexual abuse.
dismissed until that afternoon's more private questioning sessions, i spent the entirety of lunch with my wife somewhat removed. having returned from cancun at 8 the previous night, LAX immigration and baggage dance returning us home around midnight, and waking up at 6am - i know a part of it was because of exhaustion. yet again i needed a vacation to recover from my damned vacation. i was also thinking about what i was preparing to admit infront of a group of strangers.
i mean.... i've discussed such things in the proximity of qualified so-called therapists, supportive groups of like-experienced people, and even through the anonymity of the internet. hell, i've poured out the rotting contents of my soul across the faceless interface at some netizen taking on the role of a reasonably airtight receptacle all in the name of friendship and compassion. but this? this was a group of absolute strangers with nothing between us save the atmosphere: judge, secretary, prosecution, defense, bailiff, and - worst of all - the defendant. i would see without any filtration the reaction in their eyes. compassion. disgust. smug victory. skepticism. confusion.
more than likely i'd have to explain wtf i was talking about. no way i'd get off easily enough with a simple phrase. no one-liner excuse for me, heh. oh no. karma had already delegated the intent of her attentions today. i could have whipped up another equally feasable story to function as a justified cause for dismissal. noooo prollem meng. but. well. i hid from this for nearly two decades. enough was enough. i made the decision a while ago to stop running and hiding no matter what salvation such actions offered.
so when it was my turn to head back into the courtroom and explain my reason for thinking i should be excused from this particular trial, i just sucked it up and told my story:
i am a survivor of being brutalized at the hands of someone i trusted. mentally, emotionally, physically, and sexually. because of it, i developed dissociative identity disorder as a defense mechanism. because of it, i have an unrestrainably violent reaction to anything concerning the subject of victimizing a young child. because of it, i do not believe i can set my biases aside nor guarantee something presented as evidence or allegation will not trigger a switch - both of which will, at the very least, jeapordize any chances this man will have for a fair trial to determine his guilt or innocense.
the judge looked shocked at such brutal honesty. the secretary looked unbelivably confused until i explained what DID was. the entire defense team absolutely paled. i couldn't help but laugh as there was no hesitation in the unanimous decision to have me excused from selection consideration.Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory; Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Shelleyadmittedly, there was a personal victory wrapped up in there. somewhere. but that night, after getting home and letting the other events of the day settle down, i curled up around my wife and sobbed. being around some person even accused (i knew he was guilty by the fucking smell) of being such a monster terrified half of the alters bottled up in my head. it enraged others. all of it culminating in a knock-down, drag-out expulsion of emotion at the cost of my dignity. niagara falls, baby. the torrent of tears not only resulted in the impaction of my sinuses once combined with a system that had been lazing in ocean-level tropic humidity for the last week - but it also put a lot of cracks in, or completely tore down a lot of walls so carefully constructed over the past years. even the past months.
it brought back things about bentley, too. little words, phrases, or sounds that happened that day we lost him that slipped through each successive crack into a non-stop battery of symphonic torture. i could hear my mom's reaction from when she first saw how much damage there was. perhaps hearing her voice break when gasping "oh benty....." before turning to break down against my shoulder is the sound that haunts me most about that day. his last breaths were those of relief. the sudden silence afterwards an uncanny reprieve. the visions plague me. the guilty memories lead to night terrors. but my own mother's pain is something that serrates on an entirely different level.
perhaps, somewhere deep down, i wonder if she felt i betrayed. that horse was a part of the family to her, too. maybe i wonder if she feels hurt because i didn't board him in a place that's as safe as we all thought it would be. maybe that's the guilt reaming me again. logic prevails that accidents happen, and that eps may have been a cause, and we put him out of his pain as soon as we knew there was no chance of recovery. i know i'll torture myself with this for the rest of my life that i didn't do it sooner.
another small victory in that i'm experiencing the pain and heartache instead of shoving it away until another, more convenient time? it's what i did when i had to put him down. do whatever it took to keep my focus on school so that i'd graduate. lock everything up and let someone else deal with it while i kept our little ship headed in the right direction. i know i'm paying for it now. experiencing the backlash threefold.
at least i'm not pushing it away again, right?
at least i opened myself up to my wife instead of shutting everything down and distancing myself as per standard, right?
....riiiight.They flash upon that inward eye, Which is the bliss of solitude. WordsworthPosted by Wolf at March 04, 2004 12:41 AM
Comments*hugs tight* Love you.
Posted by: me. on March 4, 2004 01:26 AMPost a comment