And......we're off - let the games begin! The file is open and a number has been assigned - I am now known as #07-20901. Next on the to do list for the RCMP is to interview my abuser. I elected to allow him to present himself at the detachment and I'm told that he was there lickety split after the officer called him and offered him his choices.
Oh how I wish I could have been a fly on the wall but I had to settle for a verbal description of the event. He appeared at the front counter and asked for the officer. He had no clue what was about to happen but he was officially invited to be a guest at the crowbar hotel! The officer met him at the front counter, read his rights and just like - on went the silver bracelets and down into the bowels of the detachment and into a cell. Where.....he was given the privelege of having a moment or two to himself before the real fun started!
About 30 minutes later he was taken from the cell and brought up to a "hard" interview room and his video/audio taped interview was underway. There was no doubt in anyone`s mind that he was guilty of alot of bad behaviour - he had openly admited it 10 days ago - and the goal of the interview was to have to him verbally say the `word``. Which didn`t happen. At some point he had retained a lawyer - one that was relatively unknown in the finer circles in Langley. He couldn`t very well go to one of the law offices that had handled conveyancing for his office for the past 30 years so he opted for Plan B. The officer called me after he had left to apprise me of all the information that she could without breaching any Privacy Act issues. She did coroborate a lot of my dates, etc. that I had given and locations etc. but she couldn`t nail him down not even when she told him that my therapist would be providing a statement to go with my file to Crown Counsel.
Two days later on a blistering hot afternoon my phone rings. It is the officer calling to tell me that my abuser had called her and asked her if he could come and talk to her! Would this be the day that he would admit his guilt and stop this train from going down the tracks and picking up speed......would this be the day that he would man up and admit to what he had done so that I could have my day in court and my restitutionÉ She told me that both she and another female officer interviewed him for 2 hours solid and so many times they had him in a corner and he was so close to `the word`but he held out. But of the tales of woe he laid on them about his dysfunctional life and he tried to use the `pity`card. One of those tales of woe that he told them literally took my feet out from underneath me.
As I had been listening to the officer I was walking around the kitchen putting things away and suddenly she grew quiet. `` There is something I have to tell you Michelle`she said. `` Your uncle said that he was abused by 2 of his sisters and also your mother. She had sex with him when he was 12 and that left him feeling so confused because he knew what happened was wrong but it felt right. I`m so sorry Michelle to tell you this.`
Silence. I was on the floor, fighting to breathe, my gut totally tied in a knot. The feeling you get when you get really bad news. I had dropped the phone on the way down and managed to prop myself up against a cupboard and pick up the phone. The officer was calling my name, asking if I was ok, apologizing for what she had told me. She needed more information and she wondered if she could come and see me. Not. I did not want a police car in front of my home. I told her that I would take a few moments and then come up to the detachment. I hung up the phone and I laid on the floor and sobbed. Sobbed because a useless waste of skin had accused a dead women of the most indecent act, sobbed because she wasn`t here to comfort me and protect me, sobbed because I was the one that had been abused for 20 years and had once more just been àbused`` in a most painful way. More painful than any act of the 20 years prior. Sobbed because I realized that this `file`was rapidly spiraling out of control and I had been the one to open Pandora`s box and this was my punishment.
I appeared at the front desk at the detachment and then went outside to sit in the sun by myself. A few moments later the officer appeared and ushered me into a `soft`interview room - 2 doors on either side locked, a table and chair and a couch. No tape recorder, no video tape here just her notebook. I told her that there was no way that my mother could have done that to him because she was already married and living in another city. I told her the family dynamics and how dysfunctional his generation`s family life had been and that there was no doubt in my mind whatsoever that there was abuse going on. I believe that my Grandfather was abusive to some of the older girls, and whether this had in turn happened to the younger boys in the family I did know nor could I speculate. But there was no doubt that there was abuse going on behind those 4 walls.
This day was one of many of the `bad`days that were to come. The emotions ranged from complete hatred for this man who would say such a horrible thing about my mother to despair. I felt very exposed, vulnerable, unloved and unprotected. I wanted to go over to his house and scream at the top of my lungs on his front lawn every obscenty I could come up with. `` Trust in the system Michelle`I was told. Lesson /2 - do not trust in the system.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Is It Really Possible To Lose Your Mind?? Or Just Misplace It.
Once the legal process was underway my emotional health was tested severely. Days would go by waiting for promised calls, days would arrive with calls of disappointing news, months would go by waiting for Crown Counsel to either reward me with my day in court or bounce my file back to the detachment yet again looking for even more information. These 3 years were the hardest years of this entire journey and during these years was when I truly felt like I was being blown into a million little pieces. I toss this chapter in here because as I try my best to recount those 3 years I can dispense with the long winded explanation of "losing one's mind" from my perspective.
Have you ever said these words " I'm going to lose my mind"? Anyone with offspring will say that approx. 10 times per day! But......have you ever said those words to your therapist in a desperate plea for someone to help you, to rescue you because you are so worn down by the feelings of the fear, the panic, the anxiety and the pain? I have used those words more than once and I have used them when I truly, deep in my soul felt like I was coming apart in all directions.
I have sat on my couch in the middle of the day with all of the blinds closed, huddled under the quilt absolutely terrified that I will not be able to look after myself for the rest of the day, never mind the rest of the week or my life. I have poured myself into a seat on an American Airlines 757 bound for Dallas, Texas to fall into the safe arms of my best friend in the entire world. I have made that trip at the strong suggestion of my therapist that I go far away, into the sunshine and escape the constant "poke and jab" that the legal system was laying on me. Note: It is a legal system not a justice system. I have laid on the floor hugging my dog as though she were a life raft and I a drowning soul. I have had to pull over and park because my panic attack was consuming every grey cell in my brain. I have walked into the doctors' office convinced that I was having a heart attack and I needed to be somewhere safe. What I received was a shot in the arm of 10ml of Valium that never even fizzed on the best part of me other than to slow down my breathing. The average person would be out like a light for several hours with that dose but I walked to the lab (much to the utter amazement of the tech), had an ecg and blood work done and walked home and was still wide awake 3 hours later when the dr called to tell me that I had not had a heart attack - no surprise to anyone but simply a matter of protocal whenever someone presents with chest pains. I have walked into the dr's office looking like a homeless person in my pajamas and completely distraught and when asked why I was so upset - I had no words to string together to even answer that question. I'm not sure which was scarier to the doctors - me showing up in the throes of a "heart attack" or me showing up looking like a homeless person! If you want to get right in to see the dr try one of the above!
I finally came up with a description of how I felt so that I could explain to all of my various caregivers just what was going on in my head. I told them that I felt like a big jigsaw puzzle. I was all put together - ok sort of put together! - and then I started therapy and my puzzle started to come apart and then I entered the dark world of the legal system and all of the pieces blew apart and landed on the floor. My job was to learn how to put those pieces all back together one at a time which I have finally succeeded in doing so. But....along would come a demon of the past or present and I would feel like I had been swept off of the table and I was in a heap of pieces on the floor again. Sometimes it was just a minor gust and only a few pieces hit the hardwood but there were some occasions when hurricane force winds swept my world off of the table, knocked every piece apart and tossed them haphazardly all over the room. I used this analogy for 4 years during my therapy to best explain my world at any given time.
So yes, it is possible to actually lose your mind but the good news is that if you just keep looking and patiently put the pieces back together enough times you can put your puzzle together and hang onto your mind. You will however lose the excuse of " I'm losing my mind" to get out of missed appointments, etc!!!
Have you ever said these words " I'm going to lose my mind"? Anyone with offspring will say that approx. 10 times per day! But......have you ever said those words to your therapist in a desperate plea for someone to help you, to rescue you because you are so worn down by the feelings of the fear, the panic, the anxiety and the pain? I have used those words more than once and I have used them when I truly, deep in my soul felt like I was coming apart in all directions.
I have sat on my couch in the middle of the day with all of the blinds closed, huddled under the quilt absolutely terrified that I will not be able to look after myself for the rest of the day, never mind the rest of the week or my life. I have poured myself into a seat on an American Airlines 757 bound for Dallas, Texas to fall into the safe arms of my best friend in the entire world. I have made that trip at the strong suggestion of my therapist that I go far away, into the sunshine and escape the constant "poke and jab" that the legal system was laying on me. Note: It is a legal system not a justice system. I have laid on the floor hugging my dog as though she were a life raft and I a drowning soul. I have had to pull over and park because my panic attack was consuming every grey cell in my brain. I have walked into the doctors' office convinced that I was having a heart attack and I needed to be somewhere safe. What I received was a shot in the arm of 10ml of Valium that never even fizzed on the best part of me other than to slow down my breathing. The average person would be out like a light for several hours with that dose but I walked to the lab (much to the utter amazement of the tech), had an ecg and blood work done and walked home and was still wide awake 3 hours later when the dr called to tell me that I had not had a heart attack - no surprise to anyone but simply a matter of protocal whenever someone presents with chest pains. I have walked into the dr's office looking like a homeless person in my pajamas and completely distraught and when asked why I was so upset - I had no words to string together to even answer that question. I'm not sure which was scarier to the doctors - me showing up in the throes of a "heart attack" or me showing up looking like a homeless person! If you want to get right in to see the dr try one of the above!
I finally came up with a description of how I felt so that I could explain to all of my various caregivers just what was going on in my head. I told them that I felt like a big jigsaw puzzle. I was all put together - ok sort of put together! - and then I started therapy and my puzzle started to come apart and then I entered the dark world of the legal system and all of the pieces blew apart and landed on the floor. My job was to learn how to put those pieces all back together one at a time which I have finally succeeded in doing so. But....along would come a demon of the past or present and I would feel like I had been swept off of the table and I was in a heap of pieces on the floor again. Sometimes it was just a minor gust and only a few pieces hit the hardwood but there were some occasions when hurricane force winds swept my world off of the table, knocked every piece apart and tossed them haphazardly all over the room. I used this analogy for 4 years during my therapy to best explain my world at any given time.
So yes, it is possible to actually lose your mind but the good news is that if you just keep looking and patiently put the pieces back together enough times you can put your puzzle together and hang onto your mind. You will however lose the excuse of " I'm losing my mind" to get out of missed appointments, etc!!!
The Gray Drab Room
I've stewed about how to write this half of the blog. This half details the 3 year epic journey through the legal system. So many dates, so many notes, so many emails.....it's all overwhelming. The dates I will be using need to be confirmed but the story is the same.
June 4, 2007
It's Monday morning so that means my usual weekly therapy session at 9am. This one is going to be a doozy because on Saturday I had my confrontation with my abuser that my therapist organized and monitored. In that meeting I read my letter to my abuser and at the end he flippantly apologized for what he had done. He admited it! In front of my therapist! But oh what a shallow, hollow, meaningless insincere "apology" it was. I kinda think he was looking to save his ass and thought that his words would make it all go away. Well they didn't. I cried all day Sunday out of frustration and decided to take the next step.
Into Fred's office I go and I have barely sat down and said hello when I blurted out the words......I want to go to the police. Holy dinah! To know that 1 year before that he had advised me that there is no Statute of Limitations on these types of abuse and suggested going to the police. My reaction that day was one of intense fear - I had been groomed for years to never say anything or bad things would happen and there was no way in hell that I was going to the police.
Fred, in a very calm manner, asked me what had changed my mind. Simple answer: He had admitted his guilt in front of a 3rd party and he had zero remorse. I'm sure Fred was the proverbial duck at that moment - calm and collected on the surface but swimming frantically under the water!! We talked about the legal issues and potential liabilities/civil law suits and I decided that I needed to get some legal advice before I went to the police. Fred called my lawyer and explained the situation and why I needed to see him and the appointment was set for the next day.
June 5, 2007
I think the world of my lawyer. He is a lovely devoted family man who has numerous photos of his children and grandchildren in his office and loves to point out the newest addition whenever he can. To know that I was going to walk into his office and cause him hurt and embarrasement by disclosing my situation was very hard. He gave me a big hug and asked me a few questions and told me that I had nothing to worry about from a civil suit perspective and told me he was proud of the way I was taking a stand. That went well!
June11, 2007
It's Monday again and here I am back in Fred's office. We said our good mornings and I swallowed hard and said......I'm ready to go to the police. Fred works closely with the police in their troubled youth division so thankfully he knows his way around the detachment. Usual circumstances would dictate that I would have to enter at the front counter and tell my story to whichever officer on General Duty was available and that office would then pass the file over to Serious Crimes and from there an officer would be assigned to my file. All of which could take days if not weeks. Fred excused himself and phoned the Superintendent of the entire detachment ( a very lovely lady I might add!) and she personally handpicked a constable to handle my file. I found out later that this did not sit well with the female corporal head of Serious Crimes! The meeting was set for the next day at 1pm at the detachment. I had absolutely no idea what I was about to walk into.
I'm sitting on the bench in the waiting area with Fred. I have a water bottle in my hands that I was twisting so hard in my hands I rubbed the ink off of the bottle. I am sitting right by the door. In a nanosecond I could be up off that bench and out the door. That thought crossed my mind a thousand times in those few minutes. Everywhere around me officers are chatting and going about their day - it is after all just another day at the office for them. For me.......I feel like I am about to sent to the chamber of doom.
The door opens and a tall dark haired female officer steps out and nods to Fred. This is it.......I am about to walk thru that secured door by myself and I will not come back out the same person that went in. The tension in the air is palbable as Fred rises to his feet and looks at me, waiting for me to do the same. I want to throw up but I can't because I can't breathe. He takes me by the arm - gently but firmly - and steers me in the direction of the "door". The officer introduces herself - her name is Michelle - well now at least we have something to make small talk about as we go up to the next floor in the elevator. The door opens and all I can see are rows of desks and I hear the sounds of officers talking. Interior decorating is not in the budget of the RCMP but apparently they get a smokin' rate on drab green/gray paint because it is everywhere. I follow Michelle down a short hall and she opens the door to a room and motions for me to enter. Now, how dumb am I - I think we are going into a private office like a doctor's office so that we can talk in private. Well think again! This room is a grey box. There is no window. There is a table with 2 chairs. There is a camera mounted above the table aimed directly at the chair I will sit in. There is no clock on the wall. Nothing. The door shuts with a loud bang and scares the hell out of me. I am directed to sit in the far chair. I am in the "hard" interview room I will come to learn.
And so it begins. The most humiliating, terrifying, gut wrenching, embarrassing, soul splitting experience. Out onto the table goes a tape recorder and the officer hits the play button. She reads aloud the date and time and her name and mine. She turns to me and advises me that this interview will be both audio and videotaped. I nod my head. Lesson 1 - all answers have to be spoken so that the tape can record it. " Yes" I say, "I understand and agree". And with that......the 2 1/2 hour regurgitation of 20 years of my life begins. I am very proud of the fact that I never cried once during those 2 1/2 hours. I gave all of the information in as much detail as I could. At the end of the interview the tape is turned off and I feel absolute exhaustion. The officer turns to me and tells me that she is going to have him arrested but that I can make the choice of how he appears at the detachment. She will send a marked car over to his house, arrest him and bring him for questioning or she can call him and ask him to appear at the detachment on his own within the next 24 hours. I chose to take the high road and asked her to call him and allow him to present himself. Oh how I wish I could take that choice back. We are done, she and I, and she opens the door and the cool fresh air conditioning hits my face and I am suddenly aware of how hot I am and how flushed I feel. She leads me to the elevator and walks me out of the detachment. I cannot look at her. She knows so much horrible stuff about me know. She walks a bit further down the side of the outside wall, out of range of the security camera and gives me a big hug and tells me how sorry she is that we met under these circumstances. She promised she would do her absolute best to see that the charges she is going to recommend to the Crown Counsel will be approved. I thanked her for her kindness and understanding and went home at 3:30pm and went to bed for the rest of the day blissfully unaware of how the next 3 years were going to be an emotional battle that would bring me to my knees more than once.
June 4, 2007
It's Monday morning so that means my usual weekly therapy session at 9am. This one is going to be a doozy because on Saturday I had my confrontation with my abuser that my therapist organized and monitored. In that meeting I read my letter to my abuser and at the end he flippantly apologized for what he had done. He admited it! In front of my therapist! But oh what a shallow, hollow, meaningless insincere "apology" it was. I kinda think he was looking to save his ass and thought that his words would make it all go away. Well they didn't. I cried all day Sunday out of frustration and decided to take the next step.
Into Fred's office I go and I have barely sat down and said hello when I blurted out the words......I want to go to the police. Holy dinah! To know that 1 year before that he had advised me that there is no Statute of Limitations on these types of abuse and suggested going to the police. My reaction that day was one of intense fear - I had been groomed for years to never say anything or bad things would happen and there was no way in hell that I was going to the police.
Fred, in a very calm manner, asked me what had changed my mind. Simple answer: He had admitted his guilt in front of a 3rd party and he had zero remorse. I'm sure Fred was the proverbial duck at that moment - calm and collected on the surface but swimming frantically under the water!! We talked about the legal issues and potential liabilities/civil law suits and I decided that I needed to get some legal advice before I went to the police. Fred called my lawyer and explained the situation and why I needed to see him and the appointment was set for the next day.
June 5, 2007
I think the world of my lawyer. He is a lovely devoted family man who has numerous photos of his children and grandchildren in his office and loves to point out the newest addition whenever he can. To know that I was going to walk into his office and cause him hurt and embarrasement by disclosing my situation was very hard. He gave me a big hug and asked me a few questions and told me that I had nothing to worry about from a civil suit perspective and told me he was proud of the way I was taking a stand. That went well!
June11, 2007
It's Monday again and here I am back in Fred's office. We said our good mornings and I swallowed hard and said......I'm ready to go to the police. Fred works closely with the police in their troubled youth division so thankfully he knows his way around the detachment. Usual circumstances would dictate that I would have to enter at the front counter and tell my story to whichever officer on General Duty was available and that office would then pass the file over to Serious Crimes and from there an officer would be assigned to my file. All of which could take days if not weeks. Fred excused himself and phoned the Superintendent of the entire detachment ( a very lovely lady I might add!) and she personally handpicked a constable to handle my file. I found out later that this did not sit well with the female corporal head of Serious Crimes! The meeting was set for the next day at 1pm at the detachment. I had absolutely no idea what I was about to walk into.
I'm sitting on the bench in the waiting area with Fred. I have a water bottle in my hands that I was twisting so hard in my hands I rubbed the ink off of the bottle. I am sitting right by the door. In a nanosecond I could be up off that bench and out the door. That thought crossed my mind a thousand times in those few minutes. Everywhere around me officers are chatting and going about their day - it is after all just another day at the office for them. For me.......I feel like I am about to sent to the chamber of doom.
The door opens and a tall dark haired female officer steps out and nods to Fred. This is it.......I am about to walk thru that secured door by myself and I will not come back out the same person that went in. The tension in the air is palbable as Fred rises to his feet and looks at me, waiting for me to do the same. I want to throw up but I can't because I can't breathe. He takes me by the arm - gently but firmly - and steers me in the direction of the "door". The officer introduces herself - her name is Michelle - well now at least we have something to make small talk about as we go up to the next floor in the elevator. The door opens and all I can see are rows of desks and I hear the sounds of officers talking. Interior decorating is not in the budget of the RCMP but apparently they get a smokin' rate on drab green/gray paint because it is everywhere. I follow Michelle down a short hall and she opens the door to a room and motions for me to enter. Now, how dumb am I - I think we are going into a private office like a doctor's office so that we can talk in private. Well think again! This room is a grey box. There is no window. There is a table with 2 chairs. There is a camera mounted above the table aimed directly at the chair I will sit in. There is no clock on the wall. Nothing. The door shuts with a loud bang and scares the hell out of me. I am directed to sit in the far chair. I am in the "hard" interview room I will come to learn.
And so it begins. The most humiliating, terrifying, gut wrenching, embarrassing, soul splitting experience. Out onto the table goes a tape recorder and the officer hits the play button. She reads aloud the date and time and her name and mine. She turns to me and advises me that this interview will be both audio and videotaped. I nod my head. Lesson 1 - all answers have to be spoken so that the tape can record it. " Yes" I say, "I understand and agree". And with that......the 2 1/2 hour regurgitation of 20 years of my life begins. I am very proud of the fact that I never cried once during those 2 1/2 hours. I gave all of the information in as much detail as I could. At the end of the interview the tape is turned off and I feel absolute exhaustion. The officer turns to me and tells me that she is going to have him arrested but that I can make the choice of how he appears at the detachment. She will send a marked car over to his house, arrest him and bring him for questioning or she can call him and ask him to appear at the detachment on his own within the next 24 hours. I chose to take the high road and asked her to call him and allow him to present himself. Oh how I wish I could take that choice back. We are done, she and I, and she opens the door and the cool fresh air conditioning hits my face and I am suddenly aware of how hot I am and how flushed I feel. She leads me to the elevator and walks me out of the detachment. I cannot look at her. She knows so much horrible stuff about me know. She walks a bit further down the side of the outside wall, out of range of the security camera and gives me a big hug and tells me how sorry she is that we met under these circumstances. She promised she would do her absolute best to see that the charges she is going to recommend to the Crown Counsel will be approved. I thanked her for her kindness and understanding and went home at 3:30pm and went to bed for the rest of the day blissfully unaware of how the next 3 years were going to be an emotional battle that would bring me to my knees more than once.
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