i can’t get enough air in my lungs, however much i struggle for breath. my hands are shaking and tingling strangely as i press the call button, over and over and over and over -- well past the point that i should know she won’t be picking up. out of overwhelming desperation i try a different number: 911.
i sob out my story to the operator, incoherent, surely, as she does her best to reassure me it’ll be fine: help is on the way. my parents stand in the doorway this whole time, watching me with unblinking eyes.
“i want them to stop looking at me,” i tell the woman on the other end of the line, through convulsive gasps. a plea i know she can’t answer. “i don’t want them to look at me.”
the police get the gist of the situation from my parents. i’ve calmed down a bit by now; they ask me some questions, and then to pull up my sleeves and pant legs. the only scars they see are white and faded. genius that i am, i had decided the last time to only draw blood along my thighs.
they etxract a half-assed promise of not sending me away, if some condition or other is met. my parents agree and bid them off. i’m packing my things the next morning.
what did i expect?
i admit, with a nervous laugh, to one of the staff as we walk through the parking lot: “i’m half-afraid you’ll do the same to me.” she assures me they won’t. not without good reason, of course.
what is a good reason, to you?
████’s completely on my side when i describe it to her. but she would be, says the voice at the back of my head. the things she’s been through -- of course she’d react that way. but it doesn’t have to mean anything. really, i’m the one to complain about having shitty parents.
with her encouragement, i write out a letter, paragraphs long, combing through the situation point by point to explain what went wrong. i’m horribly conscious of the potentiality -- inevitability -- of bias: i’m careful to alternate which of us i’m criticizing with each point.
“i wanted you to be safe,” is all my dad responds with when i reach that part: his own mother had died after she fell and cracked her head.
“but do you-- do you understand,” i say, barely maintaining my composure, “that it was upsetting, traumatic, to be a child, pinned to the ground by a full-grown adult, when i could do nothing to stop you?”
“‘traumatic’? did you think you were going to die?” my mother asks.
i stop. two therapists are watching me right now, silent, staring; one sitting beside me and one on the screen. reluctantly i surrender: “not really.”
a few minutes later, i storm out from our session, tearing up the letter and tossing the pieces in the trash.
what do you think trauma is?
because i wasn’t afraid, then -- not of death, not rape, not any flavor of physical violence. i knew i wasn’t going to die. in truth, i was angry they wouldn’t let me.
and god knows they’re just worried about my safety.