I Can't Do Nothin' Right
o/` "Everyday I fight a war against the mirror
I can't take the person staring back at me
I'm a hazard to myself
Don't let me get me
I'm my own worst enemy" o/`
-- "Don't Let Me Get Me" performed by Pink
This is a rare public entry in order to 'clean up' a few details about diagenou's entry for therealljidol this week. When the topic prompt came up, he talked it over with me before writing it --- and I begged him to leave out a crucial part of that story because it was so painfully embarrassing and humiliating to me. No, it wasn't his words harshly spoking toward a very badly behaved child but the child's actions themselves, the ones I didn't want him talking about, which did the damage.
You see, sexual molestation is hard enough to talk about. It's even harder to talk about when your assailant was ten years old, it happened in front of witnesses, and Dee was the only one with the courage to say something. No one else did because the boy was 'just a child'. I related the rest of the story in comments but I don't think that people will see them. People, sadly, tend to read what they want to read and then judge the person instead of the writing.
You've misjudged him. He left the full story out to protect me but I'm not going to let him be trashed by a bunch of people who really, after three seasons, ought to know about his harsh personality and who certainly ought to damned well know that what appears in an entry written for a competition isn't going to contain the whole truth.
He withheld that truth for me. Do me one favor: tell me, after reading this if you bother to do so, that his reactions weren't justified and that had it been your spouse you would not have reacted similarly.
About two months ago we went to Wal-Mart (this has since been remedied; we found a local farmer's market at which we can purchase our vegetables and fruits fresh and in season without being bothered by sexual predators) to do our grocery shopping. If you've ever been to Middleburg or to any small town in the deep South then you ought to be able to understand some of his comments regarding the type of people who shop there. The city is sixty miles away and I'm no longer well enough to make the journey most days. It's also questionable whether or not a particular pharmacy will be in our network since we live so far out into a rural area. It's safe to say that it's a lower middle class, working class town and that someone with all his or her teeth is so incredibly unusual that my dentists commented on it and knew immediately the first time he looked in my mouth that I was not from the area and had not been raised there. The norm in terms of shoppers are retirees, farm folk, and trailer trash. The latter are generally in their mid 40s and either hugely overweight or rail thin with the track marks of previous illicit drug scores showing. Both like to cram themselves into clothing which would look obscene on a Barbie doll (and before anyone comments on that, I'm well aware that I'm overweight and I dress appropriately; my clothes are fitted to my size, do not show my fat rolls, a camel toe, or my breasts, and I don't wear dresses which go above mid-calf nor do I wear see-through clothing). I avoid the latter type of folk because they always seem to be spoiling for a fight no matter what.
As it's a warehouse environment, voices echo. Loud voices echo even more so. I was annoyed but not overly concerned about the loud voice I could hear but whose owner I could not see. That changed once I'd finished getting a few things while Dorie and Dee took care of the few items on shelves I couldn't reach. A boy about aged ten or so approached me and loudly remarked, "DADDY DADDY DADDY LOOK AT THAT HUGE LADY ISN'T SHE HUGE LOOK! SHE'S SO HUGE SHE COULD EAT EVERYTHING IN THE STORE" (It should be noted that I cannot, in fact, eat anything in the store; the chemotherapy takes care of what little appetite I have and I currently live on pureed foods that wouldn't keep a newborn alive, let alone a woman). This kid followed me all over the store making comments like that --- to the toys, where I was trying to find a new gadget to put on my desk; to the shoe section where I tried without success to find slippers; to the men's underwear while I looked for handkerchiefs; to the women's plus section; to the misses section, where he made Dorie so nervous she absolutely refused to try anything on and couldn't even pick out a shirt because her hands were shaking so badly. He followed us through baby food, dairy, and produce --- approximately an hour or so.
After he'd followed me for the first fifteen minutes, I tried the approach I always use. I smiled at him and politely said, "I know you're curious, is there something you want to ask me?"
"YOUR FAT I'LL BET YOU SMELL FUNNY I AM GOING TO WATCH YOU EAT ALL THE FOOD"
Finally, the little boy's parents showed up. I went to them and said politely, "Your son is making me uncomfortable. He's followed me around the store for an hour shouting rude things about my weight and my personal appearance. Could you please make him leave me alone?"
"He's just a little kid, he don't know no better," the father responded. "'sides, you shouldn't be in public if you don't want questions, you bein' so fat and all."
The harassment continued for another half hour, during which I pleaded with his parents twice more (the latter time in tears) to get their son to leave me alone. People were staring but no one seemed willing to do anything. While I was getting breakfast sandwiches out of the freezer for Mr. Shapeshifter's breakfasts, the boy tackled my legs. I couldn't move my power chair forward or backward for fear of accidentally crushing some fingers or toes. Next I know, his hands are down the front of my dress and up in my skirts. "FEEL THE FAT, IT'S ICKY COME FEEL THE FAT" Both parents and onlookers stood there doing nothing, absolutely nothing.
Then and only then did Dee let his temper loose. He also failed to mention in his entry that as I tried to remove the boy from my lap the kid's mother came at me with her fists screaming that she was pregnant and I should leave her child alone to do what he wanted. She missed hitting me only because an elderly couple finally intervened and told the family that they would be calling the police and reporting an assault if they didn't leave me alone.
If that child had been an adult following me around the store, people might (perhaps) have seen the wrongness of his actions right away. They might even have intervened when he started touching me in private places. Since he was a child, he got away with it...not only got away with it but his behavior was condoned by most of the adults present. Considering he had my skirt hiked well up above my knees, almost to my waist, and his hand down the bodice of my dress, there's no possible way the kid's actions could have been misconstrued.
Judging from the reactions the entry got, this is perfectly all right because my assailant is 'just a kid'. Tell me...will it be all right when he's a year or two older and he gets hold of someone's six year old? Or when he's seventeen and raping young men or women? Will it still be all right when he's in middle school and groping his female classmates? Would it still be all in good fun if it were your spouse or your daughter?
I didn't think so.
As for the competition: I know I can write. I've been published and I have publishers waiting for works on which I am currently working. I don't need this competition to tell me that. I write the entries to see what I can do with a deadline and an often improbable topic. I think that people need to remember that, competition aside, these are peoples' journals and people's lives. You're not getting the full story in an entry, you may not even have but a germ of the full story. You're also not there to judge their lives; no one asked you to like them or be friends with them --- there are several of you I detest with all my heart and I would certainly never get anywhere near you as an actual friend. You're there to judge the competence of the writing. If I were to vote based solely on whether or not I liked the person writing the entries, most of you would never get my vote at all. Luckily for you, I vote based on whether or not you handled the topic well, whether your writing has improved in the course of the competition, and whether or not the entry is coherent and your best effort.
It's probably too much to ask that you do the same; I've always known the popularity matters more than the actual writing in most cases. In past years, I never had the social network to carry a vote anywhere near the top. Now that I do, I don't have the time. News flash: I'm not dying for you. It's for real, the real McCoy. I'm on my way out and that means I don't have the time or energy to hang about the Green Room and schmooze any often. It also means that I don't always have time to comment on entries, though I read every one faithfully every week. I owe you that much; you put the effort into writing what you did so I put the effort into reading it. Dying takes a lot more energy and effort than you might think: personal belongings to be sorted, legal paperwork to be written, funeral arrangements to be made, goodbyes to be said. I spend a lot of time now just living in the moment because I don't know how many moments I have left.
And that, for those of you who would judge the quality of the man, brings me to my final point: he didn't write for you. He writes for me, because I asked him to do so, and it's my fault he left out a crucial part of the story.
Should he have acted differently? Maybe so, but shock doesn't always allow someone to react positively to a bad situation. This is a man who has seen months-dead bodies, worked all the worst cases, processed all the worst evidence, dug through the minds of some of the most vile people in our penal system...and if he was so shocked that the only thing which fell from his mouth were profanities, should he be blamed? I was sexually assaulted with the parents of the perpetrator present and with at least seven other witnesses there doing nothing --- because the perpetrator was 'just a kid'.
I'll excuse him, if you will not.
And oh...I'm not fine, thanks for asking. I rarely go out now unless I absolutely must. If you touch me suddenly, I flinch. I have nightmares and I either wake up screaming or become so anxious that I can no longer sleep. My dreams are about people taking advantage of me in front of crowds. I'm already on the maximum amount of medications for the disorders possible and my doctors say there's nothing more they can do; time and more positive experiences will have to heal the wound, if it can be healed at all.
Was it worth it then? Worth excusing him to rip my beloved a new one in his own journal simply because this was 'just a kid'?
I can't take the person staring back at me
I'm a hazard to myself
Don't let me get me
I'm my own worst enemy" o/`
-- "Don't Let Me Get Me" performed by Pink
This is a rare public entry in order to 'clean up' a few details about diagenou's entry for therealljidol this week. When the topic prompt came up, he talked it over with me before writing it --- and I begged him to leave out a crucial part of that story because it was so painfully embarrassing and humiliating to me. No, it wasn't his words harshly spoking toward a very badly behaved child but the child's actions themselves, the ones I didn't want him talking about, which did the damage.
You see, sexual molestation is hard enough to talk about. It's even harder to talk about when your assailant was ten years old, it happened in front of witnesses, and Dee was the only one with the courage to say something. No one else did because the boy was 'just a child'. I related the rest of the story in comments but I don't think that people will see them. People, sadly, tend to read what they want to read and then judge the person instead of the writing.
You've misjudged him. He left the full story out to protect me but I'm not going to let him be trashed by a bunch of people who really, after three seasons, ought to know about his harsh personality and who certainly ought to damned well know that what appears in an entry written for a competition isn't going to contain the whole truth.
He withheld that truth for me. Do me one favor: tell me, after reading this if you bother to do so, that his reactions weren't justified and that had it been your spouse you would not have reacted similarly.
About two months ago we went to Wal-Mart (this has since been remedied; we found a local farmer's market at which we can purchase our vegetables and fruits fresh and in season without being bothered by sexual predators) to do our grocery shopping. If you've ever been to Middleburg or to any small town in the deep South then you ought to be able to understand some of his comments regarding the type of people who shop there. The city is sixty miles away and I'm no longer well enough to make the journey most days. It's also questionable whether or not a particular pharmacy will be in our network since we live so far out into a rural area. It's safe to say that it's a lower middle class, working class town and that someone with all his or her teeth is so incredibly unusual that my dentists commented on it and knew immediately the first time he looked in my mouth that I was not from the area and had not been raised there. The norm in terms of shoppers are retirees, farm folk, and trailer trash. The latter are generally in their mid 40s and either hugely overweight or rail thin with the track marks of previous illicit drug scores showing. Both like to cram themselves into clothing which would look obscene on a Barbie doll (and before anyone comments on that, I'm well aware that I'm overweight and I dress appropriately; my clothes are fitted to my size, do not show my fat rolls, a camel toe, or my breasts, and I don't wear dresses which go above mid-calf nor do I wear see-through clothing). I avoid the latter type of folk because they always seem to be spoiling for a fight no matter what.
As it's a warehouse environment, voices echo. Loud voices echo even more so. I was annoyed but not overly concerned about the loud voice I could hear but whose owner I could not see. That changed once I'd finished getting a few things while Dorie and Dee took care of the few items on shelves I couldn't reach. A boy about aged ten or so approached me and loudly remarked, "DADDY DADDY DADDY LOOK AT THAT HUGE LADY ISN'T SHE HUGE LOOK! SHE'S SO HUGE SHE COULD EAT EVERYTHING IN THE STORE" (It should be noted that I cannot, in fact, eat anything in the store; the chemotherapy takes care of what little appetite I have and I currently live on pureed foods that wouldn't keep a newborn alive, let alone a woman). This kid followed me all over the store making comments like that --- to the toys, where I was trying to find a new gadget to put on my desk; to the shoe section where I tried without success to find slippers; to the men's underwear while I looked for handkerchiefs; to the women's plus section; to the misses section, where he made Dorie so nervous she absolutely refused to try anything on and couldn't even pick out a shirt because her hands were shaking so badly. He followed us through baby food, dairy, and produce --- approximately an hour or so.
After he'd followed me for the first fifteen minutes, I tried the approach I always use. I smiled at him and politely said, "I know you're curious, is there something you want to ask me?"
"YOUR FAT I'LL BET YOU SMELL FUNNY I AM GOING TO WATCH YOU EAT ALL THE FOOD"
Finally, the little boy's parents showed up. I went to them and said politely, "Your son is making me uncomfortable. He's followed me around the store for an hour shouting rude things about my weight and my personal appearance. Could you please make him leave me alone?"
"He's just a little kid, he don't know no better," the father responded. "'sides, you shouldn't be in public if you don't want questions, you bein' so fat and all."
The harassment continued for another half hour, during which I pleaded with his parents twice more (the latter time in tears) to get their son to leave me alone. People were staring but no one seemed willing to do anything. While I was getting breakfast sandwiches out of the freezer for Mr. Shapeshifter's breakfasts, the boy tackled my legs. I couldn't move my power chair forward or backward for fear of accidentally crushing some fingers or toes. Next I know, his hands are down the front of my dress and up in my skirts. "FEEL THE FAT, IT'S ICKY COME FEEL THE FAT" Both parents and onlookers stood there doing nothing, absolutely nothing.
Then and only then did Dee let his temper loose. He also failed to mention in his entry that as I tried to remove the boy from my lap the kid's mother came at me with her fists screaming that she was pregnant and I should leave her child alone to do what he wanted. She missed hitting me only because an elderly couple finally intervened and told the family that they would be calling the police and reporting an assault if they didn't leave me alone.
If that child had been an adult following me around the store, people might (perhaps) have seen the wrongness of his actions right away. They might even have intervened when he started touching me in private places. Since he was a child, he got away with it...not only got away with it but his behavior was condoned by most of the adults present. Considering he had my skirt hiked well up above my knees, almost to my waist, and his hand down the bodice of my dress, there's no possible way the kid's actions could have been misconstrued.
Judging from the reactions the entry got, this is perfectly all right because my assailant is 'just a kid'. Tell me...will it be all right when he's a year or two older and he gets hold of someone's six year old? Or when he's seventeen and raping young men or women? Will it still be all right when he's in middle school and groping his female classmates? Would it still be all in good fun if it were your spouse or your daughter?
I didn't think so.
As for the competition: I know I can write. I've been published and I have publishers waiting for works on which I am currently working. I don't need this competition to tell me that. I write the entries to see what I can do with a deadline and an often improbable topic. I think that people need to remember that, competition aside, these are peoples' journals and people's lives. You're not getting the full story in an entry, you may not even have but a germ of the full story. You're also not there to judge their lives; no one asked you to like them or be friends with them --- there are several of you I detest with all my heart and I would certainly never get anywhere near you as an actual friend. You're there to judge the competence of the writing. If I were to vote based solely on whether or not I liked the person writing the entries, most of you would never get my vote at all. Luckily for you, I vote based on whether or not you handled the topic well, whether your writing has improved in the course of the competition, and whether or not the entry is coherent and your best effort.
It's probably too much to ask that you do the same; I've always known the popularity matters more than the actual writing in most cases. In past years, I never had the social network to carry a vote anywhere near the top. Now that I do, I don't have the time. News flash: I'm not dying for you. It's for real, the real McCoy. I'm on my way out and that means I don't have the time or energy to hang about the Green Room and schmooze any often. It also means that I don't always have time to comment on entries, though I read every one faithfully every week. I owe you that much; you put the effort into writing what you did so I put the effort into reading it. Dying takes a lot more energy and effort than you might think: personal belongings to be sorted, legal paperwork to be written, funeral arrangements to be made, goodbyes to be said. I spend a lot of time now just living in the moment because I don't know how many moments I have left.
And that, for those of you who would judge the quality of the man, brings me to my final point: he didn't write for you. He writes for me, because I asked him to do so, and it's my fault he left out a crucial part of the story.
Should he have acted differently? Maybe so, but shock doesn't always allow someone to react positively to a bad situation. This is a man who has seen months-dead bodies, worked all the worst cases, processed all the worst evidence, dug through the minds of some of the most vile people in our penal system...and if he was so shocked that the only thing which fell from his mouth were profanities, should he be blamed? I was sexually assaulted with the parents of the perpetrator present and with at least seven other witnesses there doing nothing --- because the perpetrator was 'just a kid'.
I'll excuse him, if you will not.
And oh...I'm not fine, thanks for asking. I rarely go out now unless I absolutely must. If you touch me suddenly, I flinch. I have nightmares and I either wake up screaming or become so anxious that I can no longer sleep. My dreams are about people taking advantage of me in front of crowds. I'm already on the maximum amount of medications for the disorders possible and my doctors say there's nothing more they can do; time and more positive experiences will have to heal the wound, if it can be healed at all.
Was it worth it then? Worth excusing him to rip my beloved a new one in his own journal simply because this was 'just a kid'?