Comments | walkertxkitty: LJ Idol Season 6 Week 5 - Another Lonely Highway in the Black of Night

walkertxkitty

LJ Idol Season 6 Week 5 - Another Lonely Highway in the Black of Night

Nov 21, 2009 11:43

o/` "And she takes another step
Slowly she opens the door
Check that he is sleeping
Pick up all the broken glass and furniture on the floor
Been up half the night screaming now it's time to get away
Pack up the kids in the car
Another bruise to try and hide
Another alibi to write" o/`

-- "Two Beds and a Coffee Machine" performed by Savage Garden ( Read more... )

abuse survivor, lj idol topic, writing, autobiography, ex husband

Comments 35

supremegoddess1 November 21 2009, 18:44:40 UTC

How horrible. :(

(that that happened to you, not the quality of writing)

walkertxkitty November 22 2009, 01:52:27 UTC

Thank you. It's important to remember though that law enforcement and the courts have made great strides in understanding mind altered states such as seizures, diabetic incidents, and psychotic breaks. Back then, I'm pretty sure that these were all viewed as things the victim could control. Today, I'd have been given medical assistance and the charges would never have been pressed.

agirlnamedluna November 21 2009, 19:55:13 UTC

That is totally CRAZY. How in the world did that officer not get charged with endangering a person, non-assistance to a person in need and unnecessary use of violence??

walkertxkitty November 22 2009, 01:55:01 UTC

The incident took place in 1995. Until the enactment of the Americans With Disabilities Act defining how handicapped people should be treated, law enforcement pretty much looked at incidents like mine as something the victim could control. That included diabetic incidents and psychotic breaks. When I was arrested, the ADA was less than two years old and had not yet made its way into the training standards. Few people knew about it, including the ones who should have.

Today I would have been given medical assistance and no charges pressed...in most cases. There are still, sadly, some places here where that is not the case. I still have access problems with the service dog, for instance, because they do not recognize epilepsy as a disability.

marjory November 21 2009, 20:22:45 UTC

I think you really need to summon up some of your fight and get the charges expunged. Most people understand that epilepsy is a physical affliction and not a criminal one.

Apart from that, great post. I felt like I was there every step of the way and waiting to see what happened next.

walkertxkitty November 22 2009, 01:56:56 UTC

It's been tried but apparently not being able to remove the records has something to do with security and law enforcement data base measures. I did, however, end up getting the judgment properly entered along with a notation that the previous notation is incorrect. In most cases, that's sufficient. Sometimes I still have to get out the documents I got from the DA, but most of the time the background check comes back clean. It's just a pain when it doesn't, and an embarrassment. No one likes admitting they went to jail and there's a stigma attached even if you were innocent.

Thanks for reading!

in48frames November 21 2009, 22:44:16 UTC

That is MESSED. UP. I can barely even wrap my head around what an abuse of justice they perpetrated. :\ Some people.

walkertxkitty November 22 2009, 01:59:25 UTC

Well, as I mentioned the laws which now prevent incidents like this one were brand new. In smaller courts and rural communities it can take quite a while for those laws to be incorporated into law enforcement training. I was lucky that the judge in question knew the ADA and knew that the situation was messed up. She did the best she could for me; the rest is a gross database error. At least I did get them to properly enter the verdict and note that the previous charges were incorrect. Most times, that's enough for whoever is doing the background check.

And I've been seizure free for nearly ten years now. Shortly after that incident, they took me off the drug combination they were using and put me on the one I take now. Studies later proved that particular combination causes increased fear, paranoia, and aggression responses. It may have contributed.

pricelessone November 21 2009, 23:05:32 UTC

Wow, what a thing to have happen. I have a friend who has seizures on occassion and has been accused of all kinds of things because of the odd behavior, but I never would have imagined someone going through the situation.

Great piece. I've never heard seizures described in such vivid detail. You wrote about a horrible situation eloquently. And I love the song Two Beds and a Coffee Machine.

walkertxkitty November 22 2009, 02:01:36 UTC

I've been epileptic since I was eighteen and the stigma behind them is pretty powerful. Most people think of the grand mals you see on television but those are actually rare in adults (I only get them if I'm going into status after a prolonged set of seizures, and that will only happen if I get sick). The kind I have ---complex partials --- which have weird repetitive behaviors associated with them and odd repeated comments are far more common. I often did get accused of faking the disease until technology caught up. Now you can see the tissue on the MRI which is dead and causes them.

Thanks for reading!