One Week Later

Since it has been a week since I was assaulted, I'm writing now basically to say I'm "OK," but also to try to capture some of the fleeting moments that have happened, basically before they fly out of my memory!

1) "Shattered Assumptions:" In part this is what I was talking about in a previous post. It's the sort of "official" description of what happens to a person when they are assaulted. I was telling someone how I felt about losing a sense of safety around what is essentially my backdoor. I was told that, along with the physical damage is this notion of "shattered assumptions," a kind of official PTSD term. Like, I assumed my garage area would be safe at 7 AM when I pick up my paper. One morning, I was wrong about that. But all it takes is one time, to shatter assumptions.

The issue then becomes, how both to re-assemble an assumptive world, and make appropriate adjustments, reasonably and with as little fear as possible. At least, that is how I put it to myself. So I had the company deliver my paper to the front door, where I can better see if someone is coming or lurking. Still, it's different getting my paper now...

2) Robbery was not the motive?: No, most likely not-- because nothing material was taken from me. What was taken from me was a sense of safety in my own home environs. I'm not the first to experience this, obviously.

3) Am I still a lion?: Being a Leo, I identify with lions. The symbol of them as regal. The whole "pride" thing! I even like that hyenas are their principle nemeses! Sort of puts lions in their place. But last week I was feeling less like a lion and more like a wildebeest! I felt like I had wandered absentmindedly just a little too far from the herd, had been jumped by a predator, and had escaped and made it back to the herd. I spent a lot of the week literally "shaking off" the attack, a la Waking the Tiger, and just being glad for the herd gathering around me. It was not a week to have to fend for myself.

4) I went to the ENT doc yesterday, which was an adventure in itself. One of the nurses told me that, given what I'd been through, I looked "good." I told her that was a lot better assessment than I'd received from other people, who simply had said I did not look "too bad." Now the ER doc had told me that they found nothing wrong with my brain-- which was a pleasant surprise in itself. But the ENT doc said that he couldn't do anything to "help" my face... which was kind of sad to hear. I mean, I'm glad about my brain, but I was kind of hoping to get some help for my face...

5) What people say: Art Linkletter (remember him?) made a name for himself by recording what children told him. His "Kids Say the Darndest Things" books were a riot. Well, I've read enough Dear Abby, and Ann, and Amy columns to know that people say the darndest things to each other at times of trauma. I've had enough trauma in my life to have heard some of them, and now I'm wondering whether I could find a way to get us to laugh at ourselves when we say the darndest things to each other in an effort to comfort. For instance, one person said to me, "This is going to age you." Well, yes... Other people said, "Protect yourself." Of course-- but I thought I either was protecting myself or didn't need to at that hour in the AM. Someone said, "You should have had a gun." Maybe, but, given how quickly everything happened, I probably would have found my own weapon used against me. I don't know that any sort of "preparedness" would have helped, really. Many people said things that had the ring of closing the barn door after the horses has got out-- because, after all, they too were trying to restore their assumptive worlds. More than just my assumptions got shattered.

This is probably why the most comforting things I was told had to do with how my telling them what had happened was affecting them in that moment. People said they were shocked, horrified, even sick to their stomach. They were sad, or angry, or worried for me, or sympathetic. Getting back some sort of emotion from others was like a Red Cross blanket and cuppa joe for me as I was sitting in my own disaster. There were offers to help, too, but we all knew we were helpless to turn back the clock and undo what had been done. So the "being in the moment" with me meant more than anything.

Honestly, there is more than enough good to have come from this to make me almost glad it happened... Almost glad, I said. Truly, I wouldn't wish this on anyone-- let alone me, all over again.