Last night, I was having trouble falling asleep, awake until 3 am thinking about events of the distant past. It seems the longer you’re awake, the further back in time you go. A very old and buried memory surfaced.
Over a decade ago, before I received my bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, I was feeling down and alone and decided to call a hotline for emotional support. I wanted to talk to someone with professional knowledge.
The conversation was thoroughly uninspiring, and I hung up. Big mistake. They have procedures for that.
Within minutes, the police were at my door. I sat on the porch relating my sorrows to a female officer when a male officer turned the corner. I stood and backed up and quickly told them in my most reasonable voice about a terrible past experience in which an off-duty police officer took advantage of me.
Instead of leaving me alone, the officers grabbed me and handcuffed me. Apparently, stepping back from an officer is cause for alarm. They led me barefoot and crying into the back of the police car and drove me to the station.
They handcuffed me to a concrete bench while they filled out forms, speaking to me as though I were a criminal. After half an hour, they took me out to the parking garage at the station, loaded me in the back of a barred police van, and drove me to the county psychiatric ward. The handcuffs did not come off until I was in the building with the doors locked behind me.
The moment I entered the ward, I spoke to the psychiatrist on duty and told him what happened. At that point, I no longer felt the need to confide in anyone. He immediately signed the forms to let me out. I sat on the curb for an hour outside the hospital waiting for a ride.
That was society’s response to a woman who just needed someone to talk to.
As a graduate student studying emotional suffering, I shied away from clinical practice, but I had lost touch with why. I recently confided in a friend, relating some typical sorrows associated with current events. They suggested I talk to a therapist. I had forgotten why the idea raised the hairs on my neck.
Funny how distant memories can live so close to the surface, how difficult it is sometimes to see the connection between our current reactions and our past experience, even something so searing.
I let my mind wander in and out of this memory, touch its jagged edges, fully experience the grief and sense of betrayal. I reached out, and I was treated like a criminal. The officers spoke to me as though I were not entirely sentient. How many other gentle souls have received such a traumatic reception in their search for compassion from others? May they find what they need.
