Sunday, December 14, 2003

A Terrible End to the Week...

How do I even start this post? I don't know. Even though I have experienced it before, it is still odd and striking that you can feel completely normal at one moment and then feel completely crushed and ill the next. I experienced this last night...and now, tonight, I am still trying to overcome certain feelings. It's about my cousin, Katie. She is three years older than me. And through our childhood, I remember that I always used to play with my other cousin -- her sister -- a lot more than I played with Katie. I guess this was because Becca was just more like me; she just felt like more of a fun person to be around. She was clever and pretty popular. Of course, at this time I was only five or six...so I really had no idea that I was sort of brushing Katie aside. I remember that one day, I was over at my cousins' house. As usual, Becca and I were doing something together; probably drawing or playing with toys or something. I don't remember what it was. But I do remember that Katie came into the room crying, with my aunt holding her hand. She had apparently gone to my aunt and said something like "James doesn't love me anymore, because he likes Becca instead." I remember that despite my young age, I felt terrible. I had no idea that Katie felt this way. And ever since, I always did my best to pay as much attention to her as with Becca. I guess that it was something Katie felt so strongly about because she was also the complete opposite to Becca. Where Becca was very pretty and popular for all of her life, Katie wasn't. She'd had medical problems as a premature baby and she had had learning difficulties at school. I don't remember her ever having many friends in school...if she even had friends at all. Maybe I was too young to notice. But Becca often had a friend of hers around at the house, so yeah. So why am I telling you all this? Well, I guess I'm leading up to what happened this week. And in a way...I guess this is the only time I've ever really talked about Katie and my own history with her. When Katie reached senior high school, she was quite a different person. She was more self-confident and she became extremely good with her schoolwork. It was a massive turn around. As she began to grow into a woman, she was developing a sharp intellect and a very strong sense of humor. Everyone enjoyed her company and I felt that the two of us developed a very strong connection. Becca was so excited by her independence at that age, that whenever I visited their house, she was rarely there. So also for that reason, I began to know Katie in a much closer way. And we became great friends. But when Katie was in her senior year, something changed radically. She developed mental illness. I'm not sure if it was related to her being premature or what. I still really don't know what brought it on. But it was very confusing to the whole family, both because it was so sudden and also because her symptoms were so completely varied. I mean, at first, she experienced katatonia. So she'd sit on her bed awake for several days...and not move, or eat, or sleep. And then she'd just snap out of it like it never happened. And then some nights, she'd wake up and begin dusting the entire house for no reason. She became paranoid about keeping it clean. Or she'd start crying and ask my aunt where her socks were, because her feet were cold (even if she was wearing socks at the time). In other words, she just became incredibly erratic. She said things that made no sense and her behavior was obsessive-compulsive to the extreme. However, this was tempered by the fact that my aunt began to seek treatment for her. And she slowly began to recover. She showed signs of improvement and her "sanity" appeared to return. In fact, once she was almost fully recovered, she joined University and began to study cookery, with the aim of becoming a qualified chef. It was as though she had gone through this incredibly nasty period so quickly -- within months -- and come out of it again as suddenly as she'd started. And for a while it was fine. But sure enough, her symptoms returned. Though this time, things were worse. Her condition deteriorated; we literally watched her lose her sanity right in front of us. The last few years have seen things get to a new low stage. Her obsessive compulsive behavior is very severe and now she simply isn't living in reality. She will sit there and speak about anything that enters her mind at any time. If you are having a discussion and she's around, she will simply sit there and talk rubbish. She'll interrupt you no matter what you do. And she will come out with completely irrelevant comments. She might say "Marilyn Munroe died of an overdose, the stupid bitch" one minute...and the next minute she'll say "Yeah, hopefully I'll be getting married tomorrow." Her brain simply can't put words together correctly; it can't understand that sentences should be in context and that they follow a logical order. Her brain literally plucks thoughts and comments from anywhere in her memory and she says them. Even though this in itself is awful -- seeing someone you care about literally fade away -- the way this week ended was truly a nightmare for us all. Recently, Katie was put into a home. She was becoming too much of a strain on my poor aunt...and the home itself is a really nice place. Katie herself wanted to go there, as she seems to really like it. However, we have discovered that security is not what it should be...and we've discovered it the hard way. An electrician who was working at the home apparently took Katie out and checked in to a nearby hotel. And there, he raped her. When my mother told me this news, I didn't know whether to cry or scream in anger. Katie is so mentally disconnected from the world that she really didn't understand or know what had occurred. And for the rest of us, that was something that was mildly comforting; if she felt no pain or had no real memory of it, then surely it wouldn't be as bad? I mean, the suffering would be far less for her. And as far as I know, the police know who the guy is who did it to her. It's only a matter of time before he is caught. Honestly, it is lucky that the police are catching him and not myself or my aunt; I think we would be the ones put in jail if we ever saw him. Things aren't necessarily so good with Katie though. She actually came over last night, with my aunt. And while she isn't overtly distressed and though she doesn't seem to notice it immediately...she does know that something bad happened and it is distressing her on some level. As she was talking last night like she usually does...she began talking over the top of my aunt and mother. She started talking in a very distressed tone...and eventually she said "He's just going to fuck me until my brains come out". And then she started to cry... It's not only the fact that this happened to her...it's also the fact that she feels violated, but doesn't really understand why -- how can she ever cope with it, if she is physically unable to go through a therapy session? There's nothing she can do; she can't express her feelings to anyone and she can't process them in her mind. She's helpless. And with the addition of recent events...it makes me feel completely heartbroken. I don't know how else to put it. I feel heartbroken...and I feel incredibly angry; angrier than I have felt in a very long time. The idea that some screwed up monster could take advantage of someone so helpless is just something I can't understand. I really, really hope that I never come across this guy. If I do, I will definitely regret it. I don't even know why I've posted all of this here. I guess...I trust everyone enough to express this. And I find it very difficult to really talk about it with anyone, including family. I just find it very awkward and upsetting. At least here, I can put my thoughts down and I can try to seperate myself from it. It's the only way I can really deal with it at this moment. So...I don't want people to IM me about this subject. I really don't want to discuss it with anyone. I just wanted to put my thoughts into words...and also to explain why I may have seemed a little colder than normal over the last couple of days, to anyone who has spoken to me on AIM. I've been feeling numb. I still feel numb. I hate feeling numb about it, because it doesn't feel healthy.

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