Please see Part 1 for the beginning of Jessica Parker's story.
Let me start by saying that I went into the system because of child abuse. My mother's rights were terminated and although I was put up for adoption,I was too old. No-one wanted a beat up thirteen year old. I was angry and lived in a group home.
People say a lot of times, "Well you deserved to be miserable because you obviously did something wrong to be thrown into a place like that." So let me start by saying that No, I'm not totally innocent, but what I did, if it were looked at more carefully, they would have seen that it wasn't criminal and to label me a danger to society was totally irrational. This is what happened, but don't get me wrong, some people SHOULD be there.They just need to change how to run those places. Anyway, this is what happened to me.
I was in an E.H. Program in school, called Project Achievement and that's where I had my classes. They gave T.O. in a solitary room and one was restrained if they thought it was needed. One day when I was being stubborn, or you can say my deficiency disorder was showing, I was refusing to go to my T.O. they gave me, by sitting at my desk, not moving or doing anything. It was almost as if I were catatonic for 15 minutes. They cleared the classroom, except for three male staff, large men, that was normal protocol for them. They were trying to talk me into going to the T.O. room and I was trying to block them out as I was thinking in my head about how bad I wanted to go to my T.O., because I wanted more than anything in the world to get up and go to the stupid T.O., like I even gave a f*** anyway, but the more I heard the three staff saying to go to the T.O.room, the more something inside me said: stay where you are and the more I couldn't move from my desk.
It was getting to the point where all I could hear was three things: the three men's voices, me yelling in my head, trying to yell louder than the staff and the voice from inside me screaming, trying to be louder than the staff and my thoughts. So now I couldn't even understand a word of any of it. It was just a bunch of yelling voices slurred together, not even separated enough to form words. I felt helpless. I could feel a tear well up in my right eye. As I blinked, it felt like it was piercing my skin. It felt like an acute-tipped dagger was slowly cutting my face and stopped at my chin, where it collected, waiting to drip off my face.Then through all the chaos of the screaming voices, seven words stuck out over the rest. As these seven words were spoken, the yelling thoughts transformed into a terrified silence and the voice inside me that was once screaming changed into a soft low volume cry, like a small child cries when their scared, like I used to cry when I was five years old when I knew my mothers personality had changed and she was going to beat the living s*** out of me. So I would cry in terror, curled up in a ball against a wall, in a corner and wait, wishing that she would just get it over with and beat me up, so I could move on from it and go on with my day and I wouldn't have to think about it. My beatings length and brutality usually depended on how much I screamed and cried. So at least I hope you have an idea of what goes through my head in a restraint or hands-on situation.
What were those seven words you might ask? They came from one of the three men. There was a man a little ways away from me, standing up in front of me. There was a guy standing to my left and one behind me to block the door. The one to my left said it. He said,"We're going to have to escort her." He stood up and moved his chair, so if they had to put me down on the floor, it wouldn't be in the way. I didn't want them to grab me and drag me into the T.O. room. I didn't want peoples hands on me, especially men, because regardless of the situation I always had flashbacks. Most of the time they didn't even know. They thought I was just struggling, so I never calmed down in a restraint. They just made me worse.
I could still feel the tear drop hanging from my chin. As it fell it hit my t-shirt. It sounded like a nuclear bomb exploding, but like many things I am the only one who could hear it.As it exploded, darkness fell over my eyes and I could see a flash of my mother's face through the pitch black darkness that overcame my sense of reality. I could tell by the expression on her face that it wasn't her. As she looked dead into my eyes, I could feel the rage build inside her. Then all of a sudden someone took a grip onto my arm. I blinked and it was all gone. Not just my mother and the darkness, but the features in the classroom too. I went completely blank. I didn't know what I was doing. I couldn't even see or hear anything.
The next thing I knew I was on the floor being chained up by three Cops. I had shackles on my ankles and I was handcuffed behind my back and they had a piece of metal that connects from the chains on my ankles to the cuffs on my wrists. So I was in the position as if I were hog-tied with chains. They picked me up and threw me in the back of a cruiser. I was still flipping out by the time I got to the Cops station, so they just left me on the cold, dirty, stone floor of a locked cell in chains, still hog-tied.
After my first hour I calmed down, but they wouldn't even unchain me so I could get off the floor. They left me there for another hour and a half on top of it, in a way to tell me I was dirt. Not worth anything more than the dirt on the floor. That I was the s*** of society! Finally, a Cop walked down the hall and unlocked the cell and unchained me. My legs felt limp and felt like rubber, tingling and numb as was my whole body. After being in such an awkward position for so long, I bent my body. It was excruciatingly painful. The Cop yelled, "Get up!", but my attempts were hopeless. My body was like a big blob of jello. "Now" he said. "I can't" I said. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to my feet in pain. Now I could feel my legs under me like jelly. I tried to take a step forward and fell to my knees. In anger now at the whole situation, I pushed myself to rise to my feet with despair in my eyes. He booked me a took me to see the Detective.The Detective said that I had to go to court now, today. I felt an empty feeling in my stomach and I was scared. Then they put me back in my cell. I could feel my freedom slowly slipping away from me.
No comments:
Post a Comment