[She shrugs and is quiet for a few moments. Then she starts to talk. Her voice is flat and tired.]
When I first came here I was nice and cooperative and glad to be alive after what happened. I was scared to death because my powers were so diminished that I couldn't even defend myself, but I got fed a line about how the Wardens would protect me. I was naive. I believed it. It's bullshit.
Four months of good behavior later and my Warden's boyfriend kidnaps me, ties me to a bed and holds me hostage for three days. My Warden doesn't look for me. Instead he asks his boyfriend to do it. That goes as well as you might expect. I end up being rescued by accident, by someone else, due to an entirely unrelated set of circumstances. The boyfriend is never punished. He graduates instead. My Warden still refuses to give me back enough of my powers to defend myself, claiming I am "too unstable". His "compromise" is to get me physical self-defense training, something that takes a long time to become useful against the kind of people we have here. When I ask for an attack dog to hide behind I end up getting a puppy instead, which I have to train by myself. He does nothing about my emotional problems.
Finally I start to realize that he's an incompetent bastard who doesn't care about the danger he's put me in, and ask to see my file in the hopes that I can figure my own way out of here. That's when I learn that my memories have been altered. And the Hell I was put through. My memories come back in force. And I also learn that in order to be free I have to give up vindicating myself against my abusers. I have to let them get away with it. Apparently good people don't seek justice for themselves no matter how much they deserve it.
I fall apart. I don't hurt anybody, I just yell and cry and get depressed. I want to kill myself. And my Warden, instead of doing anything to help me, runs. Leaves the Barge. Leaves me with nothing.
Meanwhile I end up going through crisis after dangerous situation after injury, because the people I can rely on to actually help me amount to maybe a handful. My opinion of this place and the Wardens gets worn away by bullshit incident after bullshit incident.
Steph picks me up and I think things will turn out for the better. I'm still on good behavior. Always have been. The worst I have ever done is yell at people. I think Steph is good, that she'll listen, that I'll learn things from her. And it's okay for a while. I get some of my powers back, I keep training, I even save a few lives. Eventually I get all my powers back and for the first time in over a year, I don't have to live in fear anymore. But meanwhile bad crap keeps happening. I try to soldier through.
I end up giving up going back to my world entirely, because I have to let Daddy dearest and his asshole boyfriend get away with it. I can't live in a place where they are considered heroes and nobody cares what they did to me.
And that hurts so badly that I can't climb out of the pit it leaves me in. I have to force myself to go through my daily routine, I wake up every goddamn day and have to talk myself out of killing myself, because I have to deal with the aftermath of everything that has been done to me while they get off scot free, and I can't fucking stand it anymore. Steph is supposedly watching me regularly but somehow hasn't noticed, so I confront her. I let her know that I absolutely need help because I am falling apart, and if she can't help me she needs to find someone who can. She says she will. And then leaves me alone again. A Port rolls around and all I can think of is escaping or dying. I try to tell her that I have run out of hope and her basic response is "go on anyway". Which is absolutely useless.
[She has to stop and fight tears. She is not showing vulnerability in front of some stranger who probably gives less than a shit and will only be annoyed.]
I end up hearing a lot of the same bullshit from various Wardens. Be tough, tough it out, stop whining, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, everyone's got problems, nobody can help you, stop being dramatic, grow up. I'm already being as tough as I can just by making myself go through my fucking routine, but nobody seems to understand or give a fuck. Once we get back, Steph doesn't talk to me for another two weeks in spite of her promise to check in with me. Apparently spying on me from afar was all she thought I needed. I confront her, and she gets defensive and bitchy, but I persist, and finally she throws up her hands, and instead of checking in once a week or two like I needed we're meeting daily.
But it goes nowhere. Every time I try to bring up what I am going through she tries to change the subject. So I confront her again. She gets defensive and pissed and says she doesn't know how to help me. In the end she makes a halfassed suggestion that I try researching a certain type of therapy on my own. That very afternoon, I find out we have been unpaired.
By this point all I can think about regularly is killing myself. I have to talk myself out of it four, five times a day, telling myself it won't work and will only upset my few friends and my dog. I'm still trying my best to stick to my schedule, and go blow off steam in a remote part of the CES where no one will be frightened or hurt. There, I meet a few people and finally learn from them that I can ask for psychiatric medication without my Warden's approval. Nobody has told me that Inmates have this right. Nobody ever even suggested it before. Certainly not my Wardens. I get my ass down to the Infirmary and get a prescription. Now I just have to wait the month for it to kick in fully. But I know it won't fix everything.
I ask for the local telepath to help me and he says "no, it's unethical". Same thing with two people with hypnosis. There are no shrinks on board, and every time I tell my story most of what I get is "I can't help you". I end up having a few people offer to teach me things, like some academic stuff to help with my massive undereducation. I accept. I also ask the local Vulcan to help me learn to suppress my emotions, because I'm not living with this shit any longer. I figure I have to get out of here myself, because no matter who I am assigned to they're not going to give me what I need.
I have made every possible effort to "fix myself", without adequate help or support. Then they assign me to you, which is--whatever. I'm not exactly a troublemaker and I'm already working my ass off trying to figure out how to get out of this nightmare factory, so congratulations, you have an inmate who's already doing the work for you.
[Her voice starts to shake.] But I swear to God, I'm not taking any more bullshit. If your only idea is to tell me to "suck it up" or any of that, keep it to yourself. If you don't actually care enough to do something to help me, just be honest about it instead of spouting platitudes like the others.
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timeasmymeasure
Spam
Date: 2012-08-17 09:35 pm (UTC)When I first came here I was nice and cooperative and glad to be alive after what happened. I was scared to death because my powers were so diminished that I couldn't even defend myself, but I got fed a line about how the Wardens would protect me. I was naive. I believed it. It's bullshit.
Four months of good behavior later and my Warden's boyfriend kidnaps me, ties me to a bed and holds me hostage for three days. My Warden doesn't look for me. Instead he asks his boyfriend to do it. That goes as well as you might expect. I end up being rescued by accident, by someone else, due to an entirely unrelated set of circumstances. The boyfriend is never punished. He graduates instead. My Warden still refuses to give me back enough of my powers to defend myself, claiming I am "too unstable". His "compromise" is to get me physical self-defense training, something that takes a long time to become useful against the kind of people we have here. When I ask for an attack dog to hide behind I end up getting a puppy instead, which I have to train by myself. He does nothing about my emotional problems.
Finally I start to realize that he's an incompetent bastard who doesn't care about the danger he's put me in, and ask to see my file in the hopes that I can figure my own way out of here. That's when I learn that my memories have been altered. And the Hell I was put through. My memories come back in force. And I also learn that in order to be free I have to give up vindicating myself against my abusers. I have to let them get away with it. Apparently good people don't seek justice for themselves no matter how much they deserve it.
I fall apart. I don't hurt anybody, I just yell and cry and get depressed. I want to kill myself. And my Warden, instead of doing anything to help me, runs. Leaves the Barge. Leaves me with nothing.
Meanwhile I end up going through crisis after dangerous situation after injury, because the people I can rely on to actually help me amount to maybe a handful. My opinion of this place and the Wardens gets worn away by bullshit incident after bullshit incident.
Steph picks me up and I think things will turn out for the better. I'm still on good behavior. Always have been. The worst I have ever done is yell at people. I think Steph is good, that she'll listen, that I'll learn things from her. And it's okay for a while. I get some of my powers back, I keep training, I even save a few lives. Eventually I get all my powers back and for the first time in over a year, I don't have to live in fear anymore. But meanwhile bad crap keeps happening. I try to soldier through.
I end up giving up going back to my world entirely, because I have to let Daddy dearest and his asshole boyfriend get away with it. I can't live in a place where they are considered heroes and nobody cares what they did to me.
And that hurts so badly that I can't climb out of the pit it leaves me in. I have to force myself to go through my daily routine, I wake up every goddamn day and have to talk myself out of killing myself, because I have to deal with the aftermath of everything that has been done to me while they get off scot free, and I can't fucking stand it anymore. Steph is supposedly watching me regularly but somehow hasn't noticed, so I confront her. I let her know that I absolutely need help because I am falling apart, and if she can't help me she needs to find someone who can. She says she will. And then leaves me alone again. A Port rolls around and all I can think of is escaping or dying. I try to tell her that I have run out of hope and her basic response is "go on anyway". Which is absolutely useless.
[She has to stop and fight tears. She is not showing vulnerability in front of some stranger who probably gives less than a shit and will only be annoyed.]
I end up hearing a lot of the same bullshit from various Wardens. Be tough, tough it out, stop whining, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, everyone's got problems, nobody can help you, stop being dramatic, grow up. I'm already being as tough as I can just by making myself go through my fucking routine, but nobody seems to understand or give a fuck. Once we get back, Steph doesn't talk to me for another two weeks in spite of her promise to check in with me. Apparently spying on me from afar was all she thought I needed. I confront her, and she gets defensive and bitchy, but I persist, and finally she throws up her hands, and instead of checking in once a week or two like I needed we're meeting daily.
But it goes nowhere. Every time I try to bring up what I am going through she tries to change the subject. So I confront her again. She gets defensive and pissed and says she doesn't know how to help me. In the end she makes a halfassed suggestion that I try researching a certain type of therapy on my own. That very afternoon, I find out we have been unpaired.
By this point all I can think about regularly is killing myself. I have to talk myself out of it four, five times a day, telling myself it won't work and will only upset my few friends and my dog. I'm still trying my best to stick to my schedule, and go blow off steam in a remote part of the CES where no one will be frightened or hurt. There, I meet a few people and finally learn from them that I can ask for psychiatric medication without my Warden's approval. Nobody has told me that Inmates have this right. Nobody ever even suggested it before. Certainly not my Wardens. I get my ass down to the Infirmary and get a prescription. Now I just have to wait the month for it to kick in fully. But I know it won't fix everything.
I ask for the local telepath to help me and he says "no, it's unethical". Same thing with two people with hypnosis. There are no shrinks on board, and every time I tell my story most of what I get is "I can't help you". I end up having a few people offer to teach me things, like some academic stuff to help with my massive undereducation. I accept. I also ask the local Vulcan to help me learn to suppress my emotions, because I'm not living with this shit any longer. I figure I have to get out of here myself, because no matter who I am assigned to they're not going to give me what I need.
I have made every possible effort to "fix myself", without adequate help or support. Then they assign me to you, which is--whatever. I'm not exactly a troublemaker and I'm already working my ass off trying to figure out how to get out of this nightmare factory, so congratulations, you have an inmate who's already doing the work for you.
[Her voice starts to shake.] But I swear to God, I'm not taking any more bullshit. If your only idea is to tell me to "suck it up" or any of that, keep it to yourself. If you don't actually care enough to do something to help me, just be honest about it instead of spouting platitudes like the others.