Blue Ocean Floor

Another post with the feelings. Do forgive the rambling as we go down the rabbit hole and all that jazz.

On our first day of class we discussed why we were taking the course, and I mentioned that I was interested in learning new things to take back to my friends and colleagues still in policing. In another blog post, I mentioned that frustration with internal politics was part of the reason I left my job in the first place. Both of those things are true, though not entirely. One of the main reasons I took this course -- possibly the main reason -- was to address internally the case I could not leave behind. That case, the case that I still hear in my sleep, the case that nearly led me to jump off a bridge at one point, is without question the biggest reason I left my job. To no one's surprise, it's a rape case.

I basically signed a NDA when I left my work, and I take it seriously -- the stories I carry with me are not my stories to tell. They belong to the survivors, the victims, the families. Unless subpoenaed, I am legally forbidden to discuss my baggage -- if I break this contract, I could potentially be convicted of a federal crime. 

When I left my work, I was no longer entitled to a psychiatrist with the security clearance to access the cases I had worked on, meaning, for all intents and purposes, I could not seek psychiatric help as I would not have the ability to actually describe in any detail the reasons I was seeking the help in the first place. And though I know I could still access services to help me, they require me to return to my former place of work -- something I have not done once in the four years since I walked out the doors; I don't even go to Kingsway Mall because it's too close. Essentially, I've been grappling with my PTSD alone, and I hoped that taking this course would give me some semblance of healing or closure that I couldn't get on my own.

To say that it's been a mixed bag would be an understatement.

In the context of trigger warnings, I didn't really require any; I knew what I was getting into. I knew the bulk of my issues stemmed around cases containing sexual assault, and I knew that they caused my most visceral responses. I felt that addressing these things head on, that engaging with them in an academic forum which took on various avenues of thought, might allow me to find a distance from what I had experienced. In some cases it worked. In others it backfired spectacularly. I've missed more class than I care to admit strictly because, after engaging with the readings, I didn't know whether I would be able to get through the class without bursting into tears or throwing a table -- possibly both at the same time just for funsies. And, like I say, I've been hesitant to discuss any of these actual visceral responses in class for two major reasons: one, I am not a direct survivor of sexual assault and so it is not my place to try to co-opt the experience of actual survivors; and two, I legally can't say anything even if I wanted to. The classes I have attended, I tried to engage with humour. Dark humour is a fall back for every first responder I've ever met -- we have to laugh at what we deal with, or we'll break down into pieces.

Right now, trigger warnings wouldn't really help me one way or the other. They do still serve a purpose for others, and I support their usage in most cases, even while acknowledging that they are but a band-aid in the grand scheme of traumatic experience. They allow for the creation of distance for those who need it, and that can be a life-saver.

But during the readings this week I came across this quote, which I've been mulling over for basically the duration of this entire week: We might need to attend to bad feelings not in order to overcome them, but to learn by how we are affected by what comes near, which means achieving a different relationship to all our wanted and unwanted feelings as a political as well as life resource.

I have been hiding from feelings for four years. Five in December. And for basically the entire duration of that time, I've been actively beating myself up for not being able to overcome second-hand trauma. But perhaps overcome is not the word I should have been trying to achieve. Perhaps creating a working relationship with it is the best I can hope for. I really can't say.

Mostly, I just wanted to say that today, when I was supposed to be in class, I went to my former workplace and spoke with my former supervisor to get the name of a cleared psychiatrist. I haven't called them yet, but I have their business card. I have the possibility. And that small card kind of feels like healing.