I’ve realized that I don’t know how I got to and from the hospital. I know it was the end of a semester, because I went home on break and didn’t want to go back. That means that I sat for exams with a blackened, bloodied face and body. I don’t remember that. I don’t remember anything before what happened that day. It was a normal day. I remember the event with immense clarity. I was able to pick the assailant out of some book the police had. I do remember that moment. I started shaking and vomited. There was a trial. I remember little of that. I think my brain was trying to hold me together. He was a serial rapist. Got 18 months for 5 of us, about 3 months for each of us. Hardly worth the fight. He got out and raped a poor 15 year old within the week. Served 5 years for that. He was about 30 and she was a minor.
Asking things like “how did you get there” is very similar to “what did you have for breakfast.” Breakfast was an hour or two before the attack on Sept. 11th. Who would remember that? It’s unrelated. How she got there are hour or so is just as unrelated. At that time, it was just like any other day. She never expected to have to remember details. In fact, she tried to forget all of it.
I DO know first-hand how memories of trauma work. People who don’t know need it framed for them. Going to that party was Sept. 10th for her. The assault was seeing the planes crashing into the towers. If people can’t remember what they had for breakfast before they knew it would be a day they “would never forget,” how can they then insist she know how she arrived before HER trauma, a much more personal trauma, took place. Not remembering afterward, I’m assuming is from shock, just as I know the university sent me to the hospital, but I don’t remember getting there. And I know I went to work (on campus) after dinner, but I don’t know what I ate. And sadly, I didn’t keep detailed calendars as evidence.
= new reply since forum marked as read
