Not wanting it
Apr. 11th, 2018 07:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootThis house is cold!
And I am still not quite right.
My dreams are disturbed, last night I could hear myself trying to yell in my sleep. It's weird when that happens. I was yelling 'Police, police!' But being asleep the sounds that come out are just bizarre, like having vocal chords made of wood, creaking away in full on spooky fashion. It has a touch of nightmare to it but I find it quite interesting nonetheless; I am asleep but at least partially conscious of what I'm doing, aware enough to understand that I am talking in said sleep, but not quite enough to realise that whatever I'm shouting at/for is therefore just a dream.
Ah, better, the house is warming up.
It's no surprise that the dreams come directly after the revelation that my attacker will be let out this year. I need to get back to the Liaison service about this stupid list of things he can/can't do, people he can't talk to, places he can't go, and I've lost the letter they sent me. Pah. It would be much more fun not to think about it at all, not least because it just challenges everything of higher principle within myself.
It is important to remember he has the right to live, to change and learn. If he is getting out, after the year's delay on his first release date, it probably means he is making a concentrated and successful effort to get over his drug habits, and I should be pleased for him, but animal me would just prefer him to be locked up until he dies. I don't need or want him to be tormented, vengeance is trivial. Still, in total honesty, him sitting in a cell off his head on heroin would suit us both very well. It's neither nice nor noble, and I would be ashamed of it had I not learned to treat my inner beasty with respect. Once he is out, I won't even try to stop my hypervigilance, and that's going to be bloody tiring; a lot of PTSD treatment is about trying to get you to accept you don't need to be watchful, that the circumstances will never occur again. The serviceman needs to realise he will never return to Vietnam/Iran/wherever; the attacked needs to realise theirs was a freak occurrence. The streets are innocent enough.
Problem is, it's not necessarily true, and the instincts that help one survive just kick in. All the reassurance in the world won't change that. I am not even sorry, this is just how it is.
And I am still not quite right.
My dreams are disturbed, last night I could hear myself trying to yell in my sleep. It's weird when that happens. I was yelling 'Police, police!' But being asleep the sounds that come out are just bizarre, like having vocal chords made of wood, creaking away in full on spooky fashion. It has a touch of nightmare to it but I find it quite interesting nonetheless; I am asleep but at least partially conscious of what I'm doing, aware enough to understand that I am talking in said sleep, but not quite enough to realise that whatever I'm shouting at/for is therefore just a dream.
Ah, better, the house is warming up.
It's no surprise that the dreams come directly after the revelation that my attacker will be let out this year. I need to get back to the Liaison service about this stupid list of things he can/can't do, people he can't talk to, places he can't go, and I've lost the letter they sent me. Pah. It would be much more fun not to think about it at all, not least because it just challenges everything of higher principle within myself.
It is important to remember he has the right to live, to change and learn. If he is getting out, after the year's delay on his first release date, it probably means he is making a concentrated and successful effort to get over his drug habits, and I should be pleased for him, but animal me would just prefer him to be locked up until he dies. I don't need or want him to be tormented, vengeance is trivial. Still, in total honesty, him sitting in a cell off his head on heroin would suit us both very well. It's neither nice nor noble, and I would be ashamed of it had I not learned to treat my inner beasty with respect. Once he is out, I won't even try to stop my hypervigilance, and that's going to be bloody tiring; a lot of PTSD treatment is about trying to get you to accept you don't need to be watchful, that the circumstances will never occur again. The serviceman needs to realise he will never return to Vietnam/Iran/wherever; the attacked needs to realise theirs was a freak occurrence. The streets are innocent enough.
Problem is, it's not necessarily true, and the instincts that help one survive just kick in. All the reassurance in the world won't change that. I am not even sorry, this is just how it is.
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no subject
Date: 2018-04-12 11:12 am (UTC)And to my mind, it is never wrong to wish all sorts of horrible fates on people who have wronged you.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-12 06:03 pm (UTC)https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/04/man-arrested-fatal-stabbing-suspected-burglar-london
It's a bit creepy if I indulge myself, but realistically I need to remember that my attacker has been a professional burglar/con all his life, and outside of his addiction he understands the Beak better than I do. Because it was an attempted assault, he's on the sex offenders list, and such people don't have great times in prison. One false move and he serves the full 18 years. He's smart enough to avoid that.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-13 12:53 pm (UTC)Viz that story you linked to: I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the thought that a man could be arrested on homicide charges for having defended himself in his own home. But possibly that's the Big Difference between Brit and American sensibilities. :-)
no subject
Date: 2018-04-13 02:39 pm (UTC)The issue of the killed burglar got even more headbending as he was a member of a travelling community, and gypsies in general are not popular; his family tried to set up a little roadside shrine on the road opposite the house he died trying to burgle, and the locals were enraged about it, even while the police urged them to allow the burglar's family to lay flowers. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/11/hither-green-standoff-continues-as-tributes-to-intruder-removed-again
The flowers keep being torn down as in the video, the traveller's relatives keep trying to put them back up, and apparently a few of their farewell notes have included veiled threats. Tempers are running high and I honestly think that given guns, a few Brits right about now would demonstrate responses more familiar in the US than say, Canada.
P.S I like the Uncle Vito option!;-)