Before.
I never thought I'd scream. Too West (WASP) Side Vancouver; family drives and Sunday dinners. I'd been taught which fork to use and when.
But then the first time I was really threatened (a would-be rapist at midnight in the Youth Hostel bathroom in Vézelay France) I did. Although I knew that in Europe the lights are often on timers, when that light went out, I was quite sure that bathroom lights were not. Trouble, I recognized. Only way to know what kind was to leave the stall and face it. My flaccid assailant grabbed me and shoved me up against the wall.
I screamed and screamed.
No one came. People thought it was just another kid yelling; one of a rambunctious group who wouldn't settle for the night.
He OTOH understood my screaming and rushed off unfulfilled.
Just months before Vézelay I’d cycled alone from Vancouver to Terrace in northern BC, camping my way up the Sunshine Coast, then Vancouver Island before taking the boat up the Inside Passage. Completely alone one night in a very isolated camp site my imagination ran wild. Each leaf falling was magnified into the footfalls of a homicidal maniac. Although I fled the next empty stretch by bus (there was nothing on that road but a logging camp, with loggers, male loggers…) I learned an important lesson in reigning in my imagination: best to approach fear with a clear rational head and to stop making up stories when it was nothing but a falling leaf.
When I was young I always wanted an opportunity to prove how brave I was. On BC Ferries sailings to Vancouver Island I imagined some little kid falling overboard and me jumping to the rescue before anyone else. For the record, it was at least 50 feet down to the water and it never happened.
During that horrible first year in Senegal we (my evil ex and I) had an even more evil landlord (he'd lost his whole family in a plane crash and had never been right in the head since). One month our rent was a week late. Late rent here is more the norm than an exception.
Heading out one 7am, the landlord blocked me at the front door and he began screaming at me. He screamed and screamed, getting closer to me as I got closer to the wall. Inches apart, I froze, my eyes downcast,
“After having survived threat by appearing as if dead in a frozen state, wild animals are documented as subsequently trembling, which even may extend to grand mal seizures. This trembling or shaking seems to accomplish the unfulfilled intention of fleeing, thus re-establishing the animal’s balance of functions.” - The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation, and Disease by Robert C Scaer, MD:
Prey before my aggressor, I did not scream or run or fight.
Eventually a neighbour distracted him. Then I ran up to our apartment. A few days later (rent still late) I came home to find our sparsely furnished apartment filled completely up with random furniture belonging to our landlord. I moved out.
Some years later, in a decidedly better Senegalese life situation, a friend and I were drinking wine in Abdoukhadre's and my apartment when out in the hallway in front of our door a commotion arose. Our neighbour, a fit 30-something carpenter was standing over his 10 year old niece, his hand and leather belt, brass buckle, raised over her prone body. I stepped between them, in his face, my feet intertwined with hers. He lunged at me. Eyes in eyes, I stared him down. I brought Sali into our apartment until her uncle settled down. There was nothing else to do. No one to denounce him to. Fighting rage lingered within me.
Three days ago in Saint-Louis, Senegal, shortly after Abdoukhadre left for Dakar, I was asleep. And then, half awake, I perceived an unusual play of lights, but slept. Then I woke up completely to see a silhouetted man, flash light in hand, at our bedroom door.
I didn't scream: Voleur! Thief! - which is the most effective way to rustle up community support. (Theft is taken most seriously. An accused thief in a market can be mob-beaten, police standing by to prevent murder). I stated simply, unnecessarily,: Est-ce qu'il y a quelqu'un là? Obviously someone was there; I could see him. While I slept, he'd been in the apartment for minutes; panning through our belongings, looking, unsuccessfully, for money.
 |
| Panning not packing |
Standing shaking wrapped in a towel and phoning Abdoukhadre's brother for help, I was very lucky; the burglar had walked out barefoot, taking only minimal loot, our front door open wide.
Before PD I thrived on challenge (to face it, to be brave); even conflict (I fought with certain teachers, seeking to outwit them, or to be the settler of conflict, the diplomat between adversaries). The adrenaline made me high. I felt strong and wise.
Now with PD, the fear from the Burglar night and all its physical manifestations still reverberates painfully throughout my left, symptomatic half.
Like a small furry wild animal, I'm still shaking it off.
