Pamela's Stories Finally Voiced
For many years I felt embarrassed and humiliated by my encounters with police officers in my time of need. Their behaviors were horrible and unprofessional to say the very least. I am finally putting a voice to what happened to me and holding my head up high in the face of my devasting experiences that caused added C-PTSD trauma and took years to recover from its effects. My hope is that it helps others to do the same so we may all stand up and be heard to force changes. I will say, it still is not easy for me, but it needs to be shared.
I had two incredibly unpleasant experiences while in desperate need of help. It may be a bit shocking for family and friends to read this and nothing needs to be said to me about it. I am for the most part healed from the trauma with hard work.
My first encounter was at the beginning of my PTSD diagnosis. It wasn’t too long after the death of our 3-year-old son who developed scar adhesions from a diaphragmatic hernia surgery he had at birth. The adhesions herniated his stomach and poisoned his body within 36 hours. As one could imagine, after discovering him at 7 am that morning on October 1, 1996, I was traumatized. It led me down a very difficult emotional road. It didn’t help that police reports alluded to foul play and the newspapers printed an article stating as much. The neighborhood was angry! They flooded the newspaper with calls letting them know that was far from any truth. They printed a follow-up, but you know how that goes. Further devestation. I wanted to give a quick background to my mindset at the time. I just feel it is important considering I was without a doubt, dealing with a mental health crisis.
In January of 1997, I needed to get out of the house so I went to a local bar to listen to some music. While there, someone slipped something into my drink and when I became severely drugged, he took me somewhere and raped me. I have very little memory of any of it. My trauma wasn’t over with just that. I went to the police station to make a report. I was confronted with zero compassion. What I got was police officers laughing and snickering at me as I answered their questions. I got up and left feeling humiliated. That part of my life was buried deep into my subconscious until honestly the past month. I never talked about it because of how horrible the experience was and added on top, the police officer’s horrendous behavior.
Jump in time, my second encounter was again very traumatic. In July of 2019, I was in the process of divorcing my second husband who was very mentally and physically abusive. He had me in fear for my safety because he had put a gun to my head a couple of times with with finger on the trigger. I was able to get an order of protection against him but we know that is only paper.
On my birthday, I was left with only one new friend in town and we went out for a while. I didn’t want to drink because one, I drove there and two, afraid my ex-husband would show up, and he did. We had him removed but I had a feeling it wasn’t over. My friend offered I could stay at his place if I had a couple of birthday drinks and we could walk there. I agreed, after all, it was nice to have a little fun for once. On the way, my ex-husband came running out of the treeline and started swinging at my friend. This triggered my C-PTSD and I was having a severe panic attack. I called the police for help. Instead, it turned into a very traumatic event for me.
I kept asking the officer, why are you here worried about me? I have an order of protection against this man and he ran back through the bushes. He apparently did not like me questioning him. He replied, “So, you want to play like that?” I said, “Like what?” He proceeded to grab my arm, twisted it behind my back, and face-planted me on the asphalt in the middle of the road. The last thing I remember is 3 other officers jumping me when I blacked out mentally. A PTSD trauma response that is to mentally protect someone. They proceeded to charge me with battery on an officer, drunk in public (I had 3 beers in four hours, hardly drunk. Another example of creative writing to justify their actions,) and disturbing the peace. Thankfully in court, all charges were dropped because they knew they were in the wrong. It took 2 days and our local advocate organization for sexually and domestic abused women to jump in and have him arrested for violating the order of protection.
More damage was done and I lost all faith in the police being of any protection. All they accomplished was to make a victim further terrified to ask for help. My ex-husband violated his OP two other times and I had to arrange a meet-up at the advocate center here in town in fear of being around them alone. It’s sad. What happened to “serve and PROTECT?”
Police officers and other authority figures need serious education on dealing with those who suffer from mental health trauma. This tyrant behavior is unacceptable and I will do everything I can to bring attention to this disgusting fact.
