Thank you Rose, you have such a comforting way about you, kind and gentle as well as understanding.

I could not add my psychological stress to this lawsuit because that would have allowed my neighbor to have the information about my childhood and other issues that he truely has no business having. He can also do whatever he wants with that infomation, tell anyone, and even say I am crazy or something to that effect. And my business revolves around children, some people have strange ideas about childhood sexual abuse and where that may lead someone.

I did try to talk to my attorney about how bad I was getting, even told him I have very dangerous thoughts because I am pretty much now battling whatever depression comes with what I have. I told him how important it was for him to get the process moving and inform me of the scheduled depositions in advance. He never heard me because he just kept forgetting the scheduled depositions until the last one and called me the last minute which was not good for me at all. So he obviously didn't get my message, isn't the first time that happened in my life.

For a whole year now all I can remember is that last question I could not answer. Who was damaged the most and how I looked down at my diagram and just went into a terrible flashback and cried. I didn't expect that kind of question at all. And I have so many ways I want to address that question, so many ways to answer that question. And I keep thinking that she will want to begin with that question because it never got answered.

I had never been in a deposition in my life before and so I looked it up on line to understand what it meant. I read through a description where the opposition does everything to appear friendly and disarm you and to not let that fool you. The whole purpose is to relax you and then trick you with certain questions. The advice also talked about how much I will have to hold back wanting to just talk and say everything and be over emotional. I have to answer in just yes or no and keep it very simple. And you would be surprised at how the opposing side sets up those yes and no questions so that they can build any possible doubt. The opposing attorney was very successful at getting me to like her as she is an animal person and has relatives that are into horses. However her own knowledge of horses is only limited to what she can read or ask those relatives. She never rode a horse or loved a horse so she doesn't understand the strong connection that can take place, for me, stronger than the human connections in my life.

There is such a big part of me that wants her to know how unbelievably damaging this has been to my psychological well being. But I have to be so careful about that as I sure don't want to open a possiblity for her to gain any access to that little girl locked deep inside me that suffered way too much. One would think that she could see the pain and understand that amount of damage, however, in the system it only makes someone a bad witness somehow. Oh yes my own attorney sees me as a liability and it troubles him so I have to be careful. I was a liablity too many times in my life and it was never fair, how strange this all seems to have to keep just holding it all in, how far that goes back, how deep that is.

In so many ways this touches on so many painful memories of a similar scenario where a little girl had to hide her fears and feelings. It also touches on a teenger that again had to hide her fears and feel so lost about an event that just wasn't fair and sent her to a place of screaming in pain and feeling like a horrible human being. A young teenager that had to deal with all those hormal changes the revolved around that sudden interference of her body preparing to creat a life. A mother that was overwhelmed by her husbands issue of alcoholism who had to try very hard to hide all that pain, dissapointment, fear, anger and tears from her child, that was hard too and that had to be done over many years. I talk about all the ANDs I put into my efforts to convey a message and there are so many ANDs I havent talked about in this post here.

The design of a deposition is not good for someone like me because I don't like suprises and tricks. I would think by now I would be much stronger at holding things in, but I am not, and all that I have held in has given my brain something terrible that I never really deserved. I built a world to overcome so much and watched it fall apart in front of me and I can't wrap my brain around it even now. When I go into that room and answer questions, again I have to hold it in. The problem is I am holding too much in. The way it is set up is creepy because it is sitting around people who are either trying to deny a reality I will never forget or my attorney if he remembers, defend a reality that he can pocket and maybe take a nice vacation.
And I will not know until that morning if my creepy neighbor will be sitting there also.
Yes he has every right to be there so I have to find a way to handle that if that happens and I don't know what or how I will manage if that happens. Someone talked about gut feelings, well I never had good feelings about him, he is creepy looking and I tried really hard to look past that.
My gut was right all along, even though I tried to look real hard for the positive.

I would have liked my attorney to take care of me, respect me and understand how hard this is. But I got jipped on that privilage. I am only hoping that his so called brilliance is there to settle this mess. And no matter how much I get out of this, its never going to bring everything that was lost back. No money can change what I had or cover the amount of pain that I feel inside, everywhere inside. Nothing they can offer can change the images in my brain that will be there forever now.

When I go to see my therapist it is a hard jouney. I often pass my neighbor on the way there which is really creepy so I get triggered by that. Then I have to fight the traffic and then pass that hospital where I suffered in that psychward and I can look up and see the window I stared out of in such disbelief and fear and exhaustion and my room was so cold because that was the room everyone knew the heat didn't work, how awful that was. So by the time I get to my therapists I am pretty exhausted and I sit back in that chair and he says, you look relaxed today. Oh he doesn't understand, I am not relaxed, I am just exhausted. I sit there wishing there was a better way to get to his office where I would not have to endure all those triggers.
Oddly it just seems like I have to jump through so many hoops to just get to helping that little girl, teenager, young mother and now a worn out middle aged woman.

Open Eyes