Years from now

Where were you three years ago? What changed? How about three years from now? Where will you be? Or even better. Where do you want to be?

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About 3 years after taking the images I used as a header, I would be inside a hospital. Add roughly 2 years on top and we’re in 2019, where my days consist out of fighting PTSD, reading the law and communicating with journalists.

How much are we really in control of our lives?

I’m 10 years old and I want to live in ‘the jungle’. Elephants are my favourite animals. A tree-house? My place to be. I start to realise what it means having food allergies and being allergic to many animals. I try therapies for years. During an alternative Chinese treatment, suddenly my teenage breasts get massaged by an older man. My family member who came with me watches alerted while I’m half-naked on a table, feeling my boobs being massaged - not the nipples, just around it - while I freeze. When we’re outside I’m crying and angry at my relative, because they just stood there. I find out they were shocked and didn’t know what to do either.

I guess living in the jungle is a dream I should give up on. I give up and move on. Arts, the next best thing. Hiding behind my camera feels safe.

I’m 13, visiting my primary school to say hello to my old teachers. The janitor sees me; a man I’ve known since I was a child. We say hello and hug for some reason. I feel his hand where it shouldn’t be. Was that an accident?

I’m 19 and he wants to walk pass me. He pushes me away while I’m 7 months pregnant; I feel his hands on my stomach and how gravity and biology fight the outcome of this. I fall to the floor. Was that an accident?

There’s a party. I greet an uncle and feel his hand on my butt. Was that an accident?

We fight, then we make-up and kiss. Next, he puts me on my knees. He tries to anally penetrate me. He stops when I shout something about ‘wrong hole’. Was that an accident?

When it finally clicks

I’m in a hospital. The psychologist says I’m easy to manipulate because I’m autistic and that it’s not my fault. They say there are different types of intelligence and that mine mask my social disabilities, even for myself. Someone tells me I only have 10 spoons; I’m using more than I can and need to accept that it’s what brought me where I am now. If I could go back in time, I’d reply I have 50 sporks made of sugar.

Where will I be in 3 years?

They describe me in my medical record. Do I not respond to compliments? Do I really have a strange way of using language and words? I read how ‘logical’ I am and how they relate my behaviour to certain parts of the brain. In a nice way they say I’m not crazy, not delusional, not psychotic, but something in latin that translates as ‘life sick’ because I’m autistic and nobody ever told me and I’m using too many spoons.

I start using less spoons but the ones I do use, I use vigorously. Within 2 years everything around me has changed. Everyone too.

I’m no longer a fashion photographer. I’ve not dared to step on a plane since 2016. I’m no longer suicidal, I’m used to death threats and every day I’m climbing mountains, only to find myself in a hole again the week after, climbing out by the end of the week.

I’m climbing with others, falling with others, the race doesn’t stop. But at least I’m not alone anymore.

‘Did you record it?’
‘I’m sending you something’
‘Hey Pieke, if something happens to me, please make this public’

I now notice what I didn’t notice before. It took books and therapy and analysing myself for 3 years to understand somewhat how my own brain works, what parts of my brain are shit and which parts are actually useful. At times I still need room for my mind to ‘click’ everything, but it’s happening faster than ever. People tell me terrifying things. They sent me stories and pictures that they feel are safe with me. People are ‘watching’ me, find me, ‘drop’ me things, then disappear. I notice my government regularly on my website via Google analytics since the first news article where I critiqued them. They find my website via Twitter, Facebook, Youtube. Don’t they have something better to do?

‘What are you willing to give up for it?’
‘Use this app, it’s more secure’
‘They lied to you’

I research the law, talk with lawyers, write letters, write complaints, record, record some more, research the law, back-up evidence, write letters, write complaints, and more problems seem to arrive every day. More people I never thought I’d be speaking with too. Four years ago I was a house-mum caring for my disabled son, working parttime. Now I’m a fulltime carer of my son, finding messages in my inbox of people who are targeted in the news or actually make the news happen.

They say life happens when you’re making plans.

I guess I can survive in the wild after all.

It’s November. I’m told it will happen in December. The nightmares get worse. The list of government officials who’ve lied to me keeps growing. I see the tweet of the journalist and share it. It’s Saturday. Am I surprised that on Monday morning the government is on my website again? I’m not. People who care about me are getting worried.

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Rewind. Six months ago. I’m writing a testament. I upload the first image of the dropbox folder and stare at the first lines: This is a library of evidence against multiple criminals and my own government and more. If something happens to me, the following people are allowed to make everything public.

I close dropbox and can only think one thing:

This is ridiculous.

‘Tell it in parts’, someone from a well-known human rights organisation tells me. ‘Bit by bit. If you drop this all at once on someone, they will not believe it. Give a little more information and evidence each time. Slowly.’

‘He said when he read it he couldn’t believe it’, says the man who believes I should tell it through a film or documentary. ‘But once he spoke with you, he does, but that there’s no ending yet. This is still the beginning.’

‘I think you need to tell it,’ the actress says. ‘I want to see how you tell it.’

‘I read your opinion article,’ the journalist says. This was 8 months ago.

‘I’ve decided it won’t be an interview. It will be a reconstruction of the first case.’
Some months ago.

He calls me and tells me the numbers. I can’t believe he’s gotten them. He tells me case two will get a mention. Because I recorded a police call secretly with some numbers he was able to do all this and more. I ask him how many hours he spent on the investigation. He laughs. He doesn’t know. A lot. I ask again. He tells me that ‘since March’ it ‘was a lot of reading’ and I realise that while 3 men tried and still try to destroy me, this man listened to me. He gives me more numbers. He tells me to keep them to myself for now. I feel tears running down my face. I’m every emotion at the same time. What he tells me is horrible, it’s nothing anybody wants to hear, but it’s a truth that will find light soon because one man decided the investigate it because one angry and hopeless autistic woman wrote an opinion article to a newspaper that never got published. The opinion article was barely about me, just a mention of my court procedure. It mainly concerned rape cases in the Netherlands and violations of human rights, while among others the Dutch police spent their time tweeting about how they brought a ‘lego pop’ to safety. A man read it, saw the person behind the opinion, realised there was more and started asking questions. And here we are now. I can’t believe it.

I thank him over and over again. He tells me I’ll have the article this weekend to approve it.

If this is the beginning, what’s next?