[Trigger and content warning]

My trauma has become entertainment. My tears? A story to consume. Ten thousands of people have read about it. Thousands of hours this blog was watched.

Meanwhile, justice is not for the poor.

‘They said,’ I begin. ‘All treatment options have been exhausted. They’ll take me out of the program. I want to know nothing else is causing the symptoms before I accept this is my life.’
‘I’ll write a referral,’ my GP says. ‘I’ll highlight the headaches and paralysis episodes especially. I wish your psychiatrist had called them already, but I understand the hospital has been changing psychiatrists a lot and the care hasn’t been..’
‘Thank you.’

I sit at the table with my family.
‘This is good. A neurologist might think: those psychiatrists! I will show them. I’ll find what’s going on!’ one family member says.
‘What could they find?’ another asks.
We discuss what a scan could show. Nobody is frightened. Neither am I. I will accept what is to come. Either the reality that I have to live with PTSD and it will get worse and worse, or, that something has been missed.

I don’t prefer either outcome. Life with PTSD is torture.

Time jumps. It’s June. It’s 2016. It’s 2021.
It’s October, then December.
It’s morning. It’s evening.

It’s September.

I look at Barry’s video. More than 27.000 views.
I check the fundraiser he pitched in it. The one for me.

66 people donated. I’m so thankful. The reality however is, if that number doesn’t explode soon, the civil suit will be off the table.

Statute of limitations.

Time is running out. But am I losing it really, when for me, everything happens at the same time?

I listen to Barry on the phone who tries to console me. He tells me that even if the case can’t be funded, even if the man who abused me will never be prosecuted, my story will be out there. He will make sure of it.

It’s 2016. It’s 2021. It’s 2016. It’s 2021.
It’s morning. It’s evening.

‘Why do you want recognition from a judge?’ my family member asks.
‘Because,’ I say. ‘I’m gaslighted by people who have parasocial relationships with my abuser. If one day I stop believing I’m real due to them and what’s happening in my brain.. A piece of paper by a court stating the truth about my life, could maybe pull me back.’
She looks sad. I probably do too.

It’s 2016. It’s 2021.

‘Please have a nice day,’ Barry tells me.
Why do I need a judge, when I have a friend?

It’s 2016. It’s 2021.
Early morning.

I’m being tortured. Someone tries to rape me. The internet is watching. Reddit karma points fly all around. Some people try to help, others just laugh at me. I scream ‘no’. I hold my hands in front of me.

I open my eyes. I have four arms now. Two fade away. I can’t move. Something tries to pull me back. I lift my head slightly but it falls down in my pillow again. I breathe with mouth open and can then whisper his name. The Skype call is still going.
‘What’s up?’ my friend says.
‘Help,’ I whisper. ‘Keep me.. awake.’
My body goes stiff again. My friend starts speaking loud.
‘What happened?’ he asks.
When my fingers move, I grab my phone.
‘I write,’ I say, drunk with sleep still, texting myself. I can’t make sentences, only write keywords.

Why do I do this?

It’s 2016. It’s 2021.

It’s 2020.

‘Pieke,’ a girlfriend from London says. ‘You don’t need to show me the screenshots. I’m your friend.’
‘It’s not that I don’t trust you,’ I say. ‘I’m just so used to..’
‘I know sweetheart. It must be exhausting, being in this mindset, constantly.’

I cry a long time. I cry forever.
The compulsive need doesn’t go away.
I curse at my brain. At 2016.
At all the years in between.

It’s 2021. It’s 2016.

It’s 2019.

‘I want the happy Pie back,’ my best friend says. ‘Your activism will not change a thing. You will fail. You should wait a few years and then have him killed. What do you think I will do to my rapist? In years, when people have forgotten we dated, I will come for him. You should do the same.’
‘The fuck?’ I snap at her. ‘Don’t say that shit to me!’

A few days later, another fight about our traumas.

I block her. She blocks me.
Years of friendship down the drain.
It’s 2021.
I look her up online.
Not spoken
in a long time.
Our rapists killed our friendship.
Our traumas took their toll.
They corrupted her
while they’ve broken me.
But at least
she looks happy.

I’m glad for her.
Hope she no longer has plans.

It’s 2016. It’s 2021.

A broken soul and nightmares from hell.

A joke to laugh at.

A target.

Trauma entertainment.

Grief porn.

No justice.

Sleep paralysis.

Derealisation.

But am I not
so much more?

Is my life
worth fighting for?

January.

His face.

A bone breaks.

Ketamine.

A black hole.

Dissociate.

Then one becomes two

as I die before I die.

‘She spoke of a white light,’ the hospital’s report says.

I’m crying, reading it.
Dying, reading it.

THAT’S NOT WHAT I SAID

I WAS IN HELL.

YOU GAVE ME KETAMINE FOR THE PAIN!

MEDICAL MISTAKES

HOW MANY MORE?!

‘We need to finish it,’ he says

And then I realise
as
I’m
on
the
floor

that justice?
IT JUST DOESN’T EXIST

At least
not for the poor.

This article is part of a series. Please see The Dark Side of Justice for more information.