I've been reading about those women who were kept prisoner for 10 years in Cleveland. What a disturbing and scary story! To think that something like this could be going on next door and in all that time nobody questioned, nobody followed up on their gut feelings?
I've never been through anything as traumatic as that, obviously, but I have been through some things and I can tell you what those women have ahead of them. Right now they are in the news. Everyone is sympathetic. But give it some time.
These women have a ten year gap in their life that can never be brought back. Ten years of being out of contact with the world. I can't even imagine what that has to be like.
How on earth would you ever explain that on a job interview? What about ordinary conversations where it's taken for granted that you know what they are talking about and it happened to be about something that happened during that ten year period?
I'll tell you what will happen. Eventually something else will get everyone's attention and they will be forgotten. Meanwhile they still have to live with their memories only to find that people are tired of hearing about it. Or they will be met with disbelief. Even the therapists will tell them that they have to move on, that they have to get over it. Because people don't want to hear about stuff like this. They don't want to hear about the bad things people do to other people.
How on earth do you move on from something like that? How do you put it in the back of your mind? How do you explain the missing years, the gaps in your knowledge? How do you deal with people who smile, nod their heads and are thinking even if they don't say it that you must be making this up, that things like this don't happen, that you have some kind of problem? How do you deal with people who tell you that if you only had faith, if you would come to their church, trust in God, everything would be made all right again?
Well there are some things that can't be made right again. Once a memory is made it is there. There are things I can't forget no matter how much I want to. I might not think about them for a long while but they happened and I can't deny that they happened--at least not to myself. Where others are concerned, that's another matter. There's things I've learned to lie about and that is what these women will have to learn, too. Because the past is the past and we have to move on and we have to get over it, so stop talking about it.
I've never been through anything as traumatic as that, obviously, but I have been through some things and I can tell you what those women have ahead of them. Right now they are in the news. Everyone is sympathetic. But give it some time.
These women have a ten year gap in their life that can never be brought back. Ten years of being out of contact with the world. I can't even imagine what that has to be like.
How on earth would you ever explain that on a job interview? What about ordinary conversations where it's taken for granted that you know what they are talking about and it happened to be about something that happened during that ten year period?
I'll tell you what will happen. Eventually something else will get everyone's attention and they will be forgotten. Meanwhile they still have to live with their memories only to find that people are tired of hearing about it. Or they will be met with disbelief. Even the therapists will tell them that they have to move on, that they have to get over it. Because people don't want to hear about stuff like this. They don't want to hear about the bad things people do to other people.
How on earth do you move on from something like that? How do you put it in the back of your mind? How do you explain the missing years, the gaps in your knowledge? How do you deal with people who smile, nod their heads and are thinking even if they don't say it that you must be making this up, that things like this don't happen, that you have some kind of problem? How do you deal with people who tell you that if you only had faith, if you would come to their church, trust in God, everything would be made all right again?
Well there are some things that can't be made right again. Once a memory is made it is there. There are things I can't forget no matter how much I want to. I might not think about them for a long while but they happened and I can't deny that they happened--at least not to myself. Where others are concerned, that's another matter. There's things I've learned to lie about and that is what these women will have to learn, too. Because the past is the past and we have to move on and we have to get over it, so stop talking about it.
