I'm on the verge of a big panic attack right now. Whether it was because of my handicap, my status as a nerd or my disability, I have always been vulnerable and in need of protection. I have needed physical and emotional protection through my whole life and I've felt its lack more often than not. Authority figures anywhere along the gamut from parent through teacher to police officer have always been sacred to me. As I've learned just how thoroughly my trust was violated for decades, I've tried to hang on to my trust in other people and other things. For the most part, I've dropped my standards in order to have something to believe in.
Thank God for Melissa, my New York family and a few people like my former shrink who never forced me to drop my standards to be able to trust them. Of course, these are people whom I met as an adult after my ideals had that initial scuffing but they are precious to me. You need have something to use as an anchor when your world starts trying to throw you off and stomp all over you.
The police as a whole have been something I believed in and this was reinforced with the casual social ties I've had with a few police. I had some great conversations with a few while I worked as a convenience store clerk. We talked about how we would all be better off if we just started off with a conversation about what the ground rules were. There were concepts like "keeping things under control" that we discussed at length. I had turned 21 before the first of these chats so no one was breaking any new ground for me in our chats about things like student drinking. The discussion was centered on the idea that cops didn't and couldn't truly police student drinking. Instead, they policed obnoxious behavior related to student drinking. I felt a fair amount of resentment when I was ticketed under what I believed were unfair circumstances but the police seemed to be doing so much to protect my life and liberty that I never bothered getting worked up about it.
Now, there has been this half year or longer when police have seemingly run amok and killed my fellow human beings for almost no apparent reason even including motivations I might call evil. I don't know whether these far away police forces are filled with those who care too little for human life or whether the more palatable "bad apples" explanation holds true. I just know that my fellow human beings are being killed as if their lives don't matter.
I refer to these victims only as fellow human beings because I do not subscribe to the theories of "race." What people call race seems to be an arbitrary set of minor distinctions within the vastness of human diversity. Don't get me wrong. If you want me to label you black or African-American, I will do so. I will also endeavor to remember the labels of religion. It is in my own mind and it is my own opinion that you are a fellow human being first and foremost.
There is no sense of these far away police killing people who are somehow other. I look at what happened to Eric Garner with particular horror because we saw so much of his ordeal and because he is a fellow "obese-American." With all of my brain and neck surgeries, I can imagine my life would be over in seconds if someone applied any sort of neck hold on me. I've never had any delusions about surviving a bullet wound to the torso because I spent many delightful hours on a target shooting range where I learned everything I could about firearms. With the instructor's very sane emphasis on safety, I managed to go all those years without ever seeing a real casualty from a firearm yet there were some simulations that you just don't forget.
My desire to be well informed is setting off my PTSD symptoms over and over. I was seen as something less than human when I broke rules so I have had an absurd fear of authority. I was going to say respect but I know that it goes far beyond that. Watching those brave protestors scares the living daylights out of me. All it takes is one close up of an officer in riot gear and my "run away!" response is triggered except that I have nowhere to run and no reason either. I keep finding myself on the verge of tears over these brave fellow humans who risk their skins night after night.
After those first couple of August nights in Ferguson, I see those police officers as dangerous men and women who seemed to lack a collective sense of self control. They are not people to me in the same way the police officers I have met in person have been. The system has not attacked me personally but I know how vulnerable I am and I've seen how capricious the use of force has appeared. Once upon a time, I had the most intriguiging conversation with a police officer about the characteristics of his service automatic. This conversation took place as far apart as seemed reasonable at the time because I wanted him to be certain that my interest was purely academic. Now, I don't think I could bring myself to look at an officer's sidearm. Please don't shoot me, sir. Please.
So much of my life has been turned upside down with the realization that my parents were poisonous to me. I grew up with capricious anger that could lash out emotionally at any moment so my faith in the social contract is marred. I don't remember feeling loved and protected by my parents. My faith in achieving progress through sensible partisan politics is damaged possibly beyond repair. Since punishment used come down on me for no reason, it isn't that hard to believe that some cop might decide to shoot me because I'm that annoying.
Am I feeling compassion for Michael Brown's untimely death or is the sick feeling more about how unwanted I felt at 18? Am I horrified at death flying out of a police car and taking a 12 year old boy in Cleveland or is it about my memories of that potential violence I faced every day at 12? Am I more horrified that Eric Garner was choked to death by aggro police or at the fact that I choke on my own saliva violently almost every day? I have an idea of the panic that Mr. Garner must have felt. Are these connections all about me being an outrageous coward or is it something else? Isn't seeing yourself in someone else and identifying with their pain the basis of compassion?
I don't know. I just want the dying and the oppression of the vulnerable to stop. It's enough to give me twitches one could mistake for a grand mal seizure but I can't look away. It's my civic duty to observe and the protests have done an amazing job. There is no calm direction to look and try to be something other.
God, please protect my fellow human beings in general and these protestors specifically.
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