The Myth of Resiliency After an Assault
In the aftermath of trauma, does resilience mean walking away or never letting go?
I got assaulted on Monday, September 17th, 2012 because the photocopier was broken. I mean, that isn’t the reason for my assault, but it was what set the chain of events in motion. The antecedent, to use a big, multisyllabic word.
The photocopier was always down. I spent many a morning at the psychiatric hospital opening its various doors, fishing out crumpled papers from its crevices and slots, rolling my eyes at the sight of my ink-stained fingers and palms, wondering why nothing at this place worked. The copier, the treatment plans, the medications, the pre-employment background checks, the piano in the day room. The heat.
“It’s an old building,” was the pat response staff members or patients would receive after a trembling, blue-finger-tipped complaint was made. Well, so is Buckingham Palace, but I’ll bet the Queen’s fucking Corgis aren’t shivering.
It’s an old building.
We’ve always done it this way.
These are the phrases you hear, over and over and over again, when you work at an inpatient crisis psychiatric hospital; at least, the one in which I worked. They are words that mean nothing and everything all at…
