My Cycle Awry: After a Year of Self-Reflection

It’s strange to recall the details of this past year of my life. Dredging up emotions, visceral drives and reactions lead me to experience the rawness of those moments anew—despite being over a year removed from them.

To recall sitting in a holding cell is to feel all of the sensations of being there: the coldness of sterilized concrete, the smells of fearful sweat and that one drunken sorority girl...

And in the courtroom, while awaiting sentencing alone and deferential, I became angered by an unjust loophole that held one absentee man unaccountable for his crime simply because his victim was too afraid to bear witness.

Today I feel no anger toward an imbalanced justice system. It’s a democratic institution that strives for balance, but, as with any other social system, it is not infallible. In the process of writing how I felt on that day, I relived and wrote about my anger.

It may feel like a giant step backward to return to a mindset wrought with emotional turmoil, but I also feel that I can’t truly reflect on (and write about) my life without doing so. However, I want to make it clear that I do not dwell there. I go back, I sift through these memories, and then make peace with who I was then.

*****

Shortly after my sentencing, I began my BIP (Batterer Intervention Program) classes. At the time, I anticipated being placed in a room with women I would not be able to relate to; I even pre-labeled them ‘thugs.’

The day before my first class, a friend sympathized with me being “forced” to sit through a yearlong class in which I would likely “get nothing out of it” because she knew what a “calm and intelligent” person I was. I reluctantly accepted her compliment, but wondered: “If I’m so calm and intelligent, then why did I do something so rash and insensitive that it got me arrested?”

To my surprise, when my new therapist had us all go around the room introducing ourselves and confiding what we had done to get there, I felt like the biggest thug of them all.

Halfway around the circle, halfway to my turn, and I was holding back tears. It was at that moment that I knew I needed to be there; I needed to take full stock of what I had done in order to become truly accountable for it, and I needed to learn how to reign in my emotions and express myself without needing to control another’s response.

****

I regret having pre-judged my class cohorts so fallaciously. They are all strong, intelligent women who accept responsibility for their actions and want to move on with grace. Without their active participation and candidness in the program, I would not have gained nearly as much insight into my own process of accountability. I am eternally grateful for being allowed to share in their presence, compassion and commitment to becoming calm, clear and connected women.

***

I was driving to one of my last BIP classes when I realized just how much I was going to miss it all: the chances to talk, to be heard, to listen, the in-class exercises, the gut-wrenching homework, and especially the confidences of beautiful women.

They each remind me just how precious every moment is, that feeling is essential to living, and to channel all of that energy—that well of vibrant emotions—requires the utmost consciousness and care.

**

I am quite inclined now not to use hindsight as my guide.

And when I hear my thoughts going off track, I shuffle to playing one of a handful of different songs in my mind to return me to clarity. (Whatever works, right?)

I shall post one of them, knowing no other way to jazz up my blog than to post the occasional apropos video. Enjoy!

*

Shackled

By the time I was sentenced for my crime, I had already agonized over two prior court dates.

I spent my first visit to court in a cold sweat, wanting to represent myself (without a lawyer) and plead remorsefully for mercy from the judge.

A friend of mine came to that first court date with me. She insisted that I have a public defender and that I attempt to foist the blame for my actions onto my partner as the alleged catalyst of my rage. I did not believe that such a defense could get me off, mitigate the punishment, or even be considered permissible in court, but I still listened to her attempts to convince me that the court would understand how he had "pushed" me with words to my breaking point.

The best advice she gave me was to get a public defender. On my first court date, he convinced me (and her) that the charges weren't going to be dropped, that I was facing a mandatory three years probation (with a no alcohol stipulation, because I'd been drinking the night of my crime), and would be required to attend a 52-week "batterer intervention program."

"It's like anger management," he explained. "In a group setting with a therapist."

I actually liked the idea of therapy. I was often fascinated by the possibility of revealing my innermost thoughts to a professional who might possibly get me closer to an emotional epiphany. A longtime fan of Woody Allen films, I pictured my therapist indulging my narcissistic fantasy to talk about my childhood, my guarded fears and secret desires, at length. What I dreaded was the thought of having to share that therapist (and my delicate psyche) with a group of unknown, possibly dangerous, women.

***

Just before I was sentenced, a lawyer defending an absentee client pleaded for his client's case to be dropped. The prosecutor scoffed at the idea of dropping the charges. It was a domestic violence case.

After a heated rally, in which the prosecutor detailed a horrifying, bloody scene, she caved. Despite having what sounded like a solid case, all charges were dropped because the victim had repeatedly refused to answer calls from the prosecutor. She remained silent, and her attacker/boyfriend walked away from all consequences for his actions.

***

During recess, I was given a copy of my probation officer's report on my case. Details of my crime that I had given to her in an interview were twisted beyond recognition. If she had been a reporter, I could have sued for libel. As it was, I knew of no recourse for her mangling of my honest statements.

I felt shackled by an unjust system of imbalance.

A man walked free after bludgeoning his girlfriend solely because she was too afraid to tell the truth of what he had done to her, and I had to return to that courtroom to be sentenced for the same criminal charges (a rap that my public defender had told me was impossible to beat).

What's more, the details I'd given to my probation officer regarding what I didn't do were construed as acts I had willfully committed. My attempts at clarifying the situation led to a report that was partly a work of fiction.

***

I wanted to cry foul for that man getting off for a crime far more violent than mine.

I wanted to avoid a final plea until I could get my P.O. to admit to misinterpreting my statements in her report.

Most of all, I wanted to get it over with.

I submitted to a flawed justice system. I cringed at the thought of three years of heightened scrutiny, unwarranted searches and seizures, and being banned from entering bars.

I wondered how I was going to keep a roof over my head and pay off all of those court fees and fines at the same time.

The only thing I was slightly hopeful about (despite it being an additional financial burden) was that mandatory batterer's intervention program. I was hopeful I would find a good therapist, reach an epiphany or two about myself, and maybe learn to open up to the hardened thug's I thought for sure would flesh out the rest of the group.

"what dreams may come"

I'd been noodling over a few as yet unpublished postings, wondering what's been keeping me, when I realized that I'd been shelving a dream that's been haunting me for over a week now that needs writing.

****

I'm in a white house, sitting at a wooden table painted white in an all white kitchen with two other women I've become acquainted with quite recently. We're celebrating an achievement of mine. One asks me if I want a beer. I think to myself, why not? I've earned it. I say yes.

She gets up from the table, reaches into an antique fridge, and hands me a Budweiser in a can.

I crack it open, and gulp it down. I can taste it. Cold carbonated hops and barley. I'm examining the can. Beads of sweat drip down the red and white and blue logo. I'm thinking: why am I drinking this beer?

I look past the two women. The back door is open. It's directly in front of me and just behind one of them. Bright white daylight nearly blinds the outside view, but I can just make out a faint blue sky and endless green grass out there.

We're all talking. We're celebrating, but somehow I feel faraway. I begin second guessing myself. Wondering why I would say yes to drinking a beer when I know very well that I'm on probation with a stipulation not to imbibe alcohol. Why would I do that when I want to set a good example for these women? I want to show them that I choose not to further violate the rule of law in any way. Yet, here I am with this can in my hand.

Then I begin to wonder: Why Budweiser in a can? I haven't had a Bud since I was in high school.

And if I were going to risk breaking my probation by drinking, wouldn't I want to do it with a beer to remember? Something truly tasty. Guinness, how I remember your heartiness, yet all I can taste is the rim of this can and it's cheap contents--a mass-produced fermented piss water.

***

What do I make of this dream?

Although shorter than most of my dreams, it replays in my waking hours much more often than I would have expected. It's rife with imagery and gustatory sensations, and I wonder if any of my dream books have any explanations for the symbolic meaning of a can of good ol' American beer.

It's only after pondering this particularly puzzling dream image for days that I have realized: that is the beer my dad drank when I was a child.

I think my subconscious is speaking to me. It's saying: "I want a beer, but I want to set a good example for my peers..."

And perhaps I'm torn between the instant gratification I saw as a child in my father's face (when he cracked open his first beer after work) and the need for further self reflection. Faced with this perpetual dilemma, I'm reminded of the chorus to the song "Sober" by Tool (which I've posted below), which goes:

"Why can't we not be sober?

I just want to start this over.

Why can't we sleep forever?

I just want to start this over."

In my dream, alcohol, that supposed reward for a job well done, was actually an agent of sleep. I lost sight of my friends. I stared either at the can in my hand or out into an infinite abyss of white light and green grass. I believe that the question the song posits begs a passionate because. What do you think?

bang and blame

There's something quite sobering about a mugshot. That raw exposure. Those tear-hot eyes peering into an uncertain future with a sudden criminal record.

I thought to myself at that very moment, the camera may see hate. Is that what I look like now? Hate-filled? When all I feel is anguish, am I projecting only hate to the world?

Once inside the holding cell, I felt like a caged animal on display in a cold neon-lit box. My only refuge was the phone and a list of bail bond numbers on the wall. I tried to ignore the woman on the phone beside me as I went down the list one-by-one, my calls going unanswered each time. I guessed that there might not be any bondsmen sitting by the phone at midnight waiting for the criminals to call. I began to feel that the process of trying to make bail in time to get to work in the morning was a futile one. I sat down on the chilly cement bench and stared at the numbers on the wall.

The woman on the other phone—the only other woman in the room with me—turned to me and asked me in broken English to help her with her phone call. I told her that I needed to make my own call, and I selfishly resumed my attempt to make a connection and simultaneously ignore her presence beside me. But she was persistent. She told me that she was trying to make bail, but that she didn't understand exactly what she should say. She also told me which numbers had people on the other end to answer the call.

I thanked her for wanting to help me with my phone call, and I told her that I would do whatever I could to help her with hers. We introduced ourselves. She told me that she was born in Oaxaca, and that her English was not so good because she had only been here for five years. Then she asked me, "Why are you in here?"

I hesitated, but she just went on. "Me? I am here because I stole... How do you say? Esmalte para... nail polish? Is that right?" I nodded. "I know it was wrong, but I do it anyway because I have no money and I think maybe nobody will know. But they catch me, and now I have three-thousand dollars bail! How much is your bail?"

I hesitated again, but this time she was waiting for my answer.

"Fifty-thousand dollars," I said.

She looked at me as if she thought I had been mistaken, but I showed her the arrest report I'd been given; with it's four zeros and a comma, there was no mistaking that my crime was far worse than hers.

"What did you do to have that much bail?"

"I beat up my boyfriend," I said.

"You?" She looked surprised, as if she didn't think I had a violent bone in me. "What did he do to you?"

"He kept pushing me." I answered her without hesitating that time.

"Why didn't they arrest him, if he was pushing you?"

"He didn't literally push me. He pushed me with words. He kept yelling at me and calling me names, and I tried to stay calm and get away from him, but I got so angry that I hit him. And he had me arrested."

I thought that she might judge me as dangerous and evil, but instead I saw a look of compassion and sympathy in her eyes.

Then she said, "Sometimes when we know what is right we still make bad choices. And god is always there to show us the way. I try to steal polish for nails because I did not have three dollars to pay, and now I am here with three-thousand dollars bail to pay. You did not want your boyfriend to hurt you with words so you hit him, and now you are here. I learn never to steal again, and you learn never to hit your boyfriend again. Right?"

I wanted to answer her. I wanted to agree with her, and to believe that it could be just that easy to acknowledge that what I had done was wrong and to vow never to do it again. Before I could respond, an officer escorted a new inmate into the holding cell, a rake-thin emo girl with a large gauze bandage on the inside of her forearm. She looked strung-out on heroine.

She began speaking inattentively to both of us. "Do you know if Officer ____ is here? He runs this place and he's a good friend of my dad's. The cops that put me in here said that if I talk to him he can get me out the back door."

I exchanged a disgusted glance with my original cellmate. "No, I don't know if Officer ____ is here. If he's the guy I talked to before they put me in here, he left about an hour ago. And from what I've seen, there is no back door to this place."

"Oh there will be for me," the loaded girl answered, her eyes drifting off into space. "He's a good friend of my dad's and he'll pull some strings to get me out of here tonight."

The girl's unwavering determination that the justice system did not apply to her because she had 'connections' made me think about what my new Oaxacan friend shared with me. "And god is always there to show us the way."

I could bang and blame. I could shirk responsibility for my actions. I could pretend that there's a back door out of accountability for my crime. But none of these avoidance techniques would show me the way back to being at peace with my self.

the trouble with a criminal confessional...

Since committing a heinous crime that I promised myself I had the guts to write about and post publicly, I have written many pages of thoughts on the topic (to myself via journaling and my therapist via intensive assignments), yet I still grapple with the idea of so candidly revealing myself in such a public forum.

Then I watched "Julie and Julia," and thought to myself, if a woman can write about her experiment with cooking fine French cuisine and share it with the world, then why can't I write about my experiment with being candid about my crime (and what I'm learning from it) and share it with the world?

My current answer: Perhaps, just as Julie began her journey, I've been trying too hard to make the recipes (that is, my writing) turn out perfectly, when what I really need is to throw all the ingredients out there one day at a time.

About the not-so-pretty face

I never thought that I could get so angry that I could make such a scowly face and hang onto it long enough to unleash sheer torment on the recipient of my anger, but, regrettably, I was wrong.

I'd like to say that such a face, such a mood, such a wailing of furious fists was somehow justified, but you wouldn't believe me, and I honestly wouldn't actually like to say that because I know better now than to lie to you and me.

There I was, my bottled rage fit to bursting, a pack of lies screaming in my ear to give him just what he deserves, and nothing to stop me but me.

I didn't stop myself. One moment I was walking out that door, and the next I was listening to those lies, uncorking the bottle, and letting him have it.

My actions became a frenzied blur, and when I paused long enough to see the look of betrayal and hurt in his eyes, all I wanted was a magic rewind button, anything that could take me back to the moment before I stepped foot back into that room.

But this is not a blog about the what-ifs and the coulda-beens. I'm writing here about coming to terms with the consequences for my actions, accepting accountability, and learning better ways to process my anger than the knee-jerk reaction of that not-so-pretty face.

I’m also writing just for the sake of writing my thoughts, feelings, and reflections about living in this strange modern world I call home. After all, my life amounts to so much more than one night of erroneous criminal action, subsequent mugshot/incarceration, court dates, consequences and lifelong regret. I’m coming to terms with that one bad night as well as every day I live and breathe.