I was once choked. Another kid did it. An older, bigger kid. A boy. He used two hands. He grabbed me by the neck, forced me into a corner, and forced me to the ground, all the while choking me. He didn't stop choking me until his younger sister ran up behind him and screamed for him to stop. I remember not being able to say anything, or make noise of any kind. He was my sister's friend. I remember the choking so vividly. I was probably about 9 years old. It hurt like hell even though it didn't last long, maybe only 10-20 seconds. I thought he was joking at first until he started to squeeze harder and harder. My cheeks get red just thinking about it, and I haven't thought about it in quite a while. When he finally let go he pushed me backward, like someone in a movie might do. I remember looking up at him, expecting him to smile, tell me he was joking. Instead he just looked at me with so much anger. We were all playing tag. I grabbed his white tee shirt by the shoulder. As he tried to run from me the shirt stretched, the neck completely out of shape by the time I let go. I laughed hysterically and pointed at him. No one else saw this.
It seems like a strange thing to get so angry about, my laughing and his shirt, but he was 12 and raging with hormones. Who knows what he was dealing with in his home life. I'm not excusing his choking me. It was a traumatic event. I remember sitting there for a long time after he left, his sister staring down at me for a moment and then running off to find the others. She wasn't that concerned. Maybe because she lived with him. Maybe he was violent toward her too. I sat there, alone, wanting to cry. Thinking I would. But I never did. I just rubbed my neck, stayed crouched in the corner until someone shouted my name minutes later. I vowed never to piss him off again.
I have never really faced violence. I think that scares me even more than if I had to relive a particularly violent episode over and over. I think of the millions of women around the world who have been raped or beaten within an inch of their lives. I wonder how they sleep at night. (Let alone how their attackers sleep at night, but that's another topic.) How they go out and face the world. I'm lucky to have never really faced any particularly violent situations.
Such a macabre tone to this post. I just remembered the choking incident on the way home. I was thinking about some new pieces I'm working on. I probably think about it once or twice a year. The new stories and the characters I'm working on both encounter violence--one ends sort of comedically (that sounds sick, doesn't it?), the other definitely not. I started thinking about the choking because I was asking myself why I felt needed the violence in my stories. I was thinking about why I would dare write something that I know nothing about, have never encountered. I've never physically struggled to get away from someone. I've never been put in a situation I couldn't physically get out of, and for that I'm so so lucky.
Last year my sister told me she slapped me once--hard. She said she has always regretted it and always felt guilty about it. I don't remember this incident at all. During my sophomore year of high school my sister decided to pick on me and push my buttons while we were waiting for our mom to pick us up. She kicked me and hit me and called me names. She pushed me as far as I would go and suddenly I snapped. I spun around and punched her hard in the clavical. I remember the way her bone felt against my knuckles. All 110 pounds of her (compared to my 150) went flying backward with my rage. I dropped my bags and screamed "You wanna go? Let's go!" It was a really ugly time in both of our lives. Even though I can remember everything from what I looked like (baggy grey tee-shirt, drawstring khaki pants, fake Doc Martin sandals with socks, and my purple letterman jacket, my straight light brown hair in a bob with the bangs pinned back) to the light in the room (flourescent and solid, not flickering or buzzing) and the way the high school foyer smelled and the way every single kid cleared the room when we started screaming at each other... my sister doesn't even remember the incident.
I think humans are inately violent. I think we want to hurt each other. Well, maybe not hurt each other per se. I think our instinct to hurt each other is in part self-preservation and part survival of the fittest. But extreme acts of violation, such as rape, don't register for me. I don't understand it. I don't think I want to. There are clinical explanations of why these things happen, but it's all so sterile.
I think I need to wrap this post up, otherwise I might just fall into a dark cravasse. I might take my characters to places they don't need to go. And places I don't need to go.
Stay safe,
LG
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