Seeing the Police

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Authentic, autobiographical, schizotypal and brutally honest.
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ellynei
ellynei
272 Followers

The following is as authentic as anything based on memory can be. At least when my memory is the memory in question. It was originally written in my native language, Danish, in an attempt of mine to get past the experiences it covers and move on with my life. It has been edited for typos, and translated to English, but has since its creation neither been streamlined, nor beautified, nor dramatised for the sake of any audience.

The following text contains the truth, as confusing and raw as I saw it at the time of writing it down.

*

I walked out from the police-station. There I fished my cell-phone out of my bag. My red and white, plastic bag. In spite of my gender I have never owned a ladies purse.

The sun shone, I think. Yes, it must have; I didn't like the weather. Sunshine makes my eyes hurt and reminds me that summers can be warm. Too warm. Since I got fat, I haven't been able to stand the heat. (Why did I ever agree to try Zyprexa?)

There was a crackling, empty feeling. What had just happened? I had gone to see the police to report a crime. That's what you are supposed to do when you have been exposed to one. Isn't it? Is it? Not? Before taking a cab to town, I thought that was what one was meant to do. Was I wrong?

There had to be something I had misunderstood. But what?

On the inside I was shaking, but my hands looked steady and my lips weren't trembling. The cab soon arrived. My voice didn't shake when I spoke my address.

I couldn't remember what the policeman looked like or what his name was. For a merciful moment, I couldn't remember a word he had said either.

When he let me out of the interrogation room, I couldn't remember the way out. I couldn't recognise neither corridor nor staircase.

That happens to me when I've been exposed to something unpleasant. Memory-loss. I also get confused and have difficulty thinking straight. Is it like that for everyone?

An interrogation room. I'd never before been in an interrogation room. I was only able to recognise it as that because I once saw an episode of Station 2 where a police officer interrogated a suspect in a room of similar design.

In that episode of Station 2, the seated suspect --with the blurred face-- sat and alternately smoked and balanced his cigarette on the police officer's table. (There was no ash-tray.) The police officer was questioning the suspect about some crime. The suspect alternated between replying and asking if he had now been caught enough times to spend some time on the inside.

I tried to push the association aside. It wasn't easy.

The first thing the policeman said was something like:

"You sit there and stay there."

While delivering the message, he pointed at the chair which you place the suspect in.

Already then I was completely rattled. I had, by a policeman, been ordered to sit in a chair by a wall in an interrogation room. What if I should momentarily forget and stand up? Would it only be extremely embarrassing, or would it also be illegal? Civil disobedience or whatever the term is called.

I was afraid to sit down. I wanted to go home and hide. But, seriously, to a) have gone all the way to the police-station, b) have pulled a number (and waited), c) have explained what crime one had been exposed to (and waited), and d) finally have been taken in to give a statement. Damn, it would be embarrassing to weepishly ask permission to go home the very moment one arrived at the interrogation chamber.

It's not that I had time to think about all that in the situation. The police-dude had said "sit" and, even though the screams of my instincts made me hesitate, I didn't consider not "sitting".

In a desperate attempt to act natural and obliging I seated forward on the chair. Too forward. Only half my ass touched the seat.

The next few minutes, I can't clearly remember. I remember using most of my concentration on figuring out whether I should carefully raise my butt from the seat to push myself all the way onto the chair. Or if I should remain as I were.

I kept pretending I was unaware that the manner in which I sat was utterly ridiculous, and kept pretending that this thing with being placed in the suspect's seat was natural.

It isn't natural.

The design of an interrogation room ensures the policeman an architectonic advantage in case of a sudden fight. But, the design also places the subject in a psychologically subdued position.

The policeman has a comfortable chair (at least it looks comfortable from where the suspect sits). The policeman has a table which from the suspect's point of view hides half the policeman's body. Suspect has no table. The suspect's back is against the wall, but the suspect's front is bared and unprotected.

It is a powerful psychological inequality. Add to this that the policeman is an authority figure, an authority, the impression magnifies.

The humiliating effect of the interrogation room is variable. The suspect's chair can be moved closer to the policeperson's table. If the chair is moved all the way to the table the suspect still can't see what the police-person's monitor displays, but a psychological equality between the two arises. The legs of both are partially hidden by the table and the physical distance between the two persons are now appropriate for conversation.

It is actually quite brilliant in its simplicity. When the chair is far from the table, the suspect, whether she wants to or not, will be placed in a subdued position and will feel pressured. When the chair is close to the table, the suspect has a chance to relax.

When I was questioned, my chair (the suspect's place) was at the wall and I wasn't given permission to move it to the table. On the contrary I was told to stay and not move.

Why!?! What did I do? I went in there to report a crime and then I am being treated as a dangerous criminal. Why?

The memory torments me. To sit there, helplessly trapped on a chair. To remember how I pathetically sat far forward on the chair in a pitiful attempt to maintain just a shred of my dignity. I hate myself when I think about it. It was so undignified and embarrassing. Some place inside, I can't help but believe it was my own fault.

I had to have done something, right? The police doesn't do stuff like that to people for no reason. Do they?

In the cab on my way home I said something lame to the driver about being treated badly when reporting a crime. I can't remember exactly what I said. I couldn't think clearly. Aftershock. I knew I was looking forward to some bad days. I knew that already before leaving home.

That is the price I am accustomed to paying for doing an errand in town. That's the main reason I spend a fortune on cabs getting in there and home. The 400 crowns spent on cab fares spares me a day or two in hell.

(Well, that's the math I've come to by comparing downtime following errands where I go by bus, to errands where I go by cab.)

Aftershock. As usual, it fairly much kept itself in check till I got home. I paced back and forth in our living room. It was worse than it usually is, much worse. It smouldered and pounded and hurt in my stomach. I couldn't keep my hands still. They constantly fisted and opened and I remembered. I began to remember.

Things he had said. Things I had said.

"I don't have a particularly good memory," I had said.

"No," he had said with a grimace and thereby mockingly agreed.

When I'm having a down time I try to handle it myself, but I couldn't handle this. I woke my boyfriend and clung to him while weeping hysterically.

I still can't remember the policeman's name or face, but small memory-glimpses from the interrogation haunts me. I remember that at one point he started talking a lot. Like really blah blah blah, as if he was trying to tell me something. With my ears open and my mouth shut, I sat and stared at him trying to make sense of his words.

It was impossible. After a while, I interrupted him and said it, as it is, that I am schizotypal and that I am unable to catch on to allusions. I explained that if he wanted to tell me something then he would have to tell me directly.

I remember, he seemed to have a hard time saying it directly. Sort of testingly he started out with:

"It's stupid."

I think I interrupted him at that. Otherwise I did after a second sentence synonymous with "It's stupid."

Either way, I, in my confused condition, said something like, "Yes, it was stupid. Of course it was stupid. It is stupid to let people into your home. It's stupid to trust anyone."

Then the police-dude started explaining that the thing that was stupid, was to leave wallet and credit-card in plain sight.

Although I didn't understand why he was wasting our time talking about stuff like that, I explained that my boyfriend and I don't own a safe.

The police-dude didn't quite think a safe was needed. But, what he actually wanted to say was that... Yes, he did hesitate the closer he got to his point, but in the end it came out.

"When you leave wallet and credit-card out in the open and let young people come into your home, then, you might say, it is your own fault." That was about the words, not exact, though. Memory is rarely exact, especially not mine.

I sat there and looked at him. What was I supposed to say to that? Anyone can figure out that guests, young or old, can find opportunity to steal. In my opinion only the fewest imagine that a guest sneakily will find a chance to write down your credit-card-information while you are at the toilet to then swindle for thousands of crowns via the internet.

I didn't say any of this. Actually, I couldn't see the point of talking about the crime having been avoidable. He wasn't presenting advice of crime prevention. He just said it was my own fault. He didn't say what I should have done differently.

While I wondered what the point was, I started blabbering. But, of course, it was stupid, I should have acquired something suitable to lock stuff away in, and, of course, I would be more careful in the future. In the back of my head, I was wondering why I was apologising for having been hustled. In the back of my head I wondered, even more, why the police-dude was wasting so much of his valuable time on telling the victim that it was her own fault.

With the wisdom of hindsight:

Is a crime less of a crime, when it can only be committed if the victim displays trust to the criminal?

If it is my fault, should I be accused as accomplice to fraud? After I discovered what that kid had done, the majority of the financial loss of the fraud was transferred to the companies at which he had spent the money. While I was left with American company numbers on my phone-bill (from contacting the firms); unanswered questions on whether that kid's fraud has affected my credit-value on the internet; cab-expenses; and a really rotten feeling of being a victim.

So far, it is far easier for me to get past the crime I was exposed to by the 16-year old acquaintance than it is to get past the treatment the police-dude exposed me to.

Was I being punished for reporting a crime? Or did I do something else wrong?

Sometimes I think he was nagging on me to get me to pull back the report. Or to, in general, make sure that I'd never again waste the police's time with insignificant matters.

I don't get it, it can't be right. Am I again being naive? What is it I don't see?

It's been more than two weeks and my stomach still hurts when I think of the police-dude. I am not capable of simply not thinking about him.

There is so much I don't get, that is a large part of how come I am sick. I am afraid of people because things very often goes badly between me and others. People easily get pissed at me without me having any clue what I did wrong.

It's not that I think I don't do anything wrong. I am 32 years old, over the years a few have gotten their acts together to give me some hints as to what I do wrong. For example I have an incredibly arrogant manner, a bit like, "Yes, I've got a brain and I'm not afraid to use it.

But how did I manage to piss the police-dude off on the short walk from entrance to interrogation room?

Small glimpses torment me.

"Now you are muddling up your story," he said, or something like that. "That wasn't how you described it before."

That made me angry. Because just before he said that, I had been rambling about the day the 16-year old most likely snatched my credit-card information. And that, I had not previously described. I hadn't had an opportunity to. There wasn't really any reason to be rambling about it though.

A priori, (as you say if you think you are too clever to say "In advance",) I thought the police needed to know that the kid had had opportunity to snatch the information and that he hadn't had opportunity to use it from me and my boyfriend's shared apartment.

The reason I was rambling was that mentally I was running on my last vestiges, and the torture-master didn't quite control the conversation.

When I discovered that my credit-card information had been abused, I first called the bank and had the card locked, then called the police to find out how one reports a crime.

By phone I came through to a guy who said I could report through the internet or by going to the police-station (or is that one called the police headquarters?) during the daytime. But that I shouldn't expect that the matter would be investigated, that the police doesn't investigate all these cases, mostly only investigate the big cases.

Small glimpses torment me.

"I don't investigate cases unless I have a full name," he said. Something like that anyway.

"I didn't know that," I said, or something like that, while wondering why we were talking about this. I merely came to report a crime and offer the information I happened to have about it.

Why was he wasting his precious time alternately scolding me and debating strange matters?

They don't have time to solve cases, but they have time to yack away about their routines?

No, that can't be right. There is something I have misunderstood.

So. I go to the police station to report a crime. I mean, a schizotypal woman and a police officer go into an interrogation room...

I am a walking, talking joke. A loser who, in spite of a functional body, lacks the strength to earn her own living. I'm so fucked up that it's been impossible for me to find people to be fucked up with.

Well, my boyfriend can stand me.

Apart from each other, we are incredibly lonely. My best friend lives in England. The English friend, my mother, and my boyfriend, are the only adult people who are interested in talking to me without getting paid in some way.

There are some kids who, more or less regularly, come to us to play computer games. They don't come to be with us, they just like computer games, same as we do.

Sometimes I fear what people think of us. It is, after all, quite Michael Jackson-like.

It is. It isn't normal.

Once, I gave in to my fear of people. Well, I was broken by it. Or maybe I was just incapable of telling the difference between the two concepts.

I spent more than a year isolated in a one-room-apartment. I got worse every week. It's a long boring story, so I will skip directly to my point:

Complete isolation is bad for you, even if you suffer from various phobias.

Noisy kids are better company than no company. Even though they make my ears hurt, they can actually be very sweet and funny. When they want to.

Small glimpses.

"Do they sometimes spend the night, these children?" That was just about the wording of the police-dude's question.

"Yes," was my reply. "The little ones who live close-by sometimes do." In the mean while, I wondered what that had to do with the matter at hand. I had already explained that the credit-card-abuse couldn't have taken place from my home. Did he think I was a pedophile? If he thought I were a pedophile, why didn't he ask for name and address of as many kids as possible?

I didn't know surname and address of the 16-year old, whom I am convinced is behind the credit-card-fraud. I did have his step-father's telephone number, though.

Why the long hard interrogation?

There was no organisation in the questioning.

No. If there had been the slightest suspicion that I were pedophile, it would have been a good idea to take the case seriously. By investigating the matter of credit-card fraud, the police-dude would be able to inconspicuously contact every kid who had ever visited us.

No. He probably didn't think such a thing.

But then why the psychological torture?

Why was I put in that torture chamber, eh - i mean, interrogation room? Why didn't they just take my information at the front desk and let me go home?

Before I went to the police station, I believed there was such a thing as civic duty. It is a noun. As far as I knew/believed it covered the concept of things considered duty for any ordinary, law-abiding, citizen.

I thought that when you knew of a crime, then it was your duty to report it to the police.

In spite of this understanding (or is it a delusion?) I have never previously been to the police to report a crime.

I've been there to have my passport made, back when the police did that. I've also once spent a night in the detention (if that's what it's called) the place they put drunk people.

At that time, I had spent more than a year in isolation, my younger brother had recently deceased, and I was either hysterical or in the middle of a psychosis. (Psychiatric ER would have nothing to do with me. They claimed I wasn't insane.)

Anyhow, passport-renewal, some years back, and a night in the drunk-box, also some years back, that was the extent of my familiarity with the police.

So why did he start out so aggressively?

Sit. Stay.

I can't have done anything in advance. Can I?

I wasn't the one to ask to be sent on from the front desk.

How in the world did I manage to make him so hateful in advance?

Glimpses.

I had explained that the 16-year old was one of those who steadily came and played computer games in our home, except the 16-year old didn't come very often. But out of those who had come by this summer, he was the only one whom I could imagine had done it.

"So, that social-phobia doesn't apply in your home," concluded the police-dude, just about with those words. Very close to it anyhow.

I'm not sure exactly what I replied. I know that I, at that point, was too rattled to compare visiting a café to letting people into your home.

About a week after i went to the police, there was a letter from Fyns Politi in my mailbox. I quickly skimmed it, blah blah, have decided not to investigate, blah blah, 4 weeks window of opportunity to complain. I was actually relieved to get a letter, because, honestly, the way he had been harassing me in the interrogation room, apparently to make me drop the charges, I had started to suspect that he would shelve the case by claiming I had withdrawn the report during the interrogation.

He didn't ask many questions related to the case during that interrogation. Actually, he used more time saying things than on asking questions.

"Really. What is this? What kind of amounts are these to present?"

From my net-banking, I had copied every single of the 17 withdrawals from my visa-dankort which the swindler had made. I had printed them out and brought with me.

"Five crowns," spurted the police-dude, and then he said something like, "What kind of petty-amounts is that to present."

Where was he headed with that? I didn't ask. I merely said, as it was, that I had included every single amount.

There had been 17 withdrawals which I hadn't made. They varied in size from 5 crowns to 1305 crowns. All in all for more than 3000 crowns. If the matter was going to be investigated, then each amount would tell that on this and this date, at exactly this and this time, the credit-card information was unrightfully used from that and that IP-address.

ellynei
ellynei
272 Followers