Victims

Two events have occurred in the last week that make me think about victims.  First, on Thursday, I was searching for a former client, and as I Googled her, came across an article about how her ex-husband tried to kill her by torching her home.  As we spent the next two days trying to get in touch with each other, 27 innocent people were killed in Newtown, Connecticut.  Once I caught up with my former client and heard her tale, I started to think some more about victims. You see, my client's ex-husband is severely mentally ill.  My client did a delicate two step in order to divorce him and remain safe.  Unfortunately, she was also his guidepost, and without her, his mental condition became worse.  As he deteriorated, he blamed her for all his woes.  He began to write her explicitly threatening letters.  She went to the police.  He hadn't actually tried to hurt her (yet), so there was nothing they could do.  She tried to obtain a domestic violence order of protection.  Still, he hadn't tried to hurt her (yet), so she couldn't get one.  Then, he set fire to her home.  Finally, she obtained that protective order.  Finally, he was jailed and then hospitalized. Her nightmare, however, was and is not over.  First, there was the competency hearing.  Then, once he was found competent, was he criminally responsible?  Should he be hospitalized or jailed?  Every decision, every step of the way, my former client has had to plead with prosecutors and psychiatrists.  She has had to make a pest of herself (her words, not mine), to make sure   he doesn't pull the wool over someone's eyes, or they get so tired of the case that they drop the ball and let him off.  She spends hours every week on the phone or running to court for hearings, just to make sure he isn't released, that the court doesn't find him both not criminally responsible and also not guilty (because to do so means he's not responsible for restitution for the out of pocket damage to her home, which was tens of thousands of dollars after insurance).   She needs to make sure she and her children are safe, which they won't be if he is released, and she doesn't trust that the state would remember to notify her.  Her life is consumed by the cost of being a victim.  She is the least victim-like victim I know, a proactive lady who doesn't let anyone push her around.  Yet, here she is, imprisoned by victimhood, imprisoned as much as the man with the gasoline can and the match.  Yet, she views it not as a jail cell ,but as a necessary structure to keep her and her children safe.  It is a fortress against feeling like a victim.
When I read the stories about the Newtown killings, I am struck by how. like my former client, most of the adult victims were not victim-like.  The teachers and aides who died were protecting the children in their charge.  They were enormously brave people, who made the difficult decision to risk their lives to protect others.  They, like the children, died for their efforts.  What about the other victims of this tragedy, those that did not die but who lost friends and loved ones?  True, unlike my former client, there will be no calling the prosecutor and making sure the perpetrator is safely away.  That doesn't mean they aren't victims like my former client.  They all have to live with what happened on Friday in Newtown, and will suffer from it.  Whether they build something positive from the blocks of tragedy that fell upon them and refuse to play the victim, or instead allow the blocks to fall upon them and weigh them down, is ultimately their choice.  Either way, bearing that tragedy is a tremendously difficult, really gargantuan, task, and all of our hearts go out to them as they move ahead into a life which seems not joyful, but rather angry and dangerous.  Here in the Trenches.