Four-Way Humiliation Part I

I am a white middle-class American woman--I know what privilege feels like. Actually, I am (I've been told) an reasonably attractive white middle-class American woman--which has even more privilege attached to it. But that was a privilege it was difficult for me to discern for a long time because of my phenomenal lack of self-esteem. Please don't confuse self-esteem with self-confidence--I was brimming with gumption. Here's something that happened that tested that foxy and gave me a different view of myself pretty fast:

In 1991 I moved to  Portland to attend the Pacific Northwest College of Art. My second year, in 1992, I was living on SE 33rd and Alder in a pleasant enough Portland-style studio apartment--hardwood floors, built in cabinetry, and a large 9-paned bathroom window that opened up onto a central shaft of the building that was open only to the sky three floors up. Other people had bathroom windows opening onto this shaft. It was a way of getting some fresh air into the bathroom, but not much light. If the window was open, it was also a way of hearing things sometimes--nothing clearly, just background voices and such.

I'd been clinically depressed forever. I had some bona fide hair-raising childhood trauma--(I'm pretty sure I have some sort of brain damage)--but nothing that would be noticeable to a casual outsider. At this point in my life, 2016,  I've been diagnosed with PTSD. Yes, it is the disease du jour, but it turns out I really have it and addressing it directly has helped me immensely. But, in 1992, I had no idea. I was just angry, violent and intense all the time. 

One day I am in my apartment getting ready for an appointment with my psychologist. For some reason, I am ready to go 15 minutes early--this never happens. I usually don't bother to be ready until  it's time to leave, but in this case I'm ready to walk out the door and I still have 15 minutes to go. I am standing in the middle of my tiny studio trying to figure out how this happened when I think I hear something. I listen closer and it sounds like it is coming from the bathroom. I walk the 7 or so steps it takes to peek in the bathroom door and the first thing I notice is I've left the window open. As I cross the small room to close it I hear the noise again. But it's not just a noise, it is someone...wailing? It stops and starts again and it is really loud--screaming for sure. It sounds like... a woman... yelling in pain? It's scary actually. I immediately picture some jacked up domestic violence scene. I do NOT want to be involved in whatever this is--but here is where the gumption comes in handy--I refuse to be one of those people that doesn't help someone when she has the chance.

I open my front door slowly as if the fight is going to be right outside my apartment. It's not. I'm not sure where to go because of the shaft--the noise could have been coming from anywhere. Then--oh goody!--I hear a window break and it is easy for me to quickly follow the sound down the hall. 

There's this really great Dutch movie called The Vanishing. In it, one of the main characters asserts that when we witness another human being in danger, stranger or not, we are wired biologically or spiritually to try and save them. The character insists that in that moment we no longer differentiate between the person in danger and ourselves. As we take action, often before reason has kicked in (you'll never survive the freezing water, fire will burn you too, etc.) we no longer feel that we are saving another being, but ourselves. It becomes that imperative--as if your very life is in danger.

Well, I had not seen The Vanishing at this point in my life, but even if I had, I don't think I would have thought of it. All I knew was I didn't want to do nothing--I hated people who did nothing. I could hear crashing and yelling coming from behind one of the doors. I (foolishly) knocked on the door, hesitated, and then screwed up my courage and tried the doorknob. . The door swung open. Inside was a young woman, probably my age, 21 or 22. When I appeared suddenly in her doorway, she started yelling and crying and staggering over to me, blood smeared on the ground, streaming down her arm, on her clothes, her face. I quickly took in the broken window with shards of bloody glass sticking out of the pane, the trashed apartment, and...the fact that no one else was there but us. I remind you, these apartments were small. 

I don't remember what I said, but it was probably something predictable like, "Are you alright? What happened?" She was so hysterical it was hard to understand her but I quickly surmised that she had done this to herself. Her right hand and wrist was bleeding so I ran back to my apartment, ducked in real quick,--I had left the door open--and grabbed a hand towel out of my bathroom. I ran back and it was gross. Like mangled gross and fleshy and bloody. I can't remember if I thought about calling 911 or she insisted I take her to the hospital--but I found myself loading her into my car and driving off to Providence up on SE 49th and Glisan.

​I remember thinking, "Well, this is ok because I have 15 extra minutes and the hospital is on the way to my appointment." 

~

I promise this has to do with Vernonia. Everything has to do with Vernonia. The sum total of my life has been leading me to this small town. Part II soon to come.