UNIT-25

“Hey, Lori, did you hear? Beth had her baby last night. Not sure if it was a little girl or boy though …” Lori erased the message and then made her phone call.

“Hi, I just wanted to leave a message to see if anyone can cover my shift tonight, ’cause I’m not feeling well. Can you call me back and let me know, please? Thanks, bye.” Lori hung up and turned off her cell. She really didn’t care if anyone could take her fucking shift or not; she wasn’t working today and that was that. The truth was, she just felt completely helpless. She rolled over and pulled the covers up tighter and closer, trying to cocoon herself from the relentless sorrow. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the visions of the stories from the women she served out of her mind. The stories had begun to seep out of the place in her mind she had been trained to keep them in and she felt haunted by them; they snuck up on her, when she was least prepared. How can anyone be prepared? she thought.

She managed to hold it together, usually, even when things got so crazy after Stevie’s murder. For months afterwards she had been able to console and support everyone around her, staff and clients alike. But that all began to change when another woman, another client, was found murdered, and then just a few weeks after that, a survival sex worker was found dead along with her three-year-old son, allegedly from a murder suicide. Lori had been working closely with the woman, trying to help her get the essential services and support she desperately had needed but had been denied too many times, by a system that was broken and further crumbling with the systematic dismantling of what little remained of it. Lori couldn’t help but feel angry, overwhelmed, and grossly undersupported to not only help her clients, but to find a way of dealing with the enormity of it all again, and again, and again.

There was no shortage of horrific stories to affect anyone who was listening, even if all they listened to was the fucking news and the never-ending, shocking stories of abuse, neglect, torture, and murder of the most vulnerable — women and children. The perpetrators in so many cases were those expected to care for the vulnerable, or at least those entrusted to. It was becoming all too much for her to bear.

But what had finally been the last straw was the woman who had come to her for counselling and support the day before. Eight months earlier, a dangerously obsessive trick turned part-time boyfriend had poured gasoline over her and threw a lit match on her, setting her on fire, because he didn’t want her to leave him and wanted to make sure no one else would want her. Lori had felt awful for reacting in shock at the sight of the woman when she turned and saw who was tugging on her arm at the back of the van. Lori hugged her gently and listened for an hour, as the woman got out what she needed to, describing in detail what it had been like for her and why she had finally left the hospital after all this time to go and score some dope.

Lori had begun to count the numerous losses of life over the past six months, and she was up to twelve. There was no one for her to debrief with ever. And this went against everything she knew was necessary for frontline staff dealing with remarkable amounts of horrifying information, vicarious trauma, and grief and loss — day after day, month after month, and year after year. What she hadn’t done was break down and use any dope to cope with it all — yet. But she definitely had consumed her fair share of alcohol, searching for rescue in the liquid that never really came.

She opened the bottle of trazadone and took two, closed her eyes again, and tried to force a sleep that had been refusing her. She tossed and turned for over an hour, waiting for the meds to kick in, but they were no longer effective.

“FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!” she screamed out as loud as she could and threw off the covers, put her feet on the cold floor, and made her way through the mess and clutter, kicking things, piles and piles of clothes and empty chip bags and large plastic pop bottles as she did. In the kitchen, she shook her head at the disgusting mess and sink full of month-old dirty dishes; she considered changing the stagnate water to decrease the stench, but she just didn’t have the will, strength, or desire. She found her slippers, one by the door and the other just under the table beside the overflowing garbage, and pulled them on for warmth. She opened the fridge and pulled from it the orange juice and Perrier, closing it as quickly as she could. It also hadn’t been cleaned out for months, and the smell of rot was nauseating.

“Jesus Christ, how does it always get this bad? What the fuck is wrong with me, anyways?” She reached into the cupboard beneath the counter and pulled from it a Tupperware container to act as a glass. “I should just throw all this shit out and start over. Yup, if I can’t manage to wash them by the weekend, that’s what I’ll do. This all belongs in the fuckin’ garbage, anyways.”

Lori knew what was wrong with her: she was clinically depressed and had been for the last two years, and she wasn’t getting any better no matter how many different medications she tried. She took her concoction of beverages into one of the only clear spots she could find in the living room, and plopped herself down and pulled a throw over her. “I just can’t fucking keep fucking doing this; I can’t fucking live like this; I can’t bear one more fucking rape or torture story. What is wrong with people, anyways?” she yelled for no one to hear. She bent her head and let her tears fall until they overtook her, and grief spilled onto the stained throw that she clutched to her as she rocked back and forth for a time.

“Okay, this is fucking insane. Crazy.” She picked up the phone to call a friend, but only dialed the first six numbers before she stopped herself. “Yeah, right. What the fuck am I supposed to say? No one wants to hear this ugly shit.” She reached for the phone a second, and a third time; after the seventh attempt, she managed to let it ring through, not sure of what she would say if her friend answered.

“Hello?” She heard Michelle’s gentle voice; Lori said nothing. “Hello … Hello?” No words could come; she hung the phone up without uttering a word. She wiped the tears from her eyes and slumped down a little more. It was hopeless. She was drenched in her depression, and had been for longer than she would admit.

“Okay, I know I have to get it out. I have to debrief myself, before I string myself up,” Lori spoke out loud to herself. She got up and tried to find her tape recorder; it was buried somewhere beneath piles and piles of work-related things that had taken over her living room. But still she searched. “Maybe if … maybe if … what about a documentary? That’d be the ultimate debrief. That’d be a shocker — talk about reality TV — only this would be raw, uncensored, reality TV. No one fuckin’ wants to hear this shit, not even my fucking bosses. They’re fucking useless, every one of them. Maybe if I recorded it, maybe then they would be forced to listen and help … maybe.” She wanted people to hear what she heard, to see the people she listened to daily, and to know them as she did — as amazing survivors with unparalleled strength and courage. She went back to bed and let the meds lead her to sleep and escape. Maybe tomorrow she’d do things differently. Maybe tomorrow someone would listen to her.