Part of my problem with legal systems is their inability to have ethics and morals. I saved my boyfriend from really hurting himself and I got to be mentally ill when it counted (there’s no way she could’ve saved him) and not when it was helpful (there’s no way someone with a mental illness is that competent and smart).

I may have been wrong that police aren’t allowed to psychologically torture you. (The court threw a big enough fit that I wasn’t, but also said that their job is to do whatever they want to.) But as someone with severe PTSD from torturous domestic violence, someone being physically aggressive and non verbally abusive to me is psychologically torturing me. That’s just the facts of it.

I was allowed to be mentally ill when the court threw a fit that I didn’t know what psychological torture meant. I was apparently seen as hysterical then, saying the police were abusing their power. (Which is a hot take. On all fronts.)

I wasn’t allowed to be mentally ill though when I said I was scared and panicked. The court threw a fit that because I could explain my symptoms to the police that I was making up my illness. (Apparently also that I was in a Masters program was working against the plausability that I actually could have a severe mental health condition?)

I was allowed to be mentally ill when I said he was self-harming and scared, and that he would back me up on that. The court threw a fit that I was just making up things to make it seem like the police were the bad guys and I was framed. (I was, but oh well.)

I wasn’t allowed to be mentally ill when the court threw a fit that my confession wasn’t cocered because people who are really traumatized are never scared of police. They argued, until blue in the face, that police are the least scary people to come to your door.

I have been to Hell and back again.

The abelism I experienced from the legal system alone was INFURIATING.

I wasn’t mentally ill enough to satisfy the DA’s need to harass me. But I was too mentally ill to know anything else to say than: “You all are picking and choosing when to listen to me and that’s an abuse of power as well as abelist.”

But calling the police department abelist is not a great way to win.

Because the only people who care about being abelist are the people who are going to be held accountable for being abelist. And police are allowed to discriminate however they choose to, and no one can stop them. People have entire degrees to support them.

I was told that I was too mentally ill to know how to assess violence or properly help someone in crisis. While at the same time I was told that I wasn’t mentally ill enough to have been in an active crisis because that wasn’t how things worked. I don’t care about their legal loopholes or the way that they get away with abelism. I care that people think it’s on the victim of these systemic injustices to fix the system from harming others.

But morally? I’m fine.

I didn’t throw a fit at the guy who was in an active crisis.

I didn’t let the court traumatize me through a trial just to get their way.

I didn’t drag my boyfriend through more pain.

My morals were in tact.

I would be somewhat in the wrong for me to think that the court really wouldn’t make a point to bully me during a trial. I didn’t think a jury would believe them. I just also knew I was going to be questioned for being scared of the police, in court. They were going to bully me for saying that their police are improperly trained in crisis management. (I still stand firm that the department is, though. It’s a county-wide issue, though.)

I didn’t want my boyfriend to see me get bullied so much.

I didn’t want him to have another nervous breakdown.

I protected my sanity, but also, I wanted to care about the guy whose life I saved who was still in a daze about the fact that I was more willing to take blame for something I didn’t do than force him to accept that he deserves more mental health intervention than he probably once thought he did. I wanted to be cognizant of what he was going through.

I probably could have gotten out of it.

Honestly, there’s nothing illegal about saving someone from dying.

But the court got their way that I was mentally ill only where it made them look good.

That’s abelist – saying that if my disability inconviences you, then it isn’t real. (It’s actually a whole lot more than abelist, but that would be a whole separate discussion.)

I would save a life any day.

Morally, it’s a no brainer.

Sometimes, taking the high road means not becoming more corrupt.

XOXO,

Dorothy B