It has taken me 2 years to begin to write what happened in 2012. I made several catastrophic mistakes that summer and fall that rendered my life, and me, into pieces. I began this blog far too early, too ambitiously - I thought I could write as I experienced each step of the nightmare I was living, but it was too painful, and too dangerous to myself to dig into something each month that my mind could not yet process.
I also deliberated over whether to make this story anonymous, or whether to include my name as well as the names of the police officers, the judges, the magistrates, the very poor lawyers and investigators who claimed to be helping me. I finally decided that this story is now as much a part of who I am as the wrinkles on my face and the scars on my knees, and since the marks made on my psyche are indelible, there is possibly more harm to myself than benefit in trying to hide them.
I have been changed irrevocably; parts of me have died, parts of me that remain have changed, and new parts have emerged. I can't hide any of it from my self, so why try to hide it from anyone else? I cannot be ashamed of what I have done, or who I am. I have to own it, and since I did not commit any crime other than that of being stupid and trusting when I should have known better, even apologizing for it isn't of much use to anyone.
So I have decided to use my name, and to name everyone else. There was no justice, and the police officers, the judge, the magistrate, the lawyers received no consequences for their actions. This will shock everyone reading it, but the US legal system is a corrupt disgrace and in desperate need of reformation. Public outcry is the only way to force change. Sadly, the riots in Baltimore are proof of this.
