Defending Deanna

Chapter 5

Deanna

I’m in therapy again. I still go once a few times a week to talk about my feelings about what happened. The amount of therapy I go to depends on how I’m handling my flashbacks and dreams and triggers. I had been going only a few times a month but then with the appeal I’m struggling more so we upped my sessions again.

This is the only place I can be real and talk about how much I still struggle with everything. I can drop my guard and my act that everything is perfect, and I am doing great.

"How are the dreams coming?” Doctor Blair asks.

The Doctor has been treating me for a few years now. She was one of my favorites. She is kind and rational and understanding. She is a psychologist who works with victims mostly.

My last doctor hadn’t been helping me much and I was feeling frustrated and stunted in my recovery. He was just a psychologist who didn’t work specifically with victims of violent crimes. He didn't have a very good understanding what what I was going through and how to help me.

I did some research and found Doctor Blair. Even from my first ever session with her I felt much more understood and accepted. Since this was her specialty, she was really able to help me work through everything and give me good advice and ideas on how to deal with all my trauma. I have come leaps and bounds since I started seeing her. I am incredibly grateful to have her work with me.

"They've been more lately. For a while they were rare, but they've been coming more again."

"Do you think it's about the appeal?"

"I assume it has to be."

"How are you handling it?"

"Not as well as I want to."

"Why do you think that is?"

"I guess because I didn't see this coming. I thought that I had at least another 10 years before I had to face him. He wasn't supposed to get out yet. I thought I would have until his first parole hearing but now this."

My captor was a monster and what he quickly made clear to me was that I wasn’t his first victim. He would bring up a girl named Savannah sometimes. He would get lost in thought randomly and then bring her up. He would also compare us and use her as an insult or threat. “You don’t wanna be like Savannah, do you?” Or “You don’t wanna end up like Savannah, do you?”

At first, he was pretty vague about who this girl was but eventually he opened up to me. I truly wish he hadn’t. It took so much of my hope away just like he wanted. He tried to frame it as an honest moment of friendship and love. He was confiding in me because he cared for me, but I knew what it really was. It was a threat. Another way to tell me that if I wasn’t careful, he would hurt me too. I was entirely replaceable if I wasn’t careful. He’d done it before. It wouldn’t be that hard to do it again.

He had kidnapped Savannah before he had taken me. He had her for a month. She had been more challenging than I was, and she caused more trouble, so he had cut their relationship short…and by that, he made it clear she didn’t survive her time with him. He said that Savannah didn’t know how to be a good girl and eventually he lost control and then she had been gone and he had been sad and lonely. That’s why he wanted me, so he wouldn’t be sad or lonely anymore.

He liked to pretend he was a nice guy and that he loved me, but I knew the truth. He was mean, cruel, controlling, and violent. It was like walking on eggshells. I never knew what would set him off next and if that would be the final straw and he would snap like he did before.

I wasn’t sure of the complete timeline of Savannah's captivity when I was held but after I was rescued I was able to figure it out. I helped the police solve Savannah’s case. They had linked her to him, but it was my testimony that was able to give them the answers they needed. He had been sentenced to life, but with the possibility of parole after 20 years.

"Are you still struggling with the appeal?"

I bite my lip. Obviously, I’m still struggling with it all. It was so unfair to me. "I'm mad. I'm so mad. I’m so frustrated that this happened. It shouldn't have happened. He shouldn't be out. It's not fair. I already went through the trial once that should have been it."

“I agree. It’s completely unfair to his victims that this has happened. It’s not okay that this has come up again right when you were getting your life on track.”

I hate the dark anger inside of me that is so bitter about the error that was made so now he can affect my life again. He’s already taken enough of my life from me as it was. How was he able to take even more?

“How are you handling things knowing the new trial is about to start?”

I am so nervous. I lucked out before not having to face him in court. Well, that part was a relief but the reason it was even legal was because I was so traumatized and broken that my therapist at the time said I couldn’t be allowed to face him in court, or it could break me even more.

But now I am an adult and 10 years out from the trauma. I should be able to do this, but a part of me still feels like that broken little girl who was taken and tortured until I was broken down. I don’t know if I will ever feel completely whole again.

“I’m nervous about all that’s going to be brought up again when the trial starts and what I’m gonna have to relive.”

“That’s very understandable. You have spent these 10 years trying to put it all behind you and move past it but now here it is again and you’re going to have to relive it all. Do you think you're ready to face him?"

I sigh. "I don't know, I want to be. I want to go into that courtroom and face him down and hold my head up high, but he had so much control over me in those 2 months. He broke me down until I barely knew how to breathe without his permission. I guess I worry about what will happen when I see him again. Will I revert to that 14-year-old girl who he broke or will I be able to stand strong?"

"That's understandable. What you went through was traumatic under the best of circumstances but even worse since you were at such an impressionable age. You were just starting to find yourself and then he took that all away."

"Yeah, he did."

"You are doing amazingly well considering what you went through. You just have to remind yourself that you survived it. You are still alive, and you are free now."

I want to believe that but sometimes I still feel like that girl who was locked in a basement and tortured for months. I’m not sure I’ll ever truly be free of that basement.

"How are things with your brother? You mentioned that he's been pressuring you to let him move back in."

I roll my eyes. "Yeah, that came to a head yesterday, just like I knew it would."

"Did you stand your ground like we talked about? I understand that he wants to protect you, but you’ve come a long way to be able to live on your own."

I bite my lip. "Sort of...we compromised. Ryker is staying with me instead."

The doctor raises her eyebrows. “Ryker, the boy that you had feelings for until the event happened?"

She called it the event to take some of the sting out of it. The doc thought it took some of the meaning out of it to take away the harsh words. “Yes, that's the one."

"How's that going?"

“Ok, I guess. I'm nervous. I haven't exactly talked about how hard things are with my family and how much I'm still struggling. It's going to be hard to hide it from someone whose job it is to literally watch my every move."

“That's true but maybe it'll be good to be more open with the people around you. It's not healthy to hide everything and handle it all yourself."

I know the doctor has a point, but I’m tired of ruining my brother’s life with my struggles. He literally gave up his entire future to be there for me. I can keep up the act to help him feel like it was all worth it and that I’m fine.

"I know but I can't keep letting Maddox give up everything to protect me all the time. He deserves his own life."

"He loves you and wants to help."

"I know that, I do, but he has helped me so much for years. This is something I can do for him. I can let him think things are a bit better than they are, so that he can hopefully stop worrying so much.”

"That is your choice. As your therapist, I'm not sure I can recommend that as a healthy treatment but it's your life."

I feel bad for snapping but I am tired of defending my choice to let Maddox have a life. He didn't deserve to worry about me forever. Not that he wouldn't worry but maybe if he believed things were ok, he would finally be able to have a life.

"Have you joined a dating app like we talked about?"

I cringe. "I'm not sure it's the thing for me."

"Well so far, you've shot down all ideas of getting out there and dating. So, we agreed that a dating app would give you some extra level of privacy and security while yougett to know some guys."

I sigh. My doctor is right, but deep inside I feel too damaged to date. The idea of trying to go on dates doesn’t make me feel great. It just makes me uncomfortable.

It’s not like I never dated. I tried in college, but all the guys would talk about silly things and when they asked about my life, things got awkward. I either had to tell the truth which was weird, or I lied and had to make up a less dramatic story which always felt wrong. I also had so many nightmares back then that I woke up screaming in a cold sweat so often that I would never be able to explain that to them if we ever got that far, but the idea of being touched by men made me so incredibly nervous and triggered me. Dating doesn't really seem like it was for me. I was too messed up and fragile to date.

"Maybe I should deal with one crisis at a time. My kidnapper being released from jail and having to face him in court again gets to win right now. I can date later."

"Ok, I will give you that. Dating isn't the most important thing right now, but Deanna you don't have to be alone and single forever. I think finding someone to make you feel happy could be great for you and very healing."

I don't really agree. I have no desire to be with anyone in that way. It just makes me nervous and fills me with dread.