The Siege Mentality

I’ve never experienced military combat, but I think there are some similarities between that and my situation here. I have already written a few times about the stress that living in this area can create. Everything may be quiet for hours, days or even weeks; then suddenly something erupts out of nowhere. When you have too much information coming at you too fast, it is difficult to process. Not only that, but it changes your frame of mind in ways that often last long after the excitement has subsided.

I think a natural reaction to a stressful situation is to overcompensate for one’s failings during the event. The human mind has limits. It can only process so much information at a time. Yet when our mental capacity proves inadequate for a situation, we still wonder why. Although it might have actually been impossible to see, hear and understand the barrage of information that was being thrown at us, we still blame ourselves.

Why didn’t we notice the man before he pulled a gun? Why did we just assume that the lump in the belly of that woman was an unborn child, instead of a bomb? We might ask ourselves many such questions which all have the same answer - because it didn’t seem like it mattered at the time. And although this is a fully adequate answer, we are still often unable to accept it.

We may have been robbed, attacked, or perhaps one of our comrades fell. And if we had just been more aware of our surroundings, perhaps the tragedy could have been avoided. We become committed to preventing such a lapse of awareness to ever take place again. Now we notice everything. We can recognize who is approaching from the distinct sound of their footsteps. We notice any oddities about the way a person walks or stands which might reveal that they are carrying a weapon. We notice the license plate number on a car, even tough it seems to mean nothing at the time, because we know if we wait until it does mean something it might then be too late.

We look around a lot more than we used to, which can really bug people when you are speaking with them. Sometimes we look people in the eye more intensely, and sometimes we just give them that wide gaze. This bugs them too, because they think they’re being ignored. The truth is, we are actually giving our full attention to them - in every detail. I think the technical term for what I am describing is called post traumatic stress disorder. In layman’s term, you can simply say “That man is bugged out.”

I’ll give an example of how this process works. Last night, I encountered a police officer in my neighborhood. This was a random event, and I had no idea ahead of time that I would be faced with this particular officer. Although this was the first time (that I can recall) that I have interacted with this officer, it was not the first time I had observed him. The circumstances under which I had seen this officer before were as follows.

On Tuesday, May 13, 2008, at approximately 10:00 in the evening, this officer was present with about eight to ten others who were arresting a person a block to the north of my house. The person had been pepper-sprayed and was setting on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back for at least five minutes. He was screaming that his eyes were burning. One of the officers told him not to rub his eyes and that he’d get some water to rinse them after they got him locked up.

On the previous day (May 12) this officer walked into the King Gyro’s restaurant downtown in the afternoon, where I was eating my lunch. He ordered a sandwich (cheeseburger, I think). He asked for no mustard or pickle on his sandwich, but then changed his mind and said mustard and pickle were okay. He grabbed a few napkins from the holder on the counter in the front window while he was waiting on his food, then took his order to go.

So what does all this mean? Does this cheeseburger have something to do with what is going on here in my neighborhood? Probably not. But it does illustrate an important point. The intensity of what is going on here is such that I have taken to noticing even minute details about anything concerning cops and criminals.

I know the names of many of the dealers, and their relationships to each other. I know where some of them hang out when they’re not standing on the corners here. Hell, I even no where one of them goes to get his teeth cleaned! I see their names in the paper, and I remember it. I notice which cops they are friendly with and which of the other dealers they argue with.

I know many of the officers by the numbers on their car, if not their names also. I know what shift they work (morning, afternoon, evening), and I know the schedule (which days they work) for some of them. I know where some of them live and can tell you which officers have trained some of the new officers. I know this might make me sound like some sort of stalker at first, but that’s really not the case. I note what is going on here because it is important to do so. The other details (such as where people live or their eating habits) just filter in subconsciously.

I would bet good money that if you put an Iraqi, an Iranian and a Syrian in a room together, the average American could probably not distinguish between them. But if an American military veteran who has served in Iraq were to walk into the BP gas station downtown he would almost immediately know that those guys are from Iraq. And after a couple minutes with them, it’s possible he’d be able to tell you which religious sect they belong to and what city they are from. Maybe it’s their accent, or perhaps their style of clothing, but there is some mannerism that might seem imperceptible to most, that simply screams out at these people. And this happens because they have been in a situation where they were forced to focus intently upon details that most people would simply ignore.

My situation is similar to this. I rarely pass a police car (no matter where I’m at in town) without noticing the officer inside and/or the identifying number on it. And the behavior of and interplay between the dealers (their alliances, their arguments, and other habits), is noticed also. And I do this because I have to. When I look back over my earlier journal entries I am constantly berating myself for leaving out important information, even though there was no justification for noting such details at the time. So now I just try to notice everything. I store this often useless information away for later, when a small portion of it might actually prove useful.

I met a U.S. Marine at a bar one night and we talked and drank together for a while. You could sense the tension in his voice as he talked about searching people and cars at checkpoints. It was obvious that his experiences there were something he had brought home, and would probably remain with him for quite some time. After listening to me talk about my situation here for a while, this man told me that it sounds like I suffer from post traumatic stress syndrome - and I guess he’d know.

So, do I suffer from PTSD? Well, the situation here has certainly been stressful at times, although the usage of the word traumatic might be exaggerated for many of the events. But it is the words “post” and “disorder” that I take exception with. If someone accidentally bumps into that Marine at the bar, and he reacts by laying them flat on the floor and putting a knife to their throat before he is even fully aware of what happened, then he probably does have a disorder, and it probably is related to traumatic and stressful experiences from his past. But if that Marine is still in Iraq, and somebody bumps into him, it might not be fair to characterize that same reaction as a disorder. Especially when that reaction might save his or someone else’s life.

I am still living the experience here. A week or two of relative calm can not overpower the fact that the people who tried to burn my house down less than two years ago (while I was in it) are probably among those who still sell drugs in front of my home today. As strange as it might seem for me to be studying the situation as intensely as I do, the fact of the matter is that I am still in the zone. I don’t think it would be fair to characterize my situation as a disorder until after the stress has passed. Until then, It’s simply doing what has to be done.