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Darkest Nights	By : Bucken-Berry Category: G through L > Law & Order Views: 1449 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own SVU or it's characters and I'm not making money from this.

Chapter List
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George sighed, wishing he could come up with an excuse not to talk to Rebecca, and just return home instead; he didn't feel up to talking. But he knew he had no choice but to go through with it.
He touched his pocket. The note was still there. "Soon…" he thought to himself.
He looked at his hands for a moment, breathing deeply. He began to feel strangely numb; the painful emotions were still there, but it was as though they were being felt by someone else, instead of him.
"Hello, George," Rebecca said as he entered the room.
"Hey," George said, nodding slowly and walking to one of the chairs in the office.
"Tell me what happened this week," Rebecca requested once George had sat down.
George tapped his foot restlessly. He looked at the walls to avoid Rebecca's gaze, reading all the framed degrees before looking at her bookshelves and every other detail of the room. Then he looked at his lap again, speaking slightly louder so his voice would be heard. "The trial's been hell, like I knew it would be," he said. He was unnerved to hear that his voice was completely flat and emotionless.
As a psychiatrist, he knew detachment was normal for PTSD, but it could also be a sign of other, more severe psychiatric illnesses. Even if it was just from the PTSD, it was still unsettling to feel so detached, but he felt better knowing that it was normal. He pushed the thought away, even though it scared him.
"Just testifying as an expert witness was tiring enough; having every detail of what I said picked apart and trying not to lose my temper while I had to calmly repeat the same answer over and over again," George said. "But now, I have to see my attacker's faces constantly, while still keeping my story straight, but not too straight. If I change my story too much, I must be lying, but if I never change a detail, I must be covering up a lie and I must have spent a lot of time going over it word-for-word. I have to keep my composure while the defense attorney accuses me of wanting them to rape me because I got an erection, and sometimes ejaculated, during the attacks, and I have to tolerate them saying the cuts and burns and bruises and welts were just consensual BDSM gone too far. I have to pretend to be stronger than I feel, because if I show how vulnerable I really am, they jury will lose respect for me, but I can't appear too strong either, because then I'm not traumatized enough to be a victim."
"I can't say a lot of the things I think and feel, like that I brought it on myself and I deserve to still be there, or that I deserve to be dead instead of the others. I can't say that the men who attacked me make me so afraid and sick that I throw up in my mouth every time I see a picture of them, let alone when I see them in person," George continued.
He had vented those frustrations to Elliot so many times, but as an SVU detective, Elliot already knew the flaws in the legal system, and while he was disgusted, he was also used to it. It was different- and better- to talk to someone who, while experienced with the legal system, could still feel his frustrations. Sometimes, George thought, an outsider's perspective was better, even though he preferred talking to Elliot most of the time.
George shook his head once, returning his focus to the conversation. "I almost want to just lie and say I did want it, just so I won't have to testify anymore. Even when I'm not the one testifying, it's just as bad. I have to hear ME Warner testifying about what the others looked like when they were killed and how the cause of death was dehydration, but the manner of death was homicide, and I have to hear Kayla- the EMT who found me- and Elliot talking about what I looked like on the side of the road. I have to hear my doctors talking about how my injuries almost killed me, that they had given me a 25% chance for survival when I came in, and how I was starved and dehydrated and I was septic, which caused me to spike a fever so high that they almost had to ice me down. I have to hear them say how I flatlined once because of the damage the infection caused to my internal organs, especially my kidneys, heart, and lungs, and how it's just short of miraculous that I've recovered this well and the only lingering effects are fatigue, loss of muscle strength, and a weak immune system, when I would otherwise have permanent lung damage, kidney failure, and a host of other problems. And all of those illnesses could be attributed to my infected wounds, which were a direct result of being held captive by them- I have to hear, over and over again, how their injuries almost killed me and caused permanent damage."
"And then my attackers testify. They look directly at me and say that I wanted it. I have to control the urge to run, and I can only sit there and try to cover up the fact that I'm shaking violently, and panicking so much that I swear my chest is going to explode. I have to remember every single psychological and physical attack, and resist the urge to correct their lies that I wanted it and it was BDSM gone wrong, and I want to say that they ruined everything for me and if I had wanted it, I wouldn't be this traumatized. But I can't; it would cause a mistrial. And then I have to grapple with the things I've been thinking ever since I had the worst flashback; that I deserve it and brought it on myself, and that I don't even deserve to be alive. It takes every ounce of willpower I have just to walk into the courthouse every day, and it's aggravating my PTSD," George said.
"The panic attacks, flashbacks and nightmares have been getting so much worse. I can barely eat anymore because I'm always nauseated from the stress and anxiety. I can't sleep without having a nightmare, and flashbacks and panic attacks can be triggered by the slightest thing- sometimes I enter them the second I wake up, if the nightmare is especially vivid. I had an awful flashback the other day, and I ended up doing some… unhealthy things in an attempt to cope. I passed my breaking point," he finished, still sounding completely detached.
He looked at his hands as he made more useless motions with them, turning them over and over again and squeezing one hand with the other. He knew that psychomotor agitation was a dangerous sign in depressive individuals, so he braced himself for Rebecca's next words.
"Your affect is flat," Rebecca observed. "You sound like you're dissociating, or trying to dissociate, from what happened. Your description of the stresses the trial is placing on you is definitely sincere; you are very clearly struggling to cope. But you sound completely disinterested, much more so than if you were relaying what one of your patients said."
"Also, your physical state clearly suggests a deep depression and/or PTSD. You look like you haven't slept well in weeks, your posture shows that you're constantly ready for someone to attack you, and the purposeless, restless motions clearly indicate psychomotor agitation. And then there are the things Elliot told me about. You don't seem to feel good sensations anymore. You need to use sleep to escape reality, and even then, the escape isn't complete. Elliot says that the nightmares you have are truly awful, and they leave you struggling. You both acknowledge that the flashbacks are overwhelming you." Rebecca gave a nod in George's direction. "He told me that one flashback you had the other day had an especially profound impact on you."
"We both know that severe PTSD can cause a flat affect, Rebecca," George said tiredly. "You don't need to summarize the messages my tone of speech and body language are sending. Yes, I'm just about a textbook case of severe depression and PTSD, specifically Rape Trauma Syndrome. I'm agitated and afraid and depressed and tired, and I blame myself for every single thing that happened to me, and I feel guilty and worthless for being such a burden on Elliot, Nora, and everyone else I know, and I hate myself, and I'm at the point where I'd rather die than experience it for another minute, and I'm trying to dissociate from it all. I feel vulnerable and overwhelmed and hopeless, and I'd rather be completely numb than feel any of it anymore- it's the closest I can get to easing the pain without dying. It's harder to fix dissociation than depression, but psychiatrists are only human. I'm only human. I just want it to stop, no matter what the cost, even if it's a short term gain and a long term loss for my mental health. I just can't bring myself to care that I'm hurting myself mentally- I just want the pain to stop. I want to stop hurting, and even though I'm a psychiatrist, the knowledge does me no good."
"And even though you're a psychiatrist, you can't think of a single way to cope besides letting yourself dissociate? What would you tell your patients?" Rebecca asked.
George leaned back against the sofa, overwhelmed by physical, mental, and emotional fatigue, wishing more than anything that he could just lie down. "I tell them exactly what you're telling me now, minus the part about being a psychiatrist. It doesn't mean I can cope now that I'm on this side of the fence. I know what to do to help them, but it doesn't help me. None of the standard advice, none of what I know as a psychiatrist, sounds right at all."
"Last time we spoke, you were doing okay," Rebecca said, frowning slightly. "Do you want to talk about what happened that has made you backslide so much?"
George nodded, keeping his irritation at bay. "I just remembered one of the worst psychological attacks." This time, he tried to talk with more emotion, but he could no longer get any feelings in his voice except for fear, sadness, or guilt. He stopped trying, deciding that it was better to sound emotionless than forcing himself to feel. He still felt them, but they felt like they were happening to someone else, and he was inclined to keep them that way.
"Elliot tells me that since then, you've been saying that you deserve what happened to you," Rebecca informed him. "He told me how you've been saying that they convinced you that you deserve to be raped and tortured."
"I…" He trailed off, thinking about how to word his thoughts. "I know, logically, that I don't. But when I was there, they destroyed any logical thoughts I had. I recovered a little in the hospital, especially because Elliot was there and reassuring me that I was a good, lovable person. But I can still hear them as clearly as though I was still there. And the flashback…"
"The flashback was like another attack, rather than a memory," Rebecca supplied. "It was like being there again."
"Yes." George said, nodding again. "It just dragged me right back there, and I don't think I'm ever going to leave again. I can't get my mind out of there."
"So you think you deserve what happened, despite knowing deep down that you don't," Rebecca said.
"It- it goes further than that, though," George said with a sigh. "It extends to everything. I feel like I don't deserve Elliot. I feel like I don't deserve to recover. Sometimes, I don't even think I deserve food or other things, and I have to convince myself that I do…"
"How did they convince you that you deserve what happened to you, you deserve to be deprived of food and water, and that you don't deserve a loving person to help you?" Rebecca asked.
"They… Do we have to talk about that, this session?" George asked.
Rebecca looked him over carefully. He wasn't making eye contact, which made it somewhat harder to read his expression- but it was a sign that George was struggling. "How about this: give me the basics this time, and we can delay a discussion about the specifics until next session."
George exhaled, nodding in relief. He'd rather not talk at all, but at least he'd managed to delay talking about the worst details of when he was attacked. Now he just had to make sure he didn't alert Rebecca to the fact that he was suicidal, so he could avoid being committed.
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Darkest Nights