Who’s to Blame? OR “The Incident” and the Cause of it All... My fault?

In my last blog I talked about wanting to feel some anger about all of this, anger about ‘The Lost Year (and a half)’. That, while I tend to place the blame for my withdrawal squarely on my own shoulders I desire greatly to place it on the shoulders of another.

Now, I am not usually one to misplace blame onto another when it is clearly mine to claim. I don’t like to have to admit to responsibility myself (how many of us really like to accept blame for the things we have done?) but I will, especially if, at first, the blame is placed wrongly.

The blame for my isolation, however, that blame... I just don’t know who should shoulder it. I know that I do not want to be the one to bear its burden, and to be honest I am not sure it is my responsibility, my burden to carry. I would desperately like to be able to dump it onto the shoulders of another whom some might say is more responsible for it any way, however indirectly.

Let me explain.

Spring of 2007. It was probably about time for another major depressive episode. After all, it had been a year or more since the last one. As the academic year progressed I could feel something amiss. I wasn’t feeling in top form to begin with and then there was the added tension... I was vice president of our American Sign Language Club that year (to be honest, and yes I know this sounds petty but I really believe it is true, and, for the record, so have others, had we actually had a legitimate election as written in our bylaws I would have wound up as president). Unfortunately I wound up smack in the middle of the plans of our president and secretary (the idea had been that the gal that wound up as secretary would be VP, the two being close friends and rather clique-ish). Were I naturally a meek individual I probably would have made my life a little easier on myself and just let them steam roll right over me. However, as my friends will tell you, meek is not a word that one would use to describe me, especially when I feel I am being treated unfairly or walked over. Their attempts to leave me out of things I should, as VP, been involved in never got very far (I have never been one to shy away from confrontation, especially when an injustice is being done, to me or others) and my calling them on their efforts to shut me out were not well received.


Our club advisor and the only ASL instructor on campus was another source of tension. From the first day of class I felt uneasy about him. I am usually pretty good at reading people but with him all I could get was a vague sense of unease. I emailed my first year instructor hoping to get some information from him (the Deaf community is small compared to the hearing community and like other small communities everyone knows everyone else’ business). Unfortunately, while I was given some sort of an idea that there was good reason for my sense of unease I was told that I needed to form my own opinion. And so I waited. I continued to give the man the benefit of the doubt far beyond a reasonable time. He wasn’t a very good teacher... Well, he didn’t know he had the job until a few weeks before classes started, he didn’t have time to prepare. We didn’t seem to be learning much of anything, doing much of anything in class: he still didn’t have the books and materials he needed (after all, hadn’t I seen the empty shelf space in his office?). All these excuses... I seemed to have forgotten his telling me within the first few days of classes that he did not even want to teach second year sign.

And then there was the fact that he was just creepy. I can’t explain it, I wish I could. It was that faint disquiet which I could not identify at the beginning of the fall. I never could quell it, never managed to put it to rest.

Things did not improve as the year progressed, though I continued to hope that they would. What a waste of my second year of sign. Spring quarter came around and one of the first things my classmates and I noticed was the absence of one of the gals who had been in our class all year. I don’t know about other ASL classes, other programs, but I always felt that we managed to have our own little community. We all knew everyone else’ business. Gossip was rampant, but for the most part good humored. We were friends. And suddenly, as we were all so close to finishing all that there was left for us as far as ASL goes (the program at my University is only a two year program, much to my own disappointment), one term shy of finishing one of our community was gone and none of us knew why. We asked each other, wondered ‘aloud’ during class (‘aloud’ because one, immersion in a language is one of the fastest ways to learn it, and two, our instructor was Deaf and so voicing in class was considered very rude, especially when not accompanied by sign). We asked the instructor to be told that she would not be taking the final term with the rest of us. We were given on other explanation.

Another curious thing about those first days of the term was the absence of our instructors glasses. S you can imagine with a visual language being able to SEE your students makes it a lot easier to correct them, to teach effectively. When asked about it we were told that he had fallen asleep while watching TV and broken them accidentally (that’s another thing about this guy: he’s quite a liar and obviously thought we were stupid because he just kept right on ling).


April 13th of that year, while doing my homework for my ASL class (a bad student, it was somewhere around 23:00 :)) I was startled by a thunderous banging on the door of my apartment (my apartment which for all intents and purposes was dark as my room mate had gone to bed and I was only working by the light of my computer). I charged downstairs and opened the door to find my ASL instructor standing outside. He wanted to talk and was obviously distressed so I invited him in (stupid I know but I wasn’t really thinking in terms of teacher/student relations only that here was someone obviously distressed... and it was cold out). Thank God, he declined and so I grabbed a coat and some shoes and went out side to sit on the porch. It didn’t take too much conversation before I looked at him and said ‘You’re drunk’ to which he laughed and nodded. What followed was a typical conversation with a drunk. A lot of repetition, general confusion, bathroom breaks (on his part; I usually took the opportunity to go inside and get another layer of clothing, it really was rather cold) and probably way more than he wishes he had told me. There was talk of the real reason this gal had not came back to finish her second year and, wonder of wonders, it was his fault. They ran across each other in a local bar (did I mention this guy has a serious alcohol problem?), she was out with friends, he was out to get tanked. He bought her drinks and at the end of the night asked for a ride home. She, however, while agreeable first wanted to go to a friends and smoke some pot. They went, he bought the pot, and somehow an altercation between him and one of her guy friends resulted in his being beat up and his glasses breaking(my guess is that he was coming on to her, thank God she had friends to intervene).

Also during his drunken rambling he often talked of how he trusted me, I was his favorite/best student, etc. And like so many folks half in the bottle (though I am willing to bet he was closer to ALL the way in the bottle) there was a lot of ‘I love you’ thrown around (I much prefer happy drunks). A rather exasperating drunk, that is for sure. And it just gets better. I was told that on at least one occasion he told someone that he and I were dating! Apparently he was talking about something with some guy (he was drunk and leaving out quite a bit from his stories) at a local bar one night. Apparently he told this guy that he would have to ask his girlfriend ‘she’s hearing’ and then gave him MY name. To make things even better the guy apparently knew me ( I never did get his name, which is probably just as well as I would have been even more mortified than I already was). This night just kept getting better.

My attempts to get him to eat some bread to soak up some of the alcohol in his stomach were futile and my attempt to get him to at least drink some water in a vain attempt to stave off some of the massive hangover he was going to have the next morning only caused him to run back home (he lived in the same apartment complex as I did) and return with MORE beer which he then proceeded to drink on my front porch despite the fact that I told him he had had enough.

Sometime after his return with the alcohol we were approached by a neighbor of mine. TO be honest I didn’t know this guy from Adam and he seemed a little bit... ‘interesting’, shall we say. I was pretty sure he was either drunk, high, or with my luck, drunk AND high. The strange thing, not that the whole night wasn’t one strange thing after another, was not only did he not know me or the instructor, he didn’t sign either. He simply came over because he thought it looked cool. He also thought the instructor and I were dating (I’m sure that made him happy, good lord). And lucky me this kid had some alcohol with him as well! SO now I’ve got two guys on my front lawn drinking AND I get to interpret.

Like so many drunks he was also rather touchy. While we were alone on the porch he sat as close as I would let him, kept patting my leg, and twice his hand ‘accidentally’ brushed against my breast. I tried to keep a comfortable amount of space between us but it was not a large porch and there was only so much I could do. After the appearance of our inebriated friend he got even worse (the mind boggles, I know). I think I had to tell him something like two or three times to knock it off as he kept grabbing the poor guys crotch (I was also asked to inform him as many times that our new friend was not gay, poor kid). At one point we were in the yard, the guys were talking, I was interpreting (why in the world did I not leave?) and he began ‘slapping’ at my neighbor and I (not hard and not maliciously... just imagine a drunk). He again hit my poor neighbor in the groin area at least once. Me he hit on the groin and a breast before I managed to jump back and away. It really was rather brief and after I glared at him and told him angrily to stop he did.


Some time after and a few not so subtle efforts to see if the new guy had some pot (he kept saying he wanted to go smoke some pot which was one sign I did not have to interpret) he and my neighbor walked off toward his apartment and I was left to go upstairs, turn off my computer and try to get warm enough to go to sleep (I had already told him not to expect my homework the following day. He told me I didn’t even have to show up. I shouldn’t have. He didn’t.).

Big deal, right? After all he really didn’t do much of anything. As far as touching goes, as I said, it happened so fast, it was so brief (though despite his apologies I do not believe it was unintentional). Besides comparatively speaking it was nothing. Let me tell you all right now that if someone were telling me the same story I would be validating their feelings of anger, betrayal, and violation or whatever came up for them. I have often advised others that it does not matter whether or not someone has experienced something ‘worse’. Rather, I told them, it is the effect the incident has had on them that matters. I know this. I believe this, truly I do. And though to some extent I have come to the conclusion that it was ‘a big deal’... I don’t know if I can ever get past the fact that in comparison to things done to others... well big deal, get over it, right?

I want to be mad. I think I am, a little. I want to hate him (though I know hate is wrong). Most of all I want to blame him. Not necessarily for the episode of major depression itself but for its severity. I went down hill so fast after that and I have a hard time really believing it was only coincidence, though I keep telling myself it was. I used to drink every once in a while, and then only one or two drinks at a time. I can not tell you how many nights I spent in my apartment (often times alone as my room mate would go out with friends) drunk after a bottle or two of cheap wine, or eight or more shots of vodka (or other hard liquor). Though I had already been cutting for (coincidentally enough) almost a year to the day of ‘the Incident’ (a year and ten days to be exact) I began to cut more often, deeper, and on my arms, though I had swore to myself I would not cut there. I got to the point where I really didn’t care anymore. I think I felt like nothing really mattered. Heck, I had sex for the first (and only time), much to my shame (I wish I could take it back you have no idea). Funny, by the time it (the sex) actually happened I had decided I didn’t really want to but I didn’t really think it would be fair to the guy if I changed my mind (I was SO drunk and, once again, I just didn’t care about anything any more). I can’t explain any of it. Not the increase in alcohol consumption, the increase in the amount of cutting I did or its severity, the night I so desperately want to take back, heck even the tongue ring I got the following spring. Don’t get me wrong I’ve kept the tongue ring, I like it. But I wouldn’t have done it before. I was... numb. Something. I don’t know.

I want to blame him. I wish I could lay the blame directly on his shoulders. Maybe then I could get rid of the regret in regards to ‘the Lost Year (and a half)’. Certainly much of the blame for what happened after ‘the Incident’ lands squarely in my court (well OK, really I guess I am only certain of the blame as far as the sex goes) ... But the catalyst, what sent me spiraling down at a fine rate... I wish I could let go of that regret. I wish I could truly convince myself that it was his fault. But I’m not sure I can...