Never Say Never

First of all, I love the song "Never Say Never" by Justin Bieber and Jaden Smith. No matter what I think about Justin Bieber, I have always and will always love Will Smith, so by association, Jaden Smith. But also, I just love this song, no matter who the artist is.

Anyways, that doesn't really have anything to do with here. But I was thinking about the word "obviously" and so often when we use it, we use it to point out, well, what we think is the obvious.
But rarely is something actually obvious.

Obviously, it's not obvious.
Which reminded me of "never say never"...hence the song (I also try to do all that I can to incorporate music into my life, for fun, not because it's like a secret passion or talent). Anyways, I want to coin the phrase "Obviously, it's not obvious" or something cool like the effect of "never say never".

A Message

I sent the following to my roommates (I'm changing/tweaking some for safety sake)..And I'm putting it here because I think part of it is important for people to read. And this is where part of my community is.

I have something else I want to write about as far as the actual situation from the other night, like of what actually happened in my room when it was just me and the girl, I was pretty quiet on when we had our roommate discussion. And while I shared most of my internal dialogue and thoughts with one of my roommates when she and I talked about it 1:1, I didn't say all of it, but I think..I think I do want to tell you all. Because it's so easy to see this situation in hindsight and it's easier to forget about some of the things that I'm going to bring up because I was pretty calm and not very reactive or defensive. And I think because of my reaction to the situation, it's easy to not make as big of a deal out of it..

But I really want you all to know this part and really think about this, try to get rid of hindsight for it and imagine this scene:
You're sleeping in your bed at your home. It's dark outside so no real light at all in the room, very dark, 5 in the morning. Your bed is on one side of the room, door and lightswitch on another. You hear your door open. You hear pee. You don't know if it's the dog (although sounded like too much pee from a little dog), one of your roommates, someone you know, someone safe, someone dangerous, male, female, young, old, someone who just wandered in the house, if they're in the bathroom and it just sounds loud, if it's raining, if it's a dream, etc.

Anyways, I didn't know what to do, because I was in the vulnerable position of lying down in a bed, away from the door. I slowly put on my glasses and saw an outlined figure of a person who appeared to be female but not like anyone I knew. I heard pants moving, and I didn't know if they were going up or down.

So that's the situation that I woke up to. Seriously, try to imagine that. And while I had several thoughts going through my head, I tried to be extremely rational about it. But other thoughts also came into my head, because I also had to keep my safety in mind.

And fearing that you're about to be violated in your safe place is one of the worst fears ever. And that happened with me.

Through RA trainings, through crisis intervention trainings, through experiencing crisis situations, I was pretty prepared and I knew what to do for the most part and amy pretty good at knowing how to keep myself safe.

But that fear and thought should not have happened to me. And my safe place, and safety and security are completely violated. Because in hindsight, it seems silly and not a big deal. But at the time, it was very real. And for me, recognizing that reality that it could happen, that someone could come into my room and do something to me is something I now have to deal with.

And as the night went on and through conversation, she touched a lot of my stuff. A lot. And if a person was drunk enough to pee in a bedroom, not know their name, or who they were, and they were touching my things...it's very possible that they could have done something to me because they were so out of control and out of touch of their actions.

So as my roommates and people who I need to have care about me, I had to tell you that.

Also, from the safety perspective. I think I really should have called 911 still even after I knew she knew someone in the house, because if she's too drunk to know where she lives or know her name, she likely needed medical attention. And I'm so glad she woke up and it sounds like was coherent and alive and well, but when we were trying to think of other options other than our house--I think the hospital needs to be the option.

Crisis Intervention

I was telling my roommate about one of the most bizarre things that has ever happened in my life (and probably yours)...like one of the stories where if I told you, you wouldn't believe me/one of those stories that you just can't make up.

And she said, "You can really see your RA training right there. That plus all of your other crisis intervention trainings made it actually best case scenario that it happened to you and not anyone else."

Although the calmness did backfire because my other roommate said, "I had no idea what was going on. But I heard you talking to someone but you sounded so calm and normal, just a little loud." (It happened at my house.)

And my other roommate said, "I finally got up because it was getting loud, but you didn't have any distress in your voice so I didn't actually think anything was wrong."


I texted some of my closest friends, because I just couldn't understand what had happened.
Of the four this is exactly what happened:

Me (time, 5am): I just woke up from a sound sleep. Wanna know why? Because I heard peeing. Loud peeing. Then I hear keys rattling. I see an outline of a tall figure. I turn on the light. I see a random human who just peed in my bedroom."

Friend 1: You're joking!
Friend 2: No f*ing way.
Friend 3: WTF?
Friend 4: (calls me). Um...what!? (Which she repeats for about 3 minutes.) Just...what!?

My response: No joke. Real life. I'm also not exaggerating.

So anyways, yes I did crisis intervention with a random person (turned out to be a friend of a friend of a friend) who I had never met, never seen, never heard of, who was extremelyyyyy drunk in my bedroom at 5 in the morning.

Can you just imagine this with me?
You're sleeping in your bed at your home. Your bed is on one side of the room, door and lightswitch on another. You hear pee. You don't know if it's the dog (although sounded like too much pee from a little dog), one of your roommates, someone you know, someone safe, someone dangerous, male, female, etc. And honestly, if a person was drunk enough to pee in a bedroom, not know their name, or who they were, and they were touching my things...it's very possible that they could have done something to me because they were so out of control and out of touch of their actions.

Because that's the scene. And I had to make it so the situation was the person by my bed and me by the door (safety!!!), lights on, and get enough information out of a drunk person as possible.

I did it so successfully that none of the roommates came to the rescue, because they thought I was just fine.

Basically, here's what happened, as far as the conversation goes:

Me: Do you know (name of roommates)?
Person: No..(female voice)
Me: Do you know anyone in this house?
Person: No..
Me: Do you know who you are?
Person: Yes, (tells me her name).
Me: Okay, let's go ahead and turn the lights on.
Person: No, keep them off.
Me: I think it'll be better if we turn them on.
Person: I just need to go to the bathroom
Me: Okay, perfect. Let's get you to the bathroom. (turn on flashlight on my phone, confirm female, young, drunk, pee from them)
(Person starts walking to the left, so I also walk to the left to ensure distance between us, and that can get me to the door)
Me: Let's go to the bathroom. It's right here.
Person: No, I'll just stay here.
Me: I think we should go to the bathroom.
(Now at the doorway, so I can turn on the light)
Me: Let's go to the bathroom.
(Person starts touching all my stuff)
Me: Hey, do you still need to go to the bathroom?
Person: No, I'm from adrenaline and I want a job.
Me: Okay, but first we need to go to the bathroom.
Person: So no job?
Me: Not right now. Bathroom right now. And I'm going to call 911 while we go to the bathroom.
Person: Call the police? Okay.
Me: Cool, and let's go to the bathroom.

Then I hear my name from downstairs from a familiar voice (FV).
Me: Do you know this person?
FV: Oh my gosh, yes, I'll be right there.
--and then they drag them out.

And then I clean up the pee. And then it is suggested I use this bleach stuff. I didn't think it was a good idea, but this person is better at cleaning than I am. I trusted their judgment. It was 5:30 in the morning. They said it should be fine. It wasn't. Now I have a bleach stain on my carpet. And we're trying to figure out who should pay for it.
Me? (It's in my room)
The roommate who suggested to use bleach?
The roommate who brought the person over to the house?

Crisis situations don't really scare me, largely because of my RA training, mixed with crisis intervention trainings, being trained in mental health first aid, and I have been faced with similar situations when I was an RA, though none quite so...invasive. But also, when you're an RA in a residence hall, you sort of can expect this. When you're at your home in your room, not so much.

I'm pretty good at being calm when I need to be, and in general know what to say and how to calm a person and gain control of a situation. And luckily I was able to do it last night. But looking back, some of those what if questions can definitely be haunting. And it does feel kind of violating. My space was violated and in a sense, so was my security.

But now. Somehow it's become my fault and my responsibility to fix the mess (literally and figuratively) and now I'm just getting mad.