A Police Report and PTSD

The room is unfamiliar. I don't know how I got here. I sit here in the dark on a cold floor that feels like stone. The cold air feels my lungs as my heartbeat quickens. Where am I? My hands quickly pass over the ground and body searching for my phone. All I remember is walking from the restaurant I work at towards parking garage… now I am here.

At first, I could hear nothing but my own breath but now I can hear the sound of water rushing outside, wind blowing in the trees, and the sound of a windchime in the distance.

As I shuffled around, I found it! My phone. Quickly I turned on the flashlight to find a basement room with stone floors and a wooden staircase. Immediately, I scramble to call for help on my phone, but it has no service. My eyes fix on my phone, and I look to see that I still have fifty percent battery.  I quickly send out a ping and move my phone to battery saver.

My neck is stiff like I have been sleeping on this cold floor hours; I still have all of my cash from working that night, and from what I can tell I am not hurt. But where am I? I run to a small window and climb on a chair to look out... trees, nothing but trees and the moonlight. The window is sealed shut and now my mind starts

racing. Do I break it and try to climb out? Do I attempt to go up the stairs? I am not sure what the best plan is. I say a little prayer, take a deep breath and jump off the chair.

I scan the room with my phone flashlight and find a red toolbox. I run over to it and there is a metal wrench that looks heavy enough to break the double pane window. In an instant decide to try breaking the window. As I go to hit it as hard as I can, all I

can think is, "what if they hear me break the window and come after me?" I laugh to myself because my inner voices say "who? I don't even know how I got here or where I am?" As I stand, paralyzed by the “what if's” in my head, I realize that someone is here. Headlights shine in the window, the sound of an engine turning off, the car door shuts, two voices begin to talk as they approach the building.

The paralyzing fear is replaced with intrigue, one of the voices is familiar.  My mind raced as I tried to place the voices. Did I know them from the restaurant, school, back home in Georgia? At first, I told myself maybe it was from a game lobby but the voice was more familiar than some random gamers I ended up annihilating on the game. The voices faded and I could smell coffee brewing. Still, no one had come to find me, talk to me, hurt me… why am I here?  It felt like hours of standing, frozen in fear but when I looked at my phone it had only been thirty minutes.

To my surprise, I hear the same door open again, the two walked out the door and got in the car. I looked at my phone, forty-five percent, all I could think was that I need to get out of here before my phone dies. I took a deep breath, began to go up the stairs as quietly as I could. I stood at the top of the stairs listening for any recognizable sounds. Nothing. I slowly opened the door to find a small house with stone walls, wooden floors, and the smell of coffee and bacon in the air. My eyes dart around the room and still, no idea where I am. 

One, two, three… I dart to the door. I quickly unlock the doorknob and move outside. Woods, a stream, daylight, and a long dirt road through the woods. Still no idea where I am, no signal on my phone and for now no one in sight. Do I go down the road and risk the car coming back or do I walk by the stream hoping that it leads me to a town nearby? Reeling through all of the fear, I make a decision to go along the creek because I am too afraid of who might be on the road. Upstream will lead me along the road and downstream is completely woods. I notice the sun is directly across the water, letting me know the water is running North to South.

I walk to the water and look both ways. In this moment I have the strongest desire for my boy scout brother to be with me. I will go upstream. Hopefully if the car comes back, they won’t see me through the trees. I am too afraid to go downstream. What if it only led me further into the wilderness. I laughed out loud as the phrase “Lions, and Tigers, and Bears… Oh my” played in my head. Then I thought to myself that I should be more concerned about “Predators, and Hunter’s, and Idiots… Oh my”. 

The sky is a beautiful blue color with very few clouds, the sun is shining on my face, there are mostly pine trees but there are a few oak trees mixed in… but I still don’t know where I am. My mind races as I keep looking to my right to see if I can see the road and most importantly, if there are any cars driving down it. I don’t see anyone. I keep my pace along the stream, and I can’t help but check my phone every few minutes to see if I have service. Down to forty percent. No service. Where am I?

Part of me wants to run, part of me is worried that my clumsy self will trip and fall. I might hurt my ankle or wear myself out. What if I need to fight and I am already out of breath.

 I just keep moving further from the small house in the woods, next to the stream where I woke up in the middle of the night. I just want my phone to work. GPS, phone, even location would make me feel a little closer to safety. Nothing. No bars. No people. Just woods.

It's now noon. The sun is high in the sky and I finally come to a major road. The sign at the top of the bridge says “Whites Creek, Davidson County Tennessee, est. 1980”. My mind is spinning, Tennessee? How did I get to Tennessee? I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I haven’t been in Tennessee since I drove from Georgia to Michigan after high school. All I can think is, “why?” I need to get home and thank God I have cash in my pocket.

I walked east on Route 431 (at least that is what the road sign said). Finally, came to a Quick Trip in the middle of nowhere. My phone has a signal! My mind is spinning… do I call my mom, do I call 911, do I call an uber? Do I go back to the house in the woods by the stream and find out how I got here? 

I look up and a sheriff’s deputy is walking towards me. He smiles and walks into the store.  My heartbeat quickens again, I take a few deep breaths, and all I can think is “He is going to think I am crazy!” I walk in and look around. There is a cashier working with a smile on her face as she greets me. There are a few others in the gas station; a mom and her sons in baseball uniforms, a man waiting by the pizza, a few men dressed like they have been hunting all morning, and the deputy.

I am way to scared to talk to a random officer in a small town in Tennessee… I don’t know why but I am. The mom seems like the safe bet. She appears to be in a rush, I am sure a game to get to or something.

“Hi, can I ask you a question?” She looked at me, told the boys to go to the car while she paid and within seconds said, “Ok, what’s up?” I burst into tears immediately. It was the first time all day I had felt any emotion other than fear and it was the first time actual words came out of my mouth. She looked panicked. The officer looked over at us. She called him by name… “John, come over here, this girl needs something.”

The sheriff’s deputy looked over at me, adjusted his hat, and walked over to us. “Hi, Mary. Do we need to take this outside?”

At this point, I was shaking… snot everywhere… almost to the point of hyperventilating. All I could get out was “Yes sir”. Mary grabbed my hand and led me to a table on the side of the building. I sat and waited for the officer. Before I knew it another deputy car pulled up with a female sheriff. Mary looked at me so kindly and said, “My boys at have games at 2 and 3. I must go. They will help you.” She patted me on the back and walked away.

The two officers stood off to the side and talked for a few minutes, I honestly wish it would have taken them longer because I had no idea how I was going to explain this. They approached together and the female officer sat down. “Can you tell me what is going on here?” I really tried. They started to write a report and then the male officer asked me if I would be willing to drive around with them and look for the house. All I could think is “I don’t want to go back there but I will never know if I don’t.” Then my thoughts shifted, “if I don’t, they might come take me again. They at minimum know where I work.”

We walked over to the sheriff’s vehicle. They let me sit up front and the female officer sat in the back. We started to drive down to the bridge where I came out of the woods. All three of us were scanning the right side of road for a dirt road. Nothing. No small road, no larger road that turned into dirt. Nothing for miles on that side of the road. They took me back to the station and pulled up maps of the area. Nothing.

I felt crazy. All I can think to do is pull out my Georgia driver’s license, student ID from Grand Rapids University, and my server’s ID from the restaurant to prove I am not from anywhere near here. They began to write it all down. The female officer asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital and complete a rape kit. My mind started spinning again, “I have no bruises, my clothes and money were intact when I woke up, I don’t feel like that could have happened…”.

“No. I just want to get home.”

         It has been 3 months, and I still don’t know what to believe. I often wake up at night in a cold sweat, breathing hard, feeling for the cold stone floor to only be in my bed. Sometimes I am at work, walking through campus, in a Wal-Mart and swear I hear that voice. Nothing. I still don’t know how I got there and may never know. At this point, the only thing I have to prove I was really there is a police report and PTSD.