Battling Acute Stress Disorder (ASD): A Patient's Guide To Healing
She had yet to even crack open the cover of the small informational brochure the psychologist had given her. Why? Well…part of her believed that if she took the time to read the information it contained, Summer would accept the fact that she had some sort of problem. She didn't want to acknowledge the fact that she'd been diagnosed with…a mental disorder. That just didn't sound possible.
Summer was fine. Given enough time, she'd forget all about it, like it never even happened. Sometimes it was hard to believe it had only been a few days ago. It felt like…maybe a week or more? Half the time she couldn't tell if it was still the same day as the last time she'd been awake or aware. It was disorienting and confusing, but she had been pretty dehydrated. It could be just a symptom from that.
No way was she going to be crippled by what she'd done…back in the warehouse…it was hard not to think about it, but random images and flashes of memories occasionally threatened to break her stable mood. The tv and random visits by the nurses thus far were enough to keep them relatively at bay. But at night, when she was alone…nightmares were plentiful.
That was to be expected, of course. She'd gone through something nobody ever expects to experience. Kidnapping? Come on, that only ever happened in the movies. And it never happened to anyone who didn't expect it to…
Of course, even the police Commissioner had appeared concerned after she'd given her witness statement. It had been…stressful, to say the least. Having to verbally confirm the events forced her to visualize everything again, play by play style, making her confront what she'd been trying to push away.
Her account of what happened was bare bones. She omitted anything having to do with Law's connection to Joker, barely knowing anything about it herself. All she was aware of was what Law had told her a few months ago, so it wasn't like she was lying all that much. Still, when asked what the motive behind her kidnapping was, she shrugged and denied knowing why.
Sengoku had been extremely patient, allowing plenty of time for her to give her answers, and even offering to come back at another time if she wasn't up to it that morning. But in all honesty the blonde just wanted it off her chest so she could leave it behind her and never have to touch upon it again. It wasn't easy, and half the box of tissues had been used by the time she was finished, but it was over with.
It seemed the Commissioner hadn't agreed, though, because later that afternoon a psychologist was knocking on her door asking to speak with her. And speak he did. Asking questions about her childhood, then about her life recently. And finally to the events from a few days before. Summer felt like an equation to him, a puzzle to be solved that seemed amusing perhaps. She was sure he had genuine intentions, but it still made her feel like…something was wrong with her.
He'd listed off several possible causes of her panic attack from before, then finally settled on his best guess for a diagnosis. Acute Stress Disorder. And with an optional prescription for an anxiety-reducing medication and a pamphlet to read in her spare time, he'd swept away from the room, never to be seen again. It all felt…formulaic. Like she was another number. Or like he didn't really care as to what happened to her afterwards.
Figuring she had nothing else to do and seeing what the little booklet contained wasn't technically accepting anything, she opening the pamphlet to the first page and began to read.
What is Acute Stress Disorder? ASD is a condition that can manifest between 3 to 30 days after exposure to a traumatic event. This could include experiencing a threatening situation, an actual death, critical injury, or physical violation. While not explicitly a concrete diagnosable 'mental disorder,' it can be the first sign to future development of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.
What? She was going to have PTSD in the future? Is that what this was saying? Come on, this was ridiculous. Summer was fine. Sure, maybe she'd had a few nightmares and that one panic attack, but that didn't mean she was sick.
Symptoms include but are not limited to: Intrusion—intrusive and involuntary memories or thoughts about the traumatizing event. Disassociation—the slowing of time, seeing oneself from an outsider's perspective, or being in a daze-like state. Negative Mood—Persistent inability to experience positive emotion.
See? Summer knew she couldn't have this. She'd been so happy to see Hitomi and Zoro and Soma a few days ago. Genuine happiness. She could still experience feeling good and every other emotion a normal person could. That psychologist didn't know what he was talking about.
Avoidance—intentionally avoiding or distancing from—
Summer looked away from the pamphlet as three soft knocks came to her hospital room door. "Come in." She called, managing to stuff the pamphlet discreetly under the covers of her hospital bed right before Hitomi entered.
"Hey, I hope I'm not here at a bad time." She said, holding up the vase of flowers she'd brought with her. They were bright and colorful, a welcome change to the drab gray and white of her room. "Thought I'd stop by to see you again."
"No, not at all. Those look beautiful." Summer said, smiling gently so she didn't think anything was wrong. "You can put them on the windowsill if you'd like. They'll get lots of sun that way."
"I agree." The silver-haired woman said, heading across the room to do just that. She lifted the blinds to accommodate the height of the flowers, and carefully set the vase on the sill, making sure it wasn't too close as to fall off for any reason.
Summer looked around, noticing a missing person. "No Soma today?" She asked casually. That seemed unusual. She was sure he'd be adamant to see her again.
Hitomi shrugged, draping her purse across the back of one of the chairs in the room and taking her seat with a sigh. "I asked him and Zoro to pick up Max from the kennels where he's been staying while you were gone. Soma thinks I'm at work right now, actually, otherwise he would have demanded to come with. Besides," she said casually, giving her a slight til of her head, "I figured you'd feel more comfortable talking if it was just me here."
Summer smiled, but inwardly sighed. So. Hitomi wanted to talk about what had happened. Well, she supposed this would come up eventually, and she was right. Summer didn't feel comfortable relating all that she'd been through in front of the younger boy. Or Zoro for that matter. They were friends and very dear to her, but it gave her extreme discomfort at the thought of them knowing her experiences through all of this.
"I know it may not be something you want to talk about at all, but I've been worried sick ever since you came to me with your concerns about Law. Maybe I'm just trying to satisfy my own sense of curiosity, my own…selfish desire to know that there wasn't anything I could have done to make things easier on you…" Hitomi shook her head, looking away. "But you're my best friend, Summer. I want to make sure you're ok. So please, if there's anything at all you can tell me-"
"It's ok." Summer muttered, her smile fading just a bit, her eyes skirting away when Hitomi tried to hold her gaze. "I don't know if I'd be ok with telling you everything but…I'll try my best. You deserve to know."
Her hands wrung nervously in her lap, and she swallowed dryly. What sort of questions was she going to ask her?
"I guess the first thing I want to know is if they touched you. Did they violate you at all? If they haven't started a rape kit-"
"No. They didn't." That, she supposed, was one of the only consolations about her captivity. She'd been scared that Diamante, or Joker himself, would force themselves on her somehow. But they hadn't. And she was grateful at least of that. Even the word itself put her on edge to think about.
"Good. That's good." Hitomi deflated in relief in her chair. That was one major concern out of the way. There was a long pause before she spoke again. "Where did you go when you disappeared?"
At least they were starting with the easy stuff.
"Law's friends helped me hide out in a hotel room at the edge of the city. We stayed there for about a month and a half. But there was a fire in another room there, so we had to move somewhere else. They didn't want to risk staying in case it was an attempt to kill me."
"A fire? I feel like I read something about that…" Hitomi trailed off, frowning to herself, then shook her head. "Anyway, what about after that?"
"They let me stay at their place for awhile. They did so much for me, to be honest. I don't know how I'll be able to return the favor." She shook her head. "I mean, he got-"
Summer swallowed thickly, eyes skirting away again and shaking her head. "Penguin got…shot…for me. Trying to protect me. I don't even know if he's ok."
Hitomi smiled. "I'll do some digging, see what I can find out for you." She promised, leaning forward kindly. "Then what happened after that?"
"After that," the blonde started again, her fingers fidgeting with the edge of the blanket, "I was taken from their apartment and they locked me up in this warehouse place. I don't really know how long I was there. I think a couple days."
Hitomi paused, before asking her question cautiously. Her eyes looked concerned again. "Did they do anything to you while you were held captive?"
"They just knocked me around a bit. Nothing more serious than that." Summer replied truthfully. It was still difficult to meet her friend's gaze, though. As if she would see disgust there because of what happened to her. "It wasn't really me they were after anyway. Law got it worse."
"Is there anything you can tell me about what was between them?" Her curiosity was thoroughly piqued, she had to admit. Her friend was hurting, but it was pertinent information.
Summer shrugged, eyes still downcast. "It's not really for me to say. You should probably ask Law. He knows everything about it anyway."
Hitomi recognized that she was trying not to say anything that could get Law in legal trouble. The lawyer wasn't sure entirely why, because she was already aware of the warrant out for him and that the Commissioner was no doubt one floor below them, sitting with him right now.
"Is there anything else you're ready to talk about?" Hitomi ventured, her voice quiet and reassuring.
Summer thought about it for awhile, but finally shook her head. "The rest…I don't want to have to relive it again. I'm sorry."
The lawyer nodded, her smile returning, and she placed a comforting hand on Summer's. "Hey, it's ok. I don't expect you to be 100% right now. I don't think anybody does. Just take your time to recover."
Summer nodded, and Hitomi decided that she at least deserved to know what was going on. Because it didn't seem like she knew at all.
"Summer, I figure you don't know about the warrant for Law's arrest," she started, her smile fading again, "but the police Commissioner that you spoke to earlier has orders to bring him into custody once he's discharged from the hospital."
"What?" Her concern returned, looking her friend in the eye in disbelief. "How can they do that?"
"One of Joker's people were arrested several days ago, and they gave information that tied Law to the cartel. He'll have to go through the trial process after he's recovered."
"That's…" Summer trailed off, looking frustrated. "It isn't fair for them to do that. He's done everything he can to get away from that life. He turned against them, for god's sake. He's not the person he was before. He's changed."
Hitomi debated whether she should truly tell her friend what she thought about the subject, wondering how upset the blonde would become, but finally she trooped on, figuring that it was always better to be true to yourself.
"I understand where you're coming from, but…look at it from my perspective." She began, garnering the blonde's attention. "I'm not denying the fact that Law has changed. At this point, it's fairly obvious that he has. But, ultimately…he did still do all those illegal things back when he was part of the cartel."
"But-"
Hitomi held up a hand. "I'm not trying to say that after everything he's done to fix it, he deserves to go to jail for it, per se. What I'm saying is that time does not absolve people of their crimes. Murders are often solved years down the line, and the perpetrators still go to jail for it." She said as example. "It doesn't matter who you are, if a crime is committed, they must go through the justice system to determine their innocence. If we started making exceptions because a loved one is involved, it wouldn't be justice, now would it?"
As much as Summer wanted to refuse Hitomi's logic, it was…well, logical. In any other situation, she would have agreed with the lawyer. The only reason there was a discourse in their opinion was because Law was involved. It was swaying her sense of justice. Emotions were getting in the way. Just another reason why she'd never make a good lawyer, and why Hitomi was such a good one.
Eventually, the blonde nodded, silently accepting what her friend was trying to explain. She wasn't happy about it, mulling over the possibility that Law could go to jail for a long time after the amount of pain he'd already suffered. All she wanted to do now was live a normal life with him, doing domestic things, and living a domestic life. Spend an enormous amount of tie with her cat, and maybe gorge on ice cream for awhile. Yeah. That sounded good.
Hitomi remained quiet as well, thinking over Law's situation and wondering how she could help, legally. She was a prosecuting attorney, so there wasn't much she could do for him. The case wasn't even filed in her district, as Law lived across the district's zoning lines—
Ah. Perhaps there was something she could do…
After another day of remaining in the hospital, the doctor gave her a clean bill of health, and allowed her to be discharged. Of course, this simply brought up another concern for Summer, because she had no idea how she was going to pay for even the handful of days she'd spent receiving care there. Hospital visits weren't cheap, and she wasn't sure if she could afford a hefty hospital bill.
"Oh, it looks like your medical expenses have already been taken care of, sweetie." The accounting department employee had said, handing back her insurance card she'd dug out of her wallet.
"…they have?"
"Mhmm. You'll be getting an itemized invoice in the mail for your care, but don't worry about paying for anything. It'll just be for tax purposes." The woman said sweetly, her hands returning to her keyboard. "Was there anything else you needed from me?"
"Uh," Summer hadn't quite gotten over this unexpected revelation, but she wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, "no, that was all. Thank you."
Who had paid for her treatment?
Summer would have called Hitomi to ask for a ride back to her home, seeing as her car was nowhere to be seen again—maybe she should report it as stolen or something—but she didn't want to be a burden to her friend once more. The lawyer had other things to worry about, like the giant case against Vergo that she'd mentioned before. Besides, it would give Summer some time to herself to think things over.
The taxi ride was long in relation to her sense of time. She found herself staring out of the window for most of the ride, idly watching the streetlights as they passed, though none of them were turned on since it was early morning. She remembered a time where this had brought her comfort, but now it just felt…grim.
When they'd arrived to her apartment complex, the taxi driver snapped his fingers a few times. "You ok there?" He'd asked, halfway turned in his seat to look at her in the back.
"Oh, yeah I'm fine. How much did you say the bill was?"
She had nothing with her. No luggage. Nothing except the clothing on her back. Not even the keys to her apartment, as it happened. The only reason she even had money for the taxi was because the nurse who'd been taking care of her had slipped her some out of pity. She was thankful for it, but she really hated relying on charity.
Her steps took her to the higher floor of the complex, and she stood directly in front of her door, just staring at it. When she tried the knob, it wouldn't move. Locked. Of course. She wouldn't have expecting anything less.
Bellemere would have the master key, or at least a spare, so she could get inside until she could pay for a replacement. Turning in place, she trudged her way to the apartment's main office. She wondered if Bellemere had even noticed her absence. Well, she supposed the month or two of no rent would be a sure sign. Hopefully she even had a home to come back to, now that she thought about it…
She stepped into the office and spotted Bellemere through the indoor glass window separating the front lobby from her personal office. She was on the phone, speaking to someone privately. The door was closed, so she couldn't hear what was being said, only the muted mumble of Bellemere's voice through the glass.
She wandered aimlessly around the small lobby, looking at the various decorations and furnishings in the room. It was homely, comforting. Just like the woman herself. Summer just happened to glance through at her at the same time Bellemere looked into the lobby, and they locked eyes for just a moment.
The purple-haired woman paused, eyes widening, before standing halfway out of her chair and quickly saying something to whoever she was talking to. Summer watched her slap the phone back down on the mount and rushed to reach the door, yanking it open in a flurry.
"Dear lord, girl, where the hell have you been?" Bellemere asked gruffly, preventing any form of reply on Summer's part by wrapping her in a huge hug. "That bastard Rosinante…he told me something was up, but he wouldn't say what. Is everything alright? You're not in any kind of trouble, are you?"
"No, no…I'm alright." She mumbled out from Bellemere's chest. She hadn't let up from her embrace. "I just needed to get away for awhile. But I'm back now."
"Well, it better be for good, because you had a lot of people worried sick." She finally released the blonde from her arms, stepping back to give her some space. "I say this lovingly: don't ever pull that sort of shit again, got it? I have enough to worry about as it is."
"Yes, Ma'am." Summer smiled, feeling her chest grow warm and fuzzy. "I wanted to ask you about my apartment, though. That's why I came down."
"Oh, you must have heard about the break in?"
Summer cocked her head to the side curiously. "Break in? No, I didn't."
Bellemere shook her head and waved her into her office. "Well, I'll bring you up there and we can take a look." She grabbed her ring of master keys from her desk drawer and guided them back outside towards Summer's apartment building. Bellemere inserted the correct key and unlocked the door when they got up to her suite.
"I did my usual rounds and saw your apartment door open just a bit." She pushed open the now unlocked door, beckoning Summer inside. "It just felt a little strange, so I checked inside. Everything was knocked over, broken, and just tossed every which way."
Even after a visible clean-up attempt, there was still lingering signs of the event in question. Her cabinets were thrown open, one yanked so hard one side of the hinges were dangling off. Her stools and other small seating furbishments were gone. Perhaps broken beyond repair. Her couch had been slashed, fluff missing from most cushions. The tv wasn't stolen, rather smashed in and sporting large, spidery cracks along the screen.
"It doesn't get any better further in." Bellemere admitted, sighing to herself sadly. "I did what I could for the mess, but I didn't want to nose around too much, or throw out all of your stuff. Didn't know what was keep-worthy and what wasn't."
Summer nodded her understanding, slowly surveying her ruined apartment. She should have expected this much, she supposed. They ventured deeper in, towards her bedroom. As Bellemere said, it was simply more of the same mess and pointless destruction in there as well.
Her mirror was broken, both the standing one in her bedroom and the wall mirror in the bathroom. Her bed was turned up on it's side, the covers and sheets all in a pile on the floor. Everything was a random mess.
This was just the perfect cherry on the sundae, and Summer sighed heavily. "Well, I have missed two payments of rent, so if you feel the need to terminate the lease-"
"The hell I will. I turned the water and gas off once I realized you were gone, so it's not like I've been charged for the upkeep or anything." Bellemere whirled on her, hands on her hips. "If you're really that broken up about it, you can pay me back in bits and pieces for your next couple months. How about that?"
Summer nodded, grateful that her landlord was so understanding. "Is there any way I could get a spare key? I lost mine…somewhere."
"Sure, let's get back to the office and decide what to do from there. I'll call the power and water companies to get some utilities going in the meantime."
Bellemere was able to have the utility companies come out that afternoon, and before long Summer had her apartment up and running again. It may be in complete disarray, but at least she could take a much-needed shower after her extended stay at the hospital.
The hot water felt amazing against her skin. Sure, one of the nurses had helped to bathe her on one of the days, but nothing beat a scalding shower to wash away your worries and grime. She scrubbed and scrubbed at her skin, feeling like the last vestiges of the warehouse still clung to her skin, refusing to let it's grasp on her go. She scrubbed until her whole body was red and raw from working at her flesh with the loofah.
Maybe some optimistic part of her expected the cold memories to wash away with the dirt and the sweat, but that of course was illogical. The most she could hope for was just the layers of skin that had been physically exposed to the air of the warehouse. And even that was a stretch.
She kept blinking away visions of windowless cells and the feeling of a gun at the back of her head, snapping her head around behind her multiple times. It was terrifying. And exhausting. She had expected the shower to rejuvenate her, not wear her out further.
When she stepped out of the shower, she grabbed one of the only clean towels left, wrapping it around her body. The broken glass had long been swept up from the floor, but she still took care to choose where she stepped carefully. The tiniest slivers could still linger unseen.
It was difficult to do any sort of makeup without a mirror handy, so the blonde didn't bother with applying it. It wasn't like she'd be leaving anywhere else that night anyway. She was dying to see Law as soon as possible, but she really just wanted to rest for awhile too. By herself.
There were a few sets of her pajamas still in the drawers, neatly folded and untouched. So at least she had something to wear that an intruder hadn't gotten their hands directly on. Small comforts. She dressed in something soft and warm, then wandered back into the living room. Max was still staying over at Hitomi's until she could get her apartment squared together and in better condition.
They didn't even know she had been discharged. She felt bad about that, but it was nice to have this time to herself. With another small sigh, she crossed over and picked up a few books from the floor where they'd been tossed, sitting on her ruined couch to read for awhile.
It was a start. The room may still be in shambles—a physical representation of her life at the moment—and there was a long way to go until she reached normal, but at least it was a start.
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