Day 1 Fallout ...
Very grateful for good neighbors.
So, yesterday, Kara and I had a very unsettling experience.
Driving near our home, we were approached by a young male teen (15-16 is my guess but I'm terrible with ages). Kara stopped the car and I lowered my window so we could see what was up. There was something very off in his demeanour and that he was high as a kite and tweaking on something was apparent even to me (and trust me, I can be quite oblivious to those things when my nurturing/concern circuits are engaged).
His face looked like someone had rubbed dirt on it and he approached saying that someone had beaten him up (cue concern circuits). But, even to me, his words didn't ring true ... Kara's natural skepticism kicked in and she told him we couldn't stop as I had to get to work and we quickly drove away home.
30 minutes later, as I'm loading Duck and my lunch into the van, this same boy rounded the corner of the townhouse coming from the direction of the hole in the chain link fence that leads to the house development being built behind us and wearing the bag he had claimed had been stolen as motivating for his supposed beating. As he passed my vehicle, he grabbed the driver side view mirror and wrenched it violently forwards ... luckily it can move in that direction by design or he'd have broken it.
It was the loud thunk sound that caused my to notice him passing ... Kara noticed too. We both went into immediate mental defcon 1 ... K into a 'protect Llyn' mode and me into a near phobic state of hypervigilance ... we both instantly knew there was about to be trouble.
The boy got about 3/4's the way down our row when he happened to look back and, because I was wearing a high visibility shirt in preparation for my evening shift, he recognized me and turned back. He was asking for a ride and K tried to warn him off while I fought the need to flee and scanned the area for help. He came right into our open garage and was confronting K (her first experience of the awful feeling of being under threat and the accompanying helplessness of knowing that one cannot get out of it alone that genetic females learn to endure and work through almost from birth).
As he began escalating, ramping himself up for violence, at her ... I did a mental inventory of which neighbors might be able to help vs who might be home. As I went to go to the open garage of one of our close neighbours, I spotted the very fellow at the side of my unit supervising his two young kids playing (twitch-boy had to have walked right past them).
The look on my face must have spoken volumes, for he immediately came on guard and looked at me quizzically. I motioned him over and told him that there was a druggie in my garage that I needed to have removed. He asked me if I knew the person and my voice broke, betraying my fear, as I replied "NO".
My neighbour immediately moved to round my van and interposed himself between K and twitch, while I kept his kids busy. He was cool as ice as he gently but firmly moved the kid out of the garage while engaging him in conversation designed to disarm the escalation long enough to be able to physically guide him outside (someone has done nonviolent conflict resolution and can put it into practice VERY well ... and the fact that our neighbour is buff as hell probably didn't hurt either).
Having been rescued, Kara came over and ordered me to be off to work. Knowing that she'd be able to calm down faster if she didn't feel the need to protect me, I let the neighbour know that K had eyes on the kids and drove off.
According to K, the drama lasted a while longer and involved another male neighbour before twitch literally ran off.
I'm having the natural byproduct of not only the confrontation/phobic fallout but also of the half trained concern of a certain Fluffy Duck who insisted on being attached to me at the hip all shift and on my head/pillow all night. M'Lady is now past responding to my issues as she is navigating enough of her own but she still stayed close all night. Being that the timeline of the process is well established, I know today will be bad ... tomorrow worse ... Monday back to bad and, on Tuesday, I'll be much better.
It's Kara who has gotten the worst of the encounter, it's her first time dealing with that sense of imperiled survival instinct that is unique to the female condition ... the horrible sensations that come with it and the certain knowledge that only a man can help/rescue you. Damsel in distress does not sit well with anyone but, coming from her previous privileged background, she was/is completely unprepared to process or deal with it.
Thank goodness for good neighbors ... Gratitude 🙏 is me.
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