22 Jan 2008 (BEAUTY QUEEN)

She walks the aisle like a beauty queen. She waves her hand with grace. Well, she is a title holder after all. In fact, she has not lost the glow on her face. She stands erect as all beauty queens do; she holds her chin high and answers questions without a trace of doubt.

Then she loses all charm and composure when she starts screaming like a leaf tossed brutally by the wind. She loses grip of reality and an upsurge of emotions overwhelm her once calm soul.

She was brought to the female psychiatric ward the other day. Her mom hasn’t slept for days because she thinks that her only daughter is so vulnerable in that place – a place where everyone has her own world, her own miseries and fantasies, her own hidden, untold grief.

Her name is Marianne Rodriguez, 22, a beauty queen. She’s beauty, brain and grace in one. In the latest pageant that she joined, she was hailed Miss Philippines International; now she’s tagged as CRAZY.

 Her inmates giggle when she starts screaming like a child in pain. She’s hailed as the prettiest psychiatric patient in the ward but this time, she’s in a different contest: a race back to reality.

Severe depression overwhelmed her ego, a part of the personality which interacts with reality and balances the Id and the Superego. When the pressure is too strong or the trauma so severe, a person simply snaps!        She did. Who could blame her? She was raped three weeks ago.

Unconsciously, she made a psychic escape from a reality that was too much to handle that she begins to dissociate herself from an experience too traumatic for her to integrate with her conscious self. Her memory, identity and consciousness disintegrated and slipped into a world detached from what she used to know. Her diagnosis: PSYCHOGENIC AMNESIA.

Her family was told that disassociative amnesia is a sudden inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness and is not associated with organic disorder such as brain injury. The doctor said that sometimes, memories will suddenly and dramatically flood her. Every time that happens, she begins to cry out loud. Some patients, though, never break through the barriers to reconstruct their missing past.

 Her family, with the institution, has been providing her with a supportive environment that establishes safety and emotional security. Her mom and dad want her fast recovery but they were advised to stimulate memory loss gradually because the upsurge of memories could be very upsetting for her. Marianne is said to have excessively used the defense mechanism repression because her conscious self could no longer handle anxiety associated with the conflict. Any woman who is forced to live with a bitter experience she did not want to participate into, ganged, raped or battered severely, can snap and break. No one wants to be placed in a situation where one is intimidated, threatened and forced.

   Rape is a violent sexual act that violates a woman’s freewill. Fresh from a party in Ayala, Manuel dragged her into the car. She struggled but he gave her a punch that made her unconscious. When she awoke, she was already in a small house in Cavite where she could scream but no could hear her plea. There, he forced himself into her repeatedly and she struggled against his strength. She was forced to become weak, helpless and submissive, the exact qualities the offender despises in himself.

Manuel’s motive was apparently of conquest and power, and Marianne was tied-up, verbally threatened, intimidated with a weapon to subdue her and eventually submit to his sexual demands to gratify his sense of power, security, mastery and control. For Manuel, it was an exciting adventure as he saw it as a test of his manhood.

After two days, he left her, beaten, bruised and scarred. He made an anonymous call to the police, who searched the place and returned her home. Marianne’s life changed and she lost herself. She had not slept nor talked for days. She retreated to a world that was tolerable, a world devoid of that tragic incident that rerouted her life.  She was  in a road she doesn’t know how to find her way back.

Marianne’s case is a rape by acquaintance (rapist known to her). Some rape happens as statutory (rape of a minor with consent) and incest (rape of child by relatives). Their legal aid said that it was a confidence rape as she had prior interaction with the offender, Manuel. The assault was a kind of power rape: a rape committed by a person with low self-esteem and with feelings of inadequacy and a history of poor interpersonal relationship. Manuel is one of her suitors, recently rejected. Obviously, the act was precipitated by the incident of rejection that offended his feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. He might have committed it to prove his manhood, virility and competence.

Some offenders, though, engage in the act for sexual gratification: anger rape. In anger rape, they vent their anger and hostility, their hatred and contempt against a victim who represents those women who wronged him at some point of their lives. They are fraught with conflict, irritation and irrational jealousy to the point that they become physically assaultive. In the process though they are not aroused; they simply want to channel their anger towards another that in the end could lead to homicide.

Meantime, some offenders commit the act because of the need to inflict pain and torment: Sadistic rape. Often ritualistic, aggression becomes a sexual expression and a source of sexual gratification. Breasts, genitals and buttocks become the focus of injury and the offenders become intensely excited and pleased in the victims torment, anguish, distress and suffering which are interpreted as sexual excitation rather than a refusal.

Impulsive or opportunistic rape, on the other hand, is said to occur in conjunction with other antisocial acts such during a robbery and usually is not premeditated.

With Marianne, the rape occurred with someone that she knows but in some occasions, the offender has no prior interaction with the victim: blitz rape; or that the offender assaults a woman he is somewhat acquainted to: marked victim rape. In some instances, a retardate or minor is raped: accessory to sex rape, while some women are raped during their date: date rape.

Any rape experience imposes a traumatic history. Marianne dissociated from her herself in response to that experience and she has been experiencing rape trauma syndrome. At first, she was DISORGANIZED. She felt angry, guilty, embarrassed, humiliated and dirty. She had been into denial, shock, disbelief and she was constantly afraid. She complained of having multiple physical and somatic problems and wished for revenge.

 Several days or a week after, she transitioned to what is termed as REORGANIZATION phase wherein she struggles to adapt – the WHY ME? phase. She attributed blame to others, justified her actions and tried to regain a sense of control and self-protection.

For days she has had recurrent dreams and nightmares, irrational fears, such as being indoors or outdoors, being in a crowd, being left alone, and engaging in sexual activity. Her grief apparently resolved slowly. She tried to review and analyze what happened then she snapped. She broke loose. The pain was too much to bear, and the frustration was overwhelming that she regressed.

The only way to win a ticket back to reality is to lose that crown of anger, bitterness, disappointment, pain and hopelessness. She has to make them all disappear and get her back into shape by making a transition. She needs to make a transition to recovery.

She needs to piece herself together, mend her brokenness, regain her self-respect and go beyond her pain and her loss. She needs to pull herself out from that debilitating and traumatic experience and learn to be at peace with herself. She must reeducate her heart to trust the world again and re-learn to see her worth.

This time, she’s not in a competition for a title; she’s into a fight to break the chain of confusion and guilt and anger that the experience forced on her. She needs to fight for her future — a future that awaits anyone who is raped, molested or assaulted .. anyone who is robbed of something: the self-preserved dignity. Because amidst the tragedy, there is a future to look forward to.

 For now, however, she will struggle; she will cry in pain like a leaf tossed aimlessly. She remains the QUEEN OF THE WARD and definitely, IT IS NOT A CONTEST SHE WANTED TO BE IN.