She Survived Read Online Free PDF Page B

horrified by the doctor’s comments.
    â€œI still had not seen myself,” Melissa recalled. “I finally had a nurse walk me to the restroom and it was the first time I saw the damage.”
    The moment was traumatic.
    â€œI now realized why everyone was so shocked,” Melissa recalled.
    Looking into the mirror, she did not recognize herself. Imagine the impact? Not seeing yourself. Not being able to understand who you are. Suddenly you are someone else—a stranger. And you realize somebody broke into your apartment and did this to you. Yes, you feel lucky to be alive. But you also feel your life will never be the same. Can never be the same.
    The doctor told Melissa’s mother and grandmother, who had arrived with a photo for the surgeon, that the surgery would take between one and two hours.
    Four hours into it, they sat in the waiting room, worried that something had happened.

    I came out with my jaws wired shut, stitches in two different stab wounds in my face. My arm and leg bandaged. Until my surgery, I had not slept. And after the surgery, even though I was sedated, I was terrified to fall asleep. So I didn’t. I know I drifted off here and there out of pure exhaustion, because I would wake up to find a different person beside my bed each time. But if I slept, I did it during the daylight. At night I laid there in the bed, with the TV on, terrified.

    Melissa had just walked through the door into her new world: post-traumatic stress disorder.

CHAPTER 12
    OFFICIAL REPORT
    Marion County Sheriff’s Department (MCSD) detective Carmie Godan was hanging around the hospital, waiting for the right time to go in and speak with Melissa. The patient’s story would be more accurate the earlier cops were able to get it out of her. The better the detail, the better the chances they had of catching the scumbag. A guy like this, investigators figured, had done it before and would no doubt strike again. And at some point he was going to make a mistake.
    Had he made a mistake already, in Melissa’s case? Carmie Godan wondered, walking in to interview Melissa.
    â€œCan you kinda start from the beginning and tell me what happened?” Detective Godan asked.
    Melissa wanted to tell her story. She wanted this man caught so, if nothing else, she could get some rest. PTSD comes on subtly, like a virus. It begins with questions, random thoughts, flashbacks, and then quickly, in most cases, escalates into hearing noises in a room and seeing things in the dark. This man, this maniac, had invaded Melissa’s space. Melissa was not one to lie down and take it. She might have been terrified in those days after the attack, but her type A personality and resilient will would not allow her to roll over and allow this maniac to scare her into submission.
    Later, Melissa would not have a hard time recalling what time her attack took place. “To this day,” she said over twenty years later, “I still wake up between one and two every morning.” So she assumed the attack happened then, her unconscious mind reminding her of it, night after night.
    Melissa explained to Detective Godan how several “blows to my head” awoke her. She had not heard the man enter her apartment. Godan wrote down everything she said. “I just remember something hit my head and I woke up. . . .”
    Melissa then recalled her attacker’s “shut up, bitch” comments. This was something she would never forget: those bullying words coming out of his mouth. She’d hear it, over and over; how he clenched his teeth, threatened and demeaned her all at once.
    During the interview Melissa recalled that she had kicked her assailant in the face. She also now remembered being “slashed or stabbed” in the face. When she kicked him, Melissa now recalled, he tossed the weapon (hockey stick) he was beating her with. Thus, that kick wound up, one could say, saving her life.
    Near the time that