jamie lives in a council provided town house located in the heart of london’s most dangerous borough, peckham. while it is considered the most dangerous, peckham boasts a diverse night life and plenty of locally owned shops. travel advisor’s offer such accolades as cool, hip, and rough around the edges.
jamie’s neighbours include a couple of close friends and fellow members of the peckham boys; considered a pack of dangerous, anti-social males, the gang of fifty plus generally keep to themselves and often provide for the community. they are responsible for the current pill epidemic within the area and surrounding buroughs.
interior:
jamie owns roughly 100 plants and they completely dominate his home, top to bottom, in every room. all furniture was free; found, stolen, made from pallets or donated, and he hides the lack of personal items behind plants. another benefit to the multitude of plants is the fresh earthy smell masks the extremely pungent marijuana plants in the conservatory. beyond a few records, blankets, basic necessities like dishware and toiletries, his house is barren of a personal history. with the multitude of parties and strangers at his house, it’s best to keep the valuables to a minimum anyway.
the council house was provided for him upon his second release as a way of distancing him from his adoptive father and friends. the board reviewed his case and decided to let him live by himself with regular visit from a social worker and court mandated therapy. when he first entered the system at age four, jamie had a backpack of clothes, a picture of a brother he doesn’t know or remember, and a quilted blanket which he sleeps with every night. nothing else remains and he has not tried to find or reconnect with his biological family.
[2] --- jamie experiences a devastating condition known as C-PTSD, or complex PTSD. this greatly affects his life, relationships, personality and how he responds to certain situations. this is in response to the years of abuse suffered throughout his childhood and young adult life.
after running away from his final foster family at 13-14 (he still keeps in touch), he was detained in a juvenile detention centre (a her majesty’s youth offender institution) for seven months for possession (marijuana), attacking a peace officer and “anti-social behaviour”. during this time, he was diagnosed with both MDD, major depressive disorder, and C-PTSD. during the seven months in the centre, he received excellent treatment and managed to obtain several GCSE’s. this was a rather happy period in his life and he speaks almost fondly of his time there.
unfortunately, upon release, he relapsed into more violent behaviours and ceased taking his medication. the lack of enforced order or immediate consequence
at sixteen, he is again briefly jailed for battery against a close friend. the friend elected not to press charges stating that he was partially at fault for the incident. the court agreed but mandated that jamie see a therapist until his anger and C-PTSD became self-manageable. at eighteen, he was considered an adult and released from the mandate.
COMPLEX-PTSD:
What additional symptoms are seen in Complex PTSD?
An individual who experienced a prolonged period (months to years) of chronic victimization and total control by another may also experience the following difficulties:
Emotional Regulation. May include persistent sadness, suicidal thoughts, explosive anger, or inhibited anger.
Consciousness. Includes forgetting traumatic events, reliving traumatic events, or having episodes in which one feels detached from one’s mental processes or body (dissociation).
Self-Perception. May include helplessness, shame, guilt, stigma, and a sense of being completely different from other human beings.
Distorted Perceptions of the Perpetrator. Examples include attributing total power to the perpetrator, becoming preoccupied with the relationship to the perpetrator, or preoccupied with revenge.
Relations with Others. Examples include isolation, distrust, or a repeated search for a rescuer.
One’s System of Meanings. May include a loss of sustaining faith or a sense of hopelessness and despair.
Survivors may avoid thinking and talking about trauma-related topics because the feelings associated with the trauma are often overwhelming.
Survivors may use alcohol or other substances as a way to avoid and numb feelings and thoughts related to the trauma.
Survivors may engage in self-mutilation and other forms of self-harm.
Survivors who have been abused repeatedly are sometimes mistaken as having a “weak character” or are unjustly blamed for the symptoms they experience as a result of victimization.
C-PTSD - What it Feels Like:
People who suffer from C-PTSD may feel un-centered and shaky, as if they are likely to have an embarrassing emotional breakdown or burst into tears at any moment. They may feel unloved - or that nothing they can accomplish is ever going to be “good enough” for others.
People who suffer from C-PTSD may feel compelled to get away from others and be by themselves, so that no-one will witness what may come next. They may feel afraid to form close friendships to prevent possible loss should another catastrophe strike.
People who suffer from C-PTSD may feel that everything is just about to go “out the window” and that they will not be able to handle even the simplest task. They may be too distracted by what is going on at home to focus on being successful at school or in the workplace.
C-PTSD Characteristics:
How it can manifest in the victim(s) over time:
Rage turned inward: Eating disorders. Depression. Substance Abuse / Alcoholism. Truancy. Dropping out. Promiscuity. Co-dependence. Doormat syndrome (choosing poor partners, trying to please someone who can never be pleased, trying to resolve the primal relationship)
Rage turned outward: Theft. Destruction of property. Violence. Becoming a control freak.
Other: Learned hyper vigilance. Clouded perception or blinders about others (especially romantic partners) Seeks positions of power and / or control: choosing occupations or recreational outlets which may put oneself in physical danger. Or choosing to become a “fixer” - Therapist, Mediator, etc.
Avoidance - The practice of withdrawing from relationships with other people as a defensive measure to reduce the risk of rejection, accountability, criticism or exposure.
Blaming - The practice of identifying a person or people responsible for creating a problem, rather than identifying ways of dealing with the problem.
Catastrophizing - The habit of automatically assuming a “worst case scenario” and inappropriately characterizing minor or moderate problems or issues as catastrophic events.
“Control-Me” Syndrome - This describes a tendency which some people have to foster relationships with people who have a controlling narcissistic, antisocial or “acting-out” nature.
Denial - Believing or imagining that some painful or traumatic circumstance, event or memory does not exist or did not happen.
Dependency - An inappropriate and chronic reliance by an adult individual on another individual for their health, subsistence, decision making or personal and emotional well-being.
Depression (Non-PD) -Depression is when you feel sadder than your circumstances dictate, for longer than your circumstances last, but still can’t seem to break out of it.
Escape To Fantasy - Taking an imaginary excursion to a happier, more hopeful place.
Fear of Abandonment - An irrational belief that one is imminent danger of being personally rejected, discarded or replaced.
Relationship Hyper Vigilance - Maintaining an unhealthy level of interest in the behaviors, comments, thoughts and interests of others.
Identity Disturbance - A psychological term used to describe a distorted or inconsistent self-view
Learned Helplessness- Learned helplessness is when a person begins to believe that they have no control over a situation, even when they do.
Low Self-Esteem - A common name for a negatively-distorted self-view which is inconsistent with reality.
Panic Attacks - Short intense episodes of fear or anxiety, often accompanied by physical symptoms, such as hyperventilating, shaking, sweating and chills.
Perfectionism - The maladaptive practice of holding oneself or others to an unrealistic, unattainable or unsustainable standard of organization, order, or accomplishment in one particular area of living, while sometimes neglecting common standards of organization, order or accomplishment in other areas of living.
Selective Memory and Selective Amnesia - The use of memory, or a lack of memory, which is selective to the point of reinforcing a bias, belief or desired outcome.
Self-Loathing - An extreme hatred of one’s own self, actions or one’s ethnic or demographic background.
Tunnel Vision - The habit or tendency to only see or focus on a single priority while neglecting or ignoring other important priorities.
[1] --- at sixteen, he began collecting plants. it was a recommendation from a quality court-mandated psychologist; each time jamie has suicidal tendencies, he buys a plant or plants a seed. some days he sees the success in living blossom and grow around him. on the darker, more cynical days, he sees the blooming self-loathing growing in every room of his flat. currently, there are nine hundred plants, including a garden out back and a grow room in the conservatory, and caring for them takes up most of his free time.
he’s the kind of boy who cries at parties, laughs at funerals &&
sobs when you treat him well. he’s grey && blue && only happy
when miserable. there’s nothing more comforting than roof tops
at night.
once he put on shiny pink lip gloss and made faces in the mirror for half an hour. he then proceeded to touch himself. afterwards he wiped it off and has stopped. (p r o m i s e)
