Echoes, After the Door Broke!!

Often for Romuald and me, the car is the place to have discussions, arguments or just reminiscence about this, that and the other.

After the robbery at our home, our discussions veered around it. After one such discussion Romuald felt that this kind of talk could make us victims of our thoughts. It sounded philosophical and profound and therefore decided it would be a good topic for this blog.

On breaking the topic down, the two important words are, ‘victim’ and ‘thoughts’. Let’s start with, what is a thought?

According to Wikipedia, ‘Thought is a mental process that allows you to make sense of the world around you. It involves organizing and interpreting information as well as using past experiences to plan for the future.’

This is nice! However, what does it mean to become a victim of our thoughts?

The word victim has negative connotations, which means our thoughts are caught in a negative spiral, making us become victims. Victim of thoughts generally refers to someone who habitually perceives themselves as a victim, often attributing negative events or circumstances to external forces or other people, rather than taking personal responsibility. A victim mentality or victim complex, where individuals consistently see themselves as targets of misfortune. Hence, considering the definitions, I do not believe we are as yet victims of our thoughts — yes, we were victims of a robbery.

Such an event (many other kinds too) is traumatizing. But trauma does not live in the event, it lives in the thoughts that follow, whether positive or negative. Can one try too hard to be stoic and accepting of a difficult situation, to say that we were not affected mentally, emotionally or psychologically? Many still message to find out how we are doing and saying that they continue to pray for us. Possibly they have experienced trauma and know that the after affects can last. What I know for certain is that we were not affected by the loss of money and jewellery.

It is the echoes of ‘what if’ that lingered long after.

The most important, ‘what if’ being, what if they had physically hurt us, or what if they had killed us? Would our son, daughter-in-law and especially the young granddaughters, and some of our close friends and relatives been able to overcome a trauma of that nature?

What if they had hurt Ernie, our dog, or what if Ernie had barked in anger or fear? I would have definitely gone out to see what was happening leaving us vulnerable.

What if, we had screamed or resisted?

We must understand that thoughts shape our reality. We can have reactive thoughts like fear and anger. As to fear, it is a reality and that is why our house is now almost a fortress. That is our response to this fear. The other type is reflective thoughts. A curiosity to know why the robbers chose our house.

Had they been watching the house over a period of time?

Who gave them the impression that we are well off? Our lifestyle is actually not conspicuous.

Why did Ernie not bark?

At the same time there is an element of understanding in us of the motives and needs of the robbers.

One being that the difference between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ is increasing all around us. The ‘have nots’ too have dreams with little means to achieve those dreams which most of the time we tend to forget.

These and very many other thoughts come to mind.

I do not know if I am right but I believe that a reactive or reflective thought is not a fact, yet it is sometimes more real than the moment itself.

We also learned a lot from this episode about how others think — some real and some imagined.

It was heartwarming that the immediate reaction of an overwhelming number of people was to reach out in concern. There were visits — phone calls and messages came after people realized that the robbers had not walked away with our phones. One of Romuald’s cousins — didn’t call, didn’t message but just came and spent the day with us.

What I found difficult to understand and respond to were the offers of help. We didn’t know what help we could ask for. What I know now is that if ever we are in need of help, there are many we can reach out to.

A person well known to Romuald gifted one of her own gold chains to me. Who would do something like that? I did not want to accept but she would not take no for an answer. Another lady in all innocence asked if we had money. What was intriguing were the conversations in a couple of WhatsApp groups of the harrowing experience, the fear and how the police were not doing enough of night patrolling. They forgot that I was a part of the group — I became invisible. I also heard that there are groups of people trying to make an estimate of how much we lost. ‘It couldn’t be 2 lakhs; it must be 5 or 6 lakhs’. I do not know what one gains by such conjectures!

Fortunately, there was only one nasty, maybe I should say skeptical message on how we could have said the rosary in such a tension filled atmosphere.

I do not know about Romuald, however I did imagine what some close friends and family would be thinking. I particularly thought of the many whom I thought were close but have not responded to this day, even though they regularly have something to say after each blog. The questions in my mind; ‘I wonder why?’

Could they have not read the blog?

Did they not know what to say in such circumstances? I have since learnt that such a situation is called ‘the elephant in the room’.

Did they imagine the fear we went through and are going through their own vicarious fear? Incidentally welders got a lot of work soon after, putting up grill doors and strengthening windows.

It is now two months since the incident and it is time to get out of these mental loops. To work on healing through self-awareness. One such way would be to develop strategies to observe the thoughts without judgement. To stop fighting the thoughts and start listening to them.

Writing this blog is for us to develop mindfulness, to bring about a closure through inquiry and have some tools in the toolkit to bring about clarity and peace.

The robbery took something from us, but it also gave us a mirror and, in that reflection, we found strength.

In conclusion here is a short soliloquy –

This is the moment

I stop being a victim

Of my thoughts.

Because if they broke the door,

I can rebuild it

Stronger

Wiser

Quieter

They took our things,

They took the rhythm of our nights.

They took our map of what made sense.

I won’t chase peace anymore

I’ll build it

Prayer by prayer.

I believe this could be a template for any kind of trauma, for all of us do go through traumas of different kinds.

We are going through a new one now. We will have to dive deep within to find acceptance to face it with strength and resilience trusting completely in God. Thy will be done Lord.