Harassment Diary - Part 11: Breaking Down

by Paulette Cooper more

Source: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Krasel/cooper/pc11.html

Part 11: Breaking Down

I would wake up suddenly in the middle of the night from a bad dream (if I hadn't drank enough to knock myself out for the evening), in a sweat, often dreaming about prisons, concentration camps and orphanages.

I was so frightened and anxious thinking about what was happening [addendum 1997: that no one believed I was innocent, that I was about to face a major trial for what I didn't do, that the trial would be followed closely in the newspapers, and that everything I had ever said or done could come out in the trial and then the newspapers] that I would often stay up (smoking) (and sometimes drinking more) the entire night, doze off around 6 A.M., and then awake to acute nausea (which was chronic for the whole period) and an acute anxiety attack around 9 when I knew Jay [addendum 1997: my lawyer] was likely to call with more bad legal news. (Sometimes I had to wait as long as 2 weeks to learn anything, dreading a ringing phone all the time.)

I was constantly nauseous. From about May until October I only could force myself to eat one or two eggs in the morning, and about 16 ounces of Clamato juice each night. I was smoking about 4 packs of cigarettes a day, sometimes more.

By June or so, I no longer just drank at night to help me get a few hours of badly needed sleep. I started drinking whenever I felt anxious, which was from the moment I woke up.

And since vodka (even a half a bottle a day) didn't cut the anxiety, I combined it with contraband Valium. And I was also saving whatever Valium I could for use right before the trial if I felt I simply couldn't withstand such a humiliating ordeal.