Traumatizing Incident... Are the mentally challenged accountable?

This is going to be my freakiest blog entry ever. My hair still stands, like I’ve just been through a freak electrocution with a malfunction, just thinking about it. Yesh.

Once upon a time, there lived a little girl who believed in the innate goodness in people. One day in her distant childhood, whilst playing at the park in her estate where all little children go at around 4-7pm, the bike that she was riding decided that everything was going too well for her and decided to disrupt her joy of feeling the wind in her hair by derailing its chain. Needless to say, the girl, little as she was, had no idea what to do. Luckily for her, someone came to her rescue. Her saviour was J’sU.

At first glance, she knew that there was something different about J’sU. During the course of growing up, she realized that this difference lay in the fact that J’sU was mentally challenged. J’sU could speak almost normally, save for the occasional stuttering. J’sU seemed to comprehend things pretty well as well. This little girl watched as everyone called J’sU names like “alien”, “madman”, and “cuckoo”. She felt bad for him and decided to be as nice to him as possible – after all, he was a nice person, and it was not his fault that his eyes were not aligned in sight.

Over the years, J’sU would engage at times in brief friendly conversations with this little girl. Eventually, this little girl stopped going to the park for she had grown up and had other priorities in life. Occasionally, she would bump into J’sU along the streets/roads within her estate, and usually J’sU would talk to her for a while before moving on.

It was probably when this little girl, now grown up, was in Junior College that she bumped into J’sU again. His hair was no longer a solid black, but a mix of black and white streaks. He still wore cotton shorts and a simple t-shirt, and looked basically the same.

This was when this grown up girl began to doubt if she had made the right move by being nice to J’sU

J’sU, after a 5 minute conversation, asked for this grown up girl’s contact number. Now, this grown up girl wasn’t about to hand over her number just like that and made up an excuse that she didn’t have anything to write on nor anything to write with. J’sU didn’t relent. He whipped up his mobile phone and asked this grown up girl to recite the number whilst he keyed it in. Feeling semi-weird, this grown up girl came up with another excuse (not the best but at that point of time, anything was better than nothing) that she had just gotten her phone recently and could not remember the number offhand.

By the way, at this point of time, J’sU is well aware that this grown up girl has a boyfriend and has commented suspiciously on some occasions “not to tell your boyfriend that we talked, if not he might come and hit me.” This grown up girl did suspect that he being mentally challenged may have led him to come to that violent conclusion.

This was not the end of it.

A couple of days later, this grown up girl bumped into J’sU again whilst walking to the bus stop. After a friendly greeting, J’sU asked for this grown up girl’s number again. This grown up girl was holding her writing pad and a pen in her arms as she so coincidentally decided to jot down something that she just thought about. The excuses she used the last time weren’t going to work anymore. (At this time it would be good to note that this grown up girl never stopped walking.)

GGG (grown up girl) : I’m late for school, so I’ve got to rush.
J’sU : I walk you to the bus stop.
GGG : No thanks, it’s ok. You just came back from there anyway. Besides the bus should be coming really soon. I’m in a rush, got to go.
J’sU : It’s ok. I walk you.
GGG : No really it’s fine. You got things to do and we probably won’t have time to talk anyway. I’m really late for school. Bye! (walks off)
J’sU insisted it was no trouble and tags along – all the way.

After some muttering later, all the while with this grown up girl praying to God that the bus would come any second now (which odds weren’t good, seeing how there were only 2 buses she could take and 1 had just past whilst she was being waylaid by J’sU), and walking as slow as possible and fiddling with her bag as much as possible to avoid suspicion to allow both enough time to lapse for another bus to come, and so she didn’t have to talk to J’sU, the both of them reached the bus stop. Carrying a rather heavy load at that point of time, this grown up girl decided to sit down.

Bad move.

Js’U sat next to this grown up girl and started talking to her again. Unexpectedly, J’sU abruptly shifted so he sat really close to her. He put his arm around her shoulder and “whispered” in her ear…

Are you ready for this?

“I love you.”

Immediately, this grown up girl freaked out. However, being a nice person by nature, and given the fact that she was afraid how J’sU might react to her natural reaction, she kept her emotions (and behaviour) in check and instead, put her elbow between them and slowly maneuvered it so that J’sU had to sit further from her and keep his arm to himself, and reached into her bag and began to fumble for anything and everything. “Look busy.”

GGG : “Erm…ok”
J’sU : “Do you love me?”
GGG : Erm… yeah as a friend.

Luckily at this moment, this grown up girl’s mobile phone sounded. An SMS! This grown up girl used this opportune moment to call the person who smsed her – her boyfriend. After a very brief conversation on where she was and where to meet, her boyfriend hung up. Being as freaked as she was, this grown up girl, stayed on the phone, carrying on the conversation as though there was someone on the other side of the line. Eventually though, she had to hang up.

J’sU asked for her number again. (You gotta give it to him – this guy has got determination.) Sensing the distance between them closing up, this grown up girl panicked and said “sure”. She started digging for a pen, and paper. Having secured her materials, this grown up girl began to pen down her number (with modifications) as slow as it was natural. At this point of time, she began to pen down her name as well to delay the seconds ticking by (with modification).

Passing him the crappy slip of paper, this grown up girl heard him say “I will call you tonight at night.” At a loss for words, she could only smile. Just then, God decided to shine his mercy upon her and the bus came. This grown up girl practically almost ran on, but couldn’t brush the lingering feeling of his arm around her shoulder. She felt molested and was in desperate need of a bath to wash the feeling away.

This grown up girl is me. Till today, I still feel a tad traumatized about the whole event. I think maybe I could have handled it better. I guess fear prevented me from telling him straight off to “go away and leave me alone” or that “there’s no way in hell I’m going to give you my number”. I was afraid of how J’sU might react. What if he turned violent? I can’t imagine what I would do if he had tried to kiss me.

Wait there’s more.

I told BF later when I saw him that I met J’sU and he told me he loved me. I skipped all the flowery details because 1.I think he would have reacted pretty badly to it. What if it made matters worse? 2. I was still freaked out. Thinking about it gave me goosebumps – seriously. Thus, avoid.

When I got back home, I ranted to MC and guess what I found out! J’sU had bumped into her on occasion as well and every time he did he would ask about me! I think I have serious stalker material on my tail. The fact that he’s mentally challenged adds to my anxiety. I mean, I really can’t predict at all how he might react or understand how he thinks.

This triggered me to start thinking: How do we know how much and when to hold the mentally challenged accountable for their actions?

If there was ever any entry where I would like to know what you think, this would be it.