originally posted 12/5/2012
In 1993, I made the biggest mistake of my life. Oh, no one was hurt physically, but mentally there was a lot of damage done. Every year I get to relive the incident over and over again, and what took seconds to take place, now gets played back in my mind in slow motion and in great detail. How could I have been so stupid, one moment of insanity. I should have pleaded that instead of being so scared and wanting it all to go away quickly and pleading no contest. So it started my life of registering as a sex offender.
If I should happen to forget to register, it was off to jail I went, no judge or jury, just thirty days. You would think that once would do the trick, but it happened to me twice. The first time the police officer took me from the hospital. I had checked myself in because I felt suicidal for some reason, didn’t know why, but the officer came in stood in front of me and stared. I asked what was going on. He just looked at me for a moment and said,you know; honest to God I didn’t. Then he said, haven’t you forgotten something? I stared at him for a moment, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I forgot to register. (At that particular time I was required to register every three months.) The head nurse had taken down my information to get me some assistance; I had told her that was a registered sex offender . . . she called the police on me.
The second time I had moved from Washington State because it is the worst state to live in if you are a RSO, and upon moving to my new state, where I now reside and plan to retire, I didn’t register because I had just had enough. I was sick and tired of the fiasco. If they wanted me, they can come and get me. I certainly wasn’t hiding from them; now that I think about it, maybe I did it out of protest.
So far I had lost two jobs because the powers to be found a reason to get rid of me. When playing office politics, the rumors always begin, and the words sex offender and internet seem inseparable The next thing you know, you are in the conference room with your supervisor telling you, we’re letting you go. That is when I first saw my face on the internet under “find you local sex offender here;” I had just graduated from ITT Tech, spent 42,000 dollars for a change in career. Since that incident at that employment, I have yet to find another job.
I had to move twice too, both times, late at night, in the dark, where no one could see, because people that I did not know started walking by, looking, then staring, and then finally just stopping to stare, I guess to see if they could get a glance at the freak. Normally this would not bother me, but when the small groups turned out to be men, and I could vaguely hear the words sex offender and internet, I knew it was time to leave.
I know I have to stop running and hiding, if not for the fact that I am older now, but within the last couple of years I have become disabled. An accident while incarcerated for not registering gave injury to my left knee and hip and lower back while trying to get down from the top bunk and sparked what the doctors call degenerative joint disease. So you see there is no more running and hiding.
One day I will tell the story in depth, but for right now I feel so much better that there is an actual RSOL. Thanks for listening.
s.