Good Chaos

I did really good this weekend. Me and LawyerBoy moved the furniture in my bedroom. Same walls but different angle. I didn’t watch the videos like I said I would this weekend. I wanted to. I need to. I have to. I spent much of Saturday trying to talk myself into it and reading law and psych. What was I looking for?

This took me down a rabbit hole. Not necessarily a bad one. This is a research loop that has potential. This is a lot of words bear with me as I share.

It dawns on me that no one will argue this case because they don’t actually know how to argue it. Relationship rape or intimate partner sexual assault is a highly traumatic experience and one that so rarely just a one time thing. I was saying the last post about the need for the shift in popular opinion, perhaps I should try to shift it. I’ve always said if things are insurmountable, mount them.

Well I also was sitting here being my wonderful petty damn self and I was thinking about what I said sending flowers to the counterterrorism guy for our “anniversary” and I was drafting very fucking funny happy anniversary notes to go along with those flowers. And I was thinking you know that they might actually read as opposed to the emails I send asking for help.

Then I was like I should send them something. They won’t sit down with me to discuss why they can’t possibly prosecute this case. Maybe I could come to them and do a video presentation of the videos. Argue the case to them and see if that would help. Like that’s doable, they wouldn’t have to meet with me I could present it and host the videos on password protected page on the site. Case law links, digital academic links. I can present the case to them.

But how do I get them to watch it? Email is out I’ve been told I am in a filter. So how do I get their attention? Enough for them to look but you know not investigate me for whatever the hell they have been.

So Crazy Katie Choas. I’ll write them a fucking manual have it printed in hardback with very legal looking leather type cover. I think I’m hilarious. For a few minutes at least. Yeah, I'll just write the fucking legal handbook on it.

Then I realize I could do that actually. Ive been published I’ve presented at national conference. This is kind something I know how to do. I’m not a lawyer but I can sure as hell explain the psych with full academic analysis and proper and expansive citation. I have a social sciences degree. Research papers are my jam. It’s literally what I learned to do in grad school. I have a good foundation in American law with my history degree and publications.

I could keep going about how this happened (marijuana may have been involved) but the end result is kind of its own thing.

It turned into 3 booklets or as I am calling them Volumes and an interactive case study of my own case. I need to watch the videos again, but as I’m reading the psych and remembering you can see in the video certain classic trauma responses. I can show people exactly what the trauma look like in reality. I have it on video. Voice collapse show the moment the neurobiological system went way offline. You can see the coercion when he tells me he loves me and the control he had instantly. This is fascinating and there is a lot more there. It’s the tiny sounds and movement that are so indicative of these well established psycholocal trauma responses. It’s like you watch the neurons fire.

If I do this right, I could help people. I wouldn’t be screaming into the void. I am also a trained educator. The other degrees are in education. I can teach this. No problem. I can do instructional design. I just need to teach the prosecutors to be trauma informed and I have some pretty rare primary source material.

I’m not arguing my case. I’m arguing intimate partner sexual assault looks and feels like stranger sexual assault. But trauma bonding and coercive control etc takes it to a whole new level.

The Law of Trauma: Intimate Partner Sexual Assault

Three volumes:

Volume I: The Clinical Framework of Trauma-trauma science in a way that can be understood by legal professionals. Put the informed in the trauma informed.

Volume II: Legal Framework of Trauma-all case law and evidentiary procedure

Volume III: Prosecutorial Framework of Trauma-putting it together to prosecute with the science you just learned next to the case law you just learned. It’s the damn play book.

Then there will be the online case study. The password to the website will be in the book. 

So, I might be crazy and overestimating what kind of impact I could make for other women moving forward. But the 3 volumes will cost me about $30-40 to print each set or $10 if I do it in one. It’s a lot of work but I’ve barreled through a lot of it already. It is short chapters and it’s not like a definitive text on trauma science. More of a primer for being a trauma informed prosecutor.

I could finish this and send it to, and this is the joy of Crazy Katie Chaos, let’s say every DA’s office in Nevada to start. If I can just randomly hand them out and get someone to crack open the book out of curiosity then the next woman that comes in, has someone marginally trauma informed to help her and have him prosecuted. I mean I gotta be able to increase the odds at least.

Like Gideon’s Bible. They don’t hand them out for free because no one ever read them. They’re in every hotel because one day someone will read it. Even if it’s just one person out of a thousand you change something for them.

So here is my current personal favorite chapter it’s in Volume III:

CHAPTER 4 — “SHE IS CRAZY”
A Clinical and Legal Rebuttal to Mental-Health-Based Credibility Attacks in IPSA Cases