I was once beaten senseless by a group of 3 young men when I decided to take an early-morning walk to get some smokes from the store down the way, in a sleepy small city in Ohio.

There was nothing that I was doing that was wrong in any way. I was quietly minding my own business when they came up from behind me with other ideas and one of them hit me in the side of my face, from behind, with an intensity that I'd never really experienced before in all of my years.

I lost hours of my memory and years of my mental health. I gained years of occasional intense neck pain that consistently put my mind in very dark places, and thousands of dollars of medical bills.

They gained two unopened packs of Camels and the pocket knife that I apparently failed to effectively utilize. I still had my wallet and my phone.

The police did nothing of any productive impact. A report was taken, and it was taken poorly. When 3 guys were arrested a couple of weeks later for robbing someone with a baseball bat and I recognized their pictures, they didn't care. I walked the local law-enforcement ladder all the way up to the city prosecutor, and also through parallels in the sheriff's department.

Nothing was productively done on my behalf.

It made me feel so angry and powerless. A follow-up that I requested came along with the cop that took the first report, and resulted in such profound and obtuse stonewalling that I became tremendously and irreverently furious. I left the room, while demanding from the other side of a wall that he get the fuck out of my apartment.

This all conspired to make it clear that it was my cross to bear. Nobody of any influence was going to help me along the way.

(I'd probably have a very different story to tell if I'd shot the attackers all dead, but I don't have that story. I was not equipped to do that so there is no direct comparison here for me to make. It is definitely my hope that I never have any opportunities to make such a comparison.)