Psychological
The most horrible thing I've ever seen isn't the most disgusting. There's no blood, no bones, no internal organs of any kind.

Let me set the scene: Back when I was but a wee 13-year-old, I was a suck-up little shit out for his Duke of Edinburgh's award. As opposed to all the others doing the award for a chance to fuck off camping, I ended up doing all the other bits as well. One of the four sections of the award was volunteering for something, and after wracking my brains, I volunteered at an old people's home not far from my family's home in Hull.

What I didn't know until my first day is that the home was for old people with senile dementia. Some of them were good enough to go to the shops by themselves, others needed someone to feed them and "clean them up" when they shat themselves. Guess what job I got? Still better than bathing the old sods. For some reason, I was fine being up to my elbows in faeces, but touching another man's willy was (and is) right out.

None of that was the most horrific thing I've seen. No, that award goes to one of the old dears. She was 80 if she was a day, and normally fine -- she could feed herself, knew when she needed the khazi, and generally was the life of the old place. Until something set her off.

The first time I saw her go off was in the day room. The old buggers were sat around reading the paper very slowly, doing the crossword, or watching telly, when this old dear starts screaming her lungs out. Disturbing, but it sometimes happens. She got it together enough to shriek words next: "No daddy, I've been a good girl, I promise." I asked if she did this when I wasn't around, and one of the nurses told me that yes, she did. Foolishly, I asked if anyone knew what she was re-living. They did.

Every Sunday for the best part of five months, I would sit in the day room of this old people's home, listening to an old woman who was otherwise the shining light of the place re-live one of the many times that her father, grandfather, and uncle gang-raped her. When I tried to calm her down, she spat at me and called me by her father's name.

Yeah, this story has no punchline. It left me feeling like shit for quite a while, though.
(DigitalRaven will have to make do with gin, Fri 22 Jun 2007, 20:14, Reply)