Almost nine years ago, I was physically assaulted by a stranger while at an upscale restaurant. It was one of those weird, random things: I had been standing in the entry vestibule with two girlfriends, waiting for the chef (who we knew) to come out and say hi. The main door behind us opened, and as we turned around to see who entered, my eyes locked with the crazed eyes of a homeless person, who had a large broomstick already in full swing. It landed right in the middle of my forehead, fracturing my skull, and giving me two black eyes in the process. He ran out of the restaurant, leaving my friends, thankfully, unharmed.

Luckily, the guy was caught -- a poor, homeless, drug-addicted man who probably had no idea what he was doing. Equally luckily, I'm fine -- no permanent damage, except for an inch-long scar on my forehead, just below my hairline.

Except.

Except that since the assault, even more than eight years later, I find myself with a lingering, irrational fear of homeless people. When I walk down the street, if I see a homeless person in my path, I'll cross the road -- fearfully, shamefully -- to avoid walking near the person, as if all people down on their luck are out to get me. Even more bizarrely, I occasionally find myself flinching if any person waves any sort of stick -- a pool cue, for example, or a broom -- and once, about a year after the assault, while playing a friendly game of billiards I inexplicably collapsed into tears.

The mind is a strange, wonderful thing, isn't it? Even though I consciously know that my experience was an odd, singular event, my subconscious still retains the memory of what happened in a way that defies logic sometimes. I mean, I'm fine, everything turned out okay, and yet I still have these lingering emotional scars. I can't imagine what someone who has experienced something truly traumatic -- a war, say, or sustained state of emergency -- must feel on a day-to-day basis, even if afterwards she maintains she's "fine."

Nonetheless, this emotional post from the blog "Motherless" gives us a glimpse. The article is written by "The Fat Lady Sings," and describes how her mother witnessed the torpedoing of the Lusitania (and the carnage which resulted). The author vividly describes how the images of death and the smell of the burning oil stayed with her mother even decades later, and affected her relationship with her children. Further, since the author penned the entry in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she wonders how the children who found themselves trapped in the Superdome, and who witnessed humanity reduced to its most base, will cope with the mental trauma which surely must have resulted, and which likely will affect them for years to come.

Of course, we'll never really know, but I suspect that some will use the experience to make them stronger, while others will be crippled by what they've seen. Nonetheless, by the time I finished reading the article, I found myself thinking about people who I know who are distant, or strangers who I've met who have been unreasonably cold -- could it be that their aloofness is a subconscious form of self-preservation? Could they have experienced something in their youth that affects their relationships with people today? Naturally, not all bad behaviour is a result of trauma, however, some might be...

... and keeping this in mind does make it easier to forgive, don't you think?
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Contributing Editor Karen Walrond is the author of the now-retired blog, Chookooloonks, and the very-much-alive photoblog, chookooloonks. Confused yet?