I don't want what happened to me to happen to somebody else, in the sense that I served my civic duty as a juror and then did not have the adequate support post-trial to allow me to come to terms with the imagery and experience that I went through and to be able to return to my life with a sense of normalcy.
I fell into a dizzying well, looking for some kind of support, after the trial was over. All the while, I was seeking out psychologists, interviewing them and hearing, “Well I'm not really qualified. I don't think I can really help you.” Then I would go on to the next one. I had a list of psychologists and as I was going down that list I was thinking to myself, “Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? This isn't right”. Then I had the sickening sensation, once I started to understand, that this had happened to not only me; it had happened to many people and it had been going on for far too long.
Yes, there are societal implications for people who develop long-standing mental illnesses. I can say it now. I have a mental illness. The fact that I did not spiral down any deeper into some of the sort of negative ill health effects and symptoms that accompany PTSD is a miracle. Jurors are plucked out of their day-to-day lives to perform a civic duty that they don't ask for. It's expected of them. It's part of the price we pay for citizenship within this great country. We owe it to them to support them as part of that service.