Have any of you ever been arrested for something you truly didn't do, or as a consequence of trying to do someone a favor?

Oh, my. That’s awful! I certainly hope your ‘friend of long standing’ backs you up, and convinces the authorities that you had nothing to do with it. If you are truly dealing with PTS, you really should see someone about it. It will help, I promise.

[mod says] Please save the jokes until the question has some legitimate answers.

First off, that sucks, no way around that.

Second, I haven’t been there, so what I can say is hypothetical. I’ve come close to having the police called on me for making a scene when in my view it was 100% justified for me to do so, and that pissed me off even more when they start to throw out those kinds of threats. My situations don’t compare to yours, so I won’t go there.

I will hope that if all you did was accept a gift in good faith, not having any reason to believe it was stolen property then if the charges haven’t already been dropped, they will be soon, or at worst you’ll have to lawyer up. As for losing your faith in law enforcement, consider it from their point of view, which I’m sure is hard for you to do, but hey, a crime WAS committed and they managed to find the stolen property quite quickly…to me even though you got royally hosed…they did their job very well.

I guess in terms of feeling alone, even if no one here can commisserate with you, it’s not as if you’re the only person who’s ever been arrested without having done anything wrong. For example, have you heard of the Innocence Project? It’s an organization dedicated to exhonerating wrongly convicted inmates by using DNA evidence. Since 1992, they’ve exhonerated 240 people, including 17 on death row. Imagine, there are indeed people out there who almost DIED because they were wrongly arrested and convicted for something they didn’t do. I’m not saying it makes what you went through any better, but I am saying that some times mistakes are made, some times you are judged by the company you keep, and some times you get punished for things you didn’t do. It’s not fair, it’s not right, and I think to some degree (though probably not to this particular degree), everyone on the planet has been blamed for something they had no part in, and felt it wasn’t fair. Sure, few have had to endure a night in jail, but it does happen.

As for how you feel, I’d say it’s natural, haivng just gotten out today to really feel still victimized, upset, pissed off, scared, abused, etc. I would suspect that most likely you will come to terms with it, but if you don’t, then I would think it’s not bad to talk to someone about it.

I would just say that were it me, I would have many of the same feelings you have, I would have a hard time dealing with it, I would be screaming to the top of my lungs about it to everyone who would listen, I would probably be looking into suing the police for false arrest, I would have a literal conniption…but I’d get over it with time.

@truecomedian – I’m no mod, and I reported you. This person had a traumatic experience and is legitimately looking for some support. Your smart ass comment at this point was not only unhelpful, but unbelievably crass and mean spirited. I love a joke as much as the next person, but if I were a mod, I wouldn’t just have told you politely to wait until after some real answers had been posted, I would have removed your comment, and your downright insubordinate attitude would have earned you a boot right the fuck off the site. Had the tone of this converstaion become one where the asker had come down to earth a bit and people were having playful banter, your comment would have been witty, but it strikes me as a real dick move being the second response to a question like this.

I was accused of sexual harassment on the job, falsely. Being accused of something you didn’t do is one of the worst feelings in the world.

Doesnt everyone in Prison believe something like this? :P

I was arrested on false allegations that I threatened to harm a friend (now, former friend). I was not in a wheelchair yet, but was hardly mobile and couldn’t harm anyone. It was a woman who made the allegations and the cops had to go on her word and just to be safe, they arrested me (tho they were good guys and hardly had the heart in doing it). She also told them I was suicidal so I was given a lovely private cell and put on suicide watch (hourly checks). The guy in the cell next to me was a nutcase and wouldn’t shut up. I was arrested on a Friday evening and did not want to spend the weekend in jail so I paid a bail bondsman $5000 to get me out (if I recall, total bail was $30K). I was out in well under 24 hours, but it was not fun. The D.A. did not press charges, but I was out the $5000 for bail. While in jail, she stoled property of mine. I sued her for restitution and won, but I have not made an attempt to collect. I have no idea where she is nor do I care to find out. See ya…..Gary/wtf

What really makes me furious with the police is that my neighbor was not arrested but I was, and he was trying to make money off of it, and I wasn’t. The officer did not even give me a chance to finish one sentence and was aggressively rude from the start. I was already on the phone with the nursery owners when the police arrived, and they at least are on my side and know I didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, they even offered me one of the pieces of pottery that I’d had hanging on the baby’s wall free, but I declined wihtout paying for it. I was and am beside myself at the notion that my things might have been taken from someone else. My friend who gave it to me has traced this pottery back to a man that used to work at this nursery and was fired for money being missing, who had given it to his uncle, who also owns a nursery in a neighboring town. It is pretty straightforward and I do not believe they can make this stick, but I was arrested in front of my entire neighbor and and far worse, my 12 year old son, who is seeing a counselor for this currently. There was nothing quite like spending the night with a prostitute when I cried all night for my then 8 week old son!!

I should add that another thing in my favor other than my contacting the nursery owners before the police arrived and their willingness to make a deposition about it is the fact that I have one very good character witness: my bank manager can testify that I returned an envelope containing just over $4000 and a transaction slip that I’d found in the parking lot. This was right before Xmas and I admit I was sorely tempted to keep it but couldn’t do it.

don’t worry so much , when you go to court the facts will come out and they’ll drop the charges. The police will have interviewed your “friend” and so will your lawyer. It’ll come out and what will probably happen is that your ‘friend’ will have to pay some sort of restitution to the nursery , and they’ll probably drop all charges and so will the state. Or the original guy that stole them in the first place. Cops are always rude. It’s a mess and very stressful and embarassing but you’ll be ok and so will your family.

Is there a particular reason you are afraid to see a therapist?

For some reason I just have a very pronounced reluctance to do it. It is very difficult for me to force myself to go places lately. I feel like I am under a microscope, like I am not quite right in some way and that it shows. I was not like this before all of this happened. I feel something close to terror when I have to do something as simple as pick my sons up from school, like everyone is staring at me. This may sound silly but it does not feel that way at all.

@turtlegrrrl Therapists can come to your home. You wouldn’t need to go out. This sounds like Anxiety to me. I capitalized it because I mean Anxiety in the sense that your really should be working with someone about it, not just general anxiety.

Definitely possible PTSD. You had a traumatic event and if you are stressed out because of it past the point that you or people around you think is at all reasonable, you might be dealing with a diagnosable disorder rather than just feeling freaked out. Since your son is going to therapy, I would ask his therapist if there is someone who can come to you in-home so you don’t have to come out of your safe place in order to get help. Feeling like you don’t want to come out of the house is one of the things that can happen to people who have had traumatic things happen to them, its not at all uncommon. So… you might not be ok, but you’re not weird! If that helps!

As far as therapy if you choose to seek help, I would expect to feel a little more uncomfortable the first (and maybe second) meeting and more examined than you’re really ok with. The therapist will have to learn about you and the problem which means talking about things that aren’t easy so that they can learn enough to help you. Its like anything else that will have to get a little worse in order to get better. Its important to continue on for a couple of sessions at least so that the therapist has a chance to help you once they get to know you and the problem. If you quit after the first session because it was uncomfortable then you’re doing ourself a disservice because if you ever want to go back, you’ve got to go back over the entire beginning bit again before anything can be done to help you, really doing yourself a disservice. In one place where I worked, if someone hadn’t been seen in a couple of months they had to go through the intake process again before seeing anyone for a real session. That really sucked for some of them who were coming back expecting a therapy session since they’d already done one intake.

Good luck!

I been arrested once, for pissing in a fountain.