What It Feels Like to Be Wrongly Accused

Amanda Knox authored an essay that was published on October 1st entitled:What It Feels Like to Be Wrongly Accused.

We all remember the story of the American college student convicted of murder in Italy, her conviction being reversed and then her being convicted a second time in a re-trial held in absensia.

She wrote in part:

So what does it feel like?

When you’re accused of a horrific act you didn’t do, you inevitably experience shock, disorientation, confusion. There’s tension above your right eyebrow and below your right nostril that sometimes triggers both to twitch uncontrollably, making you self-conscious about looking people in the face. There’s a pinpoint knot that spasms between your shoulder blades, behind your heart, making it hard to sit still. There’s pressure that squeezes your temples and tingles on the edges of your eyeballs, making it hard to concentrate.

You sometimes feel dizzy, dazed, disoriented, forgetful, disconnected from your own body. You wake up drained, your whole body weighed down by a lethargy you can’t shake off. You feel a sometimes dragging, sometimes crushing weight. You’ll be tense from your ears to your lower abdomen, struggling to swallow, struggling to breathe. 

All of it, even years later, can transform into a full-blown panic attack—triggered by a ghost of a memory, or by a casual and unrelated event.