Arrested, Jailed and Deported from Japan: How PTSD Got Me Blacklisted for 50 Years from the Land of the Rising Sun
by Dan Bloom
Anxiety disorders are real and have enormous consequences. Try telling this to a Japanese public prosecutor or judge. Try explaining this to the Japanese Immigration Bureau or Justice Ministry. Chances are they won't understand.
Here's my story: in the summer of 1996, while working at a large Japanese newspaper company in Tokyo, I was arrested, jailed, tried in court and deported in handcuffs and then blacklisted for 50 years from entering Japan. My crime? Overstaying my visa in 1992 due to a severe case of PTSD that made it impossible for me to fly out of Japan to get a work permit stamped into my passport.
Let me backtrack here: in 1983, when I was 34, I was in a midair plane accident in Alaska during which the left engine of the DC-3 propeller plane I was riding in caught fire and threatened to bring us down. The fire raged for 20 minutes; I was the one who first reported it to a stewardess who the raced to the pilots' cabin. At one point, the pilot, a brave soul if ever there was one and who eventually landed the plane on a gravel airfield in Fairbanks, announced over the intercom: "We are going to attempt a crash landing in the mountains below! Please put your head between your knees and prepare!"
These were the worst 20 minutes of my life, staring what I thought was death outside my window, and the event severely traumatized me. For the next 8 years, I could not bring myself to fly again. I would try to make reservations for a vacation flight to Mexico, for example, only to find myself unable to sleep until I canceled the reservation the next day. I did this about 5 times, always ending in defeat, and finally gave up the idea of flying. It was okay: I had a good job as a newspaper editor in Alaska and the city I lived in afforded me all the pleasures I needed.
But one day in 1991, a little more than 8 years after the midair plane accident sidelined me from airplane travel, I decided to use all my willpower (and a few valium tabs) and fly to Japan to visit a friend. The drugs worked, and I made a successful flight to Tokyo. But once there, I had only 90 days until my tourist visa would run out. I knew this and prepared for the worst. I had hoped I could negotiate with the Japanese immigration authorities to extend my visa while remaining in Japan, an option that is sometimes granted in "case-by-case" Japan for people with medical problems.
By chance, I found a job at a Tokyo newspaper and decided to stay in Japan. Armed with a contract from a major Japanese company, I had hoped the Japanese immigration bureau would allow me to stay on the ground and not fly out of the country to get a work permit on the grounds that I had PTSD. There mere thought of flying again so soon after making my first flight in 8 years sent me into waves of panic and anxiety. When negotiations broke down (in other words, when the immigration authorities said "fear of flying" was no excuse -- "You flew into Japan, didn't you? So you can certainly fly out!) I took the situation into my own hands: I did nothing. I just let the deadline for flying out of the country lapse and felt an enormous sense of relief! Of course, I had broken the law, I knew this. But my first priority was to take care of my PTSD. Staying put in my apartment, going to work every day (without telling my boss about my "problem" for fear of ridicule) and not flying did the trick. I was okay.
For five years, I remained in Tokyo under these extreme circumstances: I was an illegal alien without a proper visa or work permit. In addition, I didn't have an alien registration card that all foreigners must obtain after staying more than 90 days in Japan. I was a law-breaker in a land where the law is very strict.
To make a long story short, the police finally caught up with me in 1996. They questioned me for 5 hours at a police station, fingerprinted me and took dozens of mugshots and then threw me to the public prosecutors office where I was indicted, arrested, detained for 42 days in a single cell at the Tokyo Detention House, tried in court, given a suspended jail sentence and deported. At no point during any of this did the Japanese authorities take into consideration the fact that I had a mental disorder that caused me to violate the law back in 1992. Neither the police nor the public prosecutor who indicted me nor the judge who sentenced me took into consideration my PTSD, even though I had a letter from a Japanese doctor verifying that I had a strong phobia about air travel. In addition, none of my Japanese colleagues or bosses understood what PTSD is and could not understand why a grown man could not bring himself to get into an airplane and fly a few hours to South Korea and back as most other foreign employees did.
One of my Japanese bosses said to me, when I tried to explain my situation, after the police had arrested me, "Are you a child? You flew to Japan, didn't you? Why couldn't you gly out, too?"
Deported in handcuffs at Narita airport in full view of the travelling public, with two police officers at my side, I was later blacklisted by the Immigration Bureau for 50 years. In other words, I can return to Japan in 2046.
I never told the authorities in Japan I was not guilty of violating the law. I admitted my guilt, I said I was sorry, I apologized to my company and to the court. But never once in the course of my ordeal was my PTSD ever taken into consideration. Apparently, Japanese people do not suffer from PTSD; only foreigners (who are not to be trusted anyway) suffer from these mental problems. Although nobody ever said this to me, it was apparent that in Japan people with PTSD are not taken seriously and their personal and career problems are not taken seriously either. You break the law, you go to court and face the consequences, as in any other country.
It's true, the law is the law, and I broke the law in Japan. But it was my hope that somehow, somewhere, I could find an understanding official in Japan who could help me explain my medical problem to the proper authorities. I would gladly have accepted being deported voluntarily and been banned for a year from re-entering Japan. But to have been treated the way I was and then blacklisted for 50 years for a crime that was never criminal in intent seems to me very uncivilized. Then again, I'm not a lawyer or an immigration specialist, so I don't know how other countries treat people who find themselves in situations like mine; I am not even sure how the USA would treat a foreigner with a case like mine.
But I hope that someday more understanding for people with severe phobias and PTSD can be shown by more and more countries. As the editor of this journal has stated: "Because of our collective knowledge in traumatology, we must work together through our professional societies and organizations to help those who are affected--in addition to those who are clients, informinggovernments about the consequences of anxiety disorders to help change laws, policies, and practices in appropriate ways."
I certainly messed up, and I blame no one but myself for my actions in Japan. But did I really deserve such severe punishment? My hope is that Japan, a country I dearly love despite my treatment there, can become better informed about the realities of PTSD and how such disorders can impact on a person's career and civic responsibilities. And not only Japan; all countries need to be better informed about these problems.
-- DAN BLOOM
danbloom@reporters.net 11/27/97
Copyright © 1998 Traumatology Forum
Green Cross
Forum
