Category Archives: Evil

The Expulsion

18 Sunday Sep 2022

Posted by in addiction, Catholicism, christianity, empathy, Evil, kids, love, parenting, PTSD, Rape, Sin

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Judith Herman

tells us that trauma is abandonment, being abandoned by all the people who were supposed to protect us, even ourselves, even God. to be utterly alone. when we shouldn’t be. when we least expected it. not knowing will we live or will we die, will this black hole we are falling into ever end.

In church

They tell us that Hell is the absence of God. No need for fire and brimstone. There is nothing worse than to be left by God. And so, trauma is Hell

In the Bible

Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge and were banished from the Garden of Eden. Never to return. A life of toil and sickness and pain and death. Final. No way to earn their way back to Eden.

Our parents

Are the source of us. The holy Mother and Father of us. And when they unleash a rage that has no borders, we are Alone. we grow up and roam the earth, trying to find our way back to the Garden. But there is no going back

We cannot go back, only through. Onward into the valley of tears. Where God hears us and loves us but cannot save us. Where he gives us the ability to love one another, hear one another, comfort one another, but not to save one another.

Loving and saving are not the same thing. And that which your parents couldn’t give you will never be found in someone else. There is only one person capable of never leaving you, and that’s you.

And you

are enough

I hope you know I’m sitting with you too

18 Saturday Jun 2022

Posted by in Evil, love, narcissism, parenting, PTSD, Rape, residency, Sin

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I got my living room and dining room ready to paint last night. It was a loooooot of painter’s tape. Like, a lot. I was spent by the time I finished. I headed to bed and decided to read a little of my book about Abraham Lincoln and John Brown and then go to sleep. I was soon interrupted, however, by my son telling me the toilet was flooding the bathroom. And it was.

I stood in 2 inches of water while plunging the toilet with one hand and holding up the ball float with the other. Tried to turn the water off but the valve wouldn’t budge. Once the toilet was unclogged my son helped me construct a duct tape sling to hold the ball float up while I researched how to fix it. I got out my single lady fix it guide

and it was fixed in no time. Well, it was a bit of a struggle but pretty quickly anyway.

I also replaced the P trap on my kitchen sink recently. And laid some flooring. In the past couple of years I have dealt with mice and bats, sewage back ups, the moving of numerous heavy objects and setting up of various electronics. And it makes me realize how much I let myself rely on other people to do so many things, basic things. Not just plumbing and heavy lifting. I spent so many years feeling like there were only a few very specific things I was capable in. There was always a dad or a husband to depend on. And that’s what I chose to do.

I don’t know if I’ll ever find my person and have a long term relationship but if I do, it will be very different than it always has been. Because I’m very different than I always have been. I used to want someone to take care of me and someone I could take care of. In a childlike way.

Dependent on each other, chasing and being chased by one another, idealizing and devaluing one another. Anything to avoid stillness, connection, intimacy, vulnerability. It’s not just romantic relationships. It’s with everyone in my life and even with myself.

So many people went mad with the pandemic because they were left alone with themselves. In silence and stillness. And so many of us fear it. Because we fear knowing ourselves. We fear the shame, the weaknesses, the parts we’ve been taught are unlovable. We fear ourselves. Because we are the ones that have kept us from getting that hole inside of us filled. Surely it must be our fault. And who would want to know someone like that? Spend time with someone like that?

Judith Herman says trauma is being abandoned. By everyone who was supposed to protect us, humans and God himself. But who is the one who ultimately failed us? It was us. It was me. I made my choices. I just didn’t know how bad it would get. Didn’t know it would never end.

I have a ritual I complete each time I move. My therapist taught me that when I was fixating on something I should picture taking that thought and putting it in a box and placing that box on a shelf for later. I was fixating on The Ordeal at the time so I took the court transcript and literally put it on a shelf in the hall closet. It worked. Now each time I move I take that box and put it in the hall closet of my new house. And if there is a day I need to take it down for a while, I do. And when I’m done I put it back.

My ex-husband reads this blog and looks for things to use against me. I wish he wouldn’t but such he life. My therapist asked me recently why I keep writing it if it bothers me. There are a lot of facets to that answer. One being that trauma is lonely. If you were in war or a natural disaster, you have other people who went through it with you. But most of us who were raped went through it alone. And sometimes you need to talk to someone who knows what it was like. And that person doesn’t exist. And for me, this blog, I know it reaches other people who’ve been through the same thing. Not a lot, but a few anyway. I feel like someone might be listening who understands. And sometimes, when the box is off the shelf, I really need that.

I do my best to forgive myself for the choices I’ve made because wallowing in guilt does no good and is insincere. It is an indulgence. I sit with myself, but sometimes it’s okay to need someone sitting there with you in the darkness. Not because you can’t be alone but because it would be nice to not be alone for a while.

I hope you are out there sitting with me. I hope you know I’m sitting with you too. He did unspeakable things to me. Maybe someone did to you too. I tried to not write about trauma today. I tried to write about how proud I am of myself for fixing the toilet. But I would be lying if I said the box isn’t down right now. That I didn’t read through his appeals last night, late into the night, long after the toilet was fixed and the water mopped up.

christofascism

04 Wednesday May 2022

Posted by in addiction, Catholicism, christianity, Evil, kids, love, outrage, parenting, Politics, PTSD, Rape, Sin

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Nowhere in the Bible does it say life begins at conception. Nowhere in the Bible does it say 10 year old girls ought to carry and birth their father’s baby if he chooses to rape her which fathers sometimes do. To think this is what God would want says an awful lot about a person. And it isn’t good.

Howard Zinn says you can’t be neutral on a moving train and so I want to hear from my Christian sisters today. I want to hear them screaming for the women who will die, the girls who will die, for the dreams that will die. They asked Jesus the most important commandments and he said love God and love one another. Why is that so fucking hard for so many ChRiStIaNs?

Contraception is next. Do you know I didn’t use contraception for years and I’ve never been a fan and it’s failed me on occasion and I still will give my all to defend our right to it. Do you know the horrors I have seen come of lack of access to effective contraception? Where are you my fellow Christians? With your youth groups and your worship songs and your testimony? Jesus hung with the prostitutes and the lepers. She had two beautiful kids and a hole inside of her so wide and so deep because she’d never been loved and only ever been hurt and that third baby done did her in and now all three of the babies are with someone else and she is in jail detoxing meth psychosis and I miss her so damn much. She chopped wood at 8 months pregnant to try to make enough money to keep the water on. And where were you? At yOuTh GrOuP

I sat in my car and cried for the world we’ve given our kids. I tried. I believed. But here we are. Poor lost children of Eve banished from Eden. But Eden wasn’t enough. Or maybe it was too much. We wanted that apple and who could blame us? How boring a perfect life must be. So huddle together in this Whale with me and let us tell each other tales until the light goes out.

Fuck Ted Bundy

31 Thursday Mar 2022

Posted by in Catholicism, christianity, empathy, Evil, kids, love, marriage, my awesome husband, narcissism, outrage, parenting, PTSD, romance, Sin

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Flesh of my flesh

Bone of my bone

Leave your parents cleave to me 

I am your new home

Home forever

Til death do us part

And if I make you yearn for that end 

Why that’s hardness in your heart

For if you love God

You love marriage, you love me 

And you know when God joins together

You’ll never be free

Free to be who you really are

To follow the fate signed in your stars

No you are mine and I am yours 

Don’t lock your phone 

Don’t lock your doors

We are one in heart and soul 

We are both driven by the hole 

left behind by the barren wombs that birthed us underneath the moon

Mother moon has cried for us while Brigid’s fire inspired us 

To reach for something better than us 

Wait Did I say us? 

I meant me. 

You conjure planks in all our eyes 

But yours are fine 

(It’s a disguise) 

A pleasant reflection outside of you 

Rot and decay is what is true

What god has joined together I will put asunder 

For how can we be one when your trunk is putrid and diseased at its core?

Swoop up the fruit before it hits the floor 

If you can tell a tree by the fruit it bears you’ve done a damn good job of fooling God 

For our children are precious fruit indeed 

Owing little to your bitter seed 

They grow and bloom in spite of you 

Soaring so far past the height of you 

Knowing there is something not right with you

People look at the women that fell in love with Ted Bundy

Stood by Ted Bundy

Accepted a proposal in a courtroom from Ted Bundy

And they think these women are naive or dumb or victims themselves

But has it ever occurred to you that they were there because being in love with Ted Bundy worked for them?

Instead of looking at him as this charming manipulative sociopath fooling these women

Has it occurred to you that she was manipulating him too?

Judas and Ted Bundy and Jeremy Noyes 

Sinners that God so loved he gave his only son 

God and Abraham would sacrifice their sons for the sins of the world

And so do you think yourself holy when you hurt your kids to hurt their mother? To punish her for leaving? For putting asunder what You joined together?

Because it was never about God 

And always about you 

And you, are a jealous and vengeful little demigod 

So easily beat by Brigid and Mother Moon

Drip, drip, drip (better times up round the bend)

25 Friday Jun 2021

Posted by in empathy, Evil, kids, love, marriage, my awesome husband, narcissism, PTSD, Rape, romance, Sin, Uncategorized

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Water torture encompasses a variety of techniques using water to inflict physical or psychological harm on a victim as a form of torture or execution

I’d like to start this post by pointing out the term “Chinese water torture” is racist and nonsensical actually. When this torture technique has been used, it has been mainly by Europeans and there’s no recorded instances of the Chinese ever having used it.

Ok, onward and upward.

There’s this book by Lundy Bancroft I bought years ago titled “Why Does He Do That?” It’s about abusive partners and the many myths that surround our ideas of abuse. He’s a counselor that works with abusive men who either want to change or have been forced by the courts to undergo counseling. We often say abusive men need to learn to manage their anger but Bancroft argues that abuse isn’t an issue of out of control anger. Rather, it is a systemic, deliberate process used to control for the benefit of the abuser. They don’t need to learn to control themselves; they need to learn to stop controlling their partner (and everyone else in their lives they’re controlling).

In the book, he details ten different categories of abusers. The one I am going to talk (err-write) about today is the Water Torturer.

We’re all familiar with the idea of water torture. Not the waterboarding done by the US government. Rather, this idea of tying someone down and dripping water down onto their forehead slowly, drip by drip. The drops come randomly and it induces a psychological breakdown.

Lundy uses this as a metaphor for the kind of abuser who doesn’t yell or hit. He is always calm and appears to the outside world to be a great guy. He rarely slips up and lets anyone see what he’s really like. He knows how to push his partner’s buttons and get *her* to scream and get emotional. Then he says “why are you getting so worked up?” “you really need to work on your mental health problems” “stop abusing me.” He doesn’t punch or kick but he engages in subtle physical abuse such as blocking her from leaving the room or following her around the house arguing when she tries to get away. He doesn’t engage in blatant sexual abuse such as rape but rather makes degrading comments about her sexual interests, her appearance or withholds sex. He makes extensive use of sarcasm, put downs, controlling where she goes, controlling money, undermining her sense of self worth, isolating her from friends and family, badmouthing her to other people and gaslighting. Lots and lots of gaslighting.

Because you see, like Harry Houdini who helped popularize the idea of water torture, he depends upon an illusion to keep her with him. He depends on creating distractions so neither she nor the outside world can see what he really is and what he’s really doing.

The good news, friends, is that you don’t have to remain strapped down to that table. The damage done by this abuse is extensive, but most definitely something you can heal from.

You just have to keep in mind the Wizard of Oz is not real and keep your eyes on the little man behind the curtain. It’s hard to do, but you’re a badass so you got this.

I see this a lot in my practice. I have women who come in with black eyes and broken ribs, but more often they come in telling me stories of emotional abuse like this. They’ve been so worn down by it, like a pebble in a stream that becomes small and smooth over time from the water flowing over it. They are too tired and broken to leave. And they’re in love. And they’re addicted to the chemicals our brains grow to crave when we’ve been in toxic, tumultuous relationships for so long.

The University of Illinois did some research and noticed there are 5 stages to leaving an abusive relationship. The first two stages encompass the very beginning of the abused partner noticing there is something very wrong, something that goes beyond normal relationship issues. She’s nowhere close to leaving, but the spell has started to wear off. Stage three, women start to notice the effect of the abuse on their children. They start viewing the abuser’s behavior as abuse on a regular basis. And they start preparing to leave. Maybe they tell a friend what’s going on. Start stashing away cash in case they need to run. Call a domestic violence line. Stage four is an interesting one.

Stage four is the yo yo stage. You leave but then you come back. You might end up yo yo-ing several times before you truly leave. Why? Because he says he’ll change. Because being on your own is hard, financially, logistically (with kids), emotionally. Because he gets other people to guilt trip you. Because he won’t “give up on you.” Because you’re addicted to the brain chemicals. Because this dynamic is comfortable to you. Because you love him.

Stage five is the final one. You have left and you have stayed away and aren’t going back. The researchers define this as having left and stayed away 6 months or more. The abuse can continue if there are children involved and you are forced to have continue contact with your abuser, but it’s much less than before and you can begin to heal and move on.

It’s hard as doctor to have patients in those first four stages. Hard for friends and family too. But you can’t skip stages and you can’t rush someone through them. They have to make the choice to leave and stay left. You can support them by listening without judgement and validating their feelings. If you’re a friend or family, offering help with kids and other logistics can help too. And if they yo yo back, be there for them. They may be afraid to tell you. They may avoid you. Don’t give up on them. The abuser will likely make even greater attempts to isolate his partner if she goes back, so stay in her life whatever way you safely can and let her know you’re there is she ever needs you.

A lot of doctors shy away from dealing with the issue of intimate partner violence because they find it so frustrating to have a patient that won’t leave or who goes back. There are a lot of reasons women stay or return. And the sad reality is, sometimes it’s safer or necessary for her to stay. Being there to keep her as safe and supported as possible is hard, but it can be life changing for her. If you abandon her because she won’t leave, you’re just continuing the patten of the abuser, seeking to control her.

The longer you stay, the harder it is to leave. So, if you’re in a relationship with a water torturer, don’t put off considering leaving. A lot of times the reasons we come up with to stay aren’t as convincing if we discuss them with someone outside the relationship like a therapist, domestic help line or friend. Once you’re down in his world of gaslighting, isolation and control, your sense of reality is skewed. You need someone who isn’t riding that Tilt-A-Whirl.

Once you are out, the healing is not necessarily the most fun process. It’s kind of like when someone is getting over opiate addiction. There’s a lot they need to dig out from. A lot of pain and sadness and the practical part of rebuilding your life. But there’s also joy. And as the months pass, there is less and less pain and more and more joy. And you will look back and say, how did I do that all those years? How did I survive? And you’ll see what a badass you are. And that there are far better things at the carnival than the broken Tilt-A-Whirl. And you and your kids will eat cotton candy and laugh and sleep soundly at the end of the day cozy in your warm, safe beds.

Lassoing the Beast

24 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by in christianity, empathy, Evil, kids, love, marriage, medicine, my awesome husband, narcissism, PTSD, Rape, Sin, Uncategorized

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I do not think that I have ever seen a case where the sentencing goal of protection of the public figured more predominantly. Anyone who sat through this trial would realize that this defendant is the worst nightmare of every child’s parent. The entirely credible and overwhelming evidence demonstrated that the defendant is a dangerous predatory sadist…
Hon Sean McLaughlin, sentencing of Jeremy Noyes

golden lasso

A package arrived today. A hoody. Oh, how I love a good hoody. Is there anything better? Cozy and comfy and flattering on people of all shapes and sizes. Maybe it’s because I grew up crushing on boys with long hair in hoodies and Vans, but hoodies hold a special place in my heart. Back to present day: the hoody that arrived was blazoned with Beast on the Bay. Because I have decided to run the Beast on the Bay again this year.

Regular readers may recall that in 2018, I ran the Beast as part of my ten year anniversary of my trauma. It inspired me to get into shape and do something that felt impossible. It also happened to be in Erie, where my trauma occurred and is sponsored by my old med school, who made the trauma significantly worse. I was not able to run the race in 2019 because the previous summer, in the best shape of my life, I had suddenly developed a mysterious autoimmune neurologic disorder a week before I was to run a different obstacle course race, the Spartan. Now, within this surreal time of quarantine, I’ve decided to do it again this September (if it’s not cancelled).

I had come to some new revelations on Easter Sunday. Not regarding God or Armageddon or resurrection. Regarding my immune system.

antibody_1_1

In order for me to explain, let’s rewind to June 2019.

I’d been in training for 14 months and was in peak form. My body fat percentage was its lowest ever. I could run a 9 minute mile. I was pumping out burpees like a champ. I felt amazing. On Sunday, my husband I went to a local Crossfit gym to do a class and practice rope climbing. I’d never climbed a rope in my life. I never even tried in gym class as a kid because I was convinced I couldn’t do it and would just embarrass myself. I knew I needed to climb one for the race coming up the following Saturday so we went and the owners gave me some tips and I did it! I was so damn proud of myself.

The next morning I woke up and felt sick: I was exhausted, my muscles ached and felt weak. It wasn’t the way I felt after a really brutal workout. It was the way I felt when I had the flu. I decided I better give into it and rest as much as possible but I’d been planning on working out leading up until a couple days before the race. I needed to get better quick, though , so I cancelled the workouts. By the time Friday came, I was still exhausted and I knew I needed to cancel the race. I was heartbroken. I’d worked so hard and it meant a lot to me. It was odd I was still feeling just as bad six days in, so on Saturday instead of going to the race, I went to Quest to get some bloodwork drawn.

Over the next few months I saw neurologists and rheumatologists. I had bloodwork, MRIs, EMGs, and EEGs. I began to piece together symptoms I’d been having in the months leading up to my exhaustion. Blistering on my lips I’d assumed were cold sores (they weren’t). Neuropathy in my arms and legs after showering. A tightening of my rib muscles during a run. At one point, my calves swelled and hardened during a run, forcing me to stop. My fine motor skills were off and I was having more of the involuntary muscle movements I’d gotten for years. I was losing my balance more often too.

pemphigus

None of the doctors ever arrived at a diagnosis and I was told to deal with it and be grateful it wasn’t something bad. I wasn’t. How could we know if it would get really bad or not if we didn’t know what it was? I had plenty of patients in the same boat. Vague autoimmune symptoms and slightly off labs but no clear clinical picture of a known disorder. They often found their way to my doorstep looking for help from medical marijuana (Which is smart because it helps both the symptoms and has immune modulating effect which can help longterm outcomes). I was now one of them.

I tried changing to a plant based ketogenic diet but it only seemed to make it worse (and was unpleasant as hell to eat). I tried forcing myself to exercise but it made it worse too. I would have a few days where I felt pretty good, but the symptoms always returned. That is, until November.

In late November, my husband moved out. Our marriage ended. And so did my symptoms. I hadn’t been expecting such a dramatic reaction on the part of my body, but there it was. Fatigue, pain, weakness, skin blistering, muscle jerking, neuropathy. Gone. My toxic marriage had been killing me. My body was sending me one last desperate message before it gave up the fight. And it worked.

What can make you more grateful for the movement of your body than losing it?

There has been a lot going on in my life since then. Divorce, buying a new house and moving in less than two weeks before Christmas, and the in and out of court of a high conflict divorce and custody battle. Finally as February came to a close I felt like things had settled down and I was ready to start working out again and go on a diet to shed the weight I’d gained since June. It went well for a couple weeks and then buh buh buh, quarantine! And it all went to pot. Like it did for all of you.

2AP1TD2-b598c7937e0cb7c3ddb3d98f6d897d82

No more daycare. No more school. Time to homeschool 3 kids and take care of a preschooler. And now you have to take your medical practice and completely restructure it because you can’t do office visits anymore. And no one can help you because it’s a freaking quarantine. And did I mention the high conflict divorce I’m in? Yeah, those don’t improve with quarantine either.

And then we got sick. March 22nd, my four year old and I woke up with a fever, sore throat and cough. Exhausted, body aches, chills, no appetite. Then the other three kids got it. We didn’t qualify for COVID testing so I put us into complete isolation (actually considerably worse than regular quarantine life, believe it or not) and waited for it to pass. But it didn’t. The fever would sometimes for 24 or even 72 hours, but it always came back. We’re now on Day 33. I eventually coerced an urgent care into giving me a test despite not meeting criteria on Day 24 when our fevers went up higher than ever. The test came back negative but they told me false negatives were common and I should consider getting tested again. I consulted with my mentor, the best doctor I know. He said he thought it was COVID and a false negative. I agreed.

bodyHappenFever-1006577818-770x553-650x428

If you consider the other things in the differential diagnosis (cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, Epstein Barr virus, CMV, Lyme disease), none of them made as much sense as COVID.

And so, here we sit in isolation. Now, back to the Beast. I was in a lull of symptoms two weeks ago on Easter Sunday. I was sitting watching a local church service on my big screen TV while my kids ate their candy and watched their iPads, and a verse struck me.

A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

And I realized my husband had ruined my relationship with God. Because that’s what abusive people do. They isolate you. From friends and family and, sometimes, if they’re really good at it, God. I realized how far from God I’d gotten, and how I couldn’t separate God from my husband and the harm he does. And I realized it was now time to stop. And I said hello to God again.

I realized something else that night as I stayed up late journaling about all my newfound epiphanies. I was ready to get in shape and lose weight again. But I needed something to focus on, a race. I thought of the Beast. But when I thought of it, my stomach dropped. I realized the thought of running it alone, without my husband, scared me. That I felt like his ghost would be haunting me the entire time. And most things that scare you, are the things most worth doing. And then it occurred to me. The timing of the onset of my autoimmune issues. I’ve always noted the cruel irony of it beginning right as I was to run an obstacle course race even harder than the Beast, that I’d trained for for so long. Right at my physical peak. My husband was going to run the Spartan with me just like he’d run the Beast with me. He jumped on the Beast wagontrain late in the game. He said he didn’t think I’d actually train and go through with it so he waited. Like it was such a big freaking honor to have him run it. He took something that was mine and made it his. He was jealous. And he was going to take the Spartan from me too. He had spent years complaining I was fat and had a flat butt but when I got in shape, he was so damn jealous, he did everything he could to undermine me. And he couldn’t let me have the Beast, my moment. I didn’t finish high in the Beast, mind you. I couldn’t do about a third of the obstacles. But I finished. And I was so damn proud. He acted proud too: proud of us, proud of his wife, of himself. His wife, not me. His possession that reflects on him. That was what he showed the world. A few weeks after we finished it, I put a “I Beat the Beast” bumper sticker on my car and he looked at it and said “You didn’t beat the beast. You didn’t finish all the obstacles.” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what he shows his family. For out the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. I stood up to him and told him I had finished and tried all the obstacles and that was a big accomplishment for me. He gave me a shitty look and walked off.

MasHNGXj_400x400

He took the Beast from me and my body wasn’t going to let him take the Spartan. Maybe that’s why it shut down. Maybe my heart called up my immune system and said, if he does it to her one more time I’m going to break. And my immune system said, ok, time for the Hail Mary. We will throw the switch and shut the whole plant down and give her some time to sit and think. And if she won’t walk away, we’ll leave her there sitting. And if she does, she’ll run it for her. And my heart blew my immune system a kiss and my immune system blushed. Maybe. Maybe it was a gift from my body.

So, I signed up for the Beast. And ordered a hoody. And the next day fruits and vegetable and water became a thing again at our house. Planning and cooking dinners because a nightly thing. And working out resumed for me and my kids too. Life was good. I was triumphant!

But then life happened. Our fever has taken up residence and work and homeschooling are getting harder instead of easier. Yada yada yada. I’m back down for the count. But I’m not cancelling the Beast. I am running it, come hell or high water or fever or economic collapse. Even if it takes me ten hours, I’m running it.

I cried a good bit during the Beast the last time I ran it. Cried for what Jeremy did to me, for what my school did to me, for what their mom having PTSD took from my kids, for all the other survivors I know who will never see justice like I did. I imagine I will cry this time too, for a whole other set of reasons.

My high conflict divorce has been nastier than ever this past week. We may soon go before the judge via teleconference (ya know, quarantine) and I am scared my husband will convince the judge he’s the guy out there bragging about his wife running the Beast, instead of who he really is, the guy denigrating his wife when she dared to be proud of herself. But this is not my first rodeo, dear reader. I have sat in court with a man who accused me of lies before and I have spoken the truth and justice prevailed. I will lasso the Beast again this time. And I will put on my hoody and take a run and thank my heart for being so damn good to me.

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America we’ve given you all and that’s not nothing (or Narcissus needs a drink)

11 Wednesday Mar 2020

Posted by in empathy, Evil, love, medicine, narcissism, Uncategorized

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America
I’m addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I’m obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It’s always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody’s serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.
*
*
*

I have spent a lot of time reading about narcissism lately. I have my reasons I won’t go into here. An unexpected outcome of this research is the realization almost every politician in the Democratic primary is above average on the naricissim spectrum, some just as high as Trump. One in particular. The one who had to drop his bid in 1988 because he was exposed as a pathological liar and plagiarist. The one whose toxic masculinity led him to challenge someone to a fist fight recently. The one who has assured the billionaires “nothing will change.” And a relationship with a narcissist, my dear reader, only ends one of two ways: you wake up and leave or they suck the life out of you. The Democratic electorate has chosen the latter. It is narcissist versus narcissist in 2020 (it has been before, to be fair) . We will all lose no matter which one wins. If Biden wins, we are left with an America still under the conditions that created Trump and we will either get another Trump or …. Trump. Do you really think leaving the White House will make Trump go away? He has created a movement and they will follow him where he leads. The presidency,  my dear reader, may become significantly less relevant. The question is, will the movement Bernie is driving remain intact to counter it?

 

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I think of the people most affected by all this and I cry. My addiction patients in rural Pennsylvania, their children. They don’t even realize just how different much of America is living. And most of America doesn’t realize how they’re living. If they did, I’d like to think things would be different. But narcissists are very good at gaslighting and projecting and lying. Lying especially. Lots of lying. And if you’re a decent, feeling, empathetic human being, it is hard to resist. It is hard for for you to conceive that such a person could exist. Someone with no empathy and no remorse. Entirely self serving with nothing to limit what they’ll do to get it. Try to imagine. It should scare you. Terrify you.

I believe most Americans are decent people trying to get by in the face of a lot of hardship. I see it in my office everyday. Not just my most vulnerable patients, my middle class medical marijuana patients too. The cop with PTSD who had to retire because of it and now has no insurance or income to pay for the therapy he so badly needs. The single mom of an adult son with autism, trying to get services that aren’t there, trapped in her house. Chronic pain patients that were abruptly kicked off their pain meds once doctors started facing consequences for over-prescribing, not offered any help for withdrawal or to manage their pain. And I see the upper middle class patients who benefit from the system but have so much anxiety and depression, the money does them no good. And still they hold onto it tightly, unwilling to see letting some of it go would not only save so many struggling; it would save them too.

Greed is an illness. An ugly dark emptiness that cannot be filled and will not stop making you hunger for more. Like any addiction. Are the heads of the pharmaceutical companieds just projecting then? Turning so many into addicts so they can see themselves? And Trump, who will never have enough cheering angry supporters or enough money. He pulls the worst from us, feeding off negative emotions and chaos as narcissists do. Projecting onto America the darkness inside of him.

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I do not mean for this post to sadden you or leave you feeling hopeless. Indeed, that is exactly what a narcissist wants. I want you to see that once you know you’re dealing with a narcissist, you begin your steps towards recovery. Leaving is not easy. They will try to suck you back in. They will love bomb you, bring you flowers and tell you how wonderful you are. But if you stay strong, it gets easier in time. And the best part? The thing narcissists hate most is someone who heals and is happy and strong. Our revenge would be a healthcare system that takes care of us, universal childcare, a Green New Deal, a living wage, an end to mass incarceration. Our revenge would be joy. Like an army of Care Bears shooting out beams of love and kindness and hope from our chests. They would keep trying, but with no one to reflect their image back to them, narcissists wither. Like Narcissist himself, when the reflecting pool they’re so addicted to dries up, so do they. And we, America, will have won.

***

America, by Allen Ginsburg

America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956.
I can’t stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don’t feel good don’t bother me.
I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I’m sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don’t think he’ll come back it’s sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I’m trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I’m doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven’t read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid I’m not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there’s going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I’m perfectly right.
I won’t say the Lord’s Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven’t told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia.
I’m addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I’m obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It’s always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody’s serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.
Asia is rising against me.
I haven’t got a chinaman’s chance.
I’d better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable private literature that jetplanes 1400 miles an hour and twentyfive-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underprivileged who live in my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I’m a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his automobiles more so they’re all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother Bloor the Silk-strikers’ Ewig-Weibliche made me cry I once saw the Yiddish orator Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have been a spy.
America you don’t really want to go to war.
America its them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia’s power mad. She wants to take our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader’s Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I’d better get right down to the job.
It’s true I don’t want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts factories, I’m nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.
Berkeley, January 17, 1956

That’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spotlight (or, the fault in our star)

03 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by in christianity, empathy, Evil, love, medicine, romance, Sin, Uncategorized

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losing my religion:  southern term for losing one’s temper, “flying off the handle,” going insane  etc. Note that the R.E.M. song of this title has nothing to do with religion, despite the common misinterpretation of the phrase.

Oh, life is bigger
It’s bigger
Than you and you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I set it up

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I don’t remember which one became my patient first. I think it was Him. But it could have been Her. He was initially more memorable. He liked to show me pictures. Of his woodworking and antiques he’d restored. Of his boys. Of the squirrels they’d killed that year. I asked him not to show me the squirrels but he did anyway. She was quiet. Told me about the jewelry she made and the things she grew in her garden and foraged for in the forest. I do remember the day I realized they were a couple. That he was the he she talked about and she was the she he talked about. The “Ohhhhh” moment. The “oh wait, she’s *that* She and he’s *that* He!” It happens a lot in my rural practice. Six degrees of separation is not a thing in rural northwest Pennsylvania. It’s more like two.
*
They started coming to their appointments together eventually. They would tell me about their garden and their yard and the retaining wall they were battling to put up. And they would tell me about things addiction patients in rural northwest Pennsylvania tell you about. Meth and heroin and jail and stealing from the people you love and five year old kids calling 911 when their mom overdoses. They’d both been clean a long time, but everyone had relatives and friends still lost in it. They were no exception.
*
They gave me things. A piece of amethyst they’d hunted and extracted themselves. A small glass vase with a flower from her garden. She gave me gardening tips, foraging tips, taught me some herbalism.
*
They were always late. Always. That was a given. And that was okay. As long as they came. Sometimes they mixed up their days and we’d get a call a couple days later and fit them in the schedule for another day. I always held my breath until they called. Because you never know. You never really know if something didn’t happen and if they’re really all right.
*
And so it happened that they came in a week or so after their appointment in early February. I wasn’t at my office in northwest PA so they came to my office in Verona. Sam got to meet them for the first time. They got to see my other office, which is fairy tale themed. I knew she’d like it.
*
She wasn’t herself that day, though. She was sad. So damn sad. He had to talk for her for most of the appointment because she couldn’t stop crying. She’d been depressed. But it was more than that. She’d been having pain in her side a while now and it was getting worse. She’d gone to the ER and they’d drawn blood work which came back with an abnormality but when they tried to get an IV in so they could run some imaging tests, the nurse couldn’t get it. They kept poking her over and over and she ended up leaving the ER.
*
I asked her some questions to see if I thought she needed to go to the ER right now (it had been a couple days since leaving the ER and she hadn’t gone back yet). Based on her answers I told her I didn’t think it was an emergency but she needed to go back and get the test done. I said maybe she could try going to a different ER where the nurses were better. We talked about her depression and I started her on an antidepressant and told her to email me in a couple weeks to let me know if it seemed to be helping at all so we could work on the dosing.
*
I had a crystal sitting there. Malachite. A pretty dark green stone. I’d been feeling for a couple of days I was supposed to do something with it. An odd feeling kind of hard to describe. Like, restlessness. But with a stone. And before she left I took it and said, here, I want you to have this. And she told me she had something for me too. It was a necklace she’d made but she’d felt timid about giving it to me. But when I gave her the crystal, she said, she felt okay to give me the necklace.
*
He said, (or maybe she said?) that it was fitting because it had a star on it and pointed to my walls. The room we were in has a Sleeping Beauty theme and is covered in stars. (It is based off something I wrote about kids with PANDAS battling the disorder and emerging from it, like sleeping beauties waking up). I took it and told her I loved it. And I did. When I went to put it on, the chain broke, so I put it in my pocket. My back jeans pocket. And we walked out together and said our goodbyes. And Sam said they were sweet and I said I was worried about her. And I was.
*
Somewhere between there and my kitchen, I lost it. The necklace, that is. I realized it later that night and told myself, it’s here somewhere. It’s not gone. It hasn’t fallen off planet Earth. You’ll find it (this is the same thing I say to my children when they are panicking over something they’ve lost. I find it is helpful to give myself the same talks I give them pretty often). I looked a couple places I thought it must be (the cubby over my coat hook by the front door, the back pocket of those jeans I’d since thrown in the hamper) but it wasn’t. Over the next few days I looked a few other places and it wasn’t there either. I tried to remain calm.
*
Then a week later I found it. I was trying to dig a quarter out of my left coat pocket for a cashier, in line ahead of a grumpy resentful old man in the Giant Eagle “12 Items or Fewer” lane and I pulled it out instead. I was relieved. He didn’t care. At all.
*
I went to coffee with a friend that morning (please note: this is a rare occurrence) and stopped in at the crystal shop across the street (please note: this is not a rare occurrence). It had been quite a while since I’d received that amethyst. A lot had changed. And I now frequented the local crystal shop (thus, the malachite). I was browsing on this particular day and saw a necklace with a stone in it that looked like the one my patient had given me. I excitedly drew the necklace from my left pocket and held it up side by side to the other and they were an exact match. I told the women in the shop the story of the necklace and asked what the crystal was. They told me and I asked if I could take the little card that had the name of it and its meaning and they said yes. And they said how sweet it was my patient had made me a necklace. And I said, yes she’s very sweet.
*
The next day I was answering the phone (Sam was out of town and I was like a dad on a laundry detergent commercial, drowning in ineptness with a lost look on my face, trying to perform basic office functions). I was relieved when a familiar voice spoke back to me. It was him. And then it happened. One of those moments. One of those moments that create a Before and After in your life. He told me she had cancer. One of the really bad ones. There’s no such thing as a good cancer. But there are such things as really bad ones. That’s what she had. I stopped breathing for a few seconds. Parastalsis slowed. I got goosebumps (the medical term for that is piloerection. It’s the same thing that makes a porcupine’s quills stand up when it sees a predator. It’s supposed to make us look bigger and scarier, in theory. It does not, in practice). In my head I thought, “Fuuuuuuuuccccckkkkk.” I did not say this to him. I asked how she was. I asked him a series of questions trying to get more medical type details. I tried to get him to say something that would make me realize he’d gotten it wrong and it wasn’t actually cancer. It didn’t work. He said she was resting but I should call her later. I said I would. Even though I was scared to. Because there’s nothing really great you can say. Because you’re a doctor and you’re supposed to fix people and this is not something you can fix.
*
Her palliative care doctor called a little while later while I was on the other line with someone considering making a medical marijuana appointment for anxiety. They had a hundred questions and, in the end, said they’d call back once they decided what to do. I listened to his voicemail and frantically wrote down his number and called him right back. He was nice. God help me, he was a genuinely nice, caring doctor. If you knew doctors like I know doctors, the way they actually talk when there aren’t patients around, you’d know how rare a thing that is. He hadn’t seen her yet (the appointment was for the next day) but he wanted to touch base with me since I prescribe her a controlled substance and his role was pain management (also prescribed substances).
*
When I talked to her that night (well, to her voicemail), I let her know the pain doc was good people and would take good care of her. And he did. We have texted and talked since then, each step along the way, She and I. He and I. And even the palliative doc and I. There is more to it than this, various details you might not expect. But the heart of it is this: a really beautiful human being is sick with something she likely won’t survive. She is in a lot of pain. And the man who loves her is doing an amazing job supporting her through it. He is an unlikely romantic hero. Not a sappy, trite one. A genuine romantic hero. And she is a warrior. Strong and smart and intuitive and kind and creative and honest. And she is so damn young. Too damn young for this shit.
*
And so it was that I came to wear a star necklace everyday (I ordered a new chain for it the day he called with the news. I kept it in my pocket until the chain arrived). And so it was that I came to wear that necklace the night I ran into a good Christian I know.
*
The Good Christian looked at it in horror. Genuine fear in his eyes. And he said, “Have you lost Jesus?” He was distressed. I looked at him and said, “What?” And he pointed to my necklace and said it was a witch’s necklace, a Wiccan necklace. I said, it’s a star. A patient made it for me. That doesn’t mean I’ve lost Jesus. He looked… freaked the hell out.
*
And I thought of the word the palliative care doctor had used when he told me about her CT scan. Innumerable mets. Meaning, the cancer had spread to so many spots, the radiologist gave up counting. I remember when he told me that I wondered, at what point do they stop counting? 10, 20, 100? Maybe that particular radiologist was lazy and she really only has 3. But that’s not likely. When he used that word, innumerable, the hope I’d held out faded away. And I began to focus on how we could all support her in finding peace and being comfortable and doing the things with her last months she’d like to do. Because, lets be honest, doctors very rarely actually fix patients anyway. So maybe this very nice palliative care doctor and I could help her with these things. Hopefully I could be of use.
*
I thought of that word, innumerable. And I thought of the cancer growing inside her. And about how brave she is. And how sweet her he is. And I looked at this Good Christian and saw something in him. A different kind of cancer. One with innumerable mets to the soul. Dark and sticky. Inoperable. Incurable.
*
And I thought, this patient knows more about Jesus than you ever will. Because Jesus is love. And she is full of love. And she has brought joy and love to so many people. And she will keep doing that. Despite it all. She will keep inspiring other people to love. And she knows that I love her. And she lets me love her. And loves me back.
*
And that, dear reader, is not something the Good Christian is capable of. Not something he even understands. And that is why a necklace can inspire a look of dread and disgust in him. A star. An innocent little star.
*
I told my kids a bedtime story tonight. The boy in the story was looking up at the night sky when a shooting star appeared. My daughter got so excited and was urgently shouting “make a wish quick! Before it’s gone!” She was nervous the boy in the story would miss it. Because everyone knows if you make a wish on a shooting star, it comes true. Because that is what stars are for. To wish upon, to make our dreams come true as we sleep beneath their lovely glow. They’re magical. And shooting stars? They’re actually little burning meteors,  magical, glowing rocks. Kind of like amethyst or malachite.
*
If taking comfort in that means I’ve lost Jesus, dear reader, then consider me lost. Because not every sleeping beauty wakes back up at the end of the story. Sometimes her true love kisses her goodnight one last time. And releases her to shine down on us and remind us of who we are, innumerable stars in an endless universe connected to one another always.

 

***

Oh, life is bigger
It’s bigger
Than you and you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I set it up
That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
Every whisper
Of every waking hour
I’m choosing my confessions
Trying to keep an eye on you
Like a hurt lost and blinded fool, fool
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I set it up
Consider this
Consider this
The hint of the century
Consider this
The slip that brought me
To my knees failed
What if all these fantasies
Come flailing around
Now I’ve said too much
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
But that was just a dream
That was just a dream
That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
But that was just a dream
Try, cry
Why try?
That was just a dream, just a dream, just a dream
Dream

Epstein is not a freak and neither are you who stay silent

12 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by in doctors, Evil, kids, medicine, outrage, PTSD, Rape, Sin, Uncategorized

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Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire pedophile, died in a presumed suicide a few days ago. I cannot get over how similar his plans were to Jeremy Noyes’s, my perp from med school who now sits in federal prison in Arizona.

epstein

I am not just referring to their love of raping children. Jeremy often spoke of having a private island or farm where he would propagate his colony of child sex slaves and work towards creating the perfect race through the use of bought DNA. So did Epstein. In fact, Epstein spent millions seeking the advice of Harvard scientists , hosting a conference on his private island at one point.

Jeremy spoke frequently to others like him online. There was a whole community. I told myself they were lying, that it was all just a sick fantasy world. But, clearly, it was not.

I am a doctor who treats patients for PTSD. They tell me about the powerful men who’ve taken their childhood. They have no reason to lie to me. They don’t speak about it publicly. Oftentimes I’m the only person they’ve told.

Jeffrey Epstein is not an isolated case. He is not a freak. His crimes do not die with him.

There were so many people who knew what Epstein was doing and they did nothing. Made zero effort to save these girls. I cannot comprehend it. I can’t. I risked my life, my children’s live,s my career, everything. I risked everything to try to save one little girl. How is it that children matter so little that we would allow this go on? I didn’t understand it with Sandusky and I certainly don’t here.

It is not a conspiracy theory to not believe Epstein killed himself. In fact, to accept the story that this was suicide is a choice to talk yourself out of obvious reality. Men like Epstein don’t kill themselves. I know. I knew a man like him very well. Epstein’s case clearly held the potential to expose just how widespread the culture of child trafficking is. The media can try to shame me into not saying this publicly all they want. If their lame attempts work on you,you’re part of the problem too. Real shame comes if you have lived as a child sex slave. Shame you will never completely heal from. Boohoo to you, dear reader, if speaking out on this could be embarrassing for you. What would the neighbors think? The real question is, what are the neighbors up to themselves? This isn’t rare.

The choice to turn in a man like Jeffrey Epstein, like Bill Cosby, like Jerry Sandusky, like Jeremy Noyes, is difficult to follow through on but really quite simple to decide on. It is not a morally ambiguous situation. You will never find such a clear ethical quandary: try to stop a child rapist or not. You will not lie on your death bed at the end of your life and say, my only regret is that I turned that predator in. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem very many of these people are likely to lie there and regret the fact they didn’t. And that truth makes it ever more difficult for survivors to heal. The truth that they’ve done nothing wrong is easy to see, but accepting it and moving on is the most difficult thing anyone will ever have to do.

I still feel some level of shame when I look at this. I still remember how I was made to feel by my medical school, the medical community as a whole, my family and complete strangers talking about me online. I spent years believing I was a crazy slut and bad mother. I wasn’t even consciously aware of it, but it drove everything I did. Like the trauma itself, the afermath almost cost me my medical career. It almost cost me my life. It stole a lot of things from my children.

Speaking truth is the only antidote to shame so I will tell my story over and over, to anyone willing to listen. I will tell you the heroic parts and the horrific parts and the parts that might make you not like me. To remind myself I did nothing to be ashamed of. They did. And to remind all my fellow survivors out there they’ve done nothing to be ashamed of. They are goddamned heroes and all the many people who failed to protect them are the ones who ought to be ashamed. And that, dear reader, might include you.

Merry Christmas to you, Jeremy, in jail!: A very PTSD Christmas Eve

24 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by in christianity, Evil, kids, PTSD, Rape

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I love Christmas. I’m a Christmas nut. Perhaps the result of growing up on a Christmas tree farm. I love the music and the movies and the pine cones on the mantle and the gingerbread cookies my four year old insisted using the cowboy hat cookie cutter for. Christmas Eve is a very special day for me. But it’s also one of the 365 days a year I have at least a passing thought about my trauma. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

One of my favorite Christmas movies is “It’s A Wonderful Life” starring Jimmy Stewart (who is from my hometown, by the way. I used to volunteer at the world famous Jimmy Stewart museum) as George Bailey. There’s a scene in the movie where greedy villain Potter gleefully shouts “Merry Christmas to you, in jail!” at George. (I’m not going into the context here but I’d encourage you to watch it if you’re curious)

So, I have a Christmas Eve tradition that those of you who haven’t known trauma might find a little… odd. Creepy maybe. Depressing perhaps. I like to shout,

Merry Christmas to you, Jeremy, in jail!

Jeremy’s the one who did trauma to me(read about it here if you like). I’m an anomaly in that my rapist actually went to prison. Not many do. It’s a merrier Christmas this year and the next 40 of them for the little girls he was planning to traumatize. So, I don’t see this tradition as odd or creepy or depressing at all.

Christmas is a season of hope. What was the birth of Jesus if not the creation of a whole new hope for us all? Hope that there is something more than this fallen world. And hope, I’ve learned through my PTSD, is the stuff of life. Without it, we’re not dead, but not really alive either (read about it here if you like). My hope was resored when I recovered from PTSD. I like to think sharing my recovery on here could give other survivors in the purgatory of PTSD have some hope too.

I’m a big believer in speaking your truth, in the toxicity of silence. The time I spent singing/screaming in a riot grrl band were some of my most empowered. Maybe it’s the autism in me, but screaming is liberating for me. When the problems of life seem unsolvable, I scream and it helps. For so many years I was told be quiet about what Jeremy did to me. I was told it would ruin my career. I was told it was my fault, that I was a slut and I mustn’t advertise this. I have seen the damage this did to me and so, I don’t just speak my truth in this season of hope. I scream it.

Joy to the world, you fucker.  Joy to you, little girls. There is hope.