Tag Archives: empowerment

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.

a room of one’s own

04 Saturday Jun 2022

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I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee’s life of the poet. She died young—alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the cross–roads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here to–night, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh. This opportunity, as I think, it is now coming within your power to give her. For my belief is that if we live another century or so—I am talking of the common life which is the real life and not of the little separate lives which we live as individuals—and have five hundred a year each of us and rooms of our own; if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting–room and see human beings not always in their relation to each other but in relation to reality; and the sky. too, and the trees or whatever it may be in themselves; if we look past Milton’s bogey, for no human being should shut out the view; if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women, then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was Shakespeare’s sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down. Drawing her life from the lives of the unknown who were her forerunners, as her brother did before her, she will be born. As for her coming without that preparation, without that effort on our part, without that determination that when she is born again she shall find it possible to live and write her poetry, that we cannot expect, for that would he impossible. But I maintain that she would come if we worked for her, and that so to work, even in poverty and obscurity, is worth while. -A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf

I am no longer sleeping on the left side of the bed.

We moved this week to a beautiful house in the country with big, old pine trees. Like the ones I grew up playing in. It’s my forever home. It’s home. Finally home.

There is room to spread out in this house. We still spend a lot of time together but when we want to be alone, there are lots of lovely spots to go to. I sit in the screened in porch and watch the deer and the chipmunks and sometimes a fox. And my bedroom has a sitting room that I have made a little cozy gym. I have my own bathroom. For the first time in my life. I take long relaxing baths now. And I spread out in my bed and take up space. The luxury of space.

My heart has felt the words of Virginia Wolf for so many years. A room of one’s own. When I am overwhelmed by all the needs I am asked to meet everyday I find myself saying, can I just have ten minutes to myself, can I just have one inch that is mine alone. And now, now I have an acre. And a room. A screened in porch. A whole big bed. That is full. Of me alone.

I used to be afraid to be alone. It terrified me. I felt like I was falling into a darkness so deep and wide, with no bottom. That I would just fall forever. Afraid of hitting bottom but more afraid of never doing so. Its the fall that is intolerable. It’s a terrible thing to be afraid to be alone. You keep company with wolves because being eaten seems a better fate than being alone.

I used to be afraid to be selfish. To not be omniavailable (yes I just made up a word) to my kids, my attendings, my patients, my family, my friends. But that’s no good. Ten minutes to myself, sometimes hours or days to myself, is a beautiful thing that makes me a better mother doctor friend. And space. Space that is just my own. Whether it be my tree house in Jamaica or the back room of my office in Grove City or my Mini or my queen size bed.

I wish I could give this to my female patients instead of medication. Space to themselves instead of tiny falling down houses with 6 or 7 people on top of each other. Time. Without kids or work or toxic family. But a lot of them would be terrified by it. We are raised to be this way. To stay small and not take up room. To give ourselves away. Inch by inch, moment by moment. Chipping away the boundaries. To be terrified of our own freedom, afraid to declare our time and space and bodies and thoughts and feelings and wants and needs our own.

And words. To claim our words, our voice, our writing, our ideas, our cadence, our beauty.

There was a time in my life I read Allen Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac and dreamed of all the life that lay outside my little town in the country. All I had ahead of me. The life I would live. Of revolution and gorgeous poetry and art and fascinating people slightly mad but mainly genius burning brightly, so bright.

I have lived intensely and now I am ready to be content, back in the country. Back to my own bed in my own room as it was then. Time to myself, to read and savor and enjoy. My kids are the ones heading out into the world. Beyond the pine trees and the covered porch and sometimes a fox. While I spread out in my bed in the quiet of my room and write you these words of my very own. Send them out into the world and hope they land where they’re meant to. Here in a room of my own.

i would be a terrible dance teacher

21 Saturday May 2022

Posted by in empathy, kids, love, parenting, romance

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I’ve done this dance as long as I can remember

(not the foxtrot. We did that in Gym and I was awful)

This dance of give and give and be who they want and not who they don’t and when they step on your toes don’t say a word because they might leave you and dance without someone else, someone who doesn’t complain when they step on their toes. So even if your toes are raw and bleeding and you can barely stand up, you keep dancing, because the only way to win is for the dance to last Forever

But

Inevitably it gets to be too much and you realize how messed up this dance is and so you leave. It’s always better to be the one who leaves. And if you should find yourself in that old familiar black hole, well, you’ll figure that out when it comes

They used to have these dance marathons for charity on sitcoms where the couple who stops dancing last is the winner and they’d dance all day and all night and wacky funny things would happen. But really what happens when you lose if you quit dancing is that you get so damn tired and bitter and hopeless and then that’s all your children know of life

They need to know it is not healthy at all to dance all night and all day no matter what the cause. They need to know the Baker bunion is not inevitable just because every other female in the family has it. And so, you sit and rest. You know now in your bones that there are a lot of ways to win, not just dancing forever. Know that bone that is your bunion has been trying to tell you this all these years but you wouldn’t listen. Maybe you thought you deserved to live that way. Maybe you taught them they deserve to live that way. But not anymore.

I was so afraid she’d disappear and never come back. And she did. Afraid if I said even the littlest thing out of line and I was right.

I was so close to invisible I thought I’d found heaven when I heard those words that day. To be so watched you must do everything right and yet not seen at all. And so I see them dancing the dance. And I hope I show them that the way to win isn’t to never stop. That it’s just a silly show and at the end of the day the best part is getting to rest with your feet up at home with the people that love you. And to choreograph your own life to your own song with an audience of one.

Cha cha cha

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.

Are you a Mary or a Rhoda? Maybe both.(of divorce and white hot suns)

21 Monday Jun 2021

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Someone crying a solitary sad tear

I cried a little on my way into work this morning. Well, not work exactly. I was actually driving to the tire place near my office because I got another flat. Presumably due to hitting the curb too many times trying to squeeze into a parking space in front of my house, a popular place for people from all corners the earth to park. Not that I’m bitter. Anyway, back to the crying. I was crying because I didn’t have a head scarf on. I was crying because my divorce was a little about more final now.

This is not my street but the parking looks similar

I started wearing my headscarves five years ago. Was it really five years? It went so fast. It was after my husband and I had reconciled, for the second time. I decided to wear the scarf for a lot of reasons. I’m sure I’ve written posts about it on here. I covered my head on my spiritual journey of my youth. Covered it studying Judaism, covered it exploring Islam, covered it, ultimately as a Catholic (turned post-Catholic). It was a way for me to remember God each day. But it was also because I was married. Muslim women who wear hijab do so whether they’re married or not. Same with the Amish. But Orthodox Jews cover their hair when they’re married.

And I’m not married anymore. Mostly.

Divorce doesn’t happen in a day. There’s the day you file, the day you tell the kids, the day you tell everyone else, the day you move out, the day you change your name back, the day you write up your custody agreement, the day you divide up your assets and debts (the physical ones anyway. Not sure you ever stop dividing up the blame and resentment but I hope so), the day the decree is handed down. But these are just the outward signs of the true divorce, the one inside you.

I don’t think judges get your wedding rings before pounding their gavel on your divorce decree that looks like an elementary school perfect attendance certificate but maybe I’m wrong

I chose to stop wearing my headscarves this weekend after a year and a half of considering it. I thought and contemplated and prayed and searched my heart and consulted the cards. And I knew it was time. I’m still devoted to God and I’ll still wear it on certain occasions. But, for me, a head scarf is for married women. And I’m not married anymore.

But as I was crying, I thought, why are you crying? It’s not that I miss my husband. I reeeeeeally don’t. It’s definitely not that I wish we were still together. I reeeeeeally don.’t. It was something else. A marriage is more than the two people in it. There are the two of you and then there’s who you thought they were and who they thought you were. There’s the couple you thought you were and the couple they thought you were. There’s all the people in your life and what you thought your marriage was to them. There are your kids and what it was to them. And there are your hopes, the life you thought would unfold over the next 30 or 40 years. Your identity as a married woman, now a twice divorced woman. It is a slow, painful death. But.

But.

It is followed by rebirth. All those contractions and dilating and blood and fluid and pushing until you think you might split in two like a wishbone, are worth it in the end. You emerge bloody and red and crying. You might even have some meconium in your lungs to work out. The air is cold and you miss the comfort of the womb, but there’s no going back. Here you are.

I wish I could say there’s a big boob waiting there to comfort you, but there’s not. After all, you just gave birth to yourself. The only teet is your own. Okay I’m going to drop this metaphor now. It’s getting a little bit too weird.

Where was I? Oh yes, scarves.

When I started covering my head, after we reconciled, if I’m being completely honest with myself, it was about more than God. And it was about more than being married. It was to contain the part of me I had to put deep inside in order to keep my marriage together.

We reconciled because I couldn’t financially afford to leave but we also reconciled because I couldn’t stand to be alone. It took me 40 years to get to a place where I could be alone and not fall apart. Okay, 42; I’ve definitely fallen apart during this divorce process and had to have some very strong external motivators to keep me going. Anyway, when I went back five years ago, it was in resignation. Resignation to the fact I couldn’t afford to leave, resignation to the fact I wasn’t strong enough to leave but I wasn’t strong enough to stay. I knew if I went back this time, that was it. I was in it for the long haul. I couldn’t keep putting my kids through the back and forth. Or myself. I needed to be stable and give them a stable home. I needed to grow up and accept my life for what it was. And so, I knew I had to resign myself to the parts of my husband that always made me want to leave. I had to accept the control and paranoia and misogyny and irrationality and the messy house and everything else. And I had to dim my light, so I didn’t outshine him. And so I covered it with a scarf and said goodbye.

How many of us spend our lives dimming our light to keep the people in our lives happy?

Well, fuck that.

It’s been a long journey of spiritual growth and therapy and a lot of blog entries and a few very good friends. But I have started shining again. Gradually, over these past few years. And now, the scarves are off and I’m aiming for supernova levels.

A photo of me seen this weekend grocery shopping in hoop earrings and platform sandals

It’s not just him. It’s so many people who’ve been in my life. And that’s life. That’s the fallen world we live in where people are insecure and jealous and afraid and don’t realize there’s room for all of us to shine. A million white hot suns. Feel free to stare directly at us, it will not damage your retinas.

And so, I find myself thinking of Gloria Steinem and Rhoda Morgenstern and all the other fabulous, confident, free spirited 40-something women with good hair. I am not someone new. I am just stripping away all the layers I’ve used to dull my shine. The self-imposed vernix. I am becoming more me.

I’m throwing my deep purple scarf in the air, ’cause I’m gonna make it after all.

40 Days and 40 Nights (or, what doesn’t kill you also makes you more grateful (if you let it).

03 Sunday May 2020

Posted by in Catholicism, christianity, doctors, empathy, kids, love, medicine, parenting, PTSD, Rape, residency, Uncategorized

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We have now had a fever for 42 days. Off and on. Mine had gone away yesterday and I thought, maybe this is it. Maybe this was a fever that lasted 40 days and 40 nights, that started two days before I stopped being 40 years old. And maybe if that’s true, there is a deeper spiritual meaning to it. So, I researched the number 40.

They say 40 in the Bible essentially means, a really long time. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights when Noah was out on the ark. The Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years. Moses’s life is divided into three 40 year phases. Jesus was tempted by Satan for 40 days. He stayed with the disciples 40 days before ascending to Heaven where he is seated at the right hand of the Father.

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They also say 40 represents a new beginning. It has to do with it being a factor of 5 and 8, and 4 and 10. I will skip over those details. After 40 days, the flood receded and it was a new world. After 40 years the Hebrews were considered to have paid the price for their disobedience and given a new life in the promised land. After 40 days, the Holy Spirit anointed the disciples and they were reborn. In Judaism, the embryo is considered to be formed at 40 days gestation. And a pregnancy lasts 40 weeks.

It also represents water, baptism, mikvah. There is the great flood. In traditional Judaism a woman goes to the mikvah ritual bath for purification 40 days after having a son, 80 days after a daughter. The mikvah is filled with 40 seah of water.

According to the Jewish Talmud, at 40 years old you gain the gift of understanding. You come to begin to fully understand all you’ve been taught.

I have been feeling exhausted lately, burdened. And feeling like I will forever be wandering in the wilderness, the promised land always just slightly out of reach. Time and again telling myself, you just need to get through this phase and then things will get easier. At what point do I admit to myself it’s a lie, that this is as good as it gets? In other words, I have been hopeless and have lost that sense of possibility I’d been so grateful to regain back in 2015 when my PTSD was healed.

My life is better than a lot of people’s and I know this in my head and I know this in my heart. But their suffering did not seem to alleviate mine. I kept telling myself to get over it, but I just couldn’t.

Perhaps it’s the nature of this fever. You feel good for a day or two or three. Really good. And you’re so grateful. You have energy and joy and you can run and get things done and enjoy life. And you think this is it, I’m better. I can get on with my life. And then it comes back.

Perhaps it’s this quarantine grinding us all down. Or the fact I had three people close to me in my life a year ago and now I have none. And I’m in isolation and can’t replace them. I cannot picture my future because none of us can. We do not know what will happen with the economy, with the pandemic, with the election, with the way things are done and the way we relate to one another. And so, how do we have a sense of possibility? There are infinite possibilities and none at all.

And so I looked to the number 40 for hope. If my fever lasted 40 days then maybe there was a divine reason God had allowed it to go on so long. Maybe God had a plan for me. Maybe beyond 40 years and 40 days and nights I would emerge from the wilderness and finally enter the promised land. Purified and born again.

But here I sit on day 42. Maybe sometimes a fever of unknown origin is just a fever of unknown origin.

I had the energy to play with my daughter today. She couldn’t believe it. We ran shuttle runs and played charades and had a jumping competition. I felt great. For now, I’ll take that and be grateful. We’re not promised a damn thing in this life. If I ever return to good physical health and energy I will be grateful in a way I couldn’t have been before. When we emerge from this quarantine and I can be with my patients in my office again, I will be grateful in a way I couldn’t have been before. And when the second forty years of my life are easier than the first (and they will be. I know this much is true), I will be grateful in a way I couldn’t have before.

I hate the saying what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, even though it’s true. I mean, what a crappy gift: the knowledge now you can make it through something even more awful. But this truth has saved my butt more than once and I put faith in it that my children’s difficulties have done that for them. Because life is hard and the best thing we can do for our kids is prepare them to face whatever it throws at them without falling apart. But what doesn’t kill you also makes you more grateful (if you let it).

I’m grateful for my kids’ fever because at one time their immune systems were so dysregulated, their bodies couldn’t mount a fever response to invading pathogens. I’m grateful every time my 14 year old acts like a jerky teenager because he gets to a live a relatively normal teenage life now instead of being in PANDAS hell. I’m grateful every time I eat a meal without an abusive husband there criticizing what I’m eating or not eating because that was not always the case. I’m grateful to be a doctor, the good and the bad, because it was almost taken from me and I gave literal blood, tears and a piece of my soul (and my cervix) to get through my training. I’m grateful for the sense of possibility because for so many years in PTSD, it wasn’t there as I dwelled in that place between life and death.

So maybe that’s what the promised land really is: gratitude. If we never wandered through the desert for forty years, how could we even know we were in the promised land? Maybe it is not a static place, this promised land. Maybe it can’t be. Maybe it’s an oasis where we replenish ourselves and get a rest before heading out again. We never know how far into the wilderness we will go and for how long, but we know the promised land is always there. Until we reach the end of this life and enter the world without end and find that possibility we have been been seeking once and for all.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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