Tag Archives: rape

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.

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.

You Can Do Anything for 20 Seconds

17 Friday Jul 2020

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“You can do anything for 20 seconds!” That’s what the Peloton instructor said as we climbed up a steep virtual hill in my closet at my blue house in Oakmont at 7:00am on a Friday. And all of a sudden I was back in the gym in Verona. 2018. 6:00am on a Thursday morning, getting in a workout before heading up to my Grove City office for a long day of seeing patients. Staring into my reflection in the glass of the front window the treadmills all faced, telling myself “if you survived six months of Jeremy Noyes, you can run a little longer, girl. You can survive anything.”

Now, careful what you say to yourself. Because the universe is listening and if you say, I can survive anything, sometimes the universe goes ahead and sees if it’s true.

I’ve been through a lot since then and I’ve witnessed a lot since then. And I was right: I did survive. I survived a lot more than 20 seconds and a lot worse than a sprint on a squeaky treadmill at a gym that hadn’t been renovated since 1988 and refused to hire a window washer, resulting in a lot of funky spiders peering in at you from their cozy webs outside the windows. But now I’ve reached a strange place. It’s the place beyond survival. A place where you are not desperately trying to get through to the next day. A place where your solace is not picturing the far off someday. I have reached the land of milk and honey.

I’ll say this for the universe: it handed me the land of milk and honey within the worst moment in modern human history. We are essentially living through the Spanish flu, the Great Depression, the 1960s, Germany c. 1939 and a couple dystopian novels all at once. If you’re middle class, go get some weed and take a deep breath and you’ll be okay. But if you’re one of the 94 million Americans living at or near the poverty line, you may not survive this.

I take care of them and I see it and I watch helpless. I do what I can. But I know that almost no one in my life knows they exist. Not really. They were barely surviving before. Now? I just don’t know. All I know is things need to change. And if it’s ugly, then it had to be ugly. Poverty is violence. Our criminal justice system is violence. Our healthcare system is violence. That white rich couple in St. Louis are merely a more tangible representation, guarding their gated community with their big guns.

But I digress.

Back to the irony.

In the midst of all this, I find myself at a new chapter in my life. A chapter I’ve dreamed of for decades but am not entirely sure how to handle now that it’s here. My life is no longer about survival and getting by and fighting.

Now let me knock on wood. OK here goes.

My kids’ health is not perfect but we are over the worst of it and I spend very little time being their doctor now and almost all of it being their mom instead. My medical practice has finally gotten to a good point where I am not afraid month to month if I will make it or not. Where I don’t have to agree to take any patient who calls up and wants seen that day or that weekend or at 2am standing on my head yodeling. I no longer need to work 90 hours a week. I am, after 16 years of more sacrifice than most, finally one of those doctors who can work 4 or 4 1/2 days a week. I could work more and make more, but I don’t have to and I’m not going to, damn it.

My mental health is strong. I have good people in my life with good boundaries. I have moved past the addiction to the delicious chemicals that flood your brain when you are in a volatile relationship. I have a beautiful home that is all mine. My mysterious autoimmune disease is gone and I am training at full speed and loving it. I am working on a plan to section hike the Appalachian Trail. And it’s actually going to happen. I read novels. I ride my Peleton. I’m building a beautiful patio and getting a tiki hut to go over my hot tub. MY FREAKING HOT TUB. I have arrived.

Now, I fully own my class and race privilege. But it’s not the hot tub that is the thing that matters (but it’s pretty darn sweet). It’s the freedom from toxic relationships with other people and with myself. It’s the ability to say, being a workaholic is unhealthy and unfair to me and my kids. The ability to say I deserve to be happy and free. The ability to hold boundaries. The ability to get overwhelmed and pause and take a breath and figure it out without running into something I will regret, something that keeps me in survival mode longer. The ability to sit in pain and uncertainty. The ability to be present, to be fully and wholly alive, the joy and the pain, the exhilaration and boredom. The ability to see the infinite unknown possibilities and be at peace.

The custody battle that was my last great entanglement with the man I loved is now done. This comes at the same time as my practice’s stabilization. The same time my little ones will now be with their dad longer, freeing up more time for me. I feel light. I feel the possibility, and the possibility is here. It’s now. Finally.

I feel like myself. Fully myself.

Life is a journey and I realize I’m not boarding the Good Ship Lollipop. There will be tough times. There *are* tough times right now. I spend a lot of time feeling the things and thinking the thoughts we all ought to be with the way things are. But it’s different now. And I truly believe my personal life hit its last rock bottom this past spring and it is uphill from here.

PTSD tries to take possibility from you. It places your body in a chronic state of fight or fight. Also knows as survival mode. Possibility is a far off, uncertain, unlikely thing when you are in that place between life and death. When you have PTSD as a result of rape and abuse, it will get reinforced over and over again by our patriarchal, imperialist, violent culture. Every time you go to take a step forward, people will try to shove you back down. They will tell you to stop playing the victim, call you crazy, call you a slut, say you wanted it, question why you didn’t fight back the way they think you should have, say you’re exaggerating, call you vindictive towards the poor innocent man you’re trying to destroy. In short, they will do everything they can to keep you in survival mode.

What they don’t know is that you are a badass warrior. What they don’t know is they’re the ones who will never be truly alive. You will.

I am.

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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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.

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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.

June 19, 2008 (or, Tequila!)

19 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by in kids, love, marriage, medicine, my awesome husband, PTSD, Rape, Uncategorized

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It was raining this morning as I headed out for my run. Ten years ago on this day, though, it was hot and sunny. I know this because I can remember the beads of sweat rolling down the back of my legs as I sat in my green minivan in that long, heavy, black Land’s End skirt I’d bought on clearance a few weeks before. My air conditioner was broken and the van churned out warm air as I sat staring down at my phone.

I’d programmed the phone number for the Pittsburgh field office of the FBI into it a couple months before under the name “Hope.” It was finally time to call. I knew he might kill me. Knew he might kill my two boys. Mies had just turned 4. Max was 2 1/2. I asked God to please protect them but told Him if something happened to them, I knew it just was what it had to be. I had to turn him in. I could never face my babies again if I didn’t. I didn’t want them to live in that kind of world. Abraham, I am feeling you, brother.

I operated purely through adrenaline at that time. Until he was arrested in August. And released on bail to a local podiatrist. And jailed again since he, ya know, had threatened to kill me and my kids and all. And then as I fought to stay in school as my med school slut shamed me and tried to get rid of me. Once the adrenaline stopped flowing continuously later that Fall, the real hell began. PTSD.

I wanted to give up but I somehow got to a place where I told myself, this isn’t it. Someday things will get better. You will watch your babies grow up. You will become a doctor and take care of your patients. You might even get married and have more babies. Maybe a daughter. Maybe. I fought off the hopelessness. I convinced myself there was possibility.

Here I am ten years later. With five beautiful kids (including a sassy-sweet daughter). With a handsome, devoted husband. With a practice of my own, complete with amazing patients I care about more than I knew I could. Healed of my PTSD. Having forgiven Jeremy and even Sylvia, the head of my med school, and all those professors who betrayed me. Training for a semi-impossible obstacle course race with my husband and a trainer, for goodness sake. A trainer. More than I dreamed possible.

I am so grateful to God my babies are alive. That I am alive. That I am a doctor. That I have the husband and kids I do.

I skipped work today and drove through the country to Deer Lakes park to go running. The rain and grey gave way to fluffy white clouds and sunshine in a beautiful blue sky. I held my hand out the sunroof as I drove. I felt the sweat run down my legs from my run as I drove.I sang along to Tequila! like a fool. I’m sure I looked and sounded ridiculous.

I pray the little girls he hurt find the peace I have. I pray he does too.

I am so grateful for today. I am alive, I am free. Thank you God.

Tequila!

Until then, rape culture will thrive

05 Saturday May 2018

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A few things have happened in Pennsylvania recently that we should find encouraging. Bill Cosby was finally found guilty of sexual assault and two friars were charged for protecting a priest who they knew was molesting children. The near complete absence of legal consequences for rapists and those who stand by and do nothing about them is horrifying. That it may slowly be changing is a victory for activists. I felt a swell of hope when they announced the Cosby verdict. I belted out some Kesha on my drive home and cracked open a cider as I told my husband the news.

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But as this tide shift begins, there are certain things that must be said.

I have been seeing patients in my office for medical marijuana certification these past few months since Pennsylvania’s first dispensaries opened. It is amazing work to do. I hear so many heartbreaking stories of patients not only suffering illness but being abandoned by the medical system, struggling to hold onto hope. Their diagnoses range from cancer to pain to ALS to autism to seizures. And PTSD.

As a certifying physician, I am simply assessing if a patient has one of the 17 qualifying diagnoses Pennsylvania has designated to receive a medical marijuana card. As such, patients bring records from their treating physician and I use those records along with a history and physical exam to determine if they do indeed have the condition and are appropriate for medical cannabis therapy. They come to me because their physician either doesn’t believe in cannabis or, more often, recommends it for them but cannot certify them. A physician in Pennsylvania must go through a special process in order to be able to certify for medical marijuana and many physicians are reluctant to do so for a variety of reasons.

When I see a patient for PTSD I ask them about their symptoms, what other treatments they’ve tried, how long they’ve had PTSD and how its changed over time, and what their treatment goals are for medical marijuana. I do not ask them for the details of their trauma. It’s not medically necessary for what I am doing with them and just as I’d never perform an unnecessary pelvic or rectal exam, I am obligated as a physician to avoid being unnecessarily intrusive on a patient. If you’ve lived trauma then you know talking about it can be a more vulnerable and difficult procedure than an internal exam.

Still, patients often tell me their stories. I hope it is because they feel safe with me. I hope it helps them to speak their truth to me. It certainly helps me to hear their stories. It makes me a better physician and a better human being.

For the most part, I just listen. There are rarely words powerful enough to reflect back to them what they have just told me. I know it and they do too. Trauma is a language like no other. Sometimes I say to them, that’s horrible. I can’t imagine. I’m so sorry that happened. Sometimes I just listen and look and they know that they’re heard and that’s what matters.

I say nothing here of anyone’s story. Of any specifics. Anonymous or not. But I will tell you, dear reader, that something has surprised me. After spending all these years learning about trauma, thinking about trauma, writing about trauma, speaking to other rape trauma survivors, I have taken something new from it.

Many of my patients have gotten PTSD from being in prison. I wasn’t expecting that. And it makes me think of Jeremy. There was a time in my trauma healing process where I savored the idea of him being attacked in prison. I’m not proud of it but I do accept it as part of my journey through PTSD to the other side. It is not something I allowed myself to get stuck in. I believed before I ever met Jeremy in the importance of the corporal act of mercy of visiting the imprisoned. I recognized the inhumanity of our criminal justice system. And that wasn’t something I was going to let Jeremy take from me.

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I cannot imagine how hard it would have been to let this idea go if I hadn’t been one of the extremely rare few whose attacker actually gets prosecuted, found guilty and imprisoned. I have a safety and a sense of justice that is almost unheard of (even in the case of convicted rapists, it is rare they get the 45 year sentence that Jeremy did. I need not worry about the day he gets out and comes for me. I did not face the indignity of him getting a slap on the wrist sentence). Letting go of anger and the desire for vengeance when justice is denied seems almost impossible.

What I cannot excuse or validate is the similar sentiments expressed by those not involved in a particular perpetrator’s trauma. We have all heard and seen on the interwebs the comments of so many people when someone is found to be a rapist or child sexual predator. They make comments, some purely serious and others sickly comical, about the fact they hope the perpetrator will be raped in prison. An eye for an eye, a rape for a rape.

It perpetuates the idea that prison is a place where the “regular” prisoners will institute vigil ante justice and give these deserving sexual predators their come-uppance. Not only does it violate morality in its wishes for violent harm of the sexual perpetrators, it presents a narrative of prison where those who’ve committed so called victimless crimes are seen as being free from being targets of violence. Prison is a macho sort of wild west where unsavory elements make up for their crimes by using their lack of obligation to societal norms to take care of the dirty work of making these rapists pay appropriately. They atone for their sins and satisfy out blood lust in one fell swoop.

The reality is that prison brings trauma to every prisoner whether they’re their for drug possession, repeated DUI, writing bad checks or murdering their mother. And the reality is, most prisoners are there for something like drug possession or writing bad checks and end up being punished not with time away from their families, home and work, but with assault, both sexual and non. They live in a constant state of fear and hypervigilance. They suffer violence, witness violence and are forced at times, in order to survive, to perpetuate violence. This is something those of us who’ve experience protracted trauma can identify with. This is trauma. This is hell. And no one deserves it. Not even rapists and men who kill their mothers. And certainly not twenty year olds who made a stupid decision and got caught (I speak not here of rich white twenty year olds who make stupid decisions. They don’t go to prison). Their sentence may only be a few years but the PTSD lasts the rest of their life. It is not moral. It does not benefit society. And it deadens all of our souls as a culture for perpetuating this brutal system.

When you call joyfully for anyone to be raped, whether they themselves are a rapist or not, you are promoting rape culture. You are ensuring little girls will go on being raped. I realize it makes *you* feel better and that’s just great because it’s all about you, but you sacrifice the bodies, minds and souls of little girls and boys and women and men.

No one deserves to be raped. Period. Ever.

We do need justice for survivors in this country. I am glad that Bill Cosby and these friars and Jeremy Noyes will be held accountable and it is vital for ending rape and for providing survivors what they need to heal. Prison as we have it in this country, however, is not the answer. When will we establish a humane justice system that truly serves victims and keeps us safe as a society? Until then, rape culture will thrive.

Aluminum and gold

21 Thursday Dec 2017

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The CBS national news is featuring a story today that I appeared in as a PANDAS expert. PANDAS is a medical condition affecting kids where their immune system attacks their brain when they get sick and gives them things like tics, OCD, anorexia, rage and cognitive impairment. It’s vital that awareness is raised because so many kids get misdiagnosed and don’t get the treatment they need.

Check it out here

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End of PSA. Here’s the deal:

The story is a personal vindication for me. After my trauma, the story-slash-international-sex-scandal hit the AP wire and was featured in national and international news. It was not a flattering story for me. My name isn’t mentioned; I’m called simply, Noyes’s sex slave (should have read RAPE slave. there I fixed it for them). It led to a public shaming that contributed to my chronic PTSD settling for seven long years.

The head of my med school said I’d never be a doctor because of my moral failings. Not only am I a doctor (make that, an expert) but I am using my degree to fight the good fight. Quite the opposite of what she uses hers for.

Forgive them Lord for they know exactly what they do and do it anyway but you are a merciful God. Good way to flex your mercy muscles.

2017 is drawing to a close and here I am again, writing another reflective end of year post. I haven’t written in this blog in quite some time as I have a blog on my medical practice’s website now. This blog is really about trauma (although that’s not what I intended when I started it. Life’s funny that way I suppose). It’s about trauma in general and about one trauma in particular. The trauma Jeremy brought to me that cold snowy winter of 2008.

The trauma started January 2008. I began healing in January 2009. I got the subpoena written out by he himself to testify at his trial January 2011. I had my final healing from PTSD January 2015. And so…. January. January is coming again.

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It will be ten years since The Ordeal. An anniversary. What are you supposed to give as a gift for your tenth anniversary? I looked it up and it said tin/aluminum for traditional and diamond jewelry for the modern gift tradition. It’s too bad I skipped our ninth anniversary because that one’s leather (get it? He was into BDSM. Leather. Get it? It’s ok. You can laugh. Or look at me awkwardly. You do you)

So what should I get to commemorate the occasion? A tin man? A Coke can? Perhaps an aluminum foil hat to block aliens from stealing his thoughts?

The thing I have in common with him is that he and I both think about The Ordeal everyday of our lives without fail. No one else does. Not consistently. Not without prompting.

My relationship with Jeremy has changed over time but I will always have one with him. From Stockholm Syndrome to fear to anger to forgiveness and then back and forth a few times. To compassion. Ok, sarcastic compassion at times, but compassion nonetheless.

My husband is reading a book about domestic violence right now and we ended up having a conversation last night about the importance of being able to confront an abuser and bring them to task.

“Did you ever do that with Jeremy,” he asked me

“No. I sent him to prison for the rest of his life. I really didn’t need to say anything”

“No but did you ever assert yourself with him verbally. In the courtroom maybe? I wasn’t there when you testified.”

“No… no. He was completely out of touch with reality. He said “I forgive you.” to me”

Eric continued on about the importance of this confrontation of the abuser and I interrupted him and shut him down. Just… no. No. This conversation wasn’t happening. I had no energy for it.

His point was that Jeremy needed that in order to come to terms with what he’d done. Bullies will never change if no one stands up to them. My point was that Jeremy is delusional and believes my sister and I orchestrated a grand conspiracy to frame him with the entire FBI backing us. He honest to Jesus Joseph and Mary believes that raping little girls is actually good for them, so… I’m really not seeing this asserting myself thing doing a whole lot. And quite frankly, if sitting staring at prison bars for 45 years doesn’t cause you to do a little soul searching, I’m pretty sure a sassy physician confronting you ain’t gonna do it either.

He continues the discussion of abusers as bullies and you need to stand up to bullies and all that and my mind wanders back to the courtroom. Back to the bedroom. Bitter, grey Erie. That uneasy feeling in my stomach. That fight or flight in my muscle fibers. In my eyes, always darting, scanning for danger. As it laid next to me.

There was a discussion at work today about what each of us would do if we won the lottery. Conversation drifts to the importance of buying land as it’s a limited resource and I find mySelf saying “or gold.” They begin discussing the merits of gold versus silver for price stability and my mind wanders back to the gold shop in Erie.

Jeremy was fixated on buying gold. He thought he could make money buying and selling it. He watched the gold markets obsessively. He never slept. I remember that. He was up all night on his computer. Barely slept. He watched the markets and talked to Alex in New ZeLand and researched evil.

He thought he was amazingly smart. Smart enough to outsmart the police. Smart
enough to make it rich buying and selling little gold bars. (Spoiler alert: he’s not)

At some point in The Ordeal he had me take my money and buy gold. I lived off student loans At the time so the money I was to live off of was dispersed in two
payments: one in August and one in January. He had me lend him this money I had set aside to live off of later in the year so he could buy gold. He would then sell it back and pay me back and keep the interest I suppose. I don’t remember the details. I remember very little about it. I remember driving to the bank near the Moe’s to withdraw the money (Welcome to Moe’s!)

I remember sitting in the Cheesecake Factory with my sisters that spring and mentioning the gold to them. I remember the look on my sister’s face and the way she spoke. She spoke to me the way you’d speak to someone holding a gun in their hand about to shoot. She looked horrified. She spoke calmly and slowly. She told me I needed to sell the gold back and put the money back in my savings account. I told her I would. I was glad she wasn’t angry. I was worried by the way she’d talked. Was I crazy, I wondered. She talked to me like I was crazy.

I remember insisting Jeremy give me the gold back in June. He said, the price of gold has gone down. You should wait and I’ll sell it and you won’t lose money. But I insisted and he complied. I don’t know what excuse I gave him. It worked. That’s all that matters.

I needed to get the money back because I was turning him in. Soon the government would seize his assets. I remember sitting there in the minivan with the broken air conditioning outside the gold shop in Erie. Sweating in my heavy black Land’s End skirt.

I still have that skirt. Still looks good. Damn good quality skirt.

Purple scrubs now, standing in urgent care a few lifetimes later. I walk away from the lottery discussion to work on notes. The memory of the Cheesecake Factory is unsettling. It fills me with shame. What decisions I made at that time of my trauma were mine and which were not? Maybe I would have done something crazy like buying up gold even if I hadn’t been in a situation where he controlled me through force.

If so, do I deserve to feel ashamed? No. I remind myself of this. I take a deep breath and let the shame go. Sort of. Hey, life’s a process. Don’t rush me.

So maybe I should get Jeremy something gold for our anniversary? No. Gold was a mistake. I’ll definitely stick with aluminum this time. Maybe foil for the rabbit ears on the prison TV so he can learn about PANDAS and the good fight.

13 years

03 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in autism, doctors, kids, love, medicine, PTSD, Rape, special needs, Uncategorized

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I am sitting here reading immunology. Cytokine storm, interleukin-1, natural killer cells. I am doing the thing I have been doing for almost 13 years now. I am trying to fix my babies.

Autism and PANS and Lyme and on and on. Their immune systems have betrayed them. They are attacking their own brains. I must stop the marauding hordes. I must. I’m their mother, after all.

I decided to become a doctor almost 13 years ago. Soldier Boy was a few months old. He’d already had more medical tests and seen more specialists than most of us will see our whole lives. Diagnosis after diagnosis. The idiot doctors couldn’t see he was perfect.

He was perfect. He is perfect. But, he’s not. His body betrays him.

I decided to become a doctor for a lot of reasons. Some noble and some not so much. One of the reasons I became a doctor was because I wanted to fix my son. I wanted to save my perfect baby from the many sicknesses he’d been born with.

I had his little brother while I was studying to apply to medical school. He was different. He was not sick. No tests, no specialists. He never even got a cold or had a fever. Ever.

Then, when he was 3 1/2 he stopped eating and began threatening to kill us and… you can read about it here. He got PANS.

Doctors have been no help. I am now finally a doctor all these years later. Almost 13. And now it is my job to figure things out, to help them, to fix them, to save them.

And so I am sitting up, exhausted, reading through immunology slides trying to understand the autoimmune nature of autism. Trying to understand the things I can do for Lyme triggered PANS that has been going on for eight years.

Innate immune system, cellular immunity, microglial activation, …

As I sit looking at the diagrams of these various immune processes, they are familiar to me. You learn so much in medical school they say it’s like drinking from a fire hydrant. You retain the things you use in whatever specialty you wind up in. But I am finding now the things you haven’t thought of in 10 years come back quickly when you need them.

Ten years ago I sat studying Immunology in my living room in Erie. Its a very clear memory. Sitting in the large overstuffed brown arm chair next to the end table with the touch lamp. The same end table I’d placed our Little People manger scene on at Christmas time. We lost baby Jesus and I replaced him with a Matchbox car because… because little boys. The chair was in front of the big bay window where my boys would climb up excitedly when the garbage truck came by.

I remember so clearly sitting there reading my Immunology book the night before the exam. I was behind on studying and I was excited it was clicking. I think I will do well on this test, I thought.

I was behind on my studying because of The Ordeal. Because of Jeremy. I failed the exam the next day.

Amazingly, the unit after that, Neuroanatomy, I rocked. It was considered the hardest course of first year. I was being actively traumatized by a sociopathic sadist, and I somehow managed to kick some ass. I’d gone from scared to pissed off at that point. I’d decided I was going to find a way to turn him in no matter what. Once I got to that place in my head, focusing on studying wasn’t a problem. I’m very good at compartmentalizing my mind when it’s required

But Immunology, I failed. And so I had to remediate it that summer. Immunology and Pharmacology. He did too. I saw him there. It was in those two weeks of remediation that I turned him in. I passed the remediation exam. And then went and turned him in. I was busy.

For so many years this trauma has been at the center of the story I tell of myself. Not so much to other people but to myself. For years it made me believe I was worthless. And then I entered recovery and I became defined as a survivor. Each step closer to becoming an attending physician was marked with a “screw you Sylvia” (Sylvia being the head of my med school who slut shamed me and tried to kick me out) and a “you’re in jail, Jeremy but look at me”.

I had come to accept this. But now, it isn’t true anymore. It isn’t the biggest part of my story.

Being a doctor was always about my boys. And now it is again. They’re the reason I fought to stay in med school when Sylvia was trying to force me out, heaping degradation on me. They’re the reason I stayed up til 2 in the morning studying organic chem long before I ever met Jeremy Noyes. They’re the reason I have started my own practice now. The thing I have been dreaming of for almost 13 years.

In some respects, it is easier to have rape and torture at the center of your story than to have your sick babies there. What mother wouldn’t rather endure suffering herself than to see her babies suffer? But we are not put on Earth to choose the easy path.

I named this blog I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead when I was in residency working 90 hour weeks, 36 hour shifts. But the truth is, for doctors, the sleepless nights and exhaustion pretty much end when graduation day comes and attending life begins. For autism moms, there is no graduation. There is no finish line. We really will wait our whole lives for a sound sleep.

I went into medical school to become a different kind of doctor than the ones my son had. Condescending, close minded, clueless. I went undercover. Deep cover. And I unavoidably lost my way. Drank the Kool-Aid because there really is no other way to make it out alive.

But I’m on the other side now and I remember who I was. I am an autism mom who became a doctor. I am an autism mom. I am an autism mom who knows immunology and pharmacology and neuroanatomy. I am an autism mom who gave her soul and body and mind and heart for her medical degree. And I have it. And *that* is the story of me. Jeremy and Sylvia were mere diversions.

I am going to help my children and my patients. I am going to speak out and challenge all they do that is wrong. I am going to sleep very little. Because that’s what autism moms do.

Good night. I have some reading to do.