Tag Archives: trauma

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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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

Posted by in PTSD, Rape, Sin

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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.

Fish oil and marshmallow foldovers will be served at our Gala banquet

10 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by in autism, PTSD, Rape, special needs, Uncategorized

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I had fish oil the other day for the first time in a decade. I’d bought an especially high quality one called OmegaCure for my two littlest ones who can’t swallow pills and was excited when it arrived. It is flavorless according to what I’d heard from my sources and I was hopeful I could get it past them. I made them each a peanut butter and marshmallow foldover and put a glug in between the peanut butter and mini marshmallows. They gobbled it right up. Now, marshamllows are such a treat for them it’s possible I could have put just about anything in there and they’d still have inhaled it. But I was pretty confident it was due to the true flavorlessness of the oil. The next morning I opened the fridge to get some berries out for my morning smoothie and the beautiful glass bottle of golden oil was there shimmering at me. I thought, why not put a tablespoon in my smoothie? And I did. And I drank it. I ran into the laundry room and excitedly told my husband the news.

“I had fish oil!”

Silence

“I had fish oil! For the first time since 2008!”

Silence

More laundry folding

“Ya know?”

Silence. Folding,

“Since Jeremy. I couldn’t take it because of the trauma…”

“Ok good.”

Clearly not something that broke his usual daily laundry folding routine

For me, it’s a big deal. For me, the question “why not put a tablespoon in my smoothie,” has a lot of answers.

The first time I asked that question and ended up vomiting was in 2012. I was pregnant with my daughter Lena and knew I should be taking fish oil heavy in DHA for brain development. It was even more important for me than a lot of moms because I already had a son with autism and malformation of his brain and optic nerves which meant any baby I carried was at higher risk for having issues and needed the best possible start, including fish oil, folic acid and vitamin D. I managed the vitamins fine but the fish oil did me in. When my husband asked me why I wasn’t taking the fish oil capsules he’d gotten me, I had to admit to myself I wasn’t throwing them up because I was pregnant. It was because of *him*. Jeremy. The Ordeal.

No big story attached to it. Jeremy made me take fish oil capsules daily, amongst his other weirdities. Some people are health nuts. He was a health sociopath.

I’ve attempted fish oil a few times since then and it was always a No Go. Couldn’t bring myself to swallow them. The one time I forced myself to swallow them and keep them down, the resultant fishy burps sent me into a daylong relapsing remitting flashback. From that point on, I decided I was going to concede the battle for fish oil. We lose certain things to trauma. It just is. You have to fight to save the things that really matter but you have to learn to let go of the things you can afford to. Lose the battle, win the war. And all that.

But as I stood peering into my fridge this week, that fish oil looked so lovely. (Like nectar collected by little hummingbirds and their magical fairy friends. I’m not kidding. See for yourself, it’s gorgeous.)And I know my kids need me healthy. And so, I figured, why not? What’s the worse that could happen? A day of fishy burp induced flashbacks again? I’ll live.

No fish burps and no flashbacks. It was a little hard to get myself to drink it, I admit. I’ve never been so afraid of a smoothie. But my two littles were sitting there with me at the table watching and I knew I had to play it cool. So down the hatch it went. And stayed.

2018 is a big year as far as my trauma goes. A decade since the trauma started, since I turned him in, since his arrest, since my school initiated their illegal persecution of me for my decision to turn him in, since I got the school’s suspension overturned, since the PTSD began.

It’s not a sad thing. It’s a triumphant thing, I’ve decided to call it my Gala Year. The resumption of fish oil is just the beginning. There’s going to be a whole calendar full of activities commemorating the events, remembering the heroes and making sure it doesn’t happen again.

I was looking for a race to run today. Now that I’m taking fish oil, by God, I ought to be ready to start running again and eat healthy and all that, right? It’s going to take a good while to get me in shape so I Googled “races november 2018 pittsburgh” to give myself ten months. I happened upon one of those obstacle races which I’ve always had an interest in despite being painfully uncoordinated. And it was a charity run for a group that serves people for autism. Perfect, I thought, I can motivate myself to run by raising money for autism. But then when I looked into it further, it wasn’t in November and wasn’t in Pittsburgh after all (thanks Google). It’s called the Beast on the Bay and it’s on Presque Isle in September. Presque Isle, Erie PA. The city of My Ordeal. The home of Sylvia Ferretti. She who sought to shame me out of being a doctor.

And so, please note on your calendar of Gala Year events, the date of September 8th. I will be completing the Beast to raise money for autism services and for The Exodus Road, a nonprofit group that rescues sex slaves throughout southeast Asia, India, and the US using a network of covert surveillance teams and individuals. (i.e. Jeremy Hunters). It will be my first time returning to Erie since his trial in February of 2011 so I imagine there were will be other Gala events added to the calendar for that weekend. Be sure to stay tuned.

2018 will mostly be comprised of healing my children of PANDAS and building up my practice. Of watching my Auggie learn to speak and sending my Lena to kindergarten. Seeing my Max become an excellent cellist and trying not to ball my eyes out on my Mies’s first day of high school (getting dizzy just typing those words). Fighting for my PANDAS patients’ recovery and learning all I can to defeat the Bear once and for all. But it will be my Gala Year too. Let the festivities begin.

“I’m sorry but I can’t look you in the eye because you remind me of my rapist. Nothing personal. I’m just fairly terrified right now.”

23 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by in medicine, PTSD, Rape

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I went into a patient room at my urgent care day job today to see a patient with chief complaint “sinus symptoms.” A routine visit, I was in and out in 3 minutes flat. It’s a very mechanical process when you’re seeing 50 a patients today, 95% of whom have one of ten diagnoses seen over and over. I walked in, though, and said, “I’m Dr. Spaar. I understand you’ve been having sinus symptoms,” as I always do. And I turned and got some hand sanitizer from the pump om the wall as I always do. And turned around to face the patient as I always do. And I’m sure he said something like, “Yeah it’s just all this pressure right here,” and he probably gestured to his face like patients always do when they present with a sinus infection. But I didn’t hear him.

Something about him, something about the look he gave me, reminded me so much of Jeremy. The look in his eyes. My stomach dropped. My body went numb. My heart started racing and things started closing in and going black. I quickly moved away from him to get the otoscope off the wall as he talked. I couldn’t look at him, at his eyes. And I needed a moment to panic without him seeing. I went about examining his ears and sinuses and lungs and asked the questions I was supposed to. I finished as quickly as I could and told him his diagnosis and plan and escaped the room. I did not look him in the eye.

And afterwards I found myself thinking, I wish I could have just said to him, “I’m sorry but I can’t look you in the eye because you remind me of my rapist. Nothing personal. I’m just fairly terrified right now.” It would have made me feel better, I think. And if rape survivors did this, wouldn’t the world be a better place? Why do we carry the burden alone? I think about what he did to me daily and yet there are so many people allowing themselves the comfort of pretending rape and child trafficking are not common. And it will never end as long as so many people remain so comfortable.

And maybe I’m wrong about this patient. Maybe he’s a rape survivor too. But rape is a systematic method of oppressing women and so I speak of women here as survivors and men as perpetrators and those conspiring in silence. Because statistics.

I rarely get triggered these days. It was a small blip in my day. But so many women are not as lucky as I am. They are living in the day in day out hell of PTSD. It is holding them back from who they are supposed to be. Creating a space for mediocre men to take the rightful place of exceptional women in many cases. Very few women in my situation would have graduated medical school, gotten a residency and graduated it as well. How many women have dropped out of college and grad school because of rape? How many have set aside ambitions and settled for a small life? And how many men have benefitted from this?

Perhaps the next time this happens I will tell the patient what I am feeling and why. And perhaps he will complain and I will be reprimanded. But I have learned long ago it is the keeping quiet that destroys your career, not the speaking out. Because it is the keeping quiet that takes your soul. There will always be another way forward even if your school or your job or your family or your husband reject you. Silence will eat you from the inside and take it all away. You will pretend at being alive until you can’t anymore.

And so perhaps next time I will tell the patient what I am feeling and why as I go about examining his sinuses and writing his prescription. Because a life of silence, however small, is not living.

Aluminum and gold

21 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by in medicine, PTSD, Rape

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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.

the smell of collard greens and sickness: 38 today

24 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by in kids, marriage, my awesome husband, parenting, PTSD, Sin, Uncategorized

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Today was the kind of day you question this whole having-5-kids thing. It’s my birthday and I’ve spent it tending 3 sick kids and taking another one to the psychiatrist. We’re talking wall to wall puke and diarrhea. Kids whining and crying. Wailing and gnashing of teeth. And always, always, the cry from all directions: Mom!

That said, 38 is a good birthday. The sun is shining. My husband surprised me with some beautiful flowers (even more a surprise because I ran into him at the store as he was buying them-he thought it ruined the whole thing but I found it more of a unique thrill). Granted, the 16 month old knocked the flowers and the 2 quarts of water they were in on the floor, but still. Clean up efforts of the spill were difficult secondary to every single rag in the house being in the wash, dirty or currently used as a puke reservoir. But still.

I spent my 28th birthday in the midst of my five month long trauma. So, Hell. I spent my 28th birthday in Hell. The great thing about trauma is that it makes puke and diarrhea look pretty damn good.

I took my sick babies for a walk in the double stroller today around our neighborhood on the river. I ate Thai food and vegan cheese cake with a very nice raspberry sauce, made by my hubs. I drank some wine and even convinced my teetolaller hubs to join me. My kids all made me cards (ten minutes before the party once forced to by the hubs) that were very sweet. My hubs spent the day, when not reducing raspberry sauce or walking our daughter to the dollar store for more pink balloons, working on the medical practice we are opening. The best present ever.

And  I got one other very important gift: time to write this.  Luxury living at its finest. I do not know how I could have made it to 38 without writing. It was my escape as an outcast Aspergery tween, was my voice against oppression in high school and beyond, won me scholarships and fellowships that made me feel like maybe I really did belong in academia, inspired lyrics that gave me the drive and the confidence to sing in a punk band in front of hundreds of people despite being completely terrified, got me published in a legit medical journal at a time when I struggled with feeling like I was a *real* doctor. Most importantly, writing got me through the weeks and months directly after Jeremy was arrested. Through the second trauma of my medical school shaming me and trying to ruin my career. And it preserved my memories. A true privilege few trauma survivors have.

This blog helped me recover from my PTSD. It helps me still. The core of PTSD is shame. The only way to battle shame is to speak your truth. More specifically, to have someone hear your truth. And not walk away. It is a small little blog with a small group of followers, and I am grateful for each and every one of you. You are a precious gift to me on this my 38th birthday.

It surprises me how I begin to write these entries with a problem and think to myself “Why are you dwelling on this problem with no solution? Cut the pity party.” And I start to write and by the time I am done, I have found an unexpected solution or a new way of looking at it, or have found a path to accepting it as it is. It makes me wonder if anyone can recover from PTSD without creating something. Trauma is the opposite of creation. It is destruction. It is the Fall in the Garden, the closing of the gate. What is it that Eve suffered for the Fall? Pain in childbirth. Pain in creation. But she did not lose the ability to create new life.

There is a certain pain to my writing now that wasn’t there when I was younger. Before my trauma. Before I had my first little boy and was told he was sick at 6 days old (and on the 7th day God rested. I cried the deepest cry I ever have while God rested. He and I are still hashing that one out). Before. But there is still this gift of the ability to create, as God does. And there is a healing in it. And a connection. Maybe not to God so much, but to other people, other survivors–not just of trauma, but all the sad things we live– to time, tradition, cyclical history. And a connection of ideas, of the points of my life, of the people who’ve passed in and out of it. Maybe, just maybe, if I keep writing, it will all make sense. The connections will be drawn, the pattern will show itself. There will be an answer.

I made a big batch of smoky vegan collard greens today for lunch. I made a lovely kale strawberry smoothie for breakfast. I took my medication. I exercised. The day was still utter chaos. I was still pretty damn grumpy for most of it. But I still ate my greens. I did not resolve my ongoing spiritual struggle over the nature of God (he can’t be all loving and  all powerful, so he mustn’t be all powerful so… where the hell does that leave us?)  But I still ate my greens. I was a highly imperfect mother and wife. But I still ate my greens. I was lonely for a lot of reasons. But I still ate my greens.

And so, the house came to smell of sickness and collard greens on this my 38th birthday. But it was 74 and breezy and so we opened the windows and doors and aired the place out. Took the baby out in the yard barefoot. Walked down to the public dock and watched the water. Hung pink streamers and balloons and had a little party. Watched a cheezy terrorist movie starring Morgan Freeman with my husband with the volume down and made up our own dialogue (lip reading did reveal Mr. Freeman called one of the characters “son” as I predicted he would). Spilled some wine on the couch and laughed about it.

We aired the place out because, as I realized shortly before my 29th birthday, I am not in prison. I am alive and I am free. This is not a cell without windows. The sun is not kept from us. And I am not alone. I am eating my greens and cleaning up the messes as they come. The stuff of life. 38 years alive. Booyah.

happy valentine’s day

22 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by in kids, love, PTSD, Rape

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Those of us who’ve lived trauma have our anniversaries. There are no greeting cards or flowers as a general rule, but you never fail to remember it, year after year. There’s not a daft husband among us, covering his calendar in sticky notes to try not to forget to get his someone special that something special.

The peculiar thing about a trauma anniversary is that you share it with someone horrible. You’re the two people in the world who hold it an anniversary. Thinking of each other but hopefully not sending chocolates or poems. My 11 year old would say that doing so would be “cringy.”

Jeremy’s trial started the week of Valentine’s day 2011. The Ordeal with him began around the same time in 2008. So, it’s our special time of year. Me and Jeremy.

The thought had occurred to me a few months ago that the only two people in the world who think of my trauma everyday. Who will think of it everyday for the rest of our lives. The only two people are me and Jeremy.

I double checked with my husband on this one. He doesn’t think of it everyday. Probably most days but not everyday.

It took some getting used to, this idea that I will most likely continue to think of him and of It everyday for the rest of my life. Me at 87 still thinking of it everyday. Maybe I’m wrong. But that’s not likely.

It’s not that I think of him for very long. Something reminds me of It and the thought flits through my mind and it’s gone. It doesn’t linger. I don’t ruminate on it. It doesn’t ruin my day or activate my sympathetic nervous system. No fight or flight. No pupil dilation or rapid heartbeat or paresthesia. Not anymore.

Valentine’s Day this year for me was filled with sweets from my beloved and my four year old daughter squealing with joy over the Shopkins pens her Secret Admirer got her (hint: it’s me. I’m the Secret Admirer). The rad tech at work made a coconut cake. I got the joy of making my husband smile with the surprise I got him. I also looked up articles on the trial and re-read the chapter in my book on it, lost in the quotes of what was actually said on the stand. Remembering. I’m okay with that. I don’t find it cringy. Maybe you do. Eh.

PTSD is a result of fighting these things. It is allowing the cringiness of sharing Valentine’s Day with your trauma memories to keep you locked in it. How do we find a way to be so brave as to face a thousand little things like that? To let go of how we know things should be, of how we thought they would be.

It’s the same thing I went through with accepting my son’s special needs. It’s the same thing so many of us go through in so many ways throughout life. The only difference with trauma is that it’s a whole fucking lot harder. Terrifying actually.

I saw on the news today that Milo Yiannopoulos gave an interview saying pedophilia (that is, child rape) is okay as long as the kid is 13 or so. And now his career’s hit a slight blip. And I thought of Jeremy and his love of Foucault and his love of Ron Paul. Of Trump’s friend Jeffrey Epstein and the man who protected him and of Trump himself.

Jeremy wasn’t a freak. He was just a working class predator who got caught and couldn’t afford an expensive lawyer, whose parents didn’t have connections. Child predators are literaly running our damn country. And no one really cares.

I wish I could send a Valentine to all the little girls out there suffering under predators like Jeremy (and our President). I wish they could know how wonderfully made they are, how strong they are to go on surviving and how much I admire and love them for that. How wrong it is we leave them there because talking about the epidemic of child rape is cringy. I wish they were opening Shopkins pens and squealing instead of drifting off in their minds to another place as they are hurt.

I share my Valentine’s Day with them too. And it may not be okay, but it is what it is.