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I'm sorry to anyone who's subscribed to my blog! You've probably got about 100 emails from here. I've been fixing up the categories, which required me to re-publish posts after I changed the categories. Hopefully I am done with this pain in the ass exercise, and will be able to post something real tomorrow. Until then, peace out from your friend the blogging nerd.

You know I'm no good

"I cheated myself
Like I knew I would
I told you I was trouble
You know that I'm no good"

-Amy Winehouse "You Know I'm No Good"

The other day I saw a segment on the News Hour about Iraqi war veterans struggling with PTSD. When the man they interviewed talked about his symptoms, and somehow, the way he talked about, I was really struck by how familiar it sounded. Kind of how, last January, I saw an interview with a man in Gaza during the war? Israeli military offensive. While he was talking about being in a hospital while it was bombed, a bomb hit close by, and the look in his eyes seemed so familiar. Terror, panic, lack of comprehension, not being able to take it all in, resignation, helplessness, anger. It's the look of someone who's body, every cell in their body, is telling, screaming at them hysterically to run, but their brain is telling them there's no point, no way to escape it. Somehow, this man who is back in the United States is experiencing those feelings that are like what this man is feeling with bombs dropping next to him in Gaza, and I'm watching on TV and thinking I understand how they feel because I thought my dad would kill me back when I was a kid. PTSD is strange that way. We are all human, and we are animals, and we have limited ways of coping with overwhelming terror and horror.

Our survival instincts and strategies for processing psychological trauma are built into the primitive parts of our brains. So as someone who experienced abuse, rape, and the suicide of someone I was strongly bonded with, I can end up with the same mental disorder as war veterans, torture victims, people who lived in war zones, hurricane and other natural disaster survivors, people who lived through car and airplane accidents, victims of violent crime, kidnapping, terrorism, etc. The cause doesn't necessarily have to be comparable, although they do have the fear of your own destruction or witnessing someone else's in common. It is somewhat comforting to know that what I'm experiencing is "normal", not just for abuse survivors, but all sorts of other survivors as well. It is less comforting to think of how much of this violence is caused by other humans, and how we so often ignore the psychological costs of war, domestic violence, rape, and other trauma and terror.

After the report, there was a discussion about military men and women coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD. One of the people in the discussion suggested that we shouldn't think about this as a mental illness, rather, like an injury such as a broken leg that can heal and the person can fully recover. She kept talking about these warriors who get injured in battle, and they need to be acknowledged as wounded warriors, not mentally ill. I get her point, in theory PTSD can be temporary until the person can process the trauma. That is one way to deal with the stigma of mental illness, just deny that PTSD is a mental illness. But PTSD is a mental illness, the symptoms are things like depression, anxiety, nightmares, flashbacks, memory disturbances, suicidal behavior, and the treatments are psychology-based, including therapy, antidepressants, and anti-anxiety drugs. The man in the report even says that it's not like breaking your leg, because your leg is put in a cast and in six weeks you're all better. His wife talks about how he tries to go off his medication and things get bad again, and although she doesn't identify the medication, she's says it "takes the edge off" and I'm assuming its an antidepressant, or maybe an anti-anxiety drug.

Of course I'm not against people in the military thinking of their comrades with PTSD as "wounded warriors", just like I don't have a problem with people preferring "survivor" to "victim" (although I prefer victim because I think we need to get it through our heads that if someone victimizes you it doesn't make you bad. I don't think the word victim should have bad connotations because the whole point of the word is that something bad was done to you, so the negative connotations lie with the person who victimized you, not you. But I understand that "survivor" sounds more empowering. I think it would be more empowering, though, if society didn't make it a practice to blame the victim. The whole point of the word is that it's not the victim's fault!) It just seems like kind of a slap in the face to all the mental health professionals, people with PTSD, and others who have fought to get PTSD recognized as a mental illness and are working on treatments and support to then deny that it is a mental illness. That kind of feeds into the stigma. I also don't like the idea of separating the PTSD that war veterans experience from the PTSD that anyone not in the military might have. People in the military are not mindless killing machines, they are human beings just like the rest of us, who are asked to survive conditions that most of us can't imagine, on our behalf. I know I can't imagine what it would be like to see people killed in front of you and know you could be blown apart at any time, and then have to go from the horror and violence of war to "normal" life. Of course that would be overwhelmingly traumatic. Just like it would be for anyone.

Suddenly I don't know where I'm going with this, except to say that it kind of amazes me that PTSD is largely the same disorder regardless of how you got it. Also, my battlefield has mostly been intimate relationships, so no wonder I have so many problems with them. I have been marveling this week on how much self-hatred I harbor in my poor, conflicted heart. Other people can tell me, and I can tell myself over and over that my dad didn't abuse me because I'm worthless, my mom didn't not protect me because I wasn't good enough, my great-uncle didn't sexually abuse me because I'm only good for sex, and my brother didn't kill himself because I was a selfish and lousy sister, but it just doesn't sink it to the level where I believe those things, truly. I still don't think I deserve consideration for my feelings, sensitivity, and respect. Somehow, it feels good to admit to myself that I still feel that way. My conscious, adult brain knows it's not true. My conscious mind is like the beach, and my subconscious is the entire ocean, lapping up on the shore, coming up completely in my dreams, which are full of fear and conflict. The guilt and grief feels overwhelming, yet not hostile. It's just there, keeping my toes wet during the day and washing over me at night. I sit on the sand, day after day, waiting to unite with the part of me that's a mermaid.

From Neil Gaiman on twitter (neilhimself)- The Patti Smith Group - Because The Night - 1978.

Night of Desirable Objects

Before Halloween I discovered that the drugstore down the street was selling wigs for under $5. I don't know if it's because of the recession and they thought people wouldn't be spending on Halloween this year, but everything was heavily discounted for weeks before Halloween. Whatever the reason, I stocked up on crazy wigs. I got a pink, blue, and purple one. I used the purple one for my Halloween costume, Nymphadora Tonks. I realized that this year was a bountiful one for wearing geeky costumes. I was Rin Tohsaka and anime Alice from Resident Evil for the Anime Expo, Elektra for Comic Con, and then Tonks from Harry Potter. I even bought a sewing machine because I needed one for costumes. I'm hoping all this dress-up and going to conventions is increasing my geek cred.

Also, this picture is evidence of how my face has been breaking out lately, which should really be worth some hockey cred since it's from my new helmet. My helmet is great because it actually fits. My old one was too big, so anytime someone hit me in the face during a game, which was like, all the time, the helmet would shift and I'd be struggling with the cage trying to get the chin rest back on my chin with my hands in gloves so I couldn't just hook my fingers around the cage to move it, and all this is going on during a game and I couldn't see very well because the helmet is over my eyes...you get the picture. So the new helmet is wonderful because it stays on my face, but because it is so snug I am also getting all pimply on my chin and forehead. It's for hockey, so it's worth it.

In other geek news, I discovered my new favorite Facebook game- Tiny Dungeons and Dragons. It's a lot like the real D&D, except, this is the great part, no Dungeon Master who doesn't like girls playing. That was my problem when D&D first got popular. It was after the boys in my neighborhood decided I had cooties and didn't want me playing with them. But thanks to Tiny D&D, I am free to create female adventurers with armor and gauntlets and a sword for each hand, and adventure my heart out. Since I am having so much fun making up for lost time, and since I found the game because a boy, that is, a man sent me an invitation to it, I suppose I can forgive the boys who wouldn't let me play with them way back then. I am so enamored with my level 7 Elf Ranger I can't even tell you. I am already planning for my next female character with much enthusiasm.

I've needed the distraction because I've been pretty miserable lately. For one, I've been sick. No, it's not the swine flu. It's some sinus-y, coughing, having a hard time breathing, headache-y kind of thing. It started way back in the beginning of October and has just been lingering on, especially the cough. The worst was when I was too sick to play hockey. It made me all depressed. I am finally able to breath during games again. I had what seemed like a lot of games where I was struggling to get enough air, and spending my time on the bench heaving and hoping I wouldn't pass out. My Culver team, bless them, would look over at me while I was hacking my lungs out on the bench and say, "What's your problem?" Then after the game, while I was bent over the garbage can dry heaving, one of the guys would say, "Are you sick or something?" You could just feel the love.

I'm still coughing, sneezing, and tired, but playing has got easier. I feel pretty normal out there, if slightly more winded when I get to the bench. I keep taking all these cold medicines because I'm afraid I'll get a sinus infection like I did two years ago. I had to take antibiotics which completely messes up my stomach. All the over-the-counter medicine is bad enough on my touchy system. My friend recommended using a Neti Pot. So, I don't know if you've tried this, but it's this strange plastic teapot-looking thing. Strange because the spout looks like a penis. I mean, it does. So you put this saline/salt stuff in it, and warm water, and stick it in your nose and tilt your head to the side. The water is suppose to pour through your sinuses and out your other nostril. Of course when I did it, the salt water ran down my throat; I gagged; bubbles came out my nose and I drooled on my shirt. Then I walked around my apartment with snot and saline water on my shirt, sneezing bubbles and cursing the Neti Pot. This is one of the many reasons why I am glad I live alone.

The real problem in my life, and probably the reason I have been physically sick for so long because of all the stress, is that I am having a lot of PTSD symptoms. Specifically, nightmares and anxiety. I don't really remember the actual content of my nightmares, but I wake up periodically throughout the night, sweating and terrified. Sometimes when I wake up I am convinced I heard someone in my apartment, but I'm too scared to go look (and still half asleep) and then I just fall back into the scary dream. I wake up anxious and frightened. It's hard to reassure myself that it was just a nightmare even after I wake up, probably because they aren't just nightmares, they're flashbacks. I'm reliving the terrors of my childhood. I wake up feeling the way I did as a kid, vulnerable and alone. That loneliness carries through, is the link between then and now. When I was a child, being alone was terrifying because I couldn't survive without a basic level of care and sympathy from adults. As an adult, it just feels like I mostly have to carry this burden alone because a lot people don't understand what it is like to be an adult survivor of abuse, to have PSTD, and just the fact that I am trying to live in the present while being haunted by my past at the same time. I feel like I live in two worlds.

As I keep reminding myself, and my therapist keeps reminding me, the reason these feelings are coming up now is that I do feel safe, safe enough to let this come to the surface and deal with it. I feel like myself as a child is living in my subconscious, fighting monsters, and my adult, conscious mind is trying to be supportive, not get in my way and try to keep this from playing out, not interfere but still help, and not let that battle in my subconscious bleed into my current life and distort it too much. In other words, realize that a lot of what I am feeling is connected to the past, even if it is triggered by things in my present. There are always going to be triggers, and I'll never pass through these feelings unless I just feel them. The conscious mind wants so much to connect them to something. When I feel fear, my mind wants to find something to be afraid of now. When I'm angry, I want to be angry at something I can direct my anger at. I don't want to just feel angry that things happened that I can't do anything about. And I don't want to feel sad at all, but waves of sadness pass over me and I just have to let them. I just have to keep reminding myself that I have to feel this. There is no other way.

One of the strangest, hard to explain feelings is anger towards yourself that you weren't able to protect yourself. It doesn't really matter how irrational that feeling is, you can always tell yourself that you could have done this or that differently, and maybe it wouldn't have happened that way. You could have been smarter, more clever, could have fought back more, could have tried harder not to zone out and somehow you could have found superhuman strength or the right thing to say to make it all stop. It really, really sucks to feel like a victim, because you feel helpless. Helpless leads to hopeless, and you can't survive hopeless. Your mind will do anything to avoid feeling helpless.

I think that's a big part of the appeal of fantasy. If you can imagine yourself as an adventurer, a warrior, a hero in your own life, you can protect yourself from that feeling. In D&D, you win some and you lose some. Some of it is the luck of the draw (or roll), some of it is the armor you've found or otherwise acquired, the weapons, your experience, your resilience, and your own particular strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes you barely get out alive, but you always need time to recuperate. It also helps to think of the resources (or lack thereof) I had as a child, and how I was up against a monster like my dad, with far more experience, strength, and a lizard-y hide I couldn't hope to match. It was like sending a first level Eladrin with no armor or weapon in against a Level 5 Hobgoblin. The Eladrin may be intelligent, but she's screwed. (I'm a D&D neophyte, so don't expect me to know what I'm talking about.)

As I'm arming up my Tiny D&D character and sending her on level-appropriate adventures, I'm trying to arm up that kid inside me that's fighting ghosts on my behalf. And I'm trying to remember that this is normal, at least normal for someone with PTSD. This is not easy stuff I am trying to deal with. Another thing that's kind of comforting about thinking of yourself as an adventurer is that adventurers are often alone. You meet people along the way, you may travel with others, and people help you, but sometimes you do have to enter the evil forest and find your way out on your own. I just wish the evil forest would let me sleep. I told my therapist I was having insomnia, and when she asked me why I said I didn't know. Then I told her about the nightmares, and she seemed pretty surprised that it didn't occur to me that the fear of nightmares might be what's making it hard for me to go to sleep. Go figure.

I'll stop the world and melt with you

A couple night ago, I had a dream that I was making out with a guy in a NY Rangers jersey. Of all the weird, cryptic dreams I've had, this one was especially difficult to interrupt. I still haven't figured it out. Some options:

A) I'm lonely, and really only interested in guys who like hockey, but my misgivings about the opposite sex are reflected in the guy wearing the jersey of the NHL team I hate the most.

B) I've been reading hockey blogs, many written by people on the East Coast. I usually follow West Coast teams, but I probably know more about the east this year than I ever have thanks to all the team previews I've been reading. (I've been sick and lying on the couch a lot lately. More about that later.) So in the dream I'm symbolically embracing (ha! I crack myself up) the Eastern Conference. Speaking of, my favorite blog posts of recent history have been The Two-Line Pass Eastern and Western Conference previews, in haiku. Call me crazy, but I thought these were pretty good. Seriously, the haiku form seems to make everything sound poetic.

C) Why is there so much positive buzz about the Philadelphia Flyers this season? Last season, they took dumb penalties and started fights that turned the momentum...against them. How is getting Chris Pronger from the Anaheim Ducks gonna change that? I don't get it.

D) My subconscious has forgiven the Rangers for beating my Vancouver Canucks in the 1994 Stanley Cup Final.

E) Random pairing of during-sleep hornyness and my obsession with hockey.

I don't know what the right answer is, but it's not D.

I'm on somewhat of a health kick right now, or I'm back to the one I used to be on before I moved to LA. It started a couple weeks ago when I went to bed early enough to get 8.5 hours of sleep, yet woke up with dark, dark circles under my eyes and feeling like death warmed over. This is not an uncommon occurrence. This is depression for me- not so much thinking bad things, but feeling like hell. Feeling groggy, and numb, and empty inside. Disconnected. It just seems pointless to even go to bed, because I'll feel awful when I wake up no matter what. This is why I play so much hockey. It's the only time I feel 100% good (mind, body, and soul), and one of the rare times that I feel in the present. I have had games where I had some flashbacks and got distracted (not a good thing when people are flying at you) and it's not as fun playing when you're sick, but usually when I'm playing I feel in the moment, in the real world instead of in my head, and ALIVE. But my especially bad morning was a precursor to getting sick, which I have been since then. The worst part of it is that it's in my lungs and throat, making it hard for me to breathe very well. I've still been playing, but I skipped pick-up last week and went a whole five days without hockey (playing).

Another thing that happened is that I've gotten the chance to play center. My Lady Kings team lost our superstar forward, and we are short on centers. We've been short on players, period. We're lucky to have two lines. The first two games of the season we only had one center, so I was the second center. It is really, really fun. I love it because you really get to be part of the action almost all the time. You are either getting the puck or supporting the puck, usually, and you really have to be aware of where everyone on your team and the other team is. On defense, you need to pick up the third man or anyone trying to sneak in front of your net. On offense, it is usually up to you to bring the puck up and get a play going. You have to be able to switch from offense to defense, and back to offense as quickly as possible. Of the forwards, you are most responsible for backchecking and covering the defense when needed.

It is so exciting, but so exhausting. This is a big motivation for me to get healthier as well. It takes so much stamina to play center. I love chasing someone down who's trying to get a breakaway, but I am just dying afterwards. All the changing direction and sprinting is insane. I can't hold back, either. I have to go nuts out there or it's just not as satisfying. Hockey is not a stroll down the block. Of course right now this is especially hard because I'm sick and my lung capacity is diminished, and I keep having coughing fits on the bench in between periods. I am really looking forward to getting over this cold. I am actually in pain, heaving after shifts. (I did go to the doctor, and got tested for strep throat. That was negative, and I'm not coughing up green or yellow stuff, so it's just a cold and not something more serious.) I did play center in my Culver men's league as well, for 1 and a third games. (I say men's because there is only four women total in the league, and with 8 teams, this doesn't seem like enough to qualify for co-ed.) I thought I did pretty good the first game as center. I got an assist, was passing well, and was blocking shots like crazy. Unfortunately, one of those, a slap shot from the blue line, hit me in the ankle and bruised me pretty bad. It possibly bruised the ligament in my ankle, so I was icing that for a while.

Also, unfortunately, I was feeling really bad in our last Culver game, and I only lasted one period at center. Hopefully I will get another crack at it, because that was one of my worst games. I felt slow as molasses. Plus, they get on me about being slow at the face-offs. I am trying to get better, and practicing at it, but I don't do well with having someone get on my case during a game. I like feedback because then I know what to work on, but when it starts to feel like I'm being pressured in a negative way I get so nervous and lose confidence, and I start to do worse. I do much better with encouragement and constructive criticism. If I feel like someone is disappointed in me I just get discouraged.

Some people have told me that they are motivated by the "tough love" approach and being yelled at when they do something wrong, but not me. The kind of environment I do well in is supportive, encouraging, and very social with very specific feedback. I'm one of those team player types. If I have people around me who believe in me, and I understand what I need to do to succeed, I have the confidence to go all out for the sake of the team. I guess one of the hardest thing for me about playing center is that you are kind of the center of attention sometimes, and it feels like more pressure and like I'm disappointing my team more if I play poorly. (It seems funny to say that I don't like being the center of attention because I am such a ham, but I'm mostly just trying to entertain people and make them laugh, not make them think I'm awesome. I'm a geek and I know it.) On the flip side, I know that I can help out my team when I work on my skills and skate hard, so I can get my teammates the puck, and get us opportunities to score. I feel challenged and motivated to really push myself this season. I have a lot to work on- face-offs, skating better, stops, starts, and changing direction quickly, controlling and protecting the puck, etc. etc. It's an exciting start to my fall/winter season of playing hockey, which is greatly enhanced by my enthusiasm for the start of the NHL season.

Best news ever- I get free satellite TV from my company. (I'm not saying their name because I know they monitor what blogs are saying about them, but their logo is blue and swirly.) The employee package is very good, but for the first time this year the NHL package is included! Yay! Last year I paid for it, and it was worth every penny, but I'm super happy to be getting it for free. Bonus! I have a whole life philosophy that revolves around free stuff (bonuses) that I developed while I was on the streets and looking for ways to keep positive. I'll have to share it with you sometime.

"Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.

Everybody looked at Alice.
"I'm not a mile high," said Alice.
"You are," said the King.
"Nearly two miles high," added the Queen.
"Well, I sha'n't go, at any rate," said Alice; "besides, that's not a regular rule: you invented it just now."
"It's the oldest rule in the book," said the King.
"Then it ought to be Number One," said Alice.

-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Chapter XII

Last Tuesday (therapy day), I was telling my therapist, who is amazing, that I feel like I live in two different worlds, the "real" world, the present time, where I work and interact with people, and my emotional world, where the past and the present (and maybe the future) swirl around with each other, get mixed up, where I hide myself, where I really live. The emotional world feels much more real than the real world. The outside world seems under control, calm, while the secret world is chaos. It's why I can't sleep well, why I have vivid, disturbing dreams about my family. It's why I wake up confused, and sometimes during the day feel numb and disconnected. My therapist said it was like Alice in Wonderland, like I was "through the looking glass" and living with the distortions contained within. She compared my dad to the Red Queen, which really made me laugh because it's true. It was also funny because she has never seen my arms uncovered, since I go there straight from work. She didn't know I have Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar, the Griffin, the pig baby, the Cook (but not the Queen of Hearts), the White Rabbit, and a hedgehog all on my left arm. The Mad Hatter was my first tattoo, if that gives any indication of how completely I love those books.

Of all the books I've read as a child and an adult, all the fantasy and adventure books that have sustained me, and all the female protagonists I felt connected to, Alice in Wonderland (lumping together Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass) holds a completely unique place in my life. My first memory of it was when I was 7 or 8 years old, had the chicken pox and was home from school, completely miserable (I loved school, and chicken pox is no picnic) and my mom read it to me. At the time, I felt like my mom had no idea that she was revealing something secret and hidden to me, something she didn't understand but spoke directly to me. It was an odd feeling. It would be like if you were looking at a painting with someone, and realized that there was a picture behind the main image, and that the person you were looking at it with could not see the second picture. I read and re-read the books on my own, especially the poems within the story. I read the notes accompanying some editions of the book, that explained the political and cultural references. I think my fascination with both poetry and politics started with Lewis Carroll. Poetry is the hidden language. ("Poetry is a metaphorical language...it suggests the actuality that hides behind the visible aspect." -Joseph Campbell)

My life, as a child in an abusive home, was all about what was secret, what was behind the surface of a seemingly normal family. But more than just acknowledging the existence of secret, hidden worlds, these books showed me how imagination, metaphor, could be your own special world, a developed and actualized place that could express your inner emotional life, through symbols and characters. It gave me the key (pun not intended, but a pretty good one nevertheless) to how I could both escape and live with the fear and uncertainty of my regular life. I could create a world within myself where all these feelings could go, everything I didn't know what to do with, and I could create a strong facade that could withstand the terrifying contradictions of my life, namely, adults that were supposed to be trustworthy and caring who used me, threatened my life and existence, and abandoned me when I needed help. Interacting every day with other children who had no idea how scary and confusing my life was, and the searing loneliness I felt knowing that only my brother could begin to understand what I was going through. It wasn't that my hidden world wasn't scary. It was just as scary as my real life. It was just a place where the scared feelings could go and be hidden in the symbolism of my subconscious. It was a place where I could protect those feelings, all those feelings, and protect myself. I protected myself by keeping parts of myself, the most vulnerable parts, hidden deep inside of myself. It was where I kept the truths of my life.

As my therapist said, I did all my emotional development there, in a place with no adult guidance and no support (as my brother was too young for me to talk to about this, and I was too young to explain it. He did support me in a lot of ways, though.) This was also the place where I had to figure out ways to understand the real world so I could live in it and survive. Children need a sense of safety, stability, and hope, even in situations that are dangerous, unpredictable, and hopeless. Otherwise you go crazy, like what happened to my brother. It's not really about avoiding feeling bad, it's about psychological and physical survival. As I'm beginning to understand, a child's psyche is not developed enough to understand abusive adults. Hell, most adults don't understand how an adult could abuse a child. I don't understand it as an adult, even though I lived it. So when you're a kid trying to make sense of it, it requires some big distortions in your thinking to be able to fathom it. Most of these involve blaming yourself, and vilifying your reactions to the treatment you're receiving to de-legitimize the feelings your having. For example, convincing yourself that your anger is wrong and evidence that you are wrong, because there is nothing to be angry about since you are causing the abuse yourself. This way you can believe that your parents are protecting and caring for you, and their unpredictable and seemingly capricious violence against you is actually legitimate punishment for breaking legitimate rules that you just don't understand correctly. You can't believe that they are just making up excuses to justify their abuse, because that would make the adults in your life total assholes and liars.

"These three major forms of adaptation-- the elaboration of dissociative defenses, the development of a fragmented identity, and the pathological regulation of emotional states-- permit the child to survive in an environment of chronic abuse. Further, they generally allow the child victim to preserve the appearance of normality which is of such importance to the abusive family. The child's distress symptoms are generally well hidden. Altered states of consciousness, memory lapses, and other dissociative symptoms are not generally recognized. The formation of a malignant negative identity is generally disguised by the socially conforming "false self." Psychosomatic symptoms are rarely traced to their source. And self-destructive behavior carried out in secret generally goes unnoticed...most are able successfully to conceal the extent of their psychological difficulties. Most abused children reach adulthood with their secrets intact."

-Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman, M.D., chapter 5, p. 110 (I have nothing to do with the overuse of the word "generally".)

Last Tuesday my therapist leaned over her knees so she could look me right in the eyes, and said, "The way you made sense of what was happening to you was brilliant, but wrong. The way you think about yourself is distorted. It's like you need...a translator between 'World A' and 'World B'. You need a way to keep your perceptions and feelings, but be able to see the real world in a more realistic way. And see yourself in a more realistic way."

I needed my secret world when I was a kid, but as an adult I do feel that my thinking is distorted. I see the real world through the lens of my childhood nightmare. It is my world, the world that makes sense to me, but it's a world where people often seem crazy, where I'm chasing something I can't seem to catch, my only companions on my journey seem to fade away and reappear out of my control, often not being there when I need them and not very helpful when they are, a baby in someone else's arms turns into a pig in mine, roses that are obviously white are painted red, and I am always trying to adjust myself to situations but seem to be either too big or too small, i.e. wrong. Out of step. I feel like everyone can tell I just don't fit in, and don't understand what is going on. The rules seem random, and the punishments for not following these rules excessively harsh. Reality feels deeply unpredictable and unstable. Unlike Alice, I don't ever wake up.

Maybe because I learned to hold contradictory views of people as a child, such as loving and idolizing my dad even while he was acting like a dick, I am able to hold really unforgiving and uncharitable views of myself, holding myself responsible for all manner of bad things that happen in my life, and at the same time a fierce confidence in myself, that I can overcome any difficulty and be successful. So as discouraging as it is to realize how profoundly my childhood twisted me emotionally, and how fragmented and disconnected my emotional life is, and mostly, how much worse it is than I was previously able to fathom, my confidence in my ability to fix myself rises to the occasion. Patience is really my biggest challenge. It will take time (almost another pun) to sort through the feelings and distortions and who I am underneath all that. And then I can try to knit the worlds together in some way that makes sense to me. It definitely makes me want to reread the Alice in Wonderland books, which will take time as well since I am still making my way through Harry Potter (at the end of book three) and the Sookie Stackhouse books (2/3's of the way through the second one). There is something extremely reassuring in discovering that I still love books as much as I did when I was a kid- even a baby as I used to sleep with my Dr. Seuss ABC book instead of a stuffed animal. Just like when I was a kid, I have to fight the urge to stay up reading all night instead of going to bed.

Things are not looking good for my John Zeiler groupie-ness.

is totally impressed with how fast Maia thoroughly offended the Ducks fans in front of us. Go Kings!

getting reemed by Subaru dealer. At least the headlight is under warranty. Don't trust anyone else w/ beloved Penelope.

You're hungry, but I'm starving

I'm having one of my confused times, where my emotions are so active, swirling around in my head, that I have a hard time making them concrete enough to write about them. I have been going to therapy once a week, and my emotional problems now seem much larger then they did before. Denial, I suppose. I've been trying to put my life back together for some time now. I emotionally and psychologically separated from my past, at least in my conscious mind, built walls between my present and my past to try to protect myself from overwhelming and confusing feelings that I didn't have the perspective and support to resolve at the time. Of course it was all still there, in my subconscious. Therapy is bringing it back into my consciousness. This therapist feels kind of like a parent, the kind of parent I never had. A parental figure who knows more than I do, who I can let down my guard a little with. Sometimes I feel like I am reverting back to an 8 year old, at least in the way that I feel. I'm seeing now that the things I am struggling with have their roots back to that time, and earlier.

I went through two photo albums and scanned some of the pictures into my computer. They are from when I was a baby up through age 21 or so. The more I look at them, the more solid I feel. Disconnecting from the past made me groundless, like I was a ghost of myself. I am starting to feel more real, more myself. This is uncomfortable too, because I am still struggling with intense feelings of terror, betrayal, and confusion. But I feel better, even though I am sometimes overwhelmed with everything that comes up, and stress, and a lot of resistance. I feel better just feeling a little more solid and real.

I have gotten back into reading fiction lately, which also reconnects me to my childhood. I loved to read so much back then, and my favorite were fantasy and adventure stories with a strong protagonist, that came in a series. So I've been reading both the Sookie Stackhouse books (by Charlaine Harris, the ones that the TV show True Blood is based on) and Harry Potter. These totally remind me of books I would read as a kid. I caught up on the Harry Potter movies first, but I am really enjoying the books because of the detail, especially hearing more of the character's internal dialog. I can't help but to relate to Harry- how he is troubled and conflicted, struggling with guilt and resentment, yet still the hero and a likable character. The way his aunt and uncle jump all over him and punish him just for being himself, how he can never placate them, and how they make it obvious that he is not their favorite- yes, I can relate to that. The fantasy of being whisked away from a cruel family to be with people who understand and appreciate you- this is an appealing fantasy for me. Even though it is not a fantasy that is relevant to me as an adult, it brings me back to my childhood, and the pleasure I take in it is for myself as a child. The fantasy of good vs evil is appealing as well. I find it very satisfying when the underdog triumphs over the (almost) overwhelming forces of evil. Part of the agony of PTSD is living with the affects of evil that you could not fight, could not win against, so it feels good to at least imagine the defeat of evil.

The Sookie books- well, when I got to the part in the first book (Dead Until Dark) when Sookie is describing her great-uncle fondling her, and her family trying to simultaneously deny and minimize the sexual abuse, it hit almost too close to home. I really bonded with the character at that point. Again, with those books, you read the inner dialog and feel the range of emotions, often conflicting. The characters are likable without being perfect or having their emotions always under control. People have outbursts; they get upset. I used to think my dad was scary because he had emotional outbursts, but now I understand that those weren't emotional outbursts. He wasn't out of control, he was highly controlled. He used "emotion" to manipulate and control other people. When I look at pictures of my dad now, I remember how cold and calculating he really was. I remember how hard his eyes were. Getting upset and having feelings doesn't make you abusive, and it shouldn't make you the target of abuse either. Somehow reading about these character's feelings is helping me feel better about having them myself.

I am learning, and trying to take in, a lot of big deal realities about myself and my experiences. Huge stuff. One of the hardest things for me to struggle against is that I learned to suppress my feelings to protect myself as a kid. It was dangerous for me to express myself back then. It feels very, very scary for me to feel things, because if I let myself feel and react to stuff that happens or things in my head from the past, I cannot always control my feelings, and I instinctively feel a lot of terror at the idea that people will know how I am feeling. This is not going on in my rational mind, it is happening in the part of my brain that is very, very concerned with survival. When I expressed emotions in my family, I got the shit beat out of me. I thought I would be killed. On at least one occasion, I almost was. That part of my brain is very powerful, the part that is trying to control my feelings because it thinks it is saving my life. It did save my life, many times. I just don't need it the same way anymore. It doesn't believe that. By piecing together my timeline, looking at myself as a kid, relating to who I was back then, it seems to be slowly seeping in that things are different now. I am not different, but my life is different. I am still who I am but my environment is less threatening.

Less threatening, but not entirely. I have been having nightmares. I feel tired and nauseous. Earlier tonight, someone knocked on my door, and I have been too scared to leave since then because I am afraid whoever it was is waiting for me outside. My dreams are awful. Disturbing. There are a lot of monsters living in my head. I like the monsters in my books a lot better than these monsters in my head.