Lightning Rod Girl

Screw mermaids. I want to see sting rays!

2011-12-11T14:32:00.001-08:00

Last Monday I went to the Aquarium of the Pacific with my work team for our holiday party and I fell in love with stingrays. There was a stingray petting area, and some of them would come up to the edge and stick their heads out of the water so you could pet them, almost like dogs. It was amazing! I never thought of underwater creatures as having personalities, but the fact that some of them seems so interested in us, and others didn't seem to care made them seem like an animal you could have an interaction with. That is one of the traits I always thought made rats so special- they all have such distinct personalities. I've had rats that wanted all my attention, rats that were too cool for all that, rats that were independent and adventurous, rats that just want to chill out, nervous rats, brave rats, insecure rats, and confident rats. They have all been different. The aquarium even had a shark petting area. Same thing- some of the sharks ignored us and some kept circling back near the edge and coming up close to the surface. The "petting" sharks were only about two feet long, compared to the much larger sharks they had in other areas of the aquarium. In case you are wondering, the sharks had rough skin, and the stingrays were kind of slimy.

We also fed a baby sea otter named Ollie, watched seals perform, saw tanks of fish so colorful they didn't seem real, watched scuba divers feed fish and rays, and saw lots of other animals like seahorses and jellyfish. The whole experience made me feel like a kid again. I was running around talking to the animals and almost falling into the petting tanks because I wanted to get as close as possible to them. It reminded me of why animals have meant so much to me since I was old enough to crawl after our family dog, why living with my rat friends is so important to me, and why I keep trying to be vegan, recycle, and "be green". Loving animals is something I've valued my whole life, something I consider part of who I am.

Speaking of the rats, my rat family has grown again. I got "the Littles", three brothers, almost two years ago from a woman who rescues pet rats, "the Biggles", two brothers, earlier this year from a friend who had rescued them from a firehouse and being feed to a snake, and a couple weeks ago I took two sisters from a friend who didn't think her daughters were paying enough attention to them. I have gone from get rats from a rescue person to being a rescuer myself. They are all sweet and wonderful and a lot of work since I now have three cages to clean (taking 45 to 60 minutes a piece). They are worth it though. Being at home without their company would be sad. As a side note, my friends who know I'm a rat lady are sharing this article with me about how rats are compassionate enough to choose freeing a friend over eating chocolate. In case you need some convincing that rats really are sweet.

I'm still struggling with sleep, even with my little friends comforting me. This week I've slept on the couch every night because when I think about going to my bed I get terrified. I take sleeping pills, but just the time until I fall asleep has been hard to tolerate. Recently my boyfriend was at my apartment over the weekend, and I started talking to him about how scared I was to go to bed. Soon I was talking in an even younger voice than I normally do, saying, "I was so small and scared my dad was coming in my room." I started crying and even hyperventilating. It was kind of like a flashback, like I was reaching into where that fear lives in my brain and embodying it. I was totally feeling all the fear that creeps into me when I think about going to bed. During the week I try to acknowledge those feelings but not let them overwhelm me so I won't be able to get to sleep at all. Even with sleeping pills, if I let all of it come out I lose touch with the present and it takes a long time to come back and calm down enough to sleep. This was the weekend and I didn't have to wake up at any certain time so I could just let it all come out. Also my boyfriend was there which made me feel protected enough to leave the present and just go with it. Most nights I try to keep a balance between letting some of these feelings run through my conscious brain and drowning in them. It is like letting the water out of giant tank. I've been shoving the fear into it for so long that trying to let it all out at once would be too overwhelming and could take over my life, so I'm trying to let it out slowly, a little bit each night. Eventually I will get through it. Eventually my little self will not be separated from my big self by this gulf of trauma, and I will be whole.

Ugh. Another holiday season.

2011-11-27T21:10:00.001-08:00

Downtown Los Angeles on Thanksgiving evening, 2011

I survived another Thanksgiving. It wasn't that bad, except I listed my brother's Super Nintendo on eBay and that was kind of depressing. I am trying to de-clutter my apartment and I have boxes and boxes of stuff I'm trying to get some money out of. I also like selling things, as opposed to donating them, because I figure someone willing to pay money for them will really use them and enjoy them. I realize some people are compulsive shoppers and that might not be true, but it kind of bugs me to think that stuff that is so hard for me to let go of might go to Goodwill and just be thrown away. Not that I'm against donations. I've probably given Goodwill about 50 pairs of shoes since I've moved here.

So besides the tightening I feel in my chest when I look at the posting of Jeff's much loved 90's video game systems (which I look at a lot, I can't seem to stop checking it) I didn't feel that much angst about Thanksgiving, or as I think of it, the anniversary of the day I was sexually abused at my great-uncles house for about 8 years. One of the things that has struck me about the Penn State rape/child abuse scandal (beside how utterly f-ed up it is) is that many of the articles I've read allude to the way Mr. Better Be Going to Hell or at least Prison for A Very Long Time groomed his victims. I think society generally overlooks this part of child abuse. We like to think of pedophiles as slobbering, filthy lunatics, you know, easy to spot. Obviously this would limit a pedophile's effectiveness considerably. Pedophiles have to be likable, the kind of person you would trust with your children. At the very least, they have to not seem like a pedophile. Otherwise, they wouldn't get access to children, and children wouldn't trust them enough to be alone with them, and look up to them enough to go along with things that feel wrong. Children are not stupid, but the pedophiles that get away with what they do know how to control children, and adults. Sometimes it seems like the adults are even easier to control that the children. Or worse. What can you say about adults who accept and cover up for a child rapist?

Bodies. They can seem like a curse. The sins of the flesh, yadda yadda, but more than that, bodies can seem like the cause of all our suffering, the vehicle through which we feel pain that leads to fear. Our body is where we carry all the trauma we've ever lived though. We can be reduced to just bodies, and treated like just bodies. And when we die, that's all we are, at least that's all we appear to be. That's one of the reasons I like zombies. Death is really horrific. The most horror I've ever felt was seeing my brother's body in a casket, with all the life gone. He looked grotesque. His face was swollen and misshapen. His skin looked rubbery and cold. I don't think I could have felt more disturbed even if he had risen up from the coffin and started lumbering towards me. Someday, we will all be bloated, misshapen bodies someone will look at with disgust. There's something about zombie movies and TV shows that capture how terrifying death is unlike the stylized drama of crime shows, or the romantic denial of vampires. Zombies are flesh, and we are flesh. We live in a world of flesh and decay. I just watched the mid-season finale of "The Walking Dead", so I'm in an especially morbid mood. Great show, completely horrifying.

Los Angeles is a very physical place. There's no end to the things you can do to yourself. There must be thousands of different types of facials you can get here, everything from a gentle cleansing with steam and all-organic products to botox injections and chemical peels. It kind of amazes me that anyone goes for that- we're going to peel your face like an orange! We're going to burn off layers of your skin with chemicals! Fun! It is a great place to experiment with everything you can stand to put yourself through. Since I've moved here, I've tried naked female-only spa-ing, reflexology, all manner of massages, EMDR, self-hypnosis, guided imagery, physical therapy for the shoulder and arm my dad swung me around by, light therapy, psychic healing and readings... I could go on. A couple weeks ago I used a Groupon (one of the ways I've found a variety of interesting local services) for a lymphatic massage, cupping, and a colonoscopy. To summarize the experience, the massage felt very good but gave me a headache, the cupping hurt and made my back look like, to quote my friend Gabby, "I was hugged by an octopus" and the colonoscopy made me throw up for 12 hours. However, I did feel a lot better afterwards. This has been an interesting year of trying diverse ways to loosen up. I say loosen up because it feels like all the trauma and emotional crap I went through when I was a kid and was too young and too in the thick of it was shoved down so hard inside me that processing and releasing it is not like opening a faucet and letting it all pour out. It is like breaking apart solid rock with a pick axe and then passing the chunks like gallstones. It's all painful, and letting it go feels about as good as peeing sharp rocks. Anything that can soften the pain inside me and make the process easier and more effective is helpful.

It also feels like trying different approaches is not such a bad way to go. I do think a lot of what I'm trying to let go of is stuck in my body, and I don't usually feel like I'm wasting my time trying different things. It's like doing cross training or mixing up your work-out when you're trying to break through plateaus when getting in shape. My weekly therapy is a constant, and there are things I'd like to try again and things I wish I could find time for more often, like writing, reading and yoga. All these different "therapies" get expensive though, and I'm about at the point I'd like to focus in on what gives me the biggest bang for my bucks. While I still have some bucks left to bang around. But to get in the spirit of the holidays, I am thankful for all the options I have for approaching my healing, and the support I have from my friends, boyfriend, therapist, and other well-wishers. Hope you all had a fun (or at least tolerable) Thanksgiving!

Apocalypse Running

2011-10-27T21:57:00.000-07:00

Man am I sore. I go to a trainer in the morning, and he likes the "fail" technique. That is, he wants to work my muscles until they fail. My muscles don't usually fail though. Usually they are burning so bad I give up, which doesn't dissuade him. He just tells me to get back into it. For example, this morning he had me doing squat sits with my back against the wall, holding 10 of them, then 50 reps. Then I did lunges, again holding 10, 50 reps, then the same thing on the other leg. He's also big on form, so he has me adjust so that it's just as difficult to do as possible. Oh, and then I finish off with a couple hundred crunches. Ha, not really. Just one hundred. This morning I was shaking after the lunges, and the rest of the day my legs and butt hurt. Of course this is what I am paying for. If I wasn't exhausted I'd feel like I was wasting my money. He knows how to motivate me too. He says, "You're a hockey player, aren't you? Aren't you supposed to be tough?" Hockey players have got to be the easiest people to mess with. It doesn't take much to push our buttons.

I told my trainer I wanted to be stronger for hockey, which is true. The stronger my leg, butt, and stomach muscles are, the better and longer I can skate. I also want more upper body strength so it's harder to push me off the puck. Honestly though, my biggest physical goal right now is to lose weight. Me, and like, everyone. I'm completely aggravated by how much weight I've put on in the last couple years. I gained about 5 pounds when I moved to L.A., but that was 4 years ago. When I tore my MCL playing hockey almost 2 years ago, I put on another 10 pounds in the 4 months I couldn't play. Over the next year I put on another 10 pounds. Ugh. Losing wight is so hard. The extra weight feels like my clutter/hoarding problem and all the emotional processing I still have to do. I'm dragging around a bunch of extra stuff that I don't want or need, but letting it go is work. I'm good at hiding the extra weight kind of like how I'm good at seeming like I'm handling the trauma well. It makes life easier, but it can also mean you tolerate things that you know you shouldn't because you're skating by. Not that gaining 25 pounds is really a crisis, but I feel pretty overwhelmed by the swimming in clutter thing and my crazy emotional dream life. I guess dredging through my emotional baggage takes time though. Not to be rushed.

I would like to rush some of these weight loss though. It's frustrating. I feel like a lump. It takes effort just to keep from gaining more, let alone actually losing more than a couple pounds. I'm even considering running. Some people at my work started an L.A. Marathon club. I've been going to their meetings because they talk about fitness, nutrition, and losing weight, but every time someone asks me if I'm running the marathon I say, "NOOOOO." Running for fun is not my thing. I like team sports. That's my thing. I did realized something though. Being able to run long distances would be very helpful in the zombie apocalypse. Of course it depends on what you think zombies would be like. It's the most important debate in modern horror- are zombies fast or slow? Personally, I like the fast zombies. I figure anything that can reanimate flesh would make said flesh pretty bad ass. I do like the slow, relentless, mob style zombies too. That would be where endurance comes in. Really, running would be handy with either. I'm not being facetious. When I was a kid, we didn't even have the internet. We didn't have cell phones. We listened to music on cassette tapes. Screw ups happen every day. Our water is full of prescription drugs, milk is full of hormones, meat is full of diseases. Who knows what could happen? We're a lot closer to zombies than vampires or werewolves. Yeah, I said it. Zombies over vampires. Vampires are cool and all, but zombies are coming. Fiction vs non-fiction. Think about it.

Not that I'm actually planning to run the entire L.A. Marathon next March. I still think the idea of me running 26+ miles is, uh, unlikely. But I'll do some training, and maybe I'll develop a taste for it. Who knows, it might help me lose some weight and feel better. Maybe I can run away from some of my problems.

All the Lamp Lighting You Can Handle

2011-10-18T20:46:00.000-07:00

I hadn't had a yard sale in a while, although I guess that is a Pacific Northwest term- here it's a garage sale? It was more like a parking lot sale or a sidewalk sale. I made $200 off crap that was going to Goodwill anyway. I was only able to stomach a yard sale because I had some kind of emotional epiphany right before the anniversary of my brother's death. I was able to let him go. I realized I was holding myself back and holding him back, and while I knew he didn't want me to be paralyzed with grief, it was even more motivating to me that I could be holding him back from moving on to the afterworld.

What I experienced was acceptance, for the first time. Accepting his death made it possible for me to let him go, and then made it possible for me to let a lot more go. I am a borderline hoarder. I discovered recently that I can really relate to the people in those hoarding reality shows on TV. I put a lot of emotions into my stuff, so getting rid of it is not so easy. It involves uncomfortable feelings, feelings that are hard for me to tolerate. But letting go of my brother is helping me let go of all sorts of stuff I've been collecting- clothes, shoes, books, toys, do-dads, yacky wacks, flippity flaps, etc. It's surprisingly time consuming to get rid of stuff though. The yard sale was a good way to clear out a bunch of things, including my brother's snare drum, which I didn't think I'd ever be able to let go of. I am still listing things on eBay and taking regular trips to Goodwill. I have an ungodly amount of papers to go through. There's important papers, uh, important business papers, in there with 100 pounds of other random papers. I keep a lot, especially as a writer, I have tons of slips of paper with ideas for poems, blog posts, stories, etc. I used to really struggle with letting go of things that seemed to represent something about myself. It was like my identity was so shaky I needed physical items to remind me of who I was. Now I look at things and think, that's not me. I don't need it.

I've also been making changes to get away from things I used to include in my identity but don't think really belong there anymore. I dyed my hair red. Having black hair felt like part of who I was, and I had dark hair for a long time, but I still feel like myself with red hair. I also switched hockey teams. I had been on the Blue Lady Kings since I started playing hockey (7 seasons, or 3-1/2 years ago). This season I moved to the Red Lady Kings. And again, still myself! Ultimately I want to clear out everything unnecessary so I can focus on what is important to me.

Also, with the acceptance I started working on the back tattoo piece I have been planning to do for my brother for the last fourteen years. I don't think I could start it until I had reconciled myself to the fact that he was dead. Now there's no turning back- Jeff's death date is tattooed on the back of my neck now. We are still working on the outlining, but it's about half done. The design my tattoo artist came up with is amazing. It is of Lisa and Maggie Simpson (my brother's and my favorite characters from the Simpsons), but the composition really tells a story about losing him. The border is a poem by Lucille Clifton called "Speaking of Loss". I knew that back tattooing was painful, but parts of it have been almost unbearable. It has been the worst physical pain I've ever experienced. My brother's suicide was the worst emotional pain I've ever experienced, so that seems appropriate.

Nameless Hockey Grief

2011-06-16T21:02:00.000-07:00

Well. What can I say? Obviously, I'm crushed that my Canucks lost the Stanley Cup in game 7. I've got nothing against the Bruins. I like Timmy Thomas, Milan Lucic, and Zdeno Chara. The last time the Bruins won the Stanley Cup was the year I was born. But after waiting 17 years for the Canucks to make the final again, all the bandwagon Canuck haters, the Keith Ballard defensive musical chairs, the brilliant team play, the not so brilliant play, Ryan Kesler's consistent amazingness, the hope, the expectation, the blue and green in my veins, it's a bitter pill to swallow that we made it that far only to lose in game 7. It wasn't even a good game. The Canucks looked tired and nervous the whole game. There were a lot of injuries. It was a long run.

Then there was the riots in Vancouver. The thing that annoys me the most about these, though, is the Vancouver police's claim that it was caused by a small group of anarchists. Really. Anarchists decided it would further their political aims to riot after a sports game? In my days as a punk rocker, I knew some anarchists, and the subject of sports never came up. I never heard any anarchist or punk express any interest in sports whatsoever. For one thing, none of us had televisions, or money to go to games. For another, I mean, jocks and anarchists? No. Not a lot of crossover there. Anarchists protesting a WTO meeting- okay, that works. Anarchists protesting the Canucks losing the Stanley Cup- give me a break. Anarchists dressed like frat boys in Canucks jerseys? Yeah, because that makes a lot more sense then hockey fans getting violent.

I'm a little touchy about this because I'm so sick of people using socialist as an insult. Anarchy and socialism are very different political philosophies,of course, but I find it really damaging when politicians are only expressing very narrow political views, and if you say something that doesn't conform to the ideas of the time, or are just outside the political norm, you're radical, unpatriotic, liberal, socialist, whatever. Anarchists, well they're just one of those groups we can blame the ills of society on. As someone who feels out of the mainstream, I find this name calling very offensive. It should not be a bad thing that people have different perspectives and different political beliefs. We live in a free society, and being free to see society differently is part of that. Rioting after a hockey game- not an expression of political beliefs. It's just drunk boneheads taking advantage of an opportunity to be destructive. Don't blame anarchists. I doubt many of those people could explain what anarchy as a political philosophy is. But maybe I'm wrong. So if you're a Canuck anarchist rioter, I would love to hear what you were hoping to accomplish last night. Let me know.

Soul Bunny

2011-06-09T21:27:00.001-07:00

I decided I really like personalizing my copy of "The Courage to Heal Workbook", so besides doing the exercises in there of course, rewriting passages to suit me, doodling in the margins; the cover needed stickers. I love this book, and not just because my name is on the cover and it says "kick ass" on the back (and spine). The exercises are really interesting. I showed the book to my therapist, and she was so happy with it she wants to get a copy so she can support me. I read her the passage I quoted in my original post about the book, and she was so excited. She said she wanted therapy to follow the same principle.

Today I did some self-exploration at work. The Women in Business group at my company does Lunch and Learns, and today's was on Centered Leadership. The speaker encouraged us to work and play in ways that use our strengths, because that will give us enthusiasm and energy in our life. How do you identify your strengths? A quick exercise we did was to just think of what we thought our three top strengths are. Not skills, strengths. It helps to think of what you were like as a kid. Another way is to take the "VIA Signature Strengths Questionnaire" at AuthenticHappiness.org. (You have to create a free account to take the questionnaire.)

I was very interested to get my results. Here's my top five:

1. Love of learning
2. Bravery and valor
3. Curiosity and interest in the world
4. Creativity, ingenuity, and originality
5. Citizenship, teamwork, and loyalty

I like those results. Now I'm curious about the strengths of all my co-workers and friends.

Consequentially, I'm going to a CalCPA Women's Leadership Forum tomorrow. There is a session on "Rising as a Leader in Your Organization" that I'm looking forward to. The whole thing sounds fascinating. I'm looking forward to meeting other female CPA's as well. Guess I should get to bed so I'll be well-rested tomorrow.

Chasing butterflies

2011-06-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow. ~Mary Anne Radmacher

I started working on "The Courage to Heal Workbook" by Laura Davis (coauthor of "The Courage to Heal", the bible for adults who were sexually abused as children) last night. I am liking it so far. It is made to write in- it starts with a page to do your own table of contents with your favorite sections, and a dedications page where you and your friends can write encouraging notes. It's kind of exciting to be writing all over this book. I took the first quiz (why are you reading this book) and crossed out parts of four of the options and rewrote them. How many self-help books have a passage like this:

"As you move through the workbook, there may be moments when you feel inadequate, confused, or unable to proceed. There may be ideas that are new to you or that aren't explained adequately. That means there's a flaw in the design of the book, not in you. At other times you may find that your particular set of circumstances or feelings aren't being named or acknowledged. That's not because you don't belong; it's because of an oversight on my part." (page 9)

I'm already so attached to the book that I found a bag for it, with a pocket for my pens, pencils and highlighter, so I can carry it around with me. It's not that this book doesn't terrify me. I get a rush of anxiety when I pick it up, as I do when I look at my copy of "The Courage to Heal." I'm afraid it will be like "The Courage to Heal", which I keep trying to read and can't get farther than 22 pages. The workbook has sections to help you remember repressed memories, and I'm afraid of what I might remember. But I want to remember. I hate that part of my memory was taken from me. That is part of my life, a part that affects me but that I can't understand. I'm in a strange position because there is the sexual abuse that I have no problem remembering (my great-uncle) but I have repressed memories of what my dad did to me before age 7, that my mom threatened to leave him because. So when I read the book, a lot of different parts relate to me, except the parts for people who aren't convinced the sexual abuse is affecting them as an adult.

I don't know why it's been so hard for me to stick with "The Courage to Heal", but it is hard to go from reading, to doing writing exercises, back to reading. I seem to drift away in the transitions. I like that the workbook is mostly interactive. There is reading, but more exercises. I like writing. I'm already learning about myself. I did the exercise on safety, and learned that I feel the safest when I'm wearing black clothes and have my hair covered. I don't really know why, but it makes me feel more solid and contained. So now I know some ways to feel safer.

I'm afraid tonight

2011-06-07T00:50:00.001-07:00

I'm afraid to go to bed.
I'm afraid of what I might dream about.
I'm afraid of remembering things I can't handle.
I'm afraid that healing will take so much of me that I won't be able to manage my regular life.
I'm afraid of regressing.
I'm afraid of getting worse rather than better.
I'm afraid of losing my mind.
I'm afraid of suicide.
I'm afraid of dying before I'm ready.
I'm afraid someone will come in my apartment and kill me.
I'm afraid that I am too stupid to get through this.
I'm afraid I will be alone.
I'm afraid no one understands me.
I'm afraid I will get stuck in my childhood trauma.
I'm afraid I will get to the end of my recovery and still feel unhappy.
I'm afraid I will always feel incomplete without my brother.
I'm afraid that if I remember everything that happened to me, I will feel such hopelessness and despair that I will want to die.
I'm afraid I can never be healed.
I'm afraid I will still feel as lost and alone at 71 as I did at 17.
I'm afraid that people might be more bad than good.
I'm afraid that I am hopelessly damaged and will always be broken.
I'm afraid I can't bond with people.
I'm afraid that my wounds run too deep to heal.
I'm afraid I'm too stupid to figure this out, since I was too stupid to handle the abuse better.
I'm afraid I'll always feel like a freak and an outcast.
I'm afraid I don't know how to be happy or live without chaos.
I'm afraid I'll spend the rest of my life with an empty aching inside me when I think of my brother.
I'm afraid that what got my brother will get me.
I'm afraid I'll struggle with depression my whole life.
I'm afraid that my life is limited, and I'll never live up to my potential or feel like I've reached my dreams because the abuse set me back so far I'll never catch up.
I'm afraid my dad will find me and finish beating me to death.
I'm afraid my ex-boyfriend will find me and kidnap me.
I'm afraid that child abuse and sexual abuse will never go away.
I'm afraid that the US foster care system will only get worse.
I'm afraid my dad might kill someone.
I'm afraid my great-uncle is still sexually abusing children.
I'm afraid my dad raped me when I was a baby.
I'm afraid of remembering what my dad did.
I'm afraid if I remember what my dad did to me before I was six, I won't want to live.

The Silence

2011-06-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

What is the silence? Dull, exhausting, heavy- I feel it in my throat as if it's a weight on my neck. You think about talking or writing about it, and the words don't come. When you are around other people, it is like a veil that blocks you from connecting. Your feelings seem buried and far away, and your reactions are lifeless and slow. Everything seems far away, who you are seems far away.

The silence descended on me last December. When I try to write, I feel numb. I feel numb a lot. I stare at the phone when it rings usually. There are no words. I know it's the PTSD, but I don't know what to do about it. Creative, innovative, progressive thought is especially hard right now. Therapy is a struggle. It's so hard to talk about it, I alternately want to strangle my therapist and myself. (I don't really want to strangle her, but sometimes I can hardly stand the sound of her voice.) I understand why some people just don't talk about what happened, for decades or even their whole life. Besides the fear of rejection and/or judgement, every cell of my body screams "shut up! shut up! shut up!"

My dreams, though, just get more and more vivid. It's not just the images, story lines, people, or "traumatic remembering" as my therapist calls it. It's really the feelings. I feel those dreams. They are raw as hell. I feel like my skin's been slowly peeled off through out the night when I wake up in the morning. I go to work an emotionally mutilated mess. It's hard for me to believe that everyone I see at work can't see how twisted up I am. It's also hard to believe that my friends can't see how wrecked I am. But then I can't talk about it. When I'm awake, I push the feelings down so far I'm only really aware that things are very wrong. I've had a lingering migraine off and on for the last month at least. I just keep wondering if this is going to get any better, like, ever. I know it sounds silly to wonder if it will get better, but the silence is inertia. It's like trying to swim to shore in a sea of quicksand. It seems totally plausible that you really are stuck in this misery forever. All your progress seems to fade away when the solid ground under your feet disappears.

On a completely different note, my hockey team, the Vancouver Canucks, are in the Stanley Cup final. This is only their third time in the final, and they've never won. The last time they were in the final, the 1993-94 season, was my second year of hockey fandom. Trevor Linden was my hero, and after that final, the New York Rangers, and Mark Messier were the enemy. When my brother died, I stopped following hockey. It seemed trivial, and it also felt selfish for me to enjoy something like hockey when my brother couldn't enjoy anything anymore. It was also a painful reminder of my life before everything was destroyed. So it's been 17 years, and the Canucks are back in the final, and I'm back into hockey. Kind of strangely for me, the Canucks are seen by some as dirty, classless fakers. Eh. They seemed like the classiest team around when I first became a fan. And I used to be afraid for people to not like me, afraid they'd come after me as a result. Now I've mostly accepted that plenty of people don't like me, for ridiculous, grey, and perfectly reasonable reasons. I guess that's life. and hockey.

Seriously, Palin is rewriting history now? Ugh.

2011- LRG goes multi-media! Part 1

2011-04-16T01:16:00.000-07:00

2011- LRG goes multi-media! Part 2

2011-04-16T01:03:00.000-07:00

Old Man 2010

2010-12-31T19:35:00.000-08:00

Since its the last day of 2010, and my brother's 33rd birthday, I felt the need to recap the year. First, though, how crazy is it that my brother would have been 33 this year? He was 19 when he died. I'm 38 until my birthday in January. Jeff always teased me on his birthday that he'd only be 5 years younger than me until my birthday. My boyfriend is 6 years older than me, except between my birthday and his in May.

This year has been difficult with all the work on my PTSD and trauma recovery, sleep fears and nightmares coming to the forefront, and my hockey injury at the Vegas tournament in January 2010, but not as bad as last year. The biggest influence in my life this year has been JW, my boyfriend. He is helping me heal and work through a lot of my issues. The most dramatic success has been with my sexuality. For the first time, I feel totally physically comfortable with a partner. I was really surprised at how natural and comfortable it's been. Amazing since my first boyfriend in L.A. forced himself on me, and my brief foray into bisexuality with a physically aggressive closeted woman. I think a lot of it is that I didn't do anything with him before I was ready, and he didn't pressure me. It has been more complicated for me to deal with my difficulty trusting and jealousy. JW has been very patient, and it's got a lot better, but it was a slog at times, and I feel bad for dragging JW through my struggles. But we help each other, and our relationship is healthy and strong and worth working for and trusting.

Hockey continues to be a big part of my life, and my relationship with JW. Our first date was at a Kings game last December, and this season we took was seemed to me to be a big step, we are sharing his season tickets. He has a deal with another guy where JW officially has two seats and the other guy has the two seats next to him, but they pool the tickets and each get four tickets for half the games. I have one of those seats for half the games. I'm a season ticket holder! Before that, I got to experience playoff games in person for the first time, with JW, when the Kings played the Canucks in the first round. The Canucks were my team, my first team, but I decided that as an Angeleno and Lady King, I had to support the L.A. Kings in the playoffs. It was painful, but the playoff games were completely exhilarating and worth any team loyalty angst I had. Another first was going to the Vancouver Winter Olympics with JW, and seeing two men's hockey games and two women's games, including Sweden vs Canada where I got to see my friend and teacher Maria Rooth play in the Olympics! I spent the Olympics limping around in my full-leg knee brace for my MCL tear in the Vegas tournament, but by the Phoenix tournament, where I got really drunk and jumped into a pool at the hotel in my underwear.

I wouldn't say this was a major life disappointment, but one of my disappointments this year was the season finale of Lost. I was one of those devoted Losties who watched the show from the beginning and rushed home or to the nearest TV every week to catch the current show. It took me three months or more to come to a conclusion about the way Lost was concluded, but I finally decided that, as a long-time watcher and loyalist, the ending went in such a different direction and dropped so many mysteries without explaining them, that I felt screwed. Fringe filled in the gap left by Lost nicely. This season has been stellar, much more than the it seemed in its X-files influenced beginning. Being Human came back, and was pretty awesome until my DVR failed to record the season finale. Doctor Who also came back, with a new Doctor and companion. Frontline continues to be my favorite show, along with the other PBS news shows Newshour and Washington Week with my hero Gwen Ifill. I also discovered some entertaining, if not particularly deep, new shows- Hawaii Five-0, Burn Notice, and Community. I have to give a shout-out to Walking Dead, which started a little slow, but turned into the show I couldn't wait to watch and stayed up late for (along with Fringe). Damn, I love zombies.

More firsts- went to the House of Netjer annual celebration in Chicago for the first time (amazing, can't wait for next year), joined a new co-ed hockey team with much less drama than my last co-ed team which I quit along with one of my high drama women's team (still a Lady King of course). Some seconds- Comic Con and Christmas with my fantastic friend Beth and her adorable babies (a little over one year old). Also, I discovered Brendan Brazier's Thrive vegan diet, and got a couple days into it before I got super-sick and didn't have the energy to prepare the very nutritionally conscientious meal plan. I felt fantastic for those couple of days, so I can't wait to get back to it. Now, I can't wait to get back to New Years Eve with my sweetie. Happy New Year everyone! Happy birthday Jeff!!! I love you. See you in 2011.

Rat Dreams

2010-12-20T06:59:00.000-08:00

I dreamt about rats again. I started with two rats, an older and younger one, but then a third, even younger, showed up in the cage of the original younger one. The older one was bigger and looked a little crotchety, and they were both in tiny cages that were way too small. Someone in the dream offered to build them a new cage. He started with the older rat, and used an aquarium. The problem was he actually took the aquarium concept literally and filled it with water, so the poor rat was swimming around with a pathetic look on his face. I knew he shouldn’t be in water, but I had to ask someone else in the dream just to be sure- “Rats can’t live in water, can they?” “No, you need to get him out of there.” So I drained the cage, which worked fine without the water. Then I worked on making a cage for the two younger ones, but I had to do homework as well. I was in school, and the classes seemed familiar. I think I dreamed about being behind in the homework for these same classes in another dream. The first class was for something related to history, or literature, or political history…protesting figured heavily. The political history of protesting? The literature of protest? Something like that. The homework was a combination of reading and watching documentaries. At some point someone from one of the documentaries, about farm workers, came out of the TV and tried to turn it off. I said, “Hey, I’m watching that for my homework!” He said, “You’re building a rat cage.” I said, “Yeah, that too.”

My parents were in this dream too. I was living with them. They didn’t figure prominently. My dad was annoyed that I was up late in the basement doing homework, and my mom was playing supportive. My dad was an additional stressor, but that was about it. I was hiding in the basement from him though. I was always afraid of the basement when I was a kid. I had dreams about being chased around down there.

Right now (in awake world) I’m eating a vegan breakfast in day one of my experimental vegan athlete diet (Vega). It is a twelve week diet from a book. I am trying it out. It is free from common allergens- gluten, soy, corn, as well as dairy, eggs, and meat. I am hoping I might get more energy, be sick less, and lose some weight. If I feel better in 12 weeks I’ll keep going, and if not, I’ll stop. It was time-consuming getting started. I spent several hours yesterday grocery shopping, on top of an hour last Thursday and many hours compiling my grocery list. There is a lot of fruit and vegetables, seeds and nuts, and things I’ve never bought before like hemp protein and brown rice miso paste. Then I spent about 3 hours last night preparing and cooking for today. I made yam pancakes (no flour), energy bars, a salad, salad dressing, and a smoothie. So far it tastes pretty good. I really, genuinely like vegetables and most “health” food, so I am lucky. It’s not such a stretch for me to switch to this diet. I do like preparing food too, although I hope it doesn’t take quite so long every time. This is a pretty serious diet.

It's a hard knock life

2010-12-09T06:28:00.000-08:00

I've got to a point with sleep that I just can't stand it anymore. I haven't been able to get up in the morning; my subconscious won't release me. I talked to my therapist about it, and we talked about what was going on for me when I woke up. She made some suggestions, everything from getting a coffee maker with a timer so it would smell like fresh brewed coffee when I woke up to writing first thing in the morning so I can access the things in my subconscious that are trying to get out in my dreams/flashbacks. JW helped me pick out a coffee maker last night after we had an anniversary dinner (since our anniversary on Tuesday I was on a plane back from NY and he was working). He cuddled me to sleep last night, and then I threw on my PTSD guided imagery mp3's for good measure. I set the alarm for 5:30 am, and woke up by 6 am (I am capable of hitting the snooze for hours so 30 minutes is fantastic) feeling great. I got some coffee and cereal (always ravenous in the morning) and wrote this:

This is day one of giving my subconscious a VOICE. I usually have very detailed and vivid dreams, but I woke up today sweaty but not in the middle of something. I listened to my guided imagery last night, so that might have helped. Last night/morning, I dreamt I was driving a really nice, red sports car, but I couldn’t control it. The brakes didn’t work sometimes, and sometimes they were VERY sensitive. The steering was the same way. I kept thinking how great it was that I had this fantastic car, but damned if I could drive it. Seemed like a pretty accurate metaphor for my life. I have a great life, my dream life in a lot of ways, but I often feel out of control and that it’s not quite working because I can’t get it to do what I want it to do. I’m afraid of crashing and destroying the whole thing. I want to reach into my mind and see what is going on in there. There is a primordial soup of pain and fear and longing that wants to get out. I want it to get out. I had a vision a while ago, in EMDR, of these feelings growing out my back into large, beautiful wings, anchored in my body by a core of strength and resilience that came from my earlier experiences. The wings are kind of a dirty white, almost grey, but they are stunning and gorgeous and strong, and they can do what I couldn’t do when I was a kid- strike back with incredible force or fly me out of there. My rats are like little envoys from that place inside me that the wings grew out of. They are creatures of survival, smart, clever, resourceful, adaptable, resilient, but also full of personality. They are funny, sweet, loving, social, and curious. They survive, but that’s not all they are. They are strong and persistent, but also cute and sweet. They are my spirit animal. We understand each other. A rat in human form has wings though. My therapist thought my superhero power was holding all the pain and anguish and despair of my childhood away from me, but my superhero power IS that pain and anguish and despair. It’s what my strength grows out of. It’s the primordial soup of my life.

Going with the black fingernails

2010-12-05T17:11:00.001-08:00

It is bitterly cold in NY. My fingers are freezing. I am so hungry too.

2010-12-05T10:15:00.001-08:00

The LAX to JFK crowd

Anniversaries

2010-12-01T23:18:00.000-08:00

Welcome to December, 2010. Last year, I blogged every day of December because it is such a difficult month for me with visions of Thanksgiving and Christmas family horror and my brother's birthday on December 31. This December, I am still struggling with a lot of anxiety and flashbacks, but when I look back on the year I feel like I've made a lot of progress. I've done a lot, too. Besides continuing with my therapist, I started seeing a psychiatrist and taking anti-anxiety medication to "take the edge off". I tried EMDR therapy for PTSD. I got physical therapy on my shoulder that was damaged in a beating from my dad as a kid, along with therapy on my knee after tearing my MCL in a hockey tournament in January. I think if I had just continued working with my therapist I would have dealt with a lot this year, but throw in the other treatments and this has been an intense year.

I have a new anniversary in December this year- on December 7 I will have been with my boyfriend, JW, for a year. Our relationship has impacted everything for me- he's been my support system, my best friend, the person who is always trying to make me laugh and made the hard times so much more bearable. The man is a saint. He is so patient and kind, caring, and considerate. He's helped me feel less like a problem and a disaster and more like a strong and desirable person. He sees my moods and emotional struggles as normal and understandable. He is safe. I can be myself around him, even if myself happens to be confused, pulling my hair out (or banging my head against a wall), and wailing against the world. He still loves me just as much as when I'm sweet and lighthearted.

Plus, he is sexy, funny, fun, wicked smart, interesting, unique, goofy, and intriguing. He looks like a grown-up skater boy, which is a look I find totally hot. I love watching him play hockey, and he is the most amazing hockey geek and gear head. He knows so much and sees so much. He notices things I glaze over. When we go to the warm-up before NHL games he sees variations on the equipment I would never notice. He thinks I'm sexy and that makes me feel sexy. I'm free to be myself around him, and I've discovered that inspires me to odd animal sounds. I make dinosaur noises after we have sex and it seems perfectly natural. (I didn't even know I knew what dinosaurs sound like before I met him.) We connect with each other. I feel emotionally in tune with him, and his intellect fascinates me. I could learn about the way he sees the world for the rest of my life and it would never get old. He loves animals. I love animals. I love his dogs and cats, and he loves my rats. All these connections and comfort I have with him results in the most amazing physical relationship I've ever had. No one has ever made me feel the way he does. I've never been so present with anyone, so able to really be there mentally and emotionally when being physical.

So this month, December daily blogathon month, I want to write about this past year, how my life has evolved, and how wonderful my year with JW has been. I'm sure I'll still struggle this month with the holidays, but I know it will be a different experience because I won't be alone with it. I'm building a new family to share/survive/enjoy the holidays with. I was thankful for that on Thanksgiving this year and Christmas seems a lot less daunting because of it.

Fly, Little Monkey, Fly!

2010-10-22T12:09:00.000-07:00

Good news! My co-ed team, the Dirty Martinis, won the championship! The other team in the final, the Grinders, are actually very cool and were not shout-y and mean like the one in the playoffs. The game was just as tight though. It was 0-0 for a while, then 1-0, 1-1, overtime, and after no one scored in the 15 minutes OT we went to a shoot-out. Two of our guys scored, and only one of theirs, so we won! It was very exciting. That was the first time one of my seasonal teams won the championship. My one other winning experience was last January when my tournament team, the Hot Flashes, won our division. It is a very satisfying feeling, especially since my soccer team in high school never even won a game. I am used to being on underdog teams. VERY underdog teams. I'm all about the underdogs.

My co-ed team is great- we are about 50-50 male and female, so truly co-ed. The guys pass to the women and much of our defense are women, so it's not like one of those teams where they don't trust or include the women. We party before, (sometimes during) and after the game, so it's a lot of fun. We definitely cheer like crazy for each other, stick up for each other on the ice (sometime too much!), and enjoy each other's company. It's the kind of team you want to be a part of. (I would also say my Lady Kings team is like that too. Great women who appreciate each other and are super-supportive. Of course, 5-6 of us are on both teams.) The Dirty Martinis is also where I got my latest hockey nickname- Monkey. Monkey seems like a pretty popular hockey nickname, but it's the first one to really stick with me. I love it when I can hear my teammates yell "Go monkey!" when I'm on the ice. It's inspiring. I've had a handful of nicknames before- Garbage Girl (for picking up rebounds), Dirt (for picking up ice scum on my hockey socks sliding around), Ketchup (because I'm # 57), and Flypaper (covering the point). I think I got Monkey because when I'm on the bench I get excited and say, "Ooo ooo ooo ooo OOO!" I also kind of flail my arms around when I skate, and act silly. Monkey is a great nickname because it gives you license to act goofy and make funny noises and not care what you look like when you throw yourself around on the ice. I really do give it all I've got when I'm out there, and it's not exactly my most graceful moments that are the most effective.

It's lunchtime at work right now, and the reason I'm writing is that I'm having a panic attack. I don't know if it's work, or something health related, or personal, or what. I am very busy at work, so that could be a factor. Last Wednesday, I think, I was feeling really sad about my brother without really knowing why. We talked about awareness and meditating in therapy on Tuesday. Wednesday I went to a Kings game so that's why I didn't finish blogging. My boyfriend had to work so we had a girls night. It was a lot of fun. It just feels like a strange week for some reason. It may become more clear this weekend why I'm feeling odd. Right now I'm just trying to breathe and calm down so I can get through the day.

Mission: Boring Life

2010-10-13T21:22:00.001-07:00

First, the exciting stuff. My Lakewood team, the Dirty Martinis, beat the first place team Trainwreck in the playoffs and we're going to the final this Saturday! We played a tight game. There was a lot of jabbering and retaliatory penalties though. It was making me a little nervous because the yelling really bothers me more than anything. Verbal intimidation can give me flashbacks. With four minutes left, Will on our team told everyone to shut up and stop letting them draw us into fights. We were tied at the time, but I think calming down and focusing on winning rather than the rivalry helped us go strong into the overtime and win. The other team was definitely not expecting us to eliminate them, and they were pissed. Even though there was some loudmouths on that team, their goalie seemed cool and a couple of people on their team were trying to break up fights. We play the Grinders in the final. I can hardly wait. My Blue Lady Kings team has our third game of the new season this Friday. As if that wasn't enough hockey goodness, the NHL season started last week, and we're going to the Canucks-Kings game on Friday as well. The Kings beat the Canucks at their home season opener, Kings beat the Atlanta Thrashers at their home season opener, and right now I'm watching the Canucks at the Anaheim Ducks for the Ducks home season opener. It's currently tied. Long live hockey!

Oh, wait, Canucks just scored.

Also exciting news- I got my first smart phone. It is a Droid X, and he is quite the electronic goofball. I'll be working or sitting on the couch and he'll announce in his deep robot voice, "DROID". I guess that just means I got a message or something, but it sounds like he just wants to remind me of his presence. I like to give electronics and other devices names- my car is Penelope, my GPS is Gina, and my iPod is James. I originally named my Droid Smurfly, because I put a blue cover on him. I've been calling him Big Smurf, though, because of his deep voice. I also call him Superfly.

Ducks just tied it up. Oh wow, Ducks scored again. Bobby Ryan. I like him.

Okay, boring. I want a boring life. I'm so burned out on drama and struggle and chaos. I want things to be simple and orderly and clean. But I'm also afraid of that. I'm afraid that if I get everything the way I want it, some outside force will come make a mess of it. I'm afraid of getting too comfortable with stability, and then having it taken away from me and the grief that would cause me. I'm afraid of screwing things up myself. I felt for many years that I was cursed to have bad things happen to me, and it's hard to accept that maybe things are different now. I have these apocalyptic fantasies that we'll end up in a Terminator/Mad Max/Resident Evil type world, and I'll be forced back to a life of being hunted and fear. My apartment, and my office, continues to reflect my internal conflict. I want order and simplicity, but I'm more used to chaos and disorder. I'm afraid I'll lose my ability to deal with adversity, and get soft. I'm afraid I'll get too attached to comfort and predictability, and be devastated when it's taken away from me. I'm afraid of getting caught by surprise. I'm really afraid of that.

I talked to my therapist today, and she says I'll have to consciously challenge that part of me that reverts to chaos, that feels that order is pointless because someone will just come in and destroy it. The part of me that figures it's better for me to live in a messy apartment because if I'm not containing the chaos in my apartment it will come at me from a place unknown and beyond my control. My first concrete step is to spend 30 minutes a day cleaning my apartment. And generally, my goal is to be boring. Live a boring life. Let myself get used to a life without craziness. Accept comfort in my life without guilt or panic.

Constant refutation with myself I'm a victim of a catch 22

2010-09-29T20:44:00.001-07:00

I had such a difficult therapy session today I don't know how to begin.

But first, Monday was the hottest day ever in Los Angeles. EVER. 113 degrees. When I can home, my rats were all flat. That's what they do when they're hot- they flatten out. They also lie on their side and close their eyes so they look dead. I don't like that. My thermometer only goes up to 90, so I only know it was hotter than that. I don't have air conditioning, so I opened all the windows and the sliding door to my balcony. By 11 pm, it was still hotter than 90 degrees. I knew I had to leave the sliding door open because it was the only significant source of fresh air (the fans were having practically no effect) and the little rats cage is near the door and they were still lethargic.

So I left the door open and tried to sleep in my room, but I kept coming out to the living room to check for prowlers on my balcony. I live on the second floor and there's really no way to get on the balcony without a ladder, but my fear of rapists coming into my apartment is exceedingly strong. Finally, because of that and because my bedroom was still so hot, I ended up sleeping on my couch clinging to a pair of scissors. I figured I could stab someone in the eyes with them, but I wouldn't cut myself in my sleep. Welcome to my world.

Actually, one of the reason I write in this blog is to try to let some of this out and try to explain to someone, anyone, what it's like to have PTSD. This is what we talked about in therapy today. Not the balcony door, rather, my therapist gave me a questionnaire that was designed by one of her mentors who works with Vietnam vets. It does three things- gives you a global distress score, a PTSD score, and scores you on the three categories of PTSD symptoms- re-experiencing trauma (nightmares and flashbacks), avoidance/numbing (emotional numbness, avoiding situations that remind you of the trauma, difficulty trusting people and expressing feelings, memory problems), and increased arousal (panic attacks, difficulty falling asleep and with concentration, anxiety, irritability). They also developed a scale for comparison, so my score could be compared to the averages for battered wives, children who have to go through surgery, people in car accidents, etc.

I've been working with my therapist for a year, and I feel like a trust her and try really hard to be totally honest with her and tell her what's going on with me, and explain how I feel, and she was still completely shocked by the scores I got. I wasn't. My global distress score was 90, and my PTSD score was 50. That doesn't really mean anything on it's own, but the group I have the closest scores with were Vietnam vets. Think about that. My therapist explained it by saying that most people with the severity of PTSD that I have are acting out in very serious ways- getting arrested, addicted to drugs, coming into the VA looking completely psychotic, beating their spouse and/or children, etc. This is what my therapist said. She was stunned. She expressed that she was and I could see it, and I, having filled out the questionnaire, was not surprised at all. I knew my score was going to be very high. I live with these side affects every day. My scores were high for all three categories-re-experiencing, avoidance/numbing, and increased arousal. Again, not surprised although I thought I was doing less numbing now than I realized.

As far as the categories go, if I could get rid of the symptoms in any one category right now, I would go with increased arousal. If I could get through my days (and nights) without panic attacks, difficulty concentrating, anxiety, heart palpitations, and insomnia, if I was calm and well-rested, the numbness and re-experiencing would be a lot easier to handle. Not easy, but easier. Potential the most complicated symptom is the numbness though. I go numb when I get emotionally overwhelmed. It's like my internal version of taking emotional painkillers. It happens involuntarily, which is both a testament to my subconscious ability to take care of myself, and the most frustrating side affect to try to use willpower to change. It really does happen involuntarily, without the participation of my conscious mind. My conscious mind likes to think it is in control, so this can be a little disconcerting. It can also make me feel disconnected from my life and passively depressed. It can cause real problems too, like when I should be acting or reacting and I've just checked out. The more stressful the situation, the more I can block it out. The can cause me to feel trapped in something that I could walk away from. It can also do the opposite, keep me from really experiencing my life or connecting with someone because I'm just not emotionally there.

It is a disability of sorts. I am limited in how much I can handle other people's emotions because of the difficulty I have managing my own. My best friend in Seattle has been going through a really trying time, I was there for her whenever she needed me until she told me she was feeling suicidal. Then I just couldn't go there with her. I feel like a world-class heel. This is when she needs support and understanding the most, and I have experience with depressed and suicidal people, including myself. But the idea of losing her to suicide is so terrifying to me that I had to distance myself. Of course I'm questioning myself and thinking I'm the worst friend in the world, but I just can handle the grief I feel even considering her death. I broke down weeping when I tried to tell my therapist about it. It feels like an endless chasm of pain that I can't look down for fear I'll lose myself in it. When Jeff took his life, the life that I knew ended and it took me 10 years to feel like I was starting to get my legs back under me again. I can't go through that again. I just don't have the capacity. I really just can't. I love her so much, but I am limited. I can be a superhero when it comes to surviving and coping and getting through really bad things, but I've taken a lot of damage along the way. I am not healed yet. My emotional stores are scrapping the bottom. I hate to feel impaired like this. I want to kick ass all the time, be the best person I can be, move mountains, laugh in the face of danger. I want to be larger than life. In some ways I am. But the reason I learned to fly was that my legs were crushed. It's taking time for me to learn to walk, having never done it before.

Thrown under the bus!

2010-09-22T22:51:00.000-07:00

Not to repeat myself, but I am still really tired. I was actually feeling so bad that it was affecting hockey. I felt so burned out that I quit one of my teams. Don't worry, I still have two teams. I'm a baby blue smurf and a dirty martini monkey girl. My smurfs are in between seasons, but I'm a new co-team rep with my good friends Lori and Jamie. I think being team rep has actually invigorated my passion for hockey, although my passion for the team never waned. We are underdogs and I love underdogs.

The Dirty Martinis are still playing our summer season, and we have our second double header this Saturday. I am excited. Doubleheaders are fun even though I feel like I could collapse any second. The only thing I really have going for me is that I try really hard, so it can be hard to balance my energy level for that long. I feel like I'm either giving it everything I've got or about to keel over, and that doesn't work very well when I have to keep it up over two back-to-back games. But I love it. One of the reasons I quit one of my teams is so I'd have more time to practice. I find that I play kind of crappy when I don't practice, and I haven't been practicing. I haven't been to Monday night pick-up in ages, and I love Monday night pick-up. It is one of the funnest things ever.

I'm still belly dancing (cross-training). It's a lot of fun too, although I'm not very impressed with myself. I'd have to give myself a "C" for both hockey and belly dancing. It's a good thing I don't mind sucking at something if it's fun. I'd have to give myself a "C" grade at being a girlfriend too. It's fun even though I feel like a disaster a lot of the time. I really don't know how to be a girlfriend with a guy who is not a jerk. My boyfriend is very patient and kind and sweet. He is truly a good guy, and super-sexy. The poor guy seems to like bitchy women, though. His ex-girlfriend won't even look at me, which gets a little humorous since they are still on a hockey team together and just the other day I was at their draft. I was impressed that she managed to go more than an hour without looking at me, even when her and my boyfriend were talking to each other and I was standing next to him. I don't think I would have that kind of control. Myself, I spent a good portion of the time looking right at her, staring-contest style only opposite, trying to get her to look at me. She won. It kind of floors me since she wants to be friends with him, and I never did anything to her besides date her ex, and they have join-custody of the dogs, and she has a boyfriend (who's on the team too) so you'd think she'd get over herself and quit it, but I guess not.

I have to admit, though, that when I'm watching their games and she gets knocked down, I snicker a little. I really don't like her. I don't like how she treats me. I don't like how she treated my boyfriend. I think she's crazy for breaking up with him, although that's definitely to my benefit. I don't like that she acts like she still has some kind of hold on him, and I really don't like how jealous that's made me. That's one of the reasons I'm giving myself a "C" as a girlfriend. I have jealousy issues. I'm so afraid of being left/abandoned that I get all emotional and irrational and I'm embarrassed that I need so much reassurance. I am trusting him a lot more now, so the jealousy has calmed down. It only took me 9 months. My trust is like a baby.

My mom keeps calling me because she wants to talk about, get this, how my crazy, stalker ex that I broke up with almost 8 years ago contacted her on Facebook. He contacted me a while ago (at least a year) on Facebook and I blocked him. I also, somewhat regrettably, kind of flipped out on a friend who ran into him and kind of indicated I was on Facebook or something. I was a little pissed. This guy is a nightmare, and the message he sent me let me know he hadn't changed at all. It's embarrassing that I dated such losers. No wonder I had such a hard time believing my current boyfriend was as wonderful and trustworthy as he seemed to be. Now I'm pissed at my mom. She's doing my ex's dirty work for him. He just loves terrorizing me and she just can't say, "Obviously, my daughter doesn't want to talk to you, so leave her and me alone." As if she would ever stick up for me, or do anything to protect me. No, it is always up to me to protect myself. No, she never feels any responsibility to shield me or defend me or think about how her actions, or lack thereof, affect me. Oh no, I'm her daughter but I'm supposed to be caring for her. Yes, I'm bitter.

At work, one of the most popular phrases is "throwing someone under the bus". It happens in meetings a lot, where someone told you one thing, but says something completely different in a meeting in front of superiors. Or, something gets put on you in a meeting, like you get blamed for something or called out for something or someone tries to deflect blame from themselves by pointing out something you did or didn't do. One of the things I love about my boss, and about my whole team, is that we do not throw each other under the bus. Yesterday, I was thrown under the bus by someone in another department, to her superior who has no authority over me but seems to think he does. Actually, you could argue that she tried to throw one of my staff under the bus, but I was not about to let that happen. I told my therapist about it yesterday, and about my mom calling me, and the session came full circle when I reflected on how much I hate being thrown under the bus because my entire childhood was about getting run over repeatedly by that bus. So I'm mainly pissed at my dad for being the bus, but of course I'm more than a little resentful that it was my own mom throwing me under. Just to clarify in case you didn't catch this in the many pages of ranting in my blog so far, my dad was abusive to my mom before I was born, and then she was perfectly content to let it transfer to me when I became the target, and then the second me and my brother were out of the house, she left to protect herself. But not us. No, not to protect us.

Yes, I'm bitter. I really want to cut these throwing people under the bus, and buses, out of my life for good. This is how I'm starting to see people- there's buses, and people who throw you under, and people who are indifferent to your screams, and those wonderful people who come pick you up, or prevent it from happening in the first place, or, amazingly, will throw themselves under to protect you. I love those people.

Monkey girl don't pole dance

2010-09-15T21:44:00.000-07:00

It been exciting here lately. I went to a Dodgers baseball game with my co-workers. JW got his season tickets for the L.A. Kings, which kind of makes me a new season ticket holder since I'm going in with him for my own seat. My bottom feeding for Kings tickets days are over. No longer will I be sucking up freebies and counting on the generosity of others to see NHL hockey. I feel a little weird about my status as an NHL fan. Do I still get to call myself a Vancouver Canucks fan since I cheered for the Kings against them in the playoffs? Will I still wear my Canucks jersey when they come to town even though I'm (sort of) a Kings season ticket holder? I tell you what, I'm not making one of those hideous frankenjerseys so I can wear both. No.

So for me, a true blue Canucks fan for almost 20 years, I feel a little strange. Even stranger, I went to Monday Night Football at Sharkeez. Sharkeez is a sports bar/restaurant with 4 or 5 locations in Southern California. My boyfriend and his friends are regulars there for Monday Night Football, and it is quite a production. My previous experiences with Sharkeez was going there with co-workers for lunch, drinks, parties, and once to dinner with my boyfriend. It usually ranged from pretty mellow to moderately hopping, but mostly I was focused on the fish tacos (extremely good, actually, especially with this crazy good rice they have) and watching hockey on TV. Probably my most memorable experience was successfully talking a waiter into turning all the TVs to different NHL games, and then finding out he had never heard of Wayne Gretzky. Seriously, he had NEVER heard of Wayne Gretzky. I could hardly believe it.

But Monday Night Football, oh boy crazy. They have trivia, and prizes, beads, free shots, all the staff are wearing football jerseys, the women's customized in various ways to go with their extremely short skirts and stripey socks, and it is LOUD. And a meat market, something I usually avoid. I've never in my life met someone in a bar, and I don't really get that scene. Of course I was there with my boyfriend, so mostly I just enjoyed watching his friends try to play hard to get with women they were interested in. I tried to watch the game, too. I don't really get football. I definitely get hockey, and soccer, and I can watch just about any Olympic sport and get into it. I used to follow NBA basketball. I'll even watch cheerleading competitions, although I agree with the recent court ruling that cheerleading is not a sport for the purposes of Title 9.

Football though, eh. But I tried. The funnest part was watching my boyfriend, who is from New York and is a NY Jets fan. In an effort to encourage an interest in football, he suggested I become a Baltimore Ravens fan, because they're, like, all Edgar Allen Poe and goth. So even though I've never been to Baltimore and know nothing about the team, I was like, sure, I'll be a Ravens fan. So guess what? The Jets were playing the Ravens. JW didn't even mind me rooting against his team (even when the Ravens won). He was totally in his element, answering Jets trivia questions and collecting swag. It was fun to watch him having so much fun. I love that I found someone who is even more enthusiastic than I am. He is really the free spirit in this relationship.

My extra fun lately has been taking belly dancing lessons. I am taking them from Aisha Ali, who is a very impressive woman all around. She is a wonderful dancer, and taking lessons from her is truly a cultural experience since she tells us stories about when she spent 20 years studying dance from the Fellahin gypsy tribe in Egypt. This is one of the amazing things about L.A. Where else could I study dance with an internationally known dancer and scholar, for $15 a lesson. In every class, I'm remind that really great dancers make it look so easy, but when you try to imitate what she does, it's so hard. For her, though, it looks like no big deal. It is anything but.

So while I continue selling my unwanted stuff on eBay, I've found zills (finger cymbals) and jingly coin scarves to buy there. Zills are pretty hard to do well, but the cool thing about wearing the jingly coin scarves around your hips is that it makes it seem like you know what you're doing. At least it sounds that way. It all leads back to hockey, though, because I was hoping the body control and being able to do isolated movements in different parts of my body would help with hockey. My hockey teacher is always telling me to separate what I do with my upper body from what my legs are doing. In belly dancing, you do a lot of separate things with your hips, legs, hips, shoulders, arms, and head. Like an type of dance, it's crazy hard to do well.

In other adjustments to different cultures, the rats have really jumped to the forefront. First, Miroslav managed to infiltrate Jason's cage and attempted to evict him. The littles (Miroslav, Zeus, and Keith) share a cage (mind you, a rat mansion!). Jason has his own cage. I used to have them right next to each other on a table. Before I got the littles, I used to keep Jason's cage door open so he could hang out on top of his cage and, I hoped, feel a little more free. The new cages, the Bel-Air Rat Mansions, have a door on the top and the side. So one night, I left Jason's cage open and he got off the table and had an excellent adventure cruising around the apartment while I was asleep. I spotted him when I woke up, and he ran away initially but then came when I called. Then Miroslav tried his hostile takeover, which involved a very traumatizing amount of squealing and blood and mayhem. So, after dipping Jason in soapy water with hydrogen peroxide, scrubbing his cage clean of Miroslav smells, and attempting to comfort the poor freaked-out older rat, I moved Jason into my room. So the littles now have the table in the living room to themselves.

I naively thought that Jason getting off the table (which is 2-1/2 feet off the ground) was just a fluke, so when I left the little's cage door open so they could cruise around the table while I slept, I was a little surprised when Keith showed up on my living room floor the next morning. Keith does not come when I call. Keith is fast and wants nothing to do with being picked up by me. It was an all day ordeal. I chased him around the living room for almost an hour in the morning until I had to go to work. Then I came home and chased him around the living room for another hour, finally lost him, fell asleep on the couch, stumbled into my bedroom and found him in the corner under my dressing table. Then I chased him around the bedroom for another hour, finally luring him into a plastic tube using a juggling stick that belonged to my brother.

So now I have two escape artists, one rat who is living up to his name (Miroslav Satan), and sweet Zeus, who still licks my fingers and loves me. Jason still loves me too, and seems a lot calmer now that he's hanging in my room. Keith sort of tolerates me but is still trying to jump off the table any chance he gets. Miroslav, well, I still love that fearless rat even though he attacked my beloved gentle spirit Jason. I don't trust him though. His morals are questionable.

Finally, I got rear-ended on the 405 freeway yesterday. My car seems undamaged. I don't know if I got whiplash yet, but it was loud and shocking and I was pretty rattled. I did get to completely stop my car, turn off the engine, and not care in the middle of rush hour traffic, so that was fun. Mostly, I'm just glad it wasn't worse. I've seem some unpleasant accidents on the 405. So I feel lucky. Very, very lucky. My L.A. experience is evolving. I wonder how long you have to live here to be a real Angelino? Does it count if you just really love it here, despite the traffic and questionable air quality? If you realize that this place is full of so many cultures and subcultures that you could walk into a mind-altering cultural experience at any time? That you don't think that Hollywood and celebrities is all L.A. has to offer the world? As my boyfriend says, if you don't like L.A. get off the freeway and see what L.A. is really all about.

Box-shaped Heart

2010-09-08T19:13:00.001-07:00

"There are times when we should put our hearts in a box, so that we are not immobilized by it's desires." -Anatomology

I have been attempting to sell some of my clutter problem on eBay, and had some success, i.e. I've sold 3 pairs of shoes. I also sold 12 books on Amazon, which unfortunately I can no longer recommend as a book selling tool. They have increased their rates and decreased their shipping credit. I'm not sure exactly how much I've made after subtracting shipping costs, but I know it's not much. (I am behind on my personal number crunching.) So I've listed some books on eBay to see if I have any success on non-shoe sales. So far, my selling percentage on eBay has been less than stellar- 50%. It is kind of fun though, sort of in a trying to figure out which lane on the freeway, and combination of lanes, will get me home faster during rush hour in L.A. There's a lot of people popping on and off, and you're trying to predict the human behavior of a diverse group with a lot of different aims. I've speculated with my co-workers that L.A. freeways are a giant experiment on human behavior, and I could make the same argument for eBay. It's a fascinating and somewhat unpredictable place.

I'm sure the current economic climate is not the best for selling unnecessary stuff. The real struggle is with myself though. It's hard to let go, both of stuff and behavior. For example, I tried to sell the shoes pictured above, going so far as to take lovely pictures in natural settings and start a posting on eBay. While describing how great they are, I waffled. The picture doesn't do them justice. They are British punk rock boots made into heels. Now, I'm not a fan of heels. I think it's kind of a crazy concept to wear shoes you can't walk significant distances in and that cause poor posture and mess up your feet. That's why I quit ballet at the end of 8th grade. But my job pretty much requires me to wear heels, and these shoes are beautiful. I just can't quit them.

After going through my books, filling two packing boxes of ones to sell and filling an entire bookcase with unread books that I still intend to read, I resolved to stop buying books (at least until I read all the ones in the bookcase). I have a book addiction. I am perfectly capable of whipping through books at lightning speed too, although the PTSD and abuse books are definitely more slow going. The siren call of Borders was too much for me though, because I found myself casually perusing through the discount books before my therapy session last week, and walked away with "feeling fat, fuzzy, or frazzled?" by Richard Shames, M.D. and Karilee Shames, Ph.D., R.N. Not particularly obvious from the title, the book is about addressing too low or too high thyroid, adrenal, and/or reproductive functioning. Ah, self-help. You have ensnared me again!

To explain my draw to this book, in the late 90's I had a lump in my thyroid. Nothing unusual came out in my blood tests, and the lump was non-cancerous, but it was quite large. You could see it, and definitely feel it, so I was put on thyroid medication. The medication did nothing. I asked what the point was, but I was told to keep taking it and it would work. I went to a homeopathic doctor about my migraines. (This was about a year after my brother's death and I was having debilitating migraines.) He gave me something to take, and a week later, the lump in my thyroid went away completely, never to return. The migraines didn't go away, and the homeopathic doctor was stumped. The doctor prescribing the thyroid medication didn't believe me. I stopped taking it. About a year later, I was suffering from even worse migraines, exhaustion, panic attacks, uncontrollable vomiting and searing stomach pain almost every time I tried to eat anything. I was taking about 6 different medications for anxiety and depression, and none of them seemed to be working. I was at the end of my rope, completely miserable, when I talked to a friend who was in acupuncture school. She recommend "Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions with Modern Nutrition" by Paul Pitchford. This book changed my life. I learned that I could feel better by eating better. This is when I verified that I had issues with dairy. I quit taking all the drugs and focused on improving my health. Later I discovered my problems with gluten, and I've always done better with very limited meat eating (although I get iron deficient very easily if I go off meat entirely).

Flash forward to present day, dealing with the abuse memories straight on, taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication for PTSD, feeling exhausted a lot of the time, stressed, migraines, not sleeping well, nightmares, feeling nauseous, using coffee and sugar to try to regulate my energy levels with limited success, etc. It feels very familiar. So a couple weeks ago I started trying to get health again. I pick up this book 5 days later, and I'm thinking I've had thyroid problems in the past, and the adrenals are what regulate the stress hormones that are involved in fight-or-flight and PTSD. If those aren't worn out after the life I've had, I'd be completely shocked. So I power through the book, take the quizzes, come out with low thyroid and low adrenal functioning (no shocker), and note these recommendations:

Thyroid:
-Get enough sleep and rest
-High fiber, low calorie diet
-No meat or dairy
-Do eat fruits, vegetables, beans, seeds, nuts, sprouts, avocados, and olives
-Avoid fluorine and chlorine

Adrenals:
-Reduce stress
-Avoid sugar, simple carbs, food additives, chemicals, preservatives, caffeine, alcohol
-Eat complex carbs in small meals
-Don't avoid salt

Besides that these are very similar to the things I did before to get health and feel better, there's a lot of random things that I had no idea was connected to my thyroid or adrenals, like migraines, low blood pressure (mine is so low nurses think I'm the walking dead), noise and temperature sensitivity, trouble waking up in the morning and going to sleep at night. Plus, the vitamins they recommend are a lot of vitamins (and amino acids) recommended by other books I read and have had some success with in the past. It all comes together.

I discussed this development with my therapist, and my personal observation that it takes a lot of effort, time, research, luck, and various types of doctors and other professionals (who need to be open-minded and sympathetic) to try to figure out how to holistically recover from child abuse trauma. Most of the PTSD literature out there mentions child abuse but doesn't really get into how repeated, long-term trauma from primary caregivers during one's formative years and not knowing any other reality presents additional or different challenges to recovery than trauma that happens to you as an adult and is not a condition of your childhood. I have never seen any mention of the adrenals, but it stands to reason that chronic trauma and the stress of child abuse would be expected to burn the crap out of anyone's body relating to stress response. Long-term trauma during childhood causes emotional damage, but what about the damage to one's thinking and physical responses. I have had serious sleep problems for as long as I can remember. This is a physical problems. I have a multitude of physical problems that are generally tied to stress- migraines, digestive issues, panic attacks. (I even wake up with them. I did this morning.)

Not to whine, but it is a pain in the ass to try to compile information on recovering from all the things child abuse does to you. Hell, I was WIRED differently because I grew up this way. I still don't know if it is really possible to rewire myself to be a post-trauma being. I don't know how much of this I can change and how much I will just need to adapt to in a more healthy way. Thinking is probably the most changeable, although it is persistent. What about the way my body developed? What about the stress responses that are baked into me by now. Why the hell isn't there a book about that? A book with the current science, and also other options that go beyond conventional medicine and take a holistic mind, body, and soul approach. If I wrote a book, that's the book I'd want to write.

Happy Death Day

2010-08-26T21:56:00.000-07:00

Today turned out to be my last day of questionable eating (and the day I fixed, hopefully all, the multitude of grammatical errors in my last post). This was the third and final day of IFRS training, and I was taken in by temptation. I drank coffee with cream and ate a croissant for breakfast, ate cheese and meat for lunch (sandwiches without the bread, a croissant is one thing but regular bread scares me), and a coke. By the end of the day I had a horrible stomachache, headache, and gas.

I went to get my waxing and nails done after work because I thought it would be relaxing. Funny how getting hot wax smeared on my crotch and having the hair ripped out, and then having someone scrub my feet while I try not to flinch or squeal or kick her is something I interpret as relaxing. The massage chair can wipe away a lot of discomfort. The woman I try to get for my waxing, Amy (probably not her real name) I've been going to for 3 years. She is quite perceptive- I told her I was single and she never asked about it for 2 years, and then as soon as I started dating JW she asked me if I had a boyfriend and said I seemed happy. Anyway, she commented on my pudginess. She managed to make a comment about my belly sticking out more than before not seem completely insulting, but it still strengthened my resolve. That, and half the women who work there wear these cute jeans and I currently can't fit into my cute jeans. Being told by a tiny Asian woman in cute jeans that I'm "curvier" is really motivating me to lose weight.

It is over though. I am ready to attempt life improvement through healthy eating. I had brown rice and vegetables for dinner. I am nervous about tomorrow, mostly about going all day without coffee. I will drink black tea though. I will drink black tea and celebrate my commitment to the new diet. I will also celebrate that tomorrow will be the day after the anniversary. My brother died 13 years ago today. I have been experiencing waves of sadness at random times during the day. I came home and finished unpacking his stuff that I still had boxed up in the corner since moving into this apartment. It has been haunting me all this time, but it is done. The possessions of his I treasure the most is the pottery he made himself. It is all out on the table with his pictures now. Tomorrow my boyfriend is coming over to help me sort through some of my piles and start listing things on eBay and Amazon. Mostly, it will be good to work on my organizational plan together since I'm starting to feel isolated and weird, looking at my brothers things and all sorts of pictures and objects that remind me of the past. I want to get back to the present. That's one of my main reasons for wanted to get rid of a lot of this stuff. It ties me to the past, a past I don't want to feel like a weight around my neck. I don't want my past to feel like a burden anymore.

Unpimp my life

2010-08-25T23:08:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling pretty crappy lately. Of course, it's kind of hard to tell if I've been feeling worse than before, and determining why I feel crappy is nearly impossible. Is it because my sleep is bad, anxiety, other PTSD symptoms, my notoriously poor digestion, coffee addiction related to my sleep problems causing stomach issues and headaches and migraines, food allergies, my body struggling to process the antidepressant and anti-anxiety medicines I'm taking, dealing with my emotional backlog... I could go on. I do know that usually when I'm having a lot of headaches and stomach pain, going on a very restrictive diet usually helps. My theory about my body is that the anxiety and PTSD causes my poor digestion. It is hard for my body to focus on processing food when I have so much else going on, and things like adrenaline screw you all up because when you are afraid your body figures digestion is a low priority. So when I eat "normally", that is, how most Americans would eat, my body practically shuts down because my digestive system just can't handle it. Even now, avoiding gluten (i.e. bread, pasta, flour tortillas) and dairy, it's better than it would be but I still feel tired and sluggish a lot. I'm really not a big fan of meat and would prefer to be a vegetarian except that I get iron deficient easily. I come close to being a vegan if I'm a vegetarian since I can't eat dairy anyway. When I was on the streets, I knew a lot of moral vegans, so I know that being a vegan is a lot more challenging than just not eating meat and dairy. A true vegan doesn't wear or use leather or wool, consume anything that contains animal products such as gelatin (including some vitamin capsules), or otherwise make use of anything that comes from an animal. On top of all that, I am chemically sensitive. MSG = very bad. Artificial sweeteners = very bad. I am already dedicated to only using makeup that doesn't have freaky chemicals in it.

I am also dieting right now = pain in the ass. I still haven't lost the weight I gained when my knee injury kept me from playing hockey, which was 10 pounds. I don't like it. My boyfriend's mom suggested I go vegan, and ever since I moved to L.A. I've been wanting to get back on the kind of diet I was on in Seattle. I ate out less and ate less meat and heavy foods. So I've decided to do vegan-lite, at least for the next month. I am going on a super-strict diet to see if I have more energy and feel less wretched. So here it is:
1. No coffee (dreading the major withdrawals)
2. No fried food (hard to digest, and heated oils are bad for your body)
3. No dairy (already know this messes me up, i.e. digestion shuts down, I get constipated, tmi)
4. No meat (hard to digest, makes me feel lethargic)
5. No gluten (kind of gives me the opposite reaction as dairy, more tmi)
6. No sugar (just screws up my blood sugar and makes me yo-yo, bad for yeast overgrowth in the intestines too. Vinegar and yeast is bad for this too, but lemon juice is actually good.)
7. No carbonation (makes my stomach hurt)
8. No chemicals (ditto)

I decided that I should avoid going out to eat during the month, since it is such a challenge to find something that's okay and I usually end up cheating in some way. I have to say, even though I've done these kind of diets before, I am nervous about how hard this is going to be. I am a total coffee addict even though I know it is bad for me, and I have been going out to eat a lot. I have been in IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) off-site training this week, and I am not doing well since all the meals are provided and they are pretty much all bad for me. I am planning to throw myself body and soul into this on Friday after work. Wish me luck. I am hoping to feel much better, but I may feel worse before I start feeling better.

In other news, my desire to simplify my life has really kicked with my apartment de-cluttering project. I am on a tear. I am getting rid of at least a third of my books, 14 pairs of shoes, half my purses, bags, and snow globes, and any number of random things. I am really motivated right now. One of my biggest fears is becoming a pack rat like my dad and grandma (it's pathological, I'm convinced). I have been firmly down that road and am trying to drag myself away from the abyss. I have this fantasy that getting rid of my extra stuff will help me let go of emotions and angst over my childhood I no longer need. Symbolism. Plus, I just think of all the women who totally kick ass in movies. They don't need a bunch of crap weighing them down. Seriously, for someone with so many apocalyptic themed books, comics, and movies (wildly apparent that I have some kind of obsession when I weeded through my books), I am not ready for the apocalypse. I'd be packing my stuff for weeks after the zombies had turned half the country. I'd be like, "Just a second, I can't join your army of the undead, or join the small, outmatched band of survivors, until I figure out which of these knickknacks goes to Goodwill. Please come back in 6 months when I've lost enough weight to fit into the leather pants and tiny top that is the uniform for women who sexily scowl as they chop the heads off zombies. Carry on."

My new favorite quote

2010-08-18T21:40:00.001-07:00

"It's simple. We're where we should be, doing what we should be doing. Otherwise, we would be somewhere else, doing something else." R.L. Stine

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

2010-08-18T20:42:00.000-07:00

KING: Comes to mind, Patty, most of us, most viewers watching don't know any evil people. Maybe there's some people they don't like, the boss, somebody's (UNINTELLIGIBLE). But evil, most people don't know evil people. You have spent a lot of time with evil people.

HEARST: Yes.

KING: What was that like?

HEARST: It's something that affects you so deeply that in a way you can never really trust people again. You know that you have to and you know that not everybody is like this, but it changes your perception of people for the rest of your life. And in a way it's sad to lose that kind of innocence, but on another way, you get a strength from it. And you can help other people.

...

CALLER: Hey, Ms. Hearst, I would like to know, have you ever felt guilty being a part of the SLA and how do you handle the fact that so many others think you are just as guilty?

HEARST: You know, when I first was arrested and first going through the therapy with the psychiatrist because I did feel really horrible. And I -- it was the kind of guilt that was -- a lot of it stemmed from feeling so horrible that my mind could be controlled by anybody, that I was so fragile that this could happen to me.

And because really we all think we're pretty strong and that nobody can make us do something if we don't want to do it. That's true until somebody locks you up in a closet and tortures you and finally makes you so weak that you completely break and will do anything they say. And there was the feeling of guilt and self- loathing and despair and pain that was just overwhelming.

...

KING: A brain-washed person doesn't know from time element when they're being brainwashed, do they? They don't wake up one day and say, I have been brainwashed?

HEARST: No. No, they don't. They -- I know for me, I thought that I was kind of fooling them for awhile, and the point when I knew that I was completely gone, I'm quite convinced, was at the Mel Sporting Goods Store when I reflectively did exactly what I had been trained to do that day instead of what any sensible person would have done or person still in control of their senses and their responses, which would be the minute the Harrises had left the van to have just run off and called the police.

At that point, you know, looking back, I can say that I was gone. I was so far gone I had no clue how bad it was.

KING: We'll be right back with more of Patty Hearst on this edition of LARRY KING LIVE.

My biggest practical problem related to my PTSD and recovery is my ongoing sleep problems. Like so many of the PTSD symptoms, I have been living with this for so long that I don't really know life any other way, but I still know there's something wrong. I dread going to bed. It doesn't matter how tired I am- in fact, the more tired I am the more I resist. It is like part of me really doesn't want to let me sleep so the more tired I am the more dangerous it is. I wake up sometimes feeling terrified, like I can't move and I'm suffocating, and the first thing that I think of is my dad. I don't remember having nightmares usually. I do have nightmares about my dad, but this is more the feeling and body sensation of fear. of freezing. It is that sensation when you are trying to run but your legs get heavy and you can't pick up your feet. You are yelling at yourself to MOVE, but instead you just stand there, staring blankly. In my case, I keep telling myself to get out of bed, walk around, walk into my living room and realize that I am not in my parents' house, my dad is not waiting there for me, and I am an adult and perfectly safe. As much as I tell myself I could just break the spell over me if I just got out of bed, I can't do it. My mind is prodding, pleading with me, but my body is acting like the blankets on me are restraints and my legs are paralyzed.

Terrifying. Terrifying that it's been 20 years since I've lived with my parents, and that long since my dad posed any real threat to me, and the survival part of me sees him as dangerous as he was when I was 8 years old. It seems odd to say, but the worst thing he did to me was not when he hit me. The worst thing he did was to threaten me. He kept me in fear of him from as far back as I can remember, and I never knew what or when he was coming for me. He described killing me in such detail that I was sure my death was always a possibility. I knew there was nothing I could do to predict or prevent him from doing what he wanted. He made me feel entirely helpless, entirely at the mercy of his whims. He could be laughing and joking one minute, and as cold and hard as death the next. I really believed I was going to die the last time he beat me. I still don't know how I got out of that alive. I believed that he was capable of things I couldn't even imagine. I seriously considered poisoning him when I was in junior high because I was so convinced that it was him or me. I talked myself out of it for several reasons- he might not die and then I would really be dead, I would be sent to jail and separated from my brother, killing is wrong and I didn't want to be like him. More than I didn't want to die, I didn't want to be like him and I didn't want to abandon my brother.

The job of a kidnapper, an abuser, a torturer, is to train you to do their job for them. To get into your head so thoroughly that even when they are not there, you fear them and do what they want you to do. So you totally believe in their power over you, their omnipotence, so you will be convinced that there is no point in running. They will always find you. You can't get away. You see them everywhere. You carry them around with you, the weight on your back, the shadows in the corner, the sourness in your mouth, the poison choking your lungs in the air you breathe. Your despair, your nightmares, your fears have their face on them.

I am tired most of the time. I feel weary. Yet when I go to bed, I see this chasm open up in front of me and my dad hanging me over it by my legs, laughing, while I grasp at my brother's spirit, wispy sadness floating away from me. I scream and scream, and even though my throat is burning no sound comes out. My mom's face is a distorted mask. What if I get stuck here? What if I never wake up?

In my mind, he is not just my dad. He is evil. He is all the torture and pain and hopelessness in the world. He is my brother's killer. He is the sum total of all of my fears, of abandonment, isolation, loneliness, helplessness, of being lost and wandering and not knowing where I am. Of falling and falling and not ever reaching the bottom. I am 8 days from the 13th anniversary of Jeff's death, and he is still lost to me. We are still lost and trying to find our way.

Happy Wep Ronpet!

2010-08-11T21:59:00.000-07:00

Last week I missed my first weekly blog post since March. It was because I was at a religious retreat. Yes, I am religious. I don't usually talk about it because I feel that my spiritual beliefs are a mostly private matter. They are very important to me, but it is not particularly important to me that other people know or understand or agree with them. I am really happy that I found a group of like-minded people to share my beliefs with, as well as to learn from them and enjoy their friendship and support. Really, what they provide me with is unconditional love and a big, sometimes hilarious, often touching family. I am lucky to have found them, because before I did, I didn't know anyone who thought about divinity the way that I do.

Still, it took me 9 years to actually go to their annual retreat and meet them in person. It was one of those wonderful experience where I felt instantly at ease with the group. I felt like I could just be myself, and myself was a good thing. I have been a very guarded person, and definitely struggle with letting people get too close to me. Being in this group, and finally meeting them in person and feeling so accepted helps me feel a little more open and trusting and willing to take a chance with people. I don't think I would be at this place, or as comfortable in this place, if it wasn't for my boyfriend. We've been together for eight months, and I went into dating him swearing that I would be myself, that I would be honest, and that I would wait until I felt safe and comfortable before taking any steps forward with him. Sometimes I feel like an emotional fruitcake around him because I am so unused to expressing my feelings with someone I'm dating. I get upset; I get jealous; I get confused. I pout and cry and I've had flashbacks and let myself pass through them instead of going numb and denying anything is wrong. I've done all those things in front of him, and he's never turned away in disgust or yelled at me or cheated on me or made me feel ashamed or unworthy. In fact, quite the opposite. I feel appreciated and loved and accepted. I feel understood. I might not have been open to those feelings before he helped me realize that I can be my imperfect, real self and still be someone people want to be around. In my heart of hearts, my self-esteem really took a beating. I really believed that I deserved all the abuse that I got. Now I am starting to feel otherwise.

On occasion, a reader of my blog has suggested that I can find unconditional love and forgiveness with god. I don't think I've ever responded to these suggestions because I don't want to offend anyone by suggesting that I don't see their religion the way they do. I have no problem with other people finding solace or satisfaction with a patriarchal monotheistic belief system. The way I see religion and spirituality is that different people have different needs and different experiences of the world, and so a one-size fits all approach doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I could totally see how someone who doesn't struggle with death or what they are supposed to be doing on this earth or the other big questions most religions attempt to address might not need any religion at all. There's nothing wrong with that, as far as I can tell. I can think of lots of people who are not religious who are still morally-upright, caring, compassionate people. I also have a lot of respect for people who do charity or volunteer work in the name of religion. I don't see it as a religion bad vs religion good question. The way I see it is that I don't want a god to substitute for a father figure, I consider hell to be a really cruel concept that I don't want as part of my belief system, especially if it involves sending people I love there, like, for example, someone who was so mental ill and hurting so badly that he killed himself, and I'm a polytheist. I have been for as long as I can remember. As far as I can tell, I was born thinking that divinity comes in many forms, and that the source of life, time, timelessness, and the mysteries that are just beyond human comprehension is not a single god, but rather some kind of energy or power or consciousness that is not human, but can take human-like forms in order to interact with us. I believe that my brother still exists in some form, and that I can communicate with him and he can communicate with me. I think that it is possible that some part of me can move on after I die. I don't know what that would be like, and I don't know that I would be able to understand it now anyway. I know that I have had experiences of the divine that I have faith are real. I believe that I am part of a spiritual world. That idea gives me comfort and helps me balance the despair I feel over the violence, hatred, intolerance, and cruelty in the world and in humanity. My faith doesn't blind me to the bad things, it helps bring me a sense of balance and hope so that the dark shadows don't feel so heavy in my heart.

So, as sort of a mass acknowledgement of everyone who has encouraged me to look to their religion for comfort- I appreciate your concern and compassion for me. I am touched that you care. I come into religion with a lot of needs and requirements and long-standing beliefs, and I've found something that really works for me. It comforts me, but also challenges me to go beyond what I can figure out for myself. It never violates my own sense of morality, but doesn't let me off the hook either, i.e. it's not the kind of thing where you don't have responsibilities to others or expectations for certain levels of behavior. It provides a structure that works for me, but enough flexibility that I can ask my questions and make my own decisions and discoveries. I am pretty amazed at how well it works for me, kind of similar to how amazed I am that I found a person to date that I can totally be myself with. Nekhtet!

Jason's Excellent Adventure

2010-07-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

I tried to post pictures while I was at Comic Con, but it didn't work for some reason. The one to the left is the best. We were wandering the floor and I saw 2000AD! They are a British comic book publisher that does Slaine the Horned God and Judge Dredd, among others. I haven't seen their comics in many years (since the early 90's when I first moved to Seattle) and before the internet got going I had a hard time finding anything, despite that I worked at 3 different comic book stores in Seattle and frequented others and comic book conventions. Oh, how times have changed. It used to be that I was the only girl for miles at comic book conventions and I was treated completely different at the comic book stores than the guys, and now I can go to Comic Con, which is HUGE and absolutely crawling with fantastic women. God/Goddess bless progress.

So anyway, I started talking to the genuine British guys at the 2000AD booth (they all had killer accents) and they told me to come back later because a lot of their titles had been held up at customs, including Judge Anderson. Judge Anderson is a character that basically works alongside Judge Dredd, although I wouldn't really know since I could never find her comics back in the day. So when I heard that I could get possibly get a Judge Anderson graphic novel if I came back later, I swore I'd be back. So we went to find hats with ears and eat lunch, and then went on a quest to find the 2000AD booth again. If you've never been to the San Diego Comic Con, the floor is massive and it's so crowded you are literally inching along, and we mis-remembered the area the booth was in and had to look it up in the guide, and they put it under "T" (two thousand AD?) and my cousin was giving almost nil odds that they actually got their shipment, and yet, lo, we discovered the elusive booth hiding in the corner, and lo! The table was teeming with shining graphic novels and Mr. Pat Mills and Mr. Clint Langley. (Look them up, oh comic book geeks.) As the universe shone upon my enthusiastic endeavor, I struck up a conversation with a graphic designer for 2000AD who found me my Judge Anderson graphic novel, D.R. and Quinch, and recommended his favorite Judge Dredd story, and asked if I might like Clint Langley to do a sketch for me. Why, HELL YES I would! So Clint Langley proceeded to take up assorted sharpies and draw, in front of my very eyes, the picture of Judge Anderson you see above.

I officially declare it the most AMAZING INCREDIBLE MIND BLOWING memento of any convention or other such event EVER.

Random naked angel chick, with kitty

In other spectacular news, my oldest rat Jason escaped from his cage the other night and had an excellent adventure. At least, I assume he did. I woke up and he was running around the living room. I startled him and he ran under the couch, but when I called his name he came over, and I scooped him up and returned him to his cage. I actually keep his cage door open most of the time because it is up on a table and he usually shows no interest at all in doing anything but standing on top of his cage and waiting for me, or staring down at the little rats. But I'm glad he got to break out and be free. He had a special gleam in his eyes when I put him back in.

This is actually Miroslav and Zeus in the picture, my little ones. Miroslav is getting quite large, almost as big as Jason. Zeus is the little one, but he keeps out of the way. Miroslav and Keith are boxing rivals, and Miroslav and Jason spend a lot of time squeaking at each other in between the cages. Keith is not particularly social, but Zeus is even though he is shy. Miroslav is not afraid of anything, and Keith is just not that interested in hanging out, but Zeus tentatively looks for attention. If you hold your finger out to him, he almost always licks you. This morning he was pressed against the cage so I rubbed his belly. He seemed to like that very much. Jason's big thing is having his ears rubbed. He closes his eyes and gets very relaxed. Even after having pet rats for so long, I'm still amazed at how individual they are and how much personality they have. Rats are my animals. Social, inquisitive, shy but outgoing at the same time- they are the ultimate survivors and can adapt to any conditions. They are my little superheros and inspirations.

Resurfacing

2010-07-21T20:29:00.000-07:00

I recently finished EMDR and physical therapy. It is kind of a relief. I was going to physical therapy during lunch, but since two new people started on my team at work, I haven't been taking lunch most days. The good news is that my shoulder seems about a million times better. The bad news is that my knee started hurting again after I went down on it last Sunday. The additional bad news is that I am out of physical therapy sessions under my insurance, and that my insurance sucks. The good news is that I have exercises to do at home that should help, and ice. After 4 months of physical therapy, I'm pretty clear on the process.

The EMDR is meant to be limited to about 8 sessions. I am a little worried about backsliding. It seemed like the EMDR really loosened some things in my brain up, and I don't want to feel like those things are hardening up again. I am a big fan of progress. I am also a big fan of inertia though. With everything that I was doing, it seemed like I was constantly running to appointments. Now I only have my regular therapy once a week. It is a lot less hectic. Only without an appointment or something planned after work, I have a tendency to just keep working, especially if I'm engrossed in a project. I dislike multitasking. Actually, I think it's a crock. You don't really do two things at once, you just switch from one thing to the other. Often times, I spend most of my day at work running from one meeting to another, so spending an hour or two on one thing and getting something completed is almost relaxing by comparison. Plus, I get a rush of anxiety-relief that is much better than any of the drugs I'm taking when I get something off my plate. Chow down.

It's not just work though. If I'm awake, I want to stay awake. If I'm in bed, I want to stay there. If I'm eating, I want to keep eating. If I'm reading, I don't want to stop. Whatever I'm doing, I usually want to spend more time doing it. I'm constantly leaving for things late because I don't want to stop what I'm doing. I linger. I want more. Even when it comes to grief. Sometimes it seems like I don't want to stop grieving. I feel like if I stop grieving my brother, I'll loose the immediacy and powerful feelings his death hold for me, and his memory will become pale and thin. I might forget the little things- the way he spoke or laughed or was like to be around, and he will just become a distant memory. Who he really was will be replaced, the way that when you haven't seen someone in a long time in person but you've seen their picture, you'll think of their picture when you think of them. It's a memory of a memory. If I let go of the anger at my dad, I feel like I'd be letting him off the hook. I want to seethe at him a little longer. I want to send him my psychic disapproval until I get results. Since the EMDR is supposed to be time-bound, and it is supposed to lessen the intensity of the traumatic memories, and the power they have, it does seem like a conflict. I feel unsatisfied somehow. I haven't discover how to feel at peace with things that will never be resolved. I will not get justice for the wrongs that happened. There are things I don't remember. I remember how I felt when I was 7 or 8 years old, how afraid I was of my dad, the things I did to protect myself like keeping my room messy so I could hear him come in at night or the mess would just dissuade him from coming in, hanging bells on my door, and hiding in the closet. I even woke up before dawn and hid in the yard even though I was allergic to the grass. I remember doing those things, but I don't remember what happened that made me so afraid of sleeping. Memory of a memory.

I have intense dreams. I have quest dreams where I'm searching for answers. I had a dream last week that I was on a crooked game show, and I decided to investigate the host. I walked around with a tiny video camera and filmed places he'd been. I gathered enough evidence to go to the FBI, and he was arrested for some type of financial fraud. Even after the arrest, I felt there was more. I looked back at one of the films I made, of women who were being arrested for prostitution. There were signs that they were human trafficking victims. I saw his face in the background and decided he must be involved in a human trafficking ring. I went back to my investigation. I woke up wanting a tiny video camera, and wondering if there is any way to get the police case against my dad from 20 years ago reopened.

In my last session of EMDR, we revisited the first memory we did the treatment on, of my dad beating me when I was 17. She asked me what bad feelings I still had about myself connected to that memory. I told her I still felt shame. It triggered a memory from when I was about 8 years old and we were at my grandparents. I was upset about something my dad did (I think he yelled at me in front of the whole family and I felt scared and humiliated), and I started to cry. My family walked away and ignored me like I was a little kid having a temper tantrum about something stupid. I couldn't stop crying and I didn't know how to comfort myself, and I rubbed my feet together, almost like it was involuntary, until I rubbed the skin off and they started to bleed. I felt the most intense feeling of shame, like all my feelings and everything about me was entirely worthless. I wanted to float away into the sky. In the EMDR, she asks me to focus on the feelings in my body and let them develop. I felt tightness in my throat, like I was being strangled, and pressure in my temples. The feeling moved down into my chest and shoulders, where it felt heavy and painful. Then my elbows felt tingly, and my hips ached. It moved into the tips of my fingers, where it felt like electricity, and the back of my knees itched.

Instead of flowing out of my body though, it took root. Little wisps of energy turned into cables that reached into my hips and elbows, and met in my chest. There it fed on the fear and smallness I hid inside myself, along with the light airy silliness I kept from my parents so they wouldn't pick on me and my vulnerable places. The strength and resilience I used to protect myself on the outside fused with the delicate and creative inside me, and wings grew out of my back, supported by a structure inside me that reached from my toes to my fingers, anchored by my hips and my chest. The feathers on the wings were delicate and beautiful, but even if some were bent or came out, the wings were still glorious. I had a helmet on my head, but it was flexible, like a leather aviator's helmet. It didn't cover my eyes or ears, so I was protected but not blocked off from the world.

It was a complete reversal of everything I thought I had to be to survive. I thought of my strength as being on the outside, like a suit of armor or a box, and my feelings as a little mouse, suffocating and near starvation in the protective prison inside me. Instead of feeling mushy and empty inside, I felt solid. Instead of feeling hard and inflexible on the outside, I felt open and tingling with energy. The wings felt so strong and resilient but flexible and airy. Their structure infused my whole body with their power. Their beauty glimmered around me. I was transformed.

I turned to my family, smacked my dad down with the wings, and flew away.

let’s not forget – that keeping wildlife, an amphibious rodent… uh, that ain’t legal

2010-07-14T22:06:00.000-07:00

I was all excited because blogathon 2010 was coming up, and suddenly it's not on anymore. It was going to be July 31-Aug 1, and they were blogging about all the new charities you could blog to raise money for, but then the website announced that they were taking a break until 2011. Needless to say, this was very disappointing. While staying up for 24 hours to blog every half hour was challenging, and I was getting a little loopy around 4 am, it was also rewarding and fun. It was a challenge I enjoyed, and definitely inspired the "blog every day in December 2009" personal blogathon I embarked on. Those two blog fests were responsible for 49% of my blog posts last year, and I was hoping to up my numbers this year with their help. Alas, I am undone.

I have no idea why blogathon is off this year. (The website is quite unhelpful- legal issues, burnout, the entire team went to Haiti to do relief work, zombie attack...we may never know.) I was all excited to do my thrilling essay, "Why my life is like an apocalyptic zombie movie, with rats". In this 48 part series, I would explain why horror movies are the perfect movie metaphor for child abuse- the isolation of no one believing you or being able to understand, the terrorizing of children by the superhuman power of adults, even the non-abusive ones, trying to communicate with zombies, the false rescue, the desperate struggle for survival, resolution and determination (the "attach a chainsaw to your arm if that's what it takes" effect), living in an alternate reality, difficulty in living a normal life after battling flesh-eating savages (the "get a motorcycle and wander the desert looking for people to save" effect), companionship with rats- it would be a masterpiece. The follow-up essay, if I ran out of stuff to say before I hit 48 posts, would be "Conclusive evidence that 'The Big Lebowski' is a brilliant send-up of 'Chinatown', and how I can't believe no one else thought of this". I really have to write both these essays, like, right now.

"Hmmm, as soon as I poke that army guy's eyes out with my thumbs, I'll write a brilliant essay and be the toast of the blogosphere."

Oh well. At least Comic Con is still on this year. This year the goal is to not spend the whole time in line. I am going with my cousin and meeting up with my friend Lori. She will be dressing as slave Princess Leia, and has been dieting for about 3 months so she can look fabulous in her costume. (I think she would look fabulous anyway.) I, on the other hand, was going to make a punk-rock Alice from Alice in Wonderland costume, but got exactly zero percent of that project done with my volumes of free time, so I am going in the same Elektra costume I wore last year, only 10 pounds heavier thanks to the weight I gained when my knee was injured and was never able to lose. The goal is make Lori feel especially good about herself by wearing a skimpy costume even though I totally don't have the body for it anymore. However, I do plan to achieve a goal even more important than avoiding lines, which is to spend the one magically day I have at Comic Con with people who don't ignore me the whole time while texting people they'd rather be with. Of course, last year I had blogathon 2009 to amuse me while waiting in line and feeling lonely.

So, I am expecting a better Comic Con experience this year, but still missing blogathon. Actually, I just had an idea. I could hold my own blogathon on August 26-27. See, I created "blog every day in December 2009" to help get me through the month of December, since I hate Thanksgiving and Christmas because of the sexual abuse I was subjected to at my great-uncle's house on those holidays, I miss my brother, who I grew up with, especially intensely at that time, and Jeff's birthday is December 31. August 26 is the anniversary of my brother's suicide, and what better way to get through a day of horror than to write about horror films. The only problem is that it's a Thursday. Back to the drawing board.

The Destroyer (or Transformer)

2010-07-07T22:55:00.000-07:00

My therapist and I have been struggling to communicate lately, and I think we finally figured out why. I told her a couple weeks ago that I felt like her and my other therapist (for EMDR) keep wanting me to be angry at my mom. It seemed they were always changing the subject back to my mom, especially when I was talking about my dad. Saying things like- how does it make you feel that your mom stood by and witnessed you being beaten, and did nothing? Meanwhile, I'm thinking that the bigger issue is the terror I'm feeling towards my dad. I get the idea that mommy issues are much more compelling, not just for my therapists. What can you say about a man who beats his own daughter? Not much. He is a monster. He is hard to even think about understanding. Plus, it's disturbing and shocking and the kind of thing most people don't like thinking about. Mothers, on the other hand, we just love to dissect under a microscope. Was it her mental illness, her upbringing, her ambivalence over having kids, her denial, her fear of my dad, her confusion, her love for my dad, her jealousy? We could psychoanalyse her all day. Plus, most people has mommy issue to some extent, whether its that they were too critical, distant, overbearing, guilt-trippy, excessively open, needy, etc. It's a lot easier to relate to difficulty with your relationship with your mom than with a father who beats you, whether you are a therapist or a friend. Lots of people have tried to give me helpful advice about my mom, everything from being understanding because she's mentally ill and she wasn't the abuser (not exactly true since neglect is abuse) to cut her out of my life. Most people don't have much to say about my dad.

That might not matter much except that I'm still waking up in the middle of the night terrified of my dad. I go to bed afraid of him. I'm still keeping my room/apartment cluttered to alert me if he tries to sneak into my bed. I'm suppressing rage towards him. I still get a sick feeling when I think of him. I blame him for corrupting my brother and taking him away from me. I resent him. I hate him. I fantasize about the day I can spit on his grave. I'm afraid of being like him. I'm terrified of what he did to me that my mind hid deep in my subconscious. I wonder if I'll ever know. All roads lead back to him. I wonder if I'll ever be free of his influence. I wonder what life would be like for me if I no longer cared. I carry his threats and mistreatment around in my heart like a cancer. His demeaning of me still motivates me to try to prove my worth. He is the monster under my bed. He is my nemesis.

So I want to talk about him. I want to talk about all the fears that twist me up inside. I want to talk about how I don't feel good enough because he didn't love me. I want to talk about all the ugliness inside me, and how I'm afraid his hatred will infect me. He scares me so much.

It took me the whole hour, but I finally expressed that to my therapist. I'm sick of talking about my mom. I want to talk about my dad. Even with all the issues I have with my mom, my dad was the one who made me fear for my own life. Most of the odd things I do and illogical ways of thinking I have come from coping strategies I used to survive him that are holding me back in the present. The chaos in my life comes from him. He is the biggest monster in my life, the biggest mountain to climb and reach the other side. I don't even have a clue who I'll be if I can do that, free myself from him programming. I will be different. Maybe more confident, less suspicious. Maybe happier.

Trust Your Instincts

2010-06-30T20:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday on NPR I heard a story about a 22-year old blogger who asked older female bloggers to write a letter to themself in their 20's. I kind of love this idea. I could totally write a series of letters to myself. The only thing is that I don't know if I'd want myself in my 20's to read them in case it would screw up my timeline. I feel like I am on the right path in life for me, and a lot of the things I did to get here I would regard as mistakes. Somehow, my mistakes seem to get me where I needed to go. I guess I just wish those mistakes were not so damaging to my self-esteem. So my first letter to 22-year old self would go something like this:

Dear Kristina Marie,

You have post-traumatic stress disorder. The vast majority of your emotional distress can be chalked up to this disorder. If you've heard of PTSD, it was connected to Vietnam Vets. It's the same disorder, but it can be caused by domestic violence, sexual abuse and rape. Our mom's therapist is an idiot for not calling the cops on our dad, but he was right when he told you that you were being physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. The abuse was never your fault. When you go numb, it's because you learned to do that as a kid to deal with the abuse. What you went through was horrific, and you are very strong for surviving it. Most people don't understand the first thing about what it's like to grow up that way. You will find people who do understand though, but it may take time. It will take time for you to find the right treatment for the PTSD and work through it, and it will get worse before it gets better. But it will get better. I promise you. There is a support group in Seattle called "Survivors of Suicide". It will save your life someday. In the meantime, if you're going to go to therapy, talk about your childhood. Talk about the abuse. It was not your fault. You do not need to feel so ashamed that you can't even talk to a therapist about it. You did not deserve to be treated that way. You didn't deserve to be raped either. Being angry about it will not make you into your dad. You are not him. It is okay to feel things. Start by acknowledging your feelings to yourself. You don't need to share them if you don't want to. Try writing about how you feel. You don't need to show anyone. It will help.

I am going to tell you something you already know, you've always known- you are a writer. You always were a writer, and you always will be a writer. You practically came out of the womb using the written word to express yourself. Instead of sleeping with a teddy bear, you slept with Dr. Seuss' ABC book, for gods sake. You know this about yourself. Other people may doubt you, but don't doubt yourself. Those people don't know you. You will find ways to be a writer on your own terms. You will find ways to be recognized as a writer without needing the approval of any professor or editor. Believe in the part of you that believes in yourself. Your biggest problem is that you get in your own way, and get all stressed out about how things will turn out. I promise you, it will all work out. You will be happy and fulfilled. You will figure out how to live life on your own terms. Life is painful, and you've had more than your fair share. There is more pain to come. But trust me, life is also amazing and magical and too good to imagine. Focus on having fun no matter what is going on. Find the beauty in everything, even the most difficult circumstances. God doesn't hate you. You'll find people who appreciate you and a life that's really yours.

Speaking of people, some advice- you don't need a boyfriend every second of your life. Spend more time with your friends. When you're ready, and you meet someone who really gets you and appreciates you and is patient enough to get to know you. Take all the time you need to let someone earn your devotion and loyalty. If it doesn't feel right, walk away. You don't owe anyone anything. Anyone who pressures you for sex is a total and complete waste of your time. Don't ever think you need to have sex with someone when you don't feel comfortable. There's nothing wrong with you if you don't have a boyfriend or don't want to have sex. It's not a permanent condition, and it doesn't mean that you're damaged from the sexual abuse or that you'll never be able to be with anyone. There is nothing wrong with you sexually. If you're with someone who's right for you and you feel comfortable, you'll be amazed at how good it will feel. It won't feel bad or wrong or dirty. You won't feel bad or wrong or dirty. There is nothing wrong with wanting someone to love you before having sex with them. You are not unlovable! There are support groups and lots of other people out there who were sexually abused. What you are experiencing is totally normal for someone who was treated the way you were. It was not your fault. Just keep telling yourself that.

On the boyfriend thing, I recommend not living with any more boyfriends until you're really sure you've found someone you can settle down with. Give it time, like 10-15 years at least. It seems like a long time, but you'll be better off. If you do move in with someone and you start feeling like something is wrong or you feel scared, just leave. You don't owe anyone, and you deserve to live in a safe place. Sleep on someone's floor if there's no other options. Your safety is worth it. Also, just make it a policy that you don't loan anyone money. It's your money. If you need to explain, tell them that you've been burned in the past. No one has any rights to your hard earned cash. If they try to guilt trip you, they are the ones in the wrong. Don't run up credit cards, especially providing things for other people. You'll thank me for this one.

Finally, learn to play ice hockey ASAP. It is 10 times funner to play than to watch. It may seem like hockey is this totally weird part of your life because none of your friends are into it, but someday you'll be surrounded by really cool, fun, funny, understanding, geeky smart people who love it as much as you do. Getting started with the gear is the one exception to using a credit card I'll give you. Do it. You'll be awesome.

Love, your 38-year old self

2010-06-25T19:36:00.001-07:00

OMG!!! Keith Ballard is going to the Canucks! I am SO EXCITED!!! I <3 you Canucks! Thanks for bringing Keith back west!

Canadian money is so interesting

2010-06-23T23:48:00.000-07:00

My new favorite blog is passive-aggressive notes. I never thought before about how totally funny people are when they are being passive-aggressive (when it's not directed at you. Or when it is and you can see the humor in it.) There is something totally fascinating to me about how these notes express the often bizarre ways people attempt to influence others to act the way they want them to, get some kind of revenge when they don't, and generally deal with conflict. I've often described Seattle as a passive-aggressive culture because there is some kind of enforced niceness going on, like, if I'm being a total asshole it's for your own good because you obviously don't know how to act like an adult in civilized society. I feel sorry for you. I really do. For instance, people honk at you if you don't drive super-slow and demonstrate a complete lack of merging awareness, because this is Washington, not California, you big city jerk. We refuse to drive like this is a city, because we are in denial about losing any aspect of our sleepy, logging town culture!

Seattle is not a very diverse place, and the most interaction I'd really had with people from the East Coast was in business school. I really noticed the cultural differences there. The dominant local culture frowned on directness, so anyone who seemed confrontational or excessively frank was ignored into submission. I think the New Yorkers had some of the worst culture shock, so it is kind of funny that my boyfriend now is from New York. Not that New Yorkers are never passive-aggressive (perhaps trending more towards aggressive than passive?), but I don't think I've ever laughed so much with a boyfriend than with him, and a big part of it is that our interactions are so funny. He is so direct, and I am so indirect. There are so many factors playing into my discomfort with directness- the Seattle culture, the similar Minnesota culture my mom is from, my association between confrontation and violence, my desire to always smooth things over to avoid said confrontation/violence, trying to protect myself by hiding what I really think, not being very in touch with my feelings, not knowing how to deal with conflict, feeling guilty if I get upset with someone I care about, my insane family, etc. (How passive-aggressive is this blog? Answer: totally.) I am so glad he is not like me. I drive myself crazy. At least when I'm with him I can laugh at myself and the lengths I go through to try to control myself and the situations I find myself in. As I learn to trust him and that his intentions are good, I'm learning to let go a little. It's a miracle. Maybe someday I won't be so stressed out.

As someone who's been on both the receiving end and the agent of passive-aggressive behavior, I can't get enough of the hilarious notes on this blog. The office ones are especially interesting since I have definitely seen some homemade signs at my work in the kitchen and the bathroom. Food-theft is a strong theme. I haven't had roommates in a while, but I can really, really relate to a lot of those notes. Roommate drama is the inspiration for my favorite note, written on Canadian $20 bill. Defacing money and the queen, Canadian passive-aggressiveness, big words- it's a gem. (P.S. Nice people are the best at being passive-aggressive. Don't forget grandma.)

Straw Dogs

2010-06-16T21:18:00.000-07:00

If you want to become whole,
first let yourself become broken.
If you want to become straight,
first let yourself become twisted.
If you want to become full,
first let yourself become empty.
If you want to become new,
first let yourself become old.

-Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu

Today was the best day of the year, the Programmers Fair. It's a work thing that happens once a year when the TV channels set up booths and give us swag (pens, bags, squishy balls) and show off their TV celebrities. I met Kevin Nealon (currently on Weeds, formerly on Saturday Night Live, where I remember him from in the 80's) and Dan "The Outlaw" Hardy, a mixed martial artist who was there for the UFC.
It was a lot of fun, and they were both very nice. It is kind of a tradition for me to get a picture of the UFC fighter and put it in my office. It started with Wanderlei "The Axe Murderer" da Silva, who wrote "To Kristina, Big kisses, Wanderlei". It was priceless. So my office walls are covered with pictures of hockey players and mixed martial artists. Some people have commented that I look like I am into violent sports.

I've been doing the EMDR therapy (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, a treatment for dealing with traumatic and unresolved memories from PTSD) for six weeks now. It is kind of hard to describe the affect it is having on me. I have a big, black mass of feelings and experiences that I had to push down into the depths of my subconscious in order to survive. It is hard and sharp and immobile. My regular therapy is sometimes like taking a hammer to the mass and chipping away at it. The EMDR is something that is getting into the middle of it, and suddenly what was solid and hard is moving around in there, like particles have been activated and they are bouncing around, knocking into each other. Processing. It feels like processing.

The most tangible example of this is my dreams. Before I started with my current therapist, when I had dreams I could remember they were usually frustration dreams, where someone was doing something to me or threatening me in some way and I would get really angry but not be able to do anything. All this frustration and anger and fear would well up in me, but I was blocked from expressing these feelings or responding to them. I would feel all this pressure in my head and the rest of my body, and I'd want to scream or cry or punch a wall, but would not be able to move. I would be bursting at the seams with everything I was holding in.

Then last fall I started to have the "traumatic remembering" dreams, where I would wake up in the middle of the night completely terrified, and feeling small. Not just feeling small- I felt like a little kid. I was re-experiencing the fear I lived with as a child when I went to bed. I would be paralyzed by fear, and totally convinced that my dad was in my living room, waiting for me. My conscious mind would tell myself, over and over, that I was in my apartment, not the house I grew up in, and that if I just got up and walked into the living room I would see where I was and realize my dad wasn't there, and the spell would be broken. But it never worked. The fear was too powerful, and my body controlled the paralyzing, not my consciousness. That was why I started sleeping with stuffed animals, so at least I could comfort myself in some way while I was still in bed.

Now I'm having quest dreams. In these dreams I'm searching for answers about myself and my family, trying to make sense of things. In the most significant one that I remember, it started with a scene like from a movie. The Hobgoblin was drilling through walls and floors with one of his super-scientific inventions (symbolism: there was no where to hide from this bad guy, no where to go to be safe) and then Batman showed up. (I know, wrong series. It was a dream, you know?) Batman and the Hobgoblin start fighting in a bank, and innocent bystanders are trying to flee unsuccessfully (symbolism: my mom and my dad, who appeared to me so emotionally inaccessible that it was like they were wearing masks, are fighting and hurting my brother and I in the process even though we are innocent of any wrongdoing, and both appear to be the bad guy even though one is supposed to be the good guy/girl). Then I was with my friends, describing the "movie" I had just seen (symbolism: I escaped the violence physically, but I am still affected by it and need to talk about it.) Then I am walking around an area with vendors, and one of these vendors is selling swatches of cloth to sew together to make a scarf. The vendor hands me a piece of cloth and says, "I made this for you." I look at it, and it has a picture of my brother on it (symbolism: I am trying to piece my life together into something that can keep me warm and protect me from the outside world, and express who I am in a way that is beautiful and that I am proud of because it comes from me, although other people are helping me with this process.) I take the swatch, and then step into the scene in the picture and meet my brother. In talking to him, I realize that my mom is missing. I go looking for her, and while looking for clues about her disappearance come to realize that she was deeply mentally ill while I was growing up and unable to parent me, and that she has left me and will never come back (symbolism: my mom was physically present but not emotionally present, and I was emotionally abandoned by her as a child and I will never find emotional support from her, but I can find the answers within myself.)

My dreams are not just reflections of what did happen, but what is happening in my subconscious. They are gifts from a forgotten place.

Guys, I wanna be Xtina

2010-06-09T22:19:00.000-07:00

Today I want to talk about Xtina, she's my idol, well except the greatest guy in the world. JW!

Pithy sentiments from my boyfriend, although Xtina Aguilera is not my idol. Maybe she's my alter ego or something. We just finished watching the Stanley Cup Final. The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Philadelphia Flyers in 6 games. I had a hard time picking a team to root for since I have issues with both teams, but, as it has been during the whole playoffs, as soon as I decided to go for a team (the Flyers today) they got beat. I picked the Flyers finally because the Chicago press put Chris Pronger in a dress. Course, I don't like Pronger at all, but hey, when are we going to get to the point where we don't compare men to women as an insult? F-u Chicago Tribune.

Speaking of offensive, the main reason I couldn't root for the Blackhawks is their embarrassing logo. Come on. That, and the fact that they eliminated my beloved Canucks in the second round two years in a row. However, my friend Carrie loves the Blackhawks because she lived in Chicago, and I her. And the Flyers are owed by Comcast. (Boo.) And stupid Pronger. I have West Coast bias too. But the Flyers have orange socks and Arron Asham. They also have better playoff beards. Patrick Kane looks like a trailer park reject, and as a small town girl, that scares me. But then there's Adam Burish, one of my favorite agitators. It was impossible to decide. Now it's over.

Work has been very stressful because I'm experiencing that whole, I want to be a nice, supportive boss but right now I have to be a hard-ass. Or at least more of a hard-ass than I want to be. I just figure everyone should act mature and trustworthy and straightforward, but of course that is not always the case. I can't really get into a lot of details about it because this is a public blog. Right now I am just feeling really upset because I feel like my niceness has been taken advantage of. So now I'm like, FINE, you want a micromanaging bitch, you GOT IT. I worked in public accounting. I've had my ass micromanaged all over this fine country. I had a senior who made me drive him around Wichita, KS while he read the Wall Street Journal and complained that I didn't drive up to the door of the hotel to pick him up. I did an inventory count in freezers full of seafood for a company that was later featured on Dirty Jobs. I've had managers call me at 2 am to rant about my workpapers. I've gotten 50 review notes, cleared them all in 3 hours, and then got 50 more from the same manager, some asking me why the hell I made changes that she asked for in the first 50. I've been threatened by CFO's, VPs of Finance, and Audit Partners. I've been asked to give status updates every hour. I've had to account for every minute of my work day. I've worked past midnight, gone back to the hotel, and got up at 6 am to do it again. I've had my own co-workers turn on me in meetings with the client. I've been called arrogant and had someone mock the way I walk. Actually, more than one person. Speaking of which, I've waited tables, and few jobs include the kind of verbal abuse you experience as a waitress. So yeah, I know a little about difficult work conditions and if anyone thinks I'm being too tough with them now or in the near future they don't even know.

I'm having a hard time imagining myself as a demanding boss, but I am a perfectionist. I try not to take it out on other people, or even myself, but sometimes you do need to have expectation for people. Especially people who work for you. The last thing I want to be is a pushover. So no more nice. At work, anyway.

My Life in Pictures

2010-06-02T23:51:00.000-07:00

Hi there from the drive home from Phoenix! This weekend I played in a hockey tournament. It was way fun, except that I drank 3 purple hooters, 2 shots of tequila, and 3 margaritas Saturday night at a cowboy bar with my team and I was veeeery sick the next morning. I still played that day though, thanks to Gatorade and Goo. I was all looking forward to writing a whole big blog about it, but tonight was game 3 of the Stanley Cup final and I have the SEC and Financial Reporting Conference tomorrow.

Let me tell you, as an accounting geek I am so, so excited. I was literally jumping up and down earlier. The Chairman of FASB (the Financial Accounting Standards Board), the Chief Accountant from the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission), board members from PCAOB (The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board) and IASB (the International Accounting Standards Board) and a bunch of other muckity-mucks from the accounting world will be there. Nine hours of accounting, financial reporting, and regulation, with continental breakfast, coffee breaks, luncheon (not lunch, luncheon), and a reception- what could be more fun?!?! Don't answer that. It's good for CPE (continuing professional education, for my CPA license) credits, and I, for one (maybe literally) will LOVE IT. So I do need to get to bed. Here are some pictures since I don't have time to write more.

Oh yeah, I love playing tournaments. It was a blast! My first tournament since I tore my MCL.

I officially have a sudoku addiction. I have to do a puzzle every night to relax. More evidence of my numbers geekdom.

Flowers from my boyfriend. Aren't they lovely? I haven't written that much about him because I didn't want to jinx it, but our 6 month anniversary is this Monday, and he is so supportive and wonderful. He is making it a lot easier to deal with EMDR and therapy and everything else I'm trying to process right now. He's also funny and interesting and smart, and a total hockey geek. He came to the tournament and took the pictures of our games, and took care of me when I was so sick and didn't even mind. He is truly a nice guy and I love him for it.

Even more romantic, he got me sports bras to replace the ones that irritated my skin during the tournament. How sweet is that?!?! They are cool colors too, and one looks like a soccer ball. Love it!

Okay, I'm off to bed. Hopefully I'll be able to write more later, about hockey and dreams and EMDR.

Jeff is missed

2010-05-26T22:32:00.000-07:00

I started a Facebook page for my brother. The idea very simply came from two of my deceased Facebook friends who still have pages- a co-worker who committed suicide in 2008, and a woman I know from business school who died from Cystic Fibrosis last year. My brother died before Facebook, and before social networking and a lot of things for that matter. He never used an iPod or iPhone, or even a cell phone. He died before multi player online video games, Google, Wikipedia, Barack Obama (at least before we knew about him), Lost, the Simpsons Movie, digital cameras, GPS, blogging. I mean, I'm sure some of these things were in the works, but there is all this technology that is such a normal part of life now that he never even experienced. Not to mention all the things in my life that I'm not able to share with him- my job, playing hockey, my friends, my boyfriend, zombies, blogging, rats. I feel a tinge of sadness whenever something happens that I want to tell him about. I got a garbage goal and a sweet assist on Sunday. I'm playing in a hockey tournament in Phoenix this weekend. My boyfriend is awesome. My rats are silly. Obviously the Facebook page I set up for him is not the same as it being HIS page that he set up, but if other people can have a Facebook maintained in their honor that people can use to keep connected to their memory, I don't see why he can't have one. Even though he never knew what Facebook was.

I have been thinking of him even more than usual because in the EMDR therapy (and my regular therapy since those two therapists are talking to each other and have started reinforcing each other) we've been dealing with the events that lead to me being removed from the family and losing my day-to-day connection with him. I felt guilty about that, even though obviously it was not my fault that CPS put me in foster care. I felt that I abandoned him, and that somehow my presence in the family could have kept him from going down the path that lead to his suicide. Now that I am getting in touch with my feelings about the violence in our family, I am also remembering how concerned I was for him and how I thought at the time I was doing right by him by getting out of the family and being independent, as an example and also so that he could come stay with me if he needed to. In fact, now I feel like I did do the right thing, and the fact that it didn't prevent his death doesn't make it any less right. It is almost more uncomfortable to feel that I was powerless to save him than to feel guilty though. I hate the feeling that I was a victim in all that happened. But I was, and he was. That feels really sad.

you'll be alone, like a ghost, I'll be gone

2010-05-19T21:33:00.000-07:00

The EMDR this morning was different, went deeper. I felt the terror, felt the emptiness. I looked into my mom's face, and she looked away. I felt small and weak. I wanted to throw things at her, make her pay attention, make her feel the pain, if only the physical pain I was in. I realized how alone I was. I had nothing to protect me. I was panicked, searching for a way to survive this. I could feel how torn up my throat was from screaming and crying. My arm was aching. I could feel every blow on my face, my cheekbone and jaw throbbing, my teeth in my lip. I felt my mind slipping away, but the physical pain, like a cord wrapped around my throat, dragging me back, screaming in head to find a way to make this stop. Do anything, my arms so tired from pulling away, shaking. Shaking everywhere, I can't tell if it's coming from inside me or out. Screaming that I can't tell if it's in my head or coming out of me. I have to survive this. I can't die.

It was on the edge of unbearable. My therapist told me to stand up then, and push against her. I put my palms against hers and pushed until my arms shook and I was gasping for breath. The tension went out of my arms then, but I wanted to scream. I still want to scream and scream and scream.

The Hellfire Club

2010-05-12T21:35:00.000-07:00

I've started physical therapy on my shoulder and EMDR therapy. Both are forcing me to deal with the feelings I have from the beating that caused the injury and resulted in my short stint in foster care. There is a lot of physical pain in my shoulder. When my physical therapist works on it, I feel angry. She thinks it is because the pain makes me think of how it got that way, and that makes me angry. My regular therapist thinks the physical therapy is releasing anger stored in my body, sort of like I am detoxifying from it. Either way, it feels really uncomfortable at the time, but I feel a release, like I am a little bit lighter, afterward.

My physical therapist's explanation for what happened to my body is that, when my dad held me up by my arm and swung me into the wall with it, it stretched out the muscles, tendons, and ligaments around my shoulder socket. The fibers in muscles naturally overlap, and stretching them apart weakens the muscles and lessens their effectiveness. She said there is actually too much flexibility in my shoulder socket and the muscles are too weak to control and support movement in the joint. This causes nerve pinching and pain down my arm, into my elbow and sometimes my fingers. To compensate for the lack of muscle support around my shoulder joint, the muscles in my shoulder blade tense up to try to control the movement. That is why there are always muscle knots in my right shoulder blade, and I feel a lot of tension there. There is less flexibility in my shoulder blade from the tensing, and too much in shoulder socket because of the weakness in the muscles.

I can feel my face screwing up with disgust as I write that. It is one of the many feelings I have about what happened to me. I feel revolted by my parents sometimes for the way they acted towards me. This morning, I had a session with my EMDR therapist. She had me describe what happened in the beating, and then kept having me return to the scene again and again, while wearing the device she uses for the therapy. It is a set of headphones that plays a tone, and plastic nodes that I hold in my hands. The nodes vibrate and buzz in the palm of my hands. The tone and the vibrations happen together on one side, then the other, back and forth. The idea is that when you are in trauma the parts of the brain the process information literally shut down so all your focus can be on surviving the situation. Anything not essential for survival in that moment just stops. PTSD is when you get stuck in the trauma, so you are not able to process what happened and move on from it. The stimulation of the tone and the buzzing, while recalling the traumatic experience, activates the parts of the brain that can process the event. The idea is that it goes from being a flashback, with a re-living of the terror and physical sensations of the trauma, to a memory that no longer has that kind of hold over you.

Each time I revisited the event, I saw and felt something different. I felt small and weak, shocked with the sudden and violent realization that my dad's threats to kill me weren't just threats. I was totally soft and vulnerable; my body pummeled like a rag dog, no control over my limp body. My body felt like a mist that would dissipate, fall apart until I was nothing but sadness. Then I was stiff and immobile, struggling to keep my feet on the ground, feeling every blow to my face reverberating in my body, falling backwards, paralyzed. The confused feelings swirled around my face, around my body, until the white mist coming off me became a tornado wind, blowing my parents away from me as I floated in cold white blankness. Then I looked at a mirror on the wall, and saw the bruises on my face turn into purple and black clouds, then lightning shot out of the thick blackness and knocked down the walls of my room. I saw my brother standing on the other side of the wall, small and defenseless, but calmly waiting for my storm of protection to surround him. Then I was back in the hard gaze of my father, only his face was a wood mask, one of those scary large masks, and my mom's face was a blank, emotionless mask, and I was surrounded by impassive, inhuman things, painted and ghoulish, and the white mist swirled around my head and shoulders again, only this time I was solid and whole within the dancing fog.

My EMDR therapist told me I would be processing this all day. I guess I'm still processing, because I don't know what to think about it. I feel calm, mostly. Like I'm at the eye of the storm for now.

Follow Me

2010-05-05T23:05:00.001-07:00

There's an episode of Seinfeld where George is acting particularly out-there, and Jerry says something along the lines of- a regular psychiatrist isn't enough for you. You need a TEAM of psychiatrists working on you around the clock. I feel a little like that now. I have my regular doctor, my physical therapist, my regular therapist, and now I have a psychiatrist and an EMDR therapist. EMDR is a therapeutic treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. That therapist was recommended by my regular therapist, and my doctor recommended the psychiatrist, who also wrote me the prescription for physical therapy on my shoulder that was injured by my dad 21 years ago. Most of these doctors and therapist are talking to each other about me too, so I really do feel like I have a team of professionals working on my trauma recovery. I mean, I really do.

Last Friday, I saw the psychiatrist. We talked for a while, and she wanted me to start taking an antidepressant. I wasn't really thrilled with the idea- I was prescribed all sorts of things before I was diagnosed with PTSD and didn't find them to be particularly helpful. Mostly they made me feel sluggish and throw-up a lot. Plus, it just seems so unpredictable. What if it makes me act different? What if I don't feel like myself? What if I start feeling like I don't know who I am anymore? If I'm using a drug to feel okay, how am I really okay? She responded that antidepressants, besides therapy, are the first line against PTSD. Again, this seems a little strange to me because antidepressants are theoretically supposed to correct a chemical imbalance in the brain, and PTSD is not really a chemical imbalance. Plus, PTSD is, in theory, something you can recover from by processing the trauma, and an antidepressant does not process anything. But, I had already decided I would give this a try, so, I thought, I'll give it a try. She gave me a prescription for cymbalta, which is one of those drugs with a fancy name and commercials. (I guess with a dog?) It is also too new to have a generic, so I found out it was irritatingly expensive when I filled the prescription that night.

On Saturday, I talked to the EMDR therapist on the phone. She was in favor of the antidepressant. She said you couldn't do the EMDR work effectively if you weren't emotionally stable, so it would help me deal effectively with her therapy. So, question answered. I also saw my regular therapist yesterday, who had a productive discussion with the psychiatrist and was also happy about the drug. I told her I was worried that my mood would be artificial, and that would actually interfere with me processing my true emotions coming up from my childhood. She didn't think that would be the case, although she is concerned about anti-anxiety medication for a similar reason- that if people just pop a pill whenever they feel anxious, they won't learn to deal with the underlying reason for the anxiety. She is more comfortable with the antidepressant because you take it every day. We then talked about when I have struggled with serious depression. Right now, I don't think I am depressed, but I am anxious, and the drug is supposed to help with that as well. I have read that a lot of people with PTSD take antidepressants, but I don't totally understand why when PTSD is an anxiety disorder and not depression. Well, that's not entirely true. Most people with PTSD struggle with depression; it's just that the disorder is not technically depression. I don't feel like anyone is just throwing random drugs at me without a good reason, though. I guess it helped to talk to my therapist, who I have been working with for a while and I trust her.

My boyfriend had a pithy response when I declared that I was good at managing things myself, and I had something inside me that had gotten me though everything I'd been through and I felt uncomfortable handing the controls over to this team of doctors and therapists. He said, maybe that part of you that helped you survive led you to these people so they could help you. Hmmm. Well played.

Mowing the grass

2010-04-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

Do you remember, waaaay back in March of 2006 when I sent letters to my dad's second wife and her son (who was living with them with his 4 year old daughter) warning them about my dad? Maybe not. Well, I was completely terrified at the time, thinking (quite seriously, even though I knew it was unlikely) that my dad would come to Seattle, find me, and kill me. At the same time, my right shoulder started hurting very badly, to the point where I could barely lift my arm. This wasn't the first time I'd had shoulder problems, far from it. I had pain and limited movement in that shoulder since I was 17 and my dad threw me against a wall, flinging me by my right arm. The ongoing discomfort was something I just lived with, just like many of the struggles I had accepted as just a normal part of my life even though they would not be normal for most people. Periodically, I went to doctors and tried to get some help with the anxiety, sleep problems, migraines, digestive distress, flashbacks, panic attacks, etc. Sometimes the doctors tried to help out in small ways, some were dismissive, and some just didn't seem to get it. My shoulder pain has a clear physical cause (yet it wasn't treated), and the other problems are symptoms of PTSD. It wasn't until recently that I started finding doctors and other professionals who acknowledged PTSD as an actual disorder that could be treated.

I've been going to physical therapy for my knee, and one day I noticed someone getting their shoulder worked on. While my physical therapist is rubbing out my knee, I usually make small talk with her (and not so small talk. I told her that my dad was physically abusive and that I have PTSD. She tells me about her new baby, and grills me about whether my boyfriend is "the one".) I mentioned to her that I had ongoing discomfort in my shoulder, and wondered out loud if physical therapy might help. Of course, as a physical therapist, she figured she could help. "Just make an appointment with your doctor," she told me. "See if she'll give you a prescription for PT and then I'll be able to do an assessment."

Easier said than done. This was at least a month ago, and I kept putting it off. My doctor is completely wonderful, but I dread going to the doctor. It's because my mom would drag me to doctors all through my childhood. I think in part it was the only way she knew how to take care of me, and also because it was a way of deflecting the real problems in our family, and the real problem with me, which was that I was being abused. Instead, she acted like I was some kind of sickly, fragile child who's problems could be solved with medication (rather than GETTING ME THE HELL OUT OF AN ABUSIVE HOME). This was silly, because I was the girl in the neighborhood playing sports with the boys and staying outside in the dirt as long as possible. I was far from fragile, especially considering the physical abuse I took. When I really needed medical attention, like when I had physical injuries, my mom would never take me to the doctor in a million years. It would raise the kind of questions she was trying to avoid.

I grew up feeling like I was a problem- abnormal, messed up, in need of fixing. When I went to the doctor as an adult, I felt like they didn't take my complaints seriously and thought it was all in my head. I got used to getting what felt like half-assed care that really didn't address the root of my problems. For example, when I went to the doctor in 2006, when I hadn't been able to lift my arm for a month and couldn't even hold a bag or backpack with that arm, I got one session of physical therapy and that was it. It wasn't enough to help, and I didn't push the issue. After all, when had my problems ever been taken seriously? I just lived with it, like I was so used to doing.

I finally did make an appointment for last Friday. A couple of hours before, I started thinking about how I would have to tell my doctor how my shoulder was injured, and that triggered a panic attack. I was imagining her looking at me like I was a freak, or with some expression that said I was to blame, like, you must have been a really bad kid to deserve that! I had to call my boyfriend to talk me down, but I was still feeling scared and my eyes were filling up with tears. I was sure I would start bawling as soon as I tried to talk to my doctor. I tried to imagine telling her about the pain in my shoulder without explaining how it happened, or making up a story, but I knew I couldn't do that. All this, and this is a doctor I've been seeing for 3 years and who I like and trust. It really struck me how re-traumatizing it is for me to talk about that beating, even 21 years later. At the time, I thought that beating would end my life.

I managed to stay calm until I was alone with my doctor, and relatively calm as I explained about my shoulder. I cried, but I wasn't bawling. I immediately saw sympathy and understanding on her face, and a mix of horror and anger that someone would do this to a child that I have seen on people's faces before. That felt comforting. She did a lot of the same things she did when I went to her for my knee- asked questions about how it happened and how my body was, and moved my arm around to see where it hurt the worst. She said she thought it was a partial rotator cuff tear that never healed properly. She ordered an x-ray, which, like my knee, probably won't show us anything but if she wants to order an MRI she needs the x-ray first. She wrote me a prescription for physical therapy, and said if that doesn't seem to be helping we'd get the MRI to learn more. She also asked me about how I was dealing with the PTSD (since this was the first time I'd told her about it). I told her about my therapist and the work we're doing, but that I was struggling with anxiety and nightmares. She wrote me a prescription for an anti-anxiety medication to take at night, and asked me to see a psychiatrist because PTSD was beyond her level of expertise. I didn't feel like she was saying I was crazy, in fact, it felt like she was taking my problems seriously and trying to help in a more holistic way. She was satisfied that I had the right therapist, but because my work with her has been so successful, a lot of painful stuff is coming up including what seems to be repressed memories. This is a good thing for my recovery, but the anxiety and sleep problems are making it harder to deal with, as if the memories aren't hard enough to process. My doctor is hoping some treatment for the anxiety will help support the recovery process I'm working on with my therapist.

I am so relieved! My shoulder pain is not all in my head, and it is a perfect metaphor for what happened to me from the trauma- it damaged me physically and emotionally, and without treatment it will continue to hurt. Treatment, while difficult and sometimes more painful than just living with the injury, will give me the chance to strengthen that area and live without constant pain. Recognizing how serious the damage is, rather than making it feel more overwhelming and hopeless, makes it feel more manageable and gives me hope that I can get better in all ways.

After watching the Canucks beat the Kings, we take comfort in the company of rats (in reverse order)

2010-04-21T23:07:00.000-07:00

2010-04-21T21:52:00.001-07:00

Sad :-(

Kings 1st playoff game in 8 years!

2010-04-20T00:08:00.001-07:00

2010-04-19T20:48:00.001-07:00

It's like Christmas for Kings fans.

My thighs are not amused

2010-04-14T23:28:00.000-07:00

I have returned to hockey! I played in my team's season opener last Sunday. Yes, I am way out of shape. First my ankles started hurting, and then my thighs just threw in the towel. At some point, I was saying, "go legs, go!" and my thighs were saying, "I refuse to participate, at least in any meaningful way." My thighs talk all fancy.

Finally, the muscles around my knees were crying out in pain. But, not my knee injury. That knee felt fine, at least until I left the ice. It felt a little sore that night, along with my hips, stomach, back, shoulders, and arms. My hips and arms are still sore.

So I got some helpful feedback from that game- I am out of shape. This is not surprising, since I hadn't played since January 23. Some other feedback- my knee is going to be okay. I will be back to where I was pretty quickly, I think. Well, maybe I don't want to be where I was. When I looked at the pictures our team photographer, awesome cheerleader, and all-around fantastic friend Anne took, I was somewhat surprised by how BAD my hockey stance is. I mean, I knew I hunched over, but I really hunch over. I could see from the pictures how I am doing myself no favors trying to skate efficiently like that, and trying to use my stick effectively with my shoulders up around my ears and my chest sunken in. At the Maria Rooth clinic they told us to "be proud" and hold our chest high when skating (and bend your knees. Everyone tells you to bend your knees.) I used to have really bad posture all the time. I made a conscious effort to stop slouching and did get better, but now I need to do that with hockey.

Conscious effort works well for me. I do my best when I put my mind to something and just focus on it. It works even for things that seem impossible, like getting from high school drop-out on the streets to CPA. Keeping the focus and patience are the biggest challenges. My goals usually take time, and it can be hard to keep your eyes on the prize, so to speak, when your current situation seems nearly unbearable, completely chaotic, or confusing. Getting from point A to point B is even harder when you can't even conceptualize what point B should even look like. For instance, even though I believe in myself and my ability to take on challenges, I think about my brother and it seems I'm never going to get over his death. I feel so conflicted, and guilty, and how could I ever accept what happened? It seems wrong, like I'm condoning something that never should have happened. His death will always be wrong, and I don't know how to just live with it without feeling torn apart inside. Similarly, I struggle with finding some peace with my childhood and my family, because I'm still raging against the moral wrongness of how I was treated. It feels like I'm giving up and conceding defeat if I try to move on from it, somehow. It's something I'm talking to my therapist about, because I am so conflicted and don't know how to work it out. It seems like I'm just punishing myself because I have all this outrage and no where to direct it.

In other words, the challenge I usually run up against is sustaining my focus on goals that usually come with some type of internal conflict. I struggled all through college and grad school, and still do, with the idea that I was selling out, abandoning "my people" on the streets, people who were fucked over by their families and by society, like I was. I feel guilty that maybe, in looking for stability and safety, I'm buying into some bullshit societal brainwashing on what being successful means. That I'm giving in to a system that abused me, victimized me, blamed me for what it did to me, and then abandoned me. It seems like something is missing if I'm not raging against something, and since I don't have much to rage against (except some vague concept like "the machine" or maybe later in life, the dying of the light) I'm usually raging against myself and my own choices.

Change does come, though. It is often so subtle and gradual that I don't even notice it for a while and I'm surprised when I realize how much things have changed. It happens to me in practice all the time- I can barely do something, or just totally can't, and it feels completely unnatural, then I realize I'm doing it without a problem. Not that long ago I was really struggling with anxiety at work. I felt overwhelmed. I didn't feel like I was getting enough done each day, and that I was perpetually behind in everything, with more work piling on every second. I started carrying around a notebook with my to-do list. When I write things down in the list, it kind of takes some of the stress of it out of my mind. I guess a lot of my stress was thinking I would forget things I needed to do, and not knowing what all was out there. I couldn't prioritize because I didn't know what I needed to get done. Even with something as simple as keeping a to-do list, I felt a little conflicted, like I was giving in to some goofy self-help technique, some self-proclaimed time management guru says I should keep this detailed to-do list and review it every day and I'm buying this silly crap when the real problem is that my boss is giving me more work that any reasonable person could handle! You can probably imagine that with that level of internal rebellion I have a hard time getting anything done without a huge struggle. I still feel stressed and sometimes anxious with all I'm doing at work, but it seems a lot more manageable now. I can see, from the things crossed out on my list, that I am getting things done each day. I'm more organized, and I think people I work with can tell I'm more on top of things. It didn't all change the second I decided to get more organized and use the list, but my anxiety has gone down and my work has improved.

Hockey does come with some conflicting feelings since it involves other people and the dramas that invariably crop up, but for the most part hockey is the most unambiguous part of my life. It's pretty easy to set a goal that I will improve my skating posture. It gives me something to focus on while I deal with the slight amount of fear I have of getting injured again and the rebellion and pain in my muscles while I get back in shape. I suppose I could set a goal that I will be less internally conflicted, but who even knows what that would mean. I don't want to stop being who I am, and it's hard to unpack my defiance from how I think about myself. The even larger issue is that of survival. My rebellion, anger, not giving in to my parents, some core of myself that I refused to compromise, kept me alive and psychologically intact through all the trauma. I didn't go crazy, and I kept a strong sense of myself. You don't just let go of an identity that literally saved your life. I am so aware, every time I think of what I went through and what happened to my brother, that I could have lost my mind and I could have died. So how do you let go of that? Making peace with my past seems impossible. Along with a lot of other impossible things that usually turn out not to be impossible. Just challenging.

Identity Politics

2010-04-07T22:15:00.000-07:00

At this time (in my recovery), I don't have a strong voice. This has made it hard to write. Right now I am trying to just write without thinking about it. Usually the voice that comes out in my writing is a driving force in my writing, so I really don't have much forward momentum for this. I often think about life as a journey, or path we travel, which has a certain linear progression about it. The way I feel is making me feel lost. A lot of what I feel is what is bubbling up from my past, sometimes triggered by emotions connected to things that are happening now, although it is hard to tell if the emotions are coming from the past or the present or a combination of both. So where am I? I have a life, and an identity, that is connected to events and circumstances happening now and from what happened to me when I was a kid. I am living in both, and I don't know what from either makes up who I am.

Trauma interfered with my emotional and psychological development. I had to shut down to protect myself. Now I'm trying to do some of that development, feel those feelings of grief, fear, anger, and confusion. I'm trying to process and let those struggles flow through me, and live my current, adult life at the same time. I feel disconnected. I have feelings, strong, powerful, intense feelings that are only loosely connected to what is going on in the present. I have adult relationships that make me feel like a kid sometimes. I have an inner life that often makes me feel isolated from the people around me. I live in two worlds. This is nothing new. When I was a kid, my life at school and with friends had to be kept separate from my home life. My home life didn't make any sense in the context of life outside. The rules of my family were different than the rules in the real world. Surviving my family took different skills than being successful in the outside world. My home life wasn't real, but it was. Everything I perceived and felt about my home life was contradicted by the power structure within that world. Most kids learn about how to be in the world; I learned how to straddle two worlds, neither one of which made much sense to me. I felt powerless in both. I felt crushed, dehumanized, attacked, belittled, ignored, and rejected. I felt numb, limp, empty, and insubstantial.

That existence was dry and cold. I looked around me and all I saw was sand, shifting into mounds that looked indistinguishable from each other, and empty sky. Now I've been pitched into a swamp, sticky muck, humid, and dripping into my face, covering my arms and legs, clinging to my skin. The thing they have in common is there is nothing solid, and I don't see any path forward, any direction. I can pick a random place and struggle my way there, over shifting sands or squishy mud, but is it really progress? I still can't see where I'm going. I'm just going on faith that I will eventually get to someplace different, a place where I can see where I'm going and make some decisions about my life that will mean something for my future.

Worse than that, I feel insubstantial. Whatever the opposite of solid is, that's what I feel like. Like I don't have edges. Mushy. All I have is rules and schedules and structure in my life to try to keep myself together, and this pulsating pressure that feels like it will rip me apart. I don't really understand this, why I feel this way, why I feel like the expectations and influences of other people can distort my whole being, why my perceptions and point of view, hopes and dreams and plans, seem like a fiction, as real and solid as smoke, or fog. I guess I kind of do know why- it's because I was made to feel like my feelings, my personality, everything that I was as a kid was wrong or unimportant. That's the foundation I have to build on, and since I can't build anything resilient on that, I'm trying to go back and strengthen the foundation without being able to completely pull it down and start over. So it's like I'm traveling two different paths, paths that keep pulling on each other like magnets. I'm not sure when or if they will come together though, and where I might be if that happens. Or who I might be. So I look around and see life that seems like it should be more linear, more straightforward, and I feel very far away from other people. Even though I now see and recognize different parts of me and how they split apart, I feel sometimes far away from myself. Disconnected. Then I watch Lost, and enjoy how complicated it is, and that the challenge of tying up all those loose ends is nothing compared to bringing my own life into some sensical order. (I know sensical isn't a word, technically, but it's the opposite of nonsensical.)

Dungeon of Dread

2010-03-14T22:11:00.000-07:00

One of my hockey teams (the last one standing for the winter season) won their semi-final game today and we are in the final! It is a best of 3, so I'm hoping I might be able to come back for game 2 on March 27. I was told 6-8 weeks of recovery by the knee/sports doctor, and that will be exactly 9 weeks since I partially tore my MCL (medial collateral ligament) on January 23 at the Vegas women's tournament. That will be after 4 weeks of physical therapy as well. I woke the huge knee brace for a month, but got to stop wearing it a little over a week ago. I will of course go by what my physical therapist says. If she doesn't think I'm ready to play I won't.

I'm going crazy though. Hockey is my stress release, and without it I am crawling the walls. I feel anxious, crabby from the pain and soreness, and depressed. When I go to games to support my teams I feel like I'm going to cry watching them because I want to be out there so bad. Plus I just have this sense of unease that has nothing to do with hockey. Last December I suddenly seemed to be on the edge of recovering memories. I was having nightmares that I would wake up from feeling that someone was in my bedroom. These came with feelings of overwhelming terror and oppression. That seemed to be the whole nightmare, or at least all I can ever remember- the feelings and the sense that someone was coming into my room, and heaviness. Suffocating, dying slowly because I couldn't breathe. The nightmares went away, but now they are back. It is the hardest thing for me to come back to reality when I wake up this way, and more and more I feel like I have one foot in that place in my mind- a dark wordless chasm, a place I went to before I had language and a way to understand what was happening to me.

I don't know if I will actually recover memories that are more detailed or concrete than these. It could be that because I was so young I wasn't able to form what we think of as memories. The time I lost was from before I was 6 or 7 years old. I think that's how old I was when I overheard my parents having heated conversations about something my dad was doing to me that had my mom in a panic. Those memories are very clear. I also have clear memories of how fearful I was of my dad coming in my room, especially at night. Then there is the nightmares, the phobia of suffocating in my sleep, and just all those feelings of terror and dread about going to sleep. I really have no idea how much more I will remember. I just know that there are things in my subconscious that exist, and are bleeding into my conscious mind. It is in the form of questions, anxiety, and fear. They sit with me, like a pet that lies on my lap and can't tell me what it wants.

With one foot in this strange and muted world, with an animal that is always with me that no one else can see, I'm caught up in a place that makes me feel alone and misunderstood. My brother lives here. I feel like only he really understands how this feels for me, and death struck him dumb. I am struck dumb by this place. It is on the one hand much worse than I think the people around me realize, and on the other probably not as hopeless as it seems to me now. Right now it feels like I will never escape this terror and confusion, like I will be stuck in this limbo, unable to express what happened to me even to myself, let alone anyone else. I don't have words for how this feels. There just seems to be nothing to say, no way to talk about something I can barely remember. My mind hid this from me to protect me, and even now it is almost too much to bear.

Women's Olympic Hockey Photos!

2010-02-21T13:34:00.001-08:00

Browse 18 pages of Women's Olympic Hockey Photos from She Skates Hard: http://www.sheskateshard.com/2010/gallery.html

Saara Tuominen

2010-02-15T20:54:00.000-08:00

Follow senior University of Minnesota- Duluth Bulldog captain Saara Tuominen on her journey with the Finnish Olympic Women's Hockey Team in the next few weeks as Saara and her teammates make a run at a medal in Vancouver.

In gratitude for the Olympics, Part 2

2010-02-13T16:31:00.001-08:00

I feel a special connection to the Swedish women's Olympic hockey team- I met Maria Rooth and Katarina Timglas when they were here for a hockey clinic last year. Plus I'm about a quarter Swedish. Of course I'm supporting the US women's team as well. I'd like to write a little about each of the women's Olympic teams, but to start, here's the Olympic groupings (with links to their page), schedule, the IIHF World Rankings for the women, and the medal count for previous Olympics. (Women's hockey became an Olympic sport in 1998 at Nagano, Japan, so there are only 3 previous Olympics to talk about.)

Group A:
Canada
Sweden
Switzerland
Slovakia

Group B:
USA
Finland
Russia
China

Schedule: (Times in PST, TV network shown in parenthesis)

Saturday, Feb 13:
12 noon- Sweden 3, Switzerland 0 (CNBC)
5 pm- Canada vs Slovakia (CNBC, replay on MSNBC)

Sunday, Feb 14: (Hockey is for lovers)
12 noon- USA vs China (USA, the network, replay on MSNBC)
4:30 pm- Finland vs Russia (CNBC)

Monday, Feb 15:
2:30 pm- Canada vs Switzerland (MSNBC)
7 pm- Sweden vs Slovakia (MSNBC at 12 midnight)

Tuesday, Feb 16:
2:30 pm- USA vs Russia (MSNBC)
7 pm- Finland vs China (not on TV, jerks)

Wednesday, Feb 17:
2:30 pm- Canada vs Sweden (MSNBC)
7 pm- Slovakia vs Switzerland (CNBC)

Thursday, Feb 18:
2:30 pm- USA vs Finland (MSNBC)
7 pm- China vs Russia (CNBC)

Saturday, Feb 20:
2:30 pm- Classifications
7 pm- Classifications

Monday, Feb 22:
12 noon- Semifinals (USA)
2 pm- Classifications 7th/8th
5 pm- Semifinals (CNBC)
7 pm- Classifications 5th/6th

Thursday, Feb 25:
11 am- Bronze medal game (MSNBC)
3 pm- Gold medal game (MSNBC)

International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Pre-2010 Olympic Women's Rankings:
1. USA
2. Canada
3. Finland
4. Sweden
5. Switzerland
6. Russia
7. Kazakhstan
8. Japan
9. China
10. Germany
11. Slovakia

Olympics Medal Count:
2006- Canada (Gold), Sweden (Silver), USA (Bronze)
2002- Canada (Gold), USA (Silver), Sweden (Bronze)
1998- USA (Gold), Canada (Silver), Finland (Bronze)

In gratitude for the Olympics, Part 1

2010-02-13T14:50:00.000-08:00

First, me. My knee injury from the Vegas tournament is a grade 2 strain and partial tear of my medial collateral ligament (MCL) and possibly a small meniscus tear. (The meniscus tear was diagnosed by the MRI doctor but my knee doctor was not so sure. For sure, the MCL tear is the most serious part of the injury.) Because it is a partial tear and the MCL rather than the ACL, I don't need surgery. Relief. Also, the recover time is not so bad- 6 to 8 weeks from when I saw the knee doctor about a week ago. I can start physical therapy in a week. Besides that, all I'm doing is icing it, elevating, and taking anti-inflammatory drugs. Oh, and wear the ginormous brace you see in the picture.

The doctor said it was preferable to wear this brace because it has so much support, but that I could choose a smaller velcro brace instead. He said I just need to actually wear it, so if I'm not going to wear the big one, it would be better to wear the wimpier one than nothing. I tried on both, and instantly loved the big one, the one I have, because I could walk without pain. Sleeping with it on is so much better too. I was waking up 4-5 times a night because of the pain, and waking up stiff and barely able to walk. The brace stabilizes my knee so I don't wake up during the night and feel a lot better in the morning. However, I definitely understand now why some people might not comply with wearing it. I hate to complain about it because it's made things so much better, but here goes:

1. I can't wear regular pants. I'm not supposed to wear anything under it, not even tights, so it doesn't slip around. So my only options are skirts (keeping in mind that it's technically winter and my legs are bare) or GIANT pants. This basically translates into huge sweatpants or pajama bottoms. I am lucky that I live in So. Cal. on this one. I actually wore dressy shorts to work the other day, but I still had to roll up the left leg since the brace goes so far up on my leg. Dressing for work has been a pain, and I basically have to shave and lotion every day so my legs look someone classy despite the overwhelming bareness of it all. It still feels immodest regardless of what I do. Even better, I'm going to the Olympics in Vancouver this coming Tuesday through Friday (hooray!), and with the weather and being in ice rinks most of the time, we're looking at the biggest public viewing of me ever in pants I would normally only wear in my apartment at night (or not at all due to their HUGENESS). This makes me slightly bitter and I'm already embarrassed for myself and the city of Vancouver. I miss my jeans!!!

2. I can't wear boots or high-heeled shoes because of how far down my leg the brace goes. Most of my work shoes are heels, and my weekend footwear are boots. I do have Doc Martins that are short enough, and I can roll down my Uggs. I am just not a big fan of work flats and I'm starting to feel overwhelming jealousy ever time I see someone at work wearing cute heels. Damn. I really miss my boots too, and now I can't wear the ones I was planning to bring to Vancouver.

3. I keep hitting the dial at the knee against my other knee, especially when I get in and out of the car, and consequently I have bruise city going on at my other knee. I keep running into things with that leg too. It's not exactly the most graceful thing you could wear. I hit other people with it; I run into furniture. It is kind of cool that I look like the bionic woman's pathetic half-sister, and since it is so prominent I get lots of opportunities to tell people I got a cool sports injury, but f- this. I want my normal-sized leg back.

4. The plastic pieces around my calf are digging into my calf muscle and it hurts. (I was in ballet and played soccer so my calf muscles are pretty developed, i.e. big.) My skin under the brace also itches. I love it when I take a shower or ice my leg because that's the only time I take it off. Ahhhhhh. (I'm icing it right now.)

5. This is not the fault of the brace specifically, but I miss playing hockey so much!!! I'm going crazy here! Hockey is my stress-relief, my social life, my life generally... At least I can still go to the rink to watch and see people, and go to Kings games to get my hockey fix, but DAMN! It's not the same. If I don't end up sneaking on the ice at some point, with the brace on (my hockey socks will totally fit over it) just so I can skate around a little, I'll be surprised. Waaaaaa! I wanna play so bad. I'm glad the person on the other team I was with when it happened is my good friend who just happened to be playing on a different team in the tournament. I feel bad that she feels guilty, but it totally was not her fault. It was just the way I fell with my leg up against the boards. But if it was someone I didn't know who I blamed for what happened, I would be so pissed at her and I'd probably be plotting an evil and totally unfair revenge (that I would never act on, but still. I don't need that distraction.)

I am trying to focus on my hockey fandom to distract me from my injury-related depression, so I am grateful that Olympic hockey started today! I watch quite a bit of NHL hockey, but don't get the chance to see a lot of women's hockey. I would say that men's and women's Olympic hockey are fairly similar, but NHL hockey, where a lot of the Olympic men normally play, and college women's hockey, where a lot of the Olympic women normally play, are different. Not totally different, but definitely a different style. Watching Olympic women is very inspiring to me. I am waaaaay not in their league, obviously, but much more what I aspire to than NHL-style hockey. I do get sucked into watching the Olympics a lot, more than I intend to most of the time, because it is an opportunity to see the best female athletes in the world. I have always considered myself to be an athlete, even though I've never been close to playing at a high level, so these women are my heroes. Playing hockey now has definitely taken the sting out of not being able to play soccer in college, and watching the best women in the world play hockey is so exciting. Hockey = awesome.

Even though the Olympics are in Canada and Canada is all about hockey, even men's Olympic hockey is not getting a lot of TV coverage or attention in the US. I am going to get to see at least three, hopefully four games in person. We have tickets to the men's Russia vs Latvia and Russia vs Slovakia games, and women's Sweden vs Canada, and hope to get into the women's US vs Russia game. I really want to be an informed fan and share what I find out (with my boyfriend's help, who did a lot of the research for me. Thanks!) So I am going to post some information about the women's teams and women's Olympic hockey in general on my blog. I figure there's plenty being written about the men, especially the players who are also in the NHL, but not a lot about the women. So today and until February 25 (the day of the bronze and gold medal games), you can expect to see my first foray into sports blogging. Here goes.

2010-01-30T23:19:00.001-08:00

"Step aside, you son of a misbegotten whore!"

2010-01-29T20:32:00.001-08:00

Life is too short to drive the speed limit.

It's Doppelganger Week!

2010-01-28T20:03:00.001-08:00

Apparently it's doppelganger week on Facebook, which means you are suppose to change your profile picture to a celebrity that people say you look like for the week. What a weird coincidence since I encountered my Canadian hockey twin last weekend at the Las Vegas women's tournament. Her team, the Thunder Bay Hawks, played an L.A. team, Bad Kitty, in the championship for their division. It started with people saying we skated alike. We were watching the final and someone noticed it, then as other friends of ours came over we pointed it out, and they'd say, "Oh yeah, I noticed her before because she looks so much like Kristina." Creepy.

She also has long dark hair, and even more trippy, SHE HAS MY SKATES! I noticed that one. Number one, she has Grafs, which a lot of people who skate at the Toyota Center wear because the pro shop there loves them but they're not the most common skates. Number two, they are the same color scheme, silver and white. Most Grafs I see are black. SO WEIRD! And her team was baby blue, like my team!

I went down to the glass to try to take a good picture of her, to document our alikeness, and I could not get a good picture of her! Coincidence? She did skate by me, and I smiled at her and she smiled back. It made me feel all funny inside. I have a twin! Her name is Karen Hill and apparently she lives in Ontario, so if anyone wants to help me stalk her, let me know.

The real news of the tournament is that WE WON OUR DIVISION!!! The other news is that I hurt my knee. I think it is a ligament pull or sprain, but I got an MRI today to rule out a tear. A tear would be bad, 3-6 months recovery. It happened last Saturday, and it still hurts really bad. I keep waking up from the pain, even when I ice it. If I sit for more than 15 minutes it starts to throb. I've been told that it's good that I'm in pain because it's more likely a sprain, to which I'm thinking, "Okay, I really don't want it to be a tear but THIS PAIN IS NOT GOOD!" It really wears on you to be in continuous pain for 6 days straight with nothing but ice, ibuprofen, and sushi to make it better. Pain makes me crabby. It's hard to be my normal cheery self right now, despite our win, and my super-awesome fun birthday last Thursday (I am now 38 and 1 week old!), and we're going to the Olympics in Vancouver!!! How crazy is that?!? I bought the plane tickets last night (and located my passport finally). We have tickets to see the men's hockey teams from Russia (ooo, Ovechkin), Latvia (hey, they have 2 NHL players, a Star and a Flyer), and best of all in my opinion, Slovakia, who has one of my favorites, Miroslav Satan. Oh, and Michal Handzus from the Kings. And Chara, Hossa, Demitra, Gaborik, Visnovsky...not a bad team all around. But SATAN. He plays for the Boston Bruins with Zdeno Chara now. They played the Kings a couple of weeks ago, and I was a little starstruck.

I know what you're thinking- "What, Kristina, you're not going to be supporting women's hockey? What gives?" You'll be glad to know I got tickets for the Canadian women's team vs Sweden. Whoo hoo! This is extra exciting because I took a clinic with Maria Rooth and Katarina Timglas who are both on the Swedish team. How cool is that!?! The tickets also happened to be way cheaper than the men's and we are sitting in the fifth row.

Back to doppelgangers- my celebrity one is Christina Ricci. I've been compared to her since the Addams family movies. I have a two (or three?) degrees of separation thing going with her- a guy I went to business school with is married to her sister. Also, Christina Ricci is the spokesperson for RAINN (the rape, abuse, and incest national network) which I raised money for in Blogathon 2009. Can't wait for Blogathon 2010. I thought blogging every day of December 2009 went well as well, although I got a little burned out, hence the long break from blogging.

My former celebrity doppelganger was Winona Rider in Beetlejuice. Hmmm, Addams Family and Beetlejuice both have a goth-looking girl with dark hair. I see a theme here. (I am NOT writing the name of the movie a third time, although I am strange and unusual.)

Okay, back to organizing my Vegas hockey tournament/birthday pictures. I took about 500 of them. It's taking a while to sort through them. I want to share them all!

2010-01-28T16:08:00.001-08:00

is kind of getting nervous about the MRI now that I'm here...

2010-01-24T14:06:00.001-08:00

In the Cali championship, Big O's 4 Cluckin' Omegas 1. Congrats to Maris(s)a for MVP! Congrats to both teams!

2010-01-24T13:50:00.001-08:00

found my hockey twin at the Bad Kitty-Thunder Bay Hawks final. She skates & positions like me & has my skates!

2010-01-24T11:08:00.001-08:00

on our way back. Bad Kitty tied their final with a minute 30 but were scored on in the last 14 seconds.

2010-01-23T22:13:00.001-08:00

Hot Flashes 1 Black Widows 0. WE'RE CHAMPIONS BABY!!!! I peed a little. (Great job, MVP Michigan!)

2010-01-23T18:30:00.001-08:00

on our way to our CHAMPIONSHIP!!! Knee is sore but okay. Don't know who we're playing though!

2010-01-23T10:49:00.001-08:00

Hot Flashers 2 Polar Cats 0. Our goalie was on fire! Hurt my knee so icing for the final tonight.

2010-01-23T07:54:00.001-08:00

Hot Flashers vs Polar Cats @ 8:30 am! Excited for this one!!!

2010-01-22T14:05:00.001-08:00

Black Widow 0 Hot Flashers 5. We're in the final!

2010-01-22T10:32:00.001-08:00

Houston Black Widows vs Hot Flashes @ noon. Preview: Widows are huge, but Polar Cats beat them last night.

2010-01-21T20:43:00.001-08:00

Hot Flashes 3 Black List 2! I'll learn to play center one of these days. Despite me, my line rocks (Julie & Sharlya).

2010-01-21T17:05:00.001-08:00

made it to VEGAS. First game (as a 38 yr old) at 6:45 vs San Jose Black List. Go HOT FLASHES!!!

2010-01-16T13:49:00.001-08:00

can die happy- Satan winked at me during warm ups. Wish he didn't score that goal though.

"I can see through time!" -Lisa Simpson

2009-12-31T20:56:00.000-08:00

Dear Jeff,

Happy 32nd birthday. I'm guessing birthdays don't have the same significance where you are, but I thought of you today. I tried to think happy thoughts, but instead I kept feeling a heaviness in my heart, or like a hook was dug into it and pulling it down. I can't really imagine you as a 32 year old. I guess I can, but it seems odd. I don't think you were alive when "Titanic" came out, but in that movie the main character dies when she's an old woman and goes back to herself as a young woman. I can't imagine that you'd want to go back to being younger, since you were only 19 when you died. I actually think of you as slightly older, like about 24. Maybe that means I imagine you aging slower in the afterlife, or maybe I think of myself as younger than I really am. That would make me 30 (in my mind), although today, your birthday, marks the beginning of our annual tradition of you teasing me that you're only 5 years younger than me until my birthday, when I go back to being 6 years older. So enjoy it for the next 20 days.

I was going to spend tonight eating your favorite food (pickles) and watching your favorite show (The Simpsons) until midnight, but I am so exhausted I don't think I'll make it. I did set up a shrine of sorts, and I'm burning candles for you (above). The candles are comforting to me, and you seem to like them. I know you weren't alive for the advent of online social networking (It's a place for friends!) but one of things going around Facebook is to summarize the year in one word. I think I'd have to say exhausting. I was overwhelmed at work all year, and I had insomnia for the last half of the year. It finally went away a couple days before Christmas. I don't know why, but I'm not complaining. I was dependent of over-the-counter sleeping pills for a while there. If I could use a second word to describe the year, it would be hockey. At the beginning of the year I was playing in one league, now I'm playing in three. I went to my first tournament last January, and have played in two more during the year. I think you would be proud of me. Not because I'm particularly good. You never cared much about competition or what anyone else thought. I think you'd be proud of me because I'm having so much fun doing it.

I feel like I can write to you and you are listening. In the years immediately after your death, the distance I felt from you was the most painful. I felt like you had totally vanished, and the emptiness inside me was sharp and cold. A lot of me felt dead too. Now I think it was just frozen, but frozen hard. Like frostbite, it hurts like hell when it thaws. So I stayed frozen for a long time. Now there's just a lot of grief. It feels like oceans inside me, like I could keep crying for the rest of my life and never run out of tears for you. In some ways the grief is more real than it was 10 years ago. I have to believe that if you knew how deeply those of us who love you really felt and how much agony your death would cause us, you may have made a different choice. But maybe I'm wrong about that. I've struggled with depression, and even with suicidal thoughts, my whole life. I've never seriously come close to ending my life, though. You know how stubborn and determined I am. There are times in life where I was probably surviving purely on anger, driven to not let "them" win, whether "they" were our parents, the foster care system, the police, the teachers at school who let me drop out, the universe- it didn't matter. I have grown up a little since then and don't need adversaries in my life to motivate me the way I did before. Thankfully my inferiority complex and me against the world attitude has calmed down considerably. Plus I can channel my competitiveness into hockey. But maybe that attitude was what I needed to get through it all.

You were never like that. You were the easygoing one. The last year of your life, though, you were also so depressed I couldn't even talk to you. You were so far away; it felt like you were slipping through my fingers. I didn't know what to do. I tried to talk to you; I tried to bring up my own struggles in the hopes you would share your current ones with me. I was actually pretty depressed at the time too. I had to get a hardship waiver to drop winter quarter because I had gotten so depressed. So I was struggling. Still, I don't think I ever got close to ending it. In other words, I don't think I've ever experienced the kind of depression you must have been going through when you made that decision. Now suicide seems even more unfathomable to me than it did before. Knowing what it does to the survivors, knowing the pain of being left behind is the greatest pain imaginable, greater than what even could be imagined, greater than what the abuse did to me, much greater than any depression I've experienced. Even though I loved you more than anything and would have given my life for you, and despite all the closeness we shared and how we supported and helped each other through our childhoods, I don't think I am even capable of understanding where you were in your head and heart when you took your life. I was even angry at myself for a while that I hadn't killed myself first so maybe you would have changed your mind, but that probably would have made your suicide even more likely. As much as we had in common and as much as we understood each other, that's a place I couldn't go with you.

I remember when you were a baby and how badly I wanted to hold you and tickle your chin and make you smile, all the way through our dad's cousin's funeral when you were about 9, and all the crying made you uncomfortable and sad, so I put my arm around you and talked softly to you, and you looked into my face the whole time so you didn't have to look at the mourners. I always knew when you needed comforting, and you always came to me when you did. I remember visiting you in Eugene, Oregon during your one semester at college, and buying you pizza from your favorite restaurant because you had no money. We sat on the floor of your ridiculous attic apartment, ridiculous because we couldn't even stand up straight without hitting our head on the roof (even me), and talked all night, periodically calling the local radio station and asking them to play the full version of "in-a-gadda-da-vida". (They never did. I still love that episode of "The Simpsons" where Bart sneaks it into the hymnal and they sing it at church. "Margie, do you remember when we used to make out to this hymn?") I was worried about you. I knew you were lonely, and even then, more than a year before your death, I could tell you were starting to lose touch. You were drifting.

I tried so hard to take care of you, which is why I felt like such a failure when you died. Really, you were the one who took care of me. I don't think I would have survived our family if you hadn't been there for me. I made you smile, and you made me laugh. You had such a dry sense of humor. I was never alone because of you. After your funeral, your friend Leonard gave us a card with a quote from Hamlet- "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times..." It describes you so well. The depressed court jester. You carried me on your back, and I was the strong one. You are still the best person I have ever known.

For a long time after you died, I didn't dream about you at all, and I wonder if you were so far away I would never be close to you again. Then I had dreams where I was trying to save you, but you were already dead. Or dreams where you were mute, and wouldn't even look at me. I would try to help you and you'd refuse to respond. In one, you sat in a house that was filling with water, and wouldn't swim. In another, I was dragging you around, trying to get you interested in things I thought you'd like, but you ended up walking away from me and disappearing in the distance. After many years I finally had dreams where you seemed back to normal and interacted with me. Sometimes I have dreams where I'm just sitting and talking to you, and I imagine you are telling me all the secrets of the universe, but when I wake up I can't remember anything we talked about. At least you smile in those dreams. I feel a little sad when I wake up and I know you're gone, but at least you visit me sometimes. I have no doubt that you are watching over me, and share in my joys and my sorrows. I know you didn't mean to hurt me with what you did, and wherever you are, you are not suffering like you did in life. So that's something. You know how intensely I miss you though. I will always feel that the world would be a better place if you were here, but you will always be in my heart. So, again, happy birthday my dear, sweet brother.

~Kristina

Savage. Found her floating down the Amazon in a hatbox.

2009-12-30T20:10:00.000-08:00

I got mad tweeting skills when I'm stressed. Twitter has become my favorite way of calming anxiety at work. I get so anxious sometimes that my heart feels fluttery and I have a hard time concentrating. I get worked up about all the things I need to do, and then I have a hard time settling down with one task or project without obsessing over the ones I'm not working on. It's kind of a bitch. So I tweet little annoyances throughout the day. It kind of gets it out of my head so it's not pinballing around in there, disrupting my thoughts.

Today I was trying to get on top of my continuing professional education credits so I could figure out how many I need to finish before the end of the year (i.e. Dec 31 at midnight). That was stressing me out, but then there were little mini dramas going on around me that people were trying to drag me into. It was like hopping between bowling lanes trying not to get hit by a bowling ball, while tweeting my frustrations. It's kind of amazing how, especially when a row flares up over email, just picking up the phone, checking in with someone, or apologizing for the way something came off (even if you didn't write it) can smooth it over. So I was Peacemaker Kristina! I think I got most of it calmed down, but jeez. It was fairly unnecessary and provided a number of interruptions as I was trying to do an online course to finish up my credits. Then around 6 pm the server crashed and I got kicked out of my training course. I thought if I went home, by the time I got back online it would have resolved itself, but no such luck. So I am stuck halfway through the course and getting a little freaked out that this is due to a whole bunch of people doing the same thing as me, trying to finish credits last minute, and it could be even worse tomorrow, the last day. I'm trying not to think about it. So I guess I'll keep trying and search for my license renewal forms before I forget. Yes, I forget things when I'm stressed too. Rent. Update my annual review and the Sarbanes-Oxley policy and the training stats. Arrrgh! I better get done in time to get my nails done tomorrow, because I just can't welcome the new year with grungy nails. Seriously. I'm not a savage.

Aquarians are unpredictable, contrary, & love to argue. But you probably don't agree with that & want to argue about it, right? Well, you're wrong.

2009-12-29T21:29:00.000-08:00

Aquarians are also friendly, smart, and honest, so it's not all bad.

I ended up talking about my mom in therapy. I'm kind of getting sick of complaining about my relationship with my mom, but I think it's still a sore spot that I'm trying to reconcile. I love my mom, I really do. There are a lot of good things I can say about her. She's smart, and sometimes funny. She has her fun side. She's very intelligent. I'm grateful that she was a health nut when I was growing up because I think that's made me more health-conscious. I'm grateful that she got me into watching PBS as a kid because public television has been a passion of mine my whole life. Both my parents really value education and learning, and so do I. My mom has an almost spiritual relationship with plants. Her yard is a shrine to native plants. The native plant society where she lives gives tours of her yard. She has a sense of justice that came out when the city tried to force her to plant regular, non-drought resistant grass. She stood up to the city because she felt wasting water on grass in a desert area was wrong. She adores her dog. I know she does love me and care about me, in her way.

All these things, though, can sometimes make her failings as a parent all the more frustrating. I care nothing about my dad. In my mind he's lost the privilege of having any sort of relationship with me. He's a manipulator and a liar. He used me and my brother, and I will never forgive him for out and out refusing to try to help my brother when he made suicide threats in order to spite our mom. He kept guns in the house while my brother was suicidally depressed and he knew it. And whatever he did to my brother while he was living with him, to say nothing about all the cruelty he inflicted on me. My dad's abuse was intentional; I don't believe my mom's was. (Neglect is abuse.) My mom has very serious depression. My dad has no excuses. I don't feel that I am missing anything by not having him in my life. I still struggle with the lack of emotional connection with my mom though.

I feel like we could really have a great relationship if she could just exhibit normal human emotions for once! I mean, really. She has the most insane reactions to situations. Or sometimes the most insane lack of a reaction. Like, find out your daughter is being sexually abused, nothing. Watch your husband almost beat your child to death, call your therapist, go to bed while your child passes out on the floor from the concussion, then wake her up the next day to go to school with a black eye and bruises all over her face. Uh, yeah. It's like she's not all there. I know she's smart, but she's so out of touch with the world around her. It's like at some point some part of her brain, the part that regulates emotions and emotional reactions, just shut down. I realize that nothing she can say or do now will change what happened in the past. I'm just asking for acknowledgment, emotionally genuine acknowledgment. Not this very rational, emotionless discussion I feel like I get when I try to talk to her, like we're talking about some other family that we saw on TV. When I talk to her, it feels like it didn't even happen, or that we were all floating around disembodied while it happened. The ghost family. I feel like she's been keeping me at arms length my whole life, and it's very confusing. She's my mom. It's like we live on two totally different planes of existence. I kept trying to connect with her, and now I've given up. It's hard for me to define what I even mean by connection, but something is missing. I can't talk to her about real things. Anything difficult and I can see her shutting off. Her attention shifts away from me.

I think why this is really frustrating is because I struggle with connecting with people. Part of me is afraid of getting either the disinterested rejection and cutting analysis of my mom or the more aggressive attacks and ridicule of my dad. I feel slightly skittish around other people, like an animal that's been spooked. Part of me is always waiting for people to lash out at me. I don't really feel safe, so I continue to protect myself emotionally. The one person I really knew how to relate to was my brother. My relationship with him was easy, in some sense. I didn't have to work to connect with him. Even though we were both scared and keeping a lot inside, we were totally there for each other. We completely accepted and appreciated each other. I always felt like the best person I could be was who I was in his eyes. He didn't see me as faulty or to blame for the problems in our family. I aspire to be the person I was around him. I like being friendly and open. I like expecting the best of people. I don't like being suspicious and distant. I don't like holding things inside. I especially don't like being disconnected from myself, and feeling numb and floaty. I like feeling present with people.

I have been working on this. I try expressing my real feelings to other people, and when they don't react badly I feel reassured. I try to recognize when I'm zoning out and get back into the present. I try to be observant of how I'm feeling and how people are relating with me. I'm kind of learning how not to feel scared of other people. It's like luring a new kitten out from under the couch. It takes time. It takes patience, and I'm not the most patient person, especially with myself. But I'm learning.

Now I can wake up and face the day

2009-12-28T23:15:00.000-08:00

I'm just going to write about hockey and TV, because it's Monday and I have therapy tomorrow. I can't be deep and meaningful every day.

I went to the Kings game tonight against the Minnesota Wild. I have kind of a soft spot for the Wild because my mom is from Minnesota, but not tonight. The Wild won after the Kings tied it in the 3rd, then the Wild scored 12 seconds later. I developed a strong dislike of Cal Clutterbuck.

I came home tonight and my DVR had recorded not just the PBS Newshour, but had also picked up reruns of "How I Met Your Mother", "Lewis Black's Root of All Evil" and 3 episodes of "True Blood". Lewis Black was pitting the NRA vs PETA. That was a hard one. The show debates which is more evil, using comedians so it comes out pretty funny most of the time. I used to support PETA, back before they abandoned their mission of stopping the objectification of animals to objectify women and whore for publicity. I suppose the fact that I used to like them makes me hate what they've become that much more. But the NRA, well, as someone who lost their brother to a gunshot wound I just can't hang with the NRA in any way. Plus death is a little more serious than pathetic sexist jerks. The comedian arguing for the NRA as the root of all evil had a pretty lame "Ripple of Evil", but that was probably because the ripple is supposed to go into a fantastic worst case scenario if the offending person/organization/whatever continues on their evil path, and how do you come up with a worse worst case scenario than we already have? 30,000 people are killed annually in the US by guns. Make that more horrific. So the NRA won.

So on the topic of hockey and reruns, I just have to share this quote from "How I Met Your Mother". It is the greatest sitcom quote of all time (excluding the first 10 years of "The Simpsons"). Just to set it up- this was said by Robin, who was at a Canucks-Rangers game at Madison Square Garden. She was also wearing a Canucks jersey- "Damn it Hordichuk, you miss another gimme like that I'm gonna come down there and put a slapper right up your beer hole. Come on!"

That is beautiful.

They forgot, because they must

2009-12-27T17:17:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that there's only four more days of 2009, especially since I still have CPE (continuing professional education, for my CPA) credits to do before the end of the year. I am very tired today. I don't know if this is because when I think of all I have to do before the end of December I get exhausted, or I'm still recovering from my recent health problems. I have been religiously taking my vitamins. I wonder how my vitamin D levels are. I'm starting to think I should look into getting some prescription medication to help me sleep. I have been falling asleep without drugs for the last 3 days, but we'll see how I do later in the week. I am starting to feel a little sad about my brother's birthday on December 31. He would have been turning 32. 32! It's hard to believe. He was 19 when he died.

I'm starting to think about resolutions. I like doing resolutions. The time between my brother's birthday and my birthday on January 21 has traditionally been my time to think about my life and reassess. Also, I look back on the last year. I'm in a bit of a strange place with that because I've realized in the last month that part of my memory is missing. I can acknowledge that there are things that happened that I don't remember, traumatic things, but as of right now I still don't remember. I wonder if I will begin to remember things next year. I guess I am remembering little things that I didn't before. The next year feels really mysterious to me. I know it will bring change, because life always does, but it feels even more unpredictable than normal. Right now I am marveling about how much I don't know. Joseph Campbell said something along the lines of, "He who thinks he knows, doesn't know. He who knows he doesn't know, knows." I know I don't know. I don't know that means I know anything other than that.

Day After Christmas Report

2009-12-26T23:13:00.000-08:00

I think this may be my best Christmas season ever, which is pretty surprising considering all the turmoil I was feeling earlier in the month, turmoil that led me to commit to blogging every day of December. Today we saw "Avatar" and then watched the Kings and then the Canucks play, and ate Thai food. (The picture is me giving the thumbs up to the Kings and Canucks decorated cookies from yesterday.) I very much enjoyed the company, the food, and the hockey games, although the Kings lost to the Coyotes. The Canucks beat the Oilers though. The Kings looked a little flat, but the Canucks were speedy and exciting. It was a home game, and the crowd was cheering so loud it sounded like a playoff game rather than just a regular season game. Maybe the rivalry between the Vancouver and Edmonton was a factor. I saw a map of the NHL on a Calgary Flames blog that identified Calgary, Vancouver, and Edmonton, and then the rest of North America was labeled "the rest of the NHL". I laughed because that does seem to sum up the attitude of a lot of fans in those parts. The Canucks will be on the road for two months, I believe, while the Olympics are in Vancouver, so the fans are probably savoring the home games. "Avatar" was stunning. We saw it in 3-D, which was cool with all the spores and seeds and lights floating around in this new world. It's worth seeing in the theater just for visuals. I thought the storyline was very "Titanic". Maybe I shouldn't admit this, but I liked "Titanic". Both movies have their cheesy moments, and extended action sequences in the middle of what is basically a love story, with a hero quest thrown in. I am a big fan of the whole sinking of Titanic in that movie, but I also really liked the love story. I know. I'm kind of a closet romantic. Or maybe I don't hide it as well as I think I do.

Not an Inconvenient Christmas

2009-12-25T23:57:00.000-08:00

Christmas was FUN. We were three of the chattiest friends ever. Actually, most of it was probably me and my Aquarian soulmate. Canada is a Leo, so she told us what to do and we kept her cracking up the whole time. We actually went from having really deep conversations about things like how we feel about our bodies, dating, and children, to making each laugh so hard we cried. Literally. We teased Canada about being too nice, and encouraged her to get used to inconveniencing other people by demanding that I go out to get her and PJ ice cream on Christmas night, even though I can't eat ice cream. I ultimately avoided that one by serving them my dairy and gluten-free pumpkin pie with fake whipped cream. The pie was a hit, the fake whipped cream was not terrible. It was a little weird. The gluten-free sugar cookies were definitely a hit, and definitely sweet. We frosted them and then added sprinkles in the colors of our favorite hockey teams. The actually meal was amazing. Canada made turkey, which was way good. I managed to choke on it, which is pretty common with me and food I like because I put too much in my mouth at once and then try to breathe. We also had dairy and gluten-free mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, corn, broccoli, and waldorf salad. They were all amazing. I turned the heat down too low on the pot with the boiling potatoes so the flame went out, so when we went in there to mash the potatoes the gas somehow inspired us to sing "You Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog". PJ almost called an ambulance. After dinner, we watched "The Hangover" while Canada and PJ worked on a puzzle. The tragedy of the night was when Canada's dog Starbuck stole a puzzle piece and chewed it up.

Before all that, we went to the hospital to visit Canada's baby twins. PJ held the girl, Madison, and I got to hold the boy, Alexander. Having that adorable little baby in my arms was the most incredible feeling. He slept most of the time, and he was so warm and relaxed that I felt the most relaxed I've ever felt. I felt content deep in my heart. After we left, I still felt that relaxed energy for the rest of the day. PJ said something about hockey while holding Madison and she made excited baby noises, so we know she'll be playing in no time. (Of course Canada plays, and I know both of them from one of my teams.) Alexander has a great name for hockey, so there's no question about him either. I sleep satisfied tonight knowing Canada is raising the next generation of hockey players and PJ and I will be their aunties. Also, next year we'll spend Christmas chasing them around Canada's house and encouraging them to be Kings fans.

Starbuck

2009-12-25T23:31:00.000-08:00

Brandy

2009-12-25T23:30:00.000-08:00

2009-12-24T23:02:00.001-08:00

But I heard him exclaim, 'ere he drove out of sight, "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

2009-12-24T22:50:00.001-08:00

I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

Pieface

2009-12-24T16:43:00.000-08:00

Here's my dairy and gluten-free pumpkin pie! I did have to cook it for longer than the recipe again, but I think it will be good. I'm taking the pie to Canada's house tonight, so I have to be patient until I get to try it. I also made dairy-free whipped "cream" with soy milk. It's kind of good to me, but I doubt anyone who could eat dairy would choose it over the real thing. But I'm glad to have it. I think it will be good with the pie. I'm making a waldorf salad too. Cooking is fun. I'm a former 4-H kid. It's hard to find the time, but when I do I can cook and sew like a regular farm wife. I'm so small town.

I'm off to see Canada in L.A. Maybe I can get her to break out the accent!

I'm taking a ride

2009-12-23T21:02:00.000-08:00

I got my finger zapped this evening. I'm getting laser tattoo removal on the tattoo on my finger. Thankfully this is the only tattoo regret that I have. They upgraded the machine since last time, so it hurt extra bad. My finger is a little swollen and throbby now. This was my 10th treatment, and it's close to being done. There is just a faint blue blob.

I am so tired tonight. Last night I slept poorly. Nightmares again. From what I remember, it was very Alice in Wonderland because people kept changing sizes. There were adults and children that became very tiny, and children that turned into adults suddenly, but then became small. There was a lot of hiding, so the small size was better for hiding but very scary as well, because if you were found you could be squashed. There was also falling long distances, and machinery. Scary industrial machines. It was very imaginative.

I woke up around 3:30 am all terrified. It was hard to open my eyes, and it seemed dark and cold and flat in my room. I felt small, like I had shrunk during the night. My shoulders and neck were completely stiff. I turned on the light next to my bed, held my dragon and cactus doll to my chest and slowly crept out of my bedroom. There was a faint hissing coming from the living room, which turned out to be the heater. I turned on the lights around my apartment until it seemed more warm and bright. There were still shadows, but at least it seemed like my apartment again. I don't know what I was afraid of. It felt like I was somewhere else. I was trying to orient myself back into the present, not knowing where the hell I was coming back from.

There is radar in my heart

2009-12-22T20:38:00.000-08:00

It feels a little strange that a couple weeks ago I was in such turmoil, and now, days before Christmas, I feel so calm. Part of it is that I let myself feel everything I was feeling when my nightmares brought up suspicions and disturbing memories from when I was young. Since I am now willing to allow myself to feel what I am feeling, and have the support and faith of my therapist and my BFF in Seattle, I was able to go with it when doubts crept into my mind, questions from as far back as I can remember that I was never able to face before.

There's been a shift in me since the turmoil began. I now believe myself. I believe what I remember; I trust my recollection of my family, the way my parents acted, the way I felt at night and around my dad. I don't doubt myself anymore, or feel that it matters if other people do. I was there. I know more about it than anyone else could. It was a blow to lose my brother as the only witness I had to how bad our family had been. But I am a witness. My brother never doubted me and I have struggled to internalize his faith in me the way I did with my parents' lack of belief in me. I know that deep down there is more in my memory that I don't have access to right now. It is a little disconcerting to know things happened to you that are hidden either because you were too young or they were too traumatic for you to bear. I do know something happened. I may remember more or I may not. But by bringing my suspicions into my conscious mind, the doors are open to my own perceptions.

It takes a lot of effort to suppress your own memories and thoughts. It has also made me feel fragmented. I've taken pieces of myself and pushed them away, separated and isolated them. Now, it seems almost magically, my past is more clear. My life is more coherent. Most of all, the way my family acted makes much more sense to me. I felt like my brain was a cell phone that wasn't getting a signal but keeps searching, endlessly, wearing out the battery and getting nowhere. Something was missing before, and I just couldn't reconcile how I felt, what had happened, and how everyone in my family had acted. I had that Wonderland feeling that I was in a world that was off, nonsensical, and I was lost trying to understand it. The thing is, I haven't really figured anything out or came to any firm conclusions. I suspect my dad sexually abused me when I was very young, probably before my brother was born (when I was six). I don't know it for sure. But it's something I've suspected at least since I was in middle school, I just couldn't admit to myself that he could have done something so depraved. Just acknowledging that possibility makes my family, both my parents, seem even more dysfunctional and emotionally destructive than they already did. But that also makes the feelings I have about them and my childhood, the terror, the severity of my PTSD symptoms (especially the disassociating) and my brother's suicide make more sense. Whatever was off about my understanding of it is not off anymore.

Maybe it's just acknowledging to myself how messed up my parents were and what they were capable of that allows me let go of the guilt I felt over thinking horrible things about them, and wanting to blame myself so I didn't have to blame them. Amazingly, I'm not feeling guilt over my brother's death either. Now I see how helpless we both were, how powerless we were as children to deal with how our parents treated us. I see how insane and lacking in appropriate boundaries their behavior was, and all the doubts about my own sanity float away. I remember how crazy it was in our house, how unpredictable, how irrational. That was my parents doing, not my brother or I. I remember how little parenting we got, how often I felt like I had to be the adult and take care of me and my brother because our parents were acting like children, to each other and to us. I remember. I remember plenty.

My mind is open now and I am at peace with myself. I did the best I could have done. I feel kind of weird about seeing my childhood self as a separate part of me, my "inner child", but some part of me needed to be acknowledged, comforted, understood, believed, and accepted for living through all the things I lived through. All of it. That part of me now feels at peace. I knew I needed to do that for myself- that the approval and faith I really needed was my own. My present to myself.

P.S. Ovation TV is having a Battle of The Nutcrackers World Games ("It's universal unity in unitards!"). Ooooo, I like. The Nutcracker performed in five different countries! Talk about an Christmas orgy. The Russian dances in the Russian production are completely stunning.

The Rat King

2009-12-21T19:26:00.000-08:00

I'm actually getting excited for Christmas. I'm going over to a friend's house (my friend Canada), and another friend, who is also gluten-intolerant, is coming over as well. We're going to have a turkey dinner (dairy and gluten-free), and make gluten-free cookies. We're also going to play games and maybe watch movies, and visit Canada's twins in the hospital. (They were born early, and are still at the hospital.)

It can be hard to be the orphan at someone else's family celebration, and I think Canada is as relieved as I am to just be hanging out with friends. Although I do have to say that my last Thanksgiving with friends and their family was a lot of fun. The food was wonderful, and bingo was a riot. Literally, it almost was a riot! Very passionate bingo. I am touched that for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, people are going out of their way to make dairy and gluten-free food that I can eat. It actually makes me feel a little emotional.

I am going to attempt a Kristina-friendly pumpkin pie again this year. I absolutely love pumpkin pie. I got a pre-made wheat-free crust, and I have a recipe for the filing that uses soy instead of regular milk. Last year, it took a really long time to cook. I don't know if it was my oven or the soy milk just didn't set up like cow's milk. Maybe I should try my friend's oven and see if that works better.

There's a Christmas tree in the lobby at work, and it smells intoxicating. I love that evergreen tree smell. I have to pause for a bit when I go through the lobby to take it all in. We're inclusive, so there's also a menorah and Islamic decorations too. Just to make this week an orgy of holiday cheer, I'm watching the San Francisco Ballet's performance of The Nutcracker on PBS. It is quite lovely. I was in ballet when I was a kid (age 4 to 14). I quit when they wanted to put me on point shoes because I didn't want to ruin my feet. Our ballet teacher had been a professional dancer, and had to walk with a cane because of what it did to her. I totally have the wrong body for ballet anyway- too short and curvy. The teacher was always smacking me in the butt with her cane because it stuck out too much. I did okay because I worked really hard and have high arches. (That's my MO, people- a little bit of natural talent and working my ass off. Not literally, of course.) The other girls taped their boobs down and starved themselves, though, and I just wasn't into that lifestyle.

I still love to watch ballet though, and sometimes I'm a big dork and dance around my apartment, doing plies and leaping and pointing my toes. I blame ballet for my fascination with the show "So You Think You Can Dance" and occasional urges to listen to classical music. On the positive side, my flexibility is a plus in hockey. I can go down in all sorts of awkward positions and not hurt myself.

So I'm thinking Christmas won't be all that bad. I don't even feel slightly hatefully about it this year. I'm a little sad and anxious, but not as much as I thought I would be. We'll see how I feel later in the week.

"Come on, Doctor, show me the stars!"

2009-12-20T22:17:00.000-08:00

I had the BEST weekend. Last night I had so much fun going to the X show, and tonight I played hockey and it felt GREAT. It had been forever since I'd been on the ice. It's actually been 10 days, which is really a lot for me. I don't think I've had that long of a break from hockey this whole year. I was a little worried I'd would have forgotten how to skate or something, but I felt so good out there. And I was fast and furious! I was going all over the place. Granted, we had way more people than the other team, but I was chasing some of them down and back-checking my heart out. I loved playing soccer in high school, but hockey is the absolute funnest to play because you can get going quickly, then change directions, go sideways (that always blows my mind when I do it too. I am literally thinking, "I can't believe I'm doing this!" as I'm doing it.), backwards, and it's the best if you feel like you're on the edge of losing control and wiping out spectacularly. If I don't feel slightly out of control I figure I'm skating badly or not hard enough. I didn't just make that up- my instructor said if you feel too comfortable on your skates you're probably not doing it right. Edges. It's all about edges. and bending your knees. and looking up.

Skating by itself is a good time, but then you give everyone sticks and the puck is flying around and you're crashing into people and trying not to fall down and watching for your teammates and keeping an eye on everyone on the other team so they don't sneak around you- seriously, what could be more fun? I'll tell you- NOTHING. The X show was close.

All my teams are underdogs this season, which is kind of hard because we are all competitive. You probably have to be to get into hockey. And there's the pride thing. But we have a lot of fun regardless. My fabulous Canadian friend who just had twins was back playing for the first time tonight. We talked Canadian to her to pump her up, i.e. "Hey you hoser, take off, ay!" (I miss Bob and Doug.) She got an assist, so I'm sure it helped. Canada kicks ass! I screamed myself hoarse on the bench- "Go Canada, go Michigan, go Rock Star, go Mad Dog, go Zam!!!" (We all have nicknames. I'm ketchup because I wear # 57.) When we scored our one and only goal, our bench went so crazy that the scorekeeper and the referees all looked at us in wonderment, and the other team slunk over to the face-off circle muttering, "Shake it off, we'll get it back." like we had just gone ahead, even though they'd already scored on us 3 times. That's the best thing you can do on a team that doesn't win a lot- celebrate everything you can. Everyone said it was a really fun game even though we lost. I was just so ecstatic to be back on the ice I was beaming.

As if that wasn't enough, new episodes of Doctor Who started on Saturday! I watched "Waters of Mars" today, and next week The Master is back! (The Master is a rogue Time Lord, the Doctor's nemesis.) The Doctor is currently companion-less. I was really hoping for him to take Lady Christina de Souza (in the picture) from a one-off a while ago, because she is basically ME in Doctor Who form. Despite spelling our name wrong, if I was a character on Doctor Who I would totally be her. She only lasted one episode though. The Doctor ditched her. He is soooo unreliable. On the bright side, I guess I have my next costume!

my head's gonna crack like a bank tonight

2009-12-19T23:59:00.000-08:00

Shut up, I saw X tonight! (Yes, all the original band members.) They played all my favorites- my song, "Nausea", and "The Unheard Music", "Your Phone's Off The Hook, But You're Not", "The World's A Mess, It's In Your Kiss", "We're Desperate", "Some Other Time", "Soul Kitchen". I was kind of surprised by how different some of the songs sounded without Ray Manzarek rocking the keyboards. That gave their albums "Los Angeles" and "Wild Gift" such an odd, distinctive sound. Definitely not your average L.A. punk band, even without the keyboards. Damn, that was such a fun show. I can't believe I can even go see X play, more than 30 years after they were formed, and almost 30 years after all those songs that I love came out. How crazy is that?!? Back in the day, I was so disappointed that I would never get to see all these bands that I loved live, and now a lot of them have re-formed and are playing again. It's an amazing age we live in. I never thought punk would have this kind of staying power. I can't imagine what I would have thought if you told me 20 years ago that when I was in my thirties I'd be an MBA going to see punk bands from the 80's. I never would have believed it.

a strange dust lands on your hands and your face

2009-12-18T23:14:00.000-08:00

I am depressed. I was too sick to play in my Lady Kings game tonight. *sigh* I did go to work. We had our holiday party in the afternoon, so it was really only half the day. I got some things done in the morning, so that was some good productive time. My stomach hurt and I was tired though. I have a pretty bad headache and a fever now. For our holiday party, we went to a restaurant on Fishermans Wharf in Redondo Beach. This is where your sympathy for me dries up, because we sat on the patio and it was 80 degrees outside. Yes, this is December in Southern California. It sure beats rain for three months straight.

So, you might find it ironic, as I do, that I am vitamin D deficient. A couple weeks ago, when I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with a sinus infection, I also got a physical including blood tests. Everything came back good (I even got smiley faces for my cholesterol levels and pap smear. Good pap!) except my vitamin D levels are "very low". I find it surprising that anyone residing in L.A. would be vitamin D deficient, as that's basically saying that I don't get enough sun. I really feel that I am getting loads of sun. I guess being a pale skinned goth girl who wears lots of black, long sleeves, and sunscreen is actually cancelling out the effects of the sun. My sense of style is so powerful. I just imagine myself as a cartoon with a cloud over my head, following me around. "I'm only happy when it raaains; I'm only happy when it's complicateddddd, and though I know you can't appreciate it, I'm only happy when it raaaaains. I feel good when things are going wronggg. I only listen to the sad, sad songggs. I'm only happy when it rains. I only smile in the dark. My only comfort is the night gone black..."*

Sometimes I wonder if I'm one of those people that will only be happy if I'm miserable. I don't think I am. I think I'm happy despite miserable things happening. But I do seem to cling to feeling miserable over my brother's death, as if being totally happy would mean forgetting him and how much I still love him and miss him. There's something about PTSD that you focus on the darkness a lot. You don't trust the light. You don't want to get too used to being happy, having someone around, not being poor, having enough to eat, sleeping well, having a job, feeling free- because in a second you think you could lose it all. When you've spent your life on the bottom, moving up in the world, you see how far you could fall. You don't see safety nets, only sheer drop-offs.

I still get tested for HIV because of my first tattoo. I was 19. We cleaned the homemade tattoo gun and needle/guitar string, obsessively, but didn't quite think through pouring the ink back in the bottle after dipping the used, bloody needle in it. Ops! It's been almost 20 years, and I still stress out when I get tested. I have this moment of panic, like, what if I have AIDS and I'll be sick for rest of my life? I'm still negative (of course. Haven't so much as had sex without a condom since then.) Also negative for syphilis, hepatitis, herpes, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. Rock on with my bad (I mean, risk-adverse) self. Getting a positive of any of those would be more surprising than the vitamin D thing since my sex life is the opposite of active, but still good to know.

So I've learned: 1) I will be taking 50,000 IU of vitamin D3 weekly for 12 weeks, followed by 2,000 IU daily. 2) My doctor is really bad at spelling STDs, except HIV and herpes. 3) I think I'm paranoid.

*"Only Happy When It Rains" by Garbage. (This is my favorite kooky video with people wearing animal masks though. This video is totally great, too, but no animal masks.) "I Think I'm Paranoid" is also a Garbage song. The blog post title is a line from Morrissey's song "Everyday Is Like Sunday".

Between the devil and the deep blue sea

2009-12-17T07:53:00.000-08:00

Mmm, sleepy. Sleepy and bored. Not much to write about when I'm just hanging around my apartment being sick. I am making some progress with organizing and cleaning. I have to go back to work tomorrow because my group is having our holiday party! I still feel sick, but I can take one day (half day) and then there will be the weekend to rest. I have a hockey game tomorrow as well. I'm totally undecided on playing. Guess it will depend on how I feel tomorrow.

The Terror of the Three

2009-12-16T21:40:00.000-08:00

I feel strange today. Wide open. The dark places inside me feel less hidden and less menacing. The little girl inside me is calm, maybe even a little satisfied. I can feel my brother beside me, and he seems proud. We are all sitting together. I remember a time when I begged him to come back to me, and I felt his tears falling on my face. I dreamed about him walking away from me and disappearing. I dreamed of him being physically with me, but unresponsive, refusing to even look at me while I tried to save him from drowning or freezing to death. Now I feel him sitting next to me, smiling encouragingly. He is silent, but his face says everything. I'm doing good. I'm doing right by him and by myself. I'm not afraid anymore. None of us are. Not even that little girl, because she knows I'll stick up for her now.

I'm having a bit of a Wizard of Oz (one of my favorite series of books) yellow brick road moments. The three of us are finally together, hand in hand, walking down that road together. It's one of those, it's not the destination; it's the journey, kind of roads. A road that takes lots of courage, brains, and heart. It feels like it's going to be a lot easier when I'm not fighting or hiding from myself.