Tag Archives: therapy

THIS IS ME

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For the last 8 months, since 7 August 2017 when I heard the words, ‘You have cancer,’ I have been dealing with a journey I never, and I mean NEVER, thought I would take.  As many of you know, it has been an incredibly difficult time.  There is light at the end of the tunnel though.  I am currently undergoing radiation as an additional preventative measure to (hopefully) keep any reoccurrence at bay.  I’ve done 5 weeks and have 2 more to go.  Yea!

None of this has been fun and it is my deepest wish that no one reading this will ever suffer through anything remotely similar.  Bottom line is, it sucks!  Cancer sucks!  There’s no other way of putting it.  And silly though it might be to a lot of people, losing my hair was HUGE for me.  As much as my hair has driven me crazy over a lifetime, not having it was worse.  My last round of chemotherapy was 12 December 2017, so, in theory, my hair has been growing back since then.  Let’s just say that all the other hair on my body has returned (one ‘benefit’ of losing it all is no shaving) and the hair on my head is taking its sweet time returning.  I am definitely growing a rug up there.  It’s thick and super soft. My oncologist, who happens to be half black, says it is coming in straight!  That’s what I am hoping for.

A couple weeks ago my therapist gave me an assignment…to stop covering my head.  She actually has been trying to get me to lose the hats and bandanas for even longer than that, but I just couldn’t do it.  Then last week after leaving the bandana I was wearing with her so that I would have nothing to put on my head when I stopped at the drugstore and grocery store on my way home, I thought, this isn’t so bad.  Nobody laughed at my hair, of lack thereof, at least not as far as I could tell.  Then the following morning the 21-Day Meditation series I was doing with Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey resonated with me in a way that nothing else had.  It was titled “Taking Back Your Power!”

It suddenly occurred to me that I had lost my power and I realized that Beth (my therapist) was right.  I could come out of the closet (so to speak) and show other women that it is possible to survive and to still be beautiful (honestly, I am still working on this) even without hair.  That day when I went to my radiation appointment, I got nothing but compliments and praise for going au natural.  And the day after that, I was crossing a street in Ventura and a woman opened her window and yelled out, “I love your hair!”  Okay, so maybe it wasn’t so bad after all to be close to bald.  I really am not bald anymore, I just have super short hair.

So this is me now:

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And while it looks like my hair is totally white, that’s just around my face.  It actually starting growing in dark.  My friend Lisa Michelle mentioned that it’s interesting that my baby-black hair has come back.  I was born with a head full of black hair:

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This is me at 3 months.  When I was a little older it started growing in blonde.  I never lost the original hair, it just grew in blonde.  This is what it looked like before I was completely blonde:

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Now I’m ever hopeful that at some point the dark hair will stop and it will begin growing in blonde just like when I was a baby!

Will I keep my hair short?  Probably not because even though I almost always wear my hair up, I like having enough length that I can put it on top of my head and forget about it.  So although this is me now, it’s not what I consider the ‘real’ me.  It is much easier to take care of…oh, yeah, I don’t have to do a single thing.  It’s even too short to comb.  I am also counting on the warmer weather to speed up the growth process.

 

 

A CHALLENGING SECOND WEEK

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And by challenging, I mean it SUCKED.  Not in the food sense, but when I thought that my nonsense (itty, bitty cold) was cured in one day with the cherry bark syrup, I was overly optimistic.  And while it is true that I spent the entire day Saturday in bed/resting before I got the cherry bark, and that I woke up Sunday morning feeling all better, after I wrote my update on Monday morning I started feeling worse.  As the day progressed, my nonsense came back with a vengeance.  I never felt horrible, just blah, like I needed a lot of sleep.  And don’t even get me started on the weather we’ve been having.  Okay, relatively speaking, it has not been terrible, but it has been much cooler than usual and we had (true, much-needed) rain.  None of that, though, is good for my mental heath, especially when I am feeling so crummy.

I thought I would be feeling better doing The Whole30.  I do, however, realize my body is going through a major transformation, what with no sugar, no dairy, no sugar, no alcohol, no sugar, no wheat or grains, no sugar and no processed foods of any kind, especially the kinds with added, you guessed it, sugar.  I just didn’t know it would be so difficult.  What is also even more clear to me is the fact that body has not been the same since my assault.  It’s nothing major, a lot of small things, but added altogether, it’s a lot to deal with and accept.  And this is with intense therapy and a huge desire and effort to not let my attack change me.  The best intentions, right?

As if to add insult to injury, Sunday morning at 3:02AM I was awakened with a shooting pain down my right leg.  Now I’ve had back issues for, well, ever, but I’ve never had anything like this before.  I got up and stretched and hung on the inversion table, but nothing was helping.  I got back in bed and tried to sleep.  No such luck.  I could only be on my back for a few minutes before I’d have to turn to my left side.  Then in a few minutes that would become unbearable and I’d have to turn on my back again, where I would only last for a few minutes…you get the picture.  So I got up to take a shower a little after 4AM.  The funny thing was, it did not really hurt to move around.  While in the shower I decided to wash my hair and shave my legs, just in case I ended up spending the next week in bed with my back out.  It did not really feel like it was going to go out, but never having experienced this kind of pain, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.

When I got back in bed, I googled ‘sciatica’ on my phone, decided that it was probably that, and slept fitfully, in pain for the next several hours.  After consulting with a doctor (my mother, as it happens) and a couple of people who have had to deal with sciatica, we decided on the best course of action, which was really no action at all.  I was advised to take 3 ibuprofen and 1 Tylenol, move as much as the pain would allow, and basically, allow it to rest.  So I spent another entire weekend day resting.  I am sensing a pattern here.

This morning I woke up and realized I had had no pain in the night, at least not the shooting down my leg kind, and I slept half-way decently.  I am still in need of much more sleep than normal.  I guess that’s okay.  It is also dawning on me that I may need more than the 30 days to clean out all the built of whatever that has accumulated over the last 4 1/2 years.  And, really, I guess that is okay, too.  Just like with most everything, I want it now, I want the results yesterday and I don’t want to have to wait a minute longer than I think it should take.  Yeah, and how’s that working for me?  Clearly, it will take as long as it takes.

The good news is, as they say in The Whole30, I have been completely compliant for the last two weeks.  No slips, no forbidden foods;  only good, whole, real food.

 

DAY 3

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Okay, so it’s only day three of the Whole30, but I want to share some of what’s happening so far.  Although we haven’t been following the 7-day meal plan exactly, nor are we really supposed to, we’ve been very compliant with what we should and we are not allowed to eat.  No dairy, no grains, no processed food of any kind, no alcohol, no sugar…does this seem harsh?  Really, it’s not.  There is so much real, whole food available, if you just take the time to look.  For example, this morning I had a mug of bone broth, which I made myself (!), and an omelet cooked in ghee (this is butter with the milk part removed) with chicken and spinach.  I had an orange and strawberries on the side.  It was yummy and filling.  If anything, I cannot really eat all the food they recommend in a day, but that’s another story.

One of my reasons for doing this ‘diet’* is I am in a lot of physical pain from inflammation.  I never understood what this meant before now.  And I still do not totally understand it, but I know I have it all over my body.  Enough is enough.  To me physical pain is far worse than emotional pain.  Once the emotional part of my healing from my sexual assault was complete, my back went completely out.  I spent 96 hours not moving at all.  When I was finally able to get out of bed and start the process of moving my body again, the pain was, at times, overwhelming.  I remember thinking at the time that as difficult as it was to go through, I’d rather spend another 14 months in intense (mental) therapy than to spend another 96 hours in physical pain.  And while my physical pain these days is not acute to the degree it was then, I am still in a lot of pain.

Several years ago, I suffered an injury at the gym to my elbow, and ever since, I’ve had pain in it.  Your elbow is not exactly a part of your body that can be easily rested. You kind of use it every day, no matter what you are doing.  And my hips, boy, do my hips ache.  My legs, too.  The weird part is they do not hurt when I am using them, like walking or playing tennis, but at night, I wake up in pain more nights than not.  I try not to take ibuprofen all the time, for obvious reasons, but sometimes the pain is just too much and I have to take it.  When I was listening to IT STARTS WITH FOOD (by Melissa Hartwig and Dallas Hartwig), it suddenly occurred to me that my body is full of inflammation, and that;s when I made the decision to do something about it.  I do not have to live like this and have no intention of living this way for the rest of my life.  Enter the Whole30 program.

According to WebMD,  “Inflammation is a process by which the body’s white blood cells and substances they produce protect us from infection with foreign organisms, such as bacteria and viruses.  However, in some diseases, like arthritis, the body’s defense system — the immune system — triggers an inflammatory response when there are no foreign invaders to fight off. In these diseases, called autoimmune diseases, the body’s normally protective immune system causes damage to its own tissues. The body responds as if normal tissues are infected or somehow abnormal.”  It goes on to say, “When inflammation occurs, chemicals from the body’s white blood cells are released into the blood or affected tissues to protect your body from foreign substances. This release of chemicals increases the blood flow to the area of injury or infection, and may result in redness and warmth. Some of the chemicals cause a leak of fluid into the tissues, resulting in swelling. This protective process may stimulate nerves and cause pain.  The increased number of cells and inflammatory substances within the joint cause irritation, swelling of the joint lining and, eventually, wearing down of cartilage (cushions at the end of bones).”

So what have I observed so far?  Because my body is healing and detoxing itself, I need a lot more sleep than normal.  I’ve been sleeping 10 hours a night, which is so unlike me.  I normally need just about 7 hours to feel good and be well-rested.  I am honoring and listening to what my body wants, though, and it is saying sleep more.  So more sleeping it is.  I’ve noticed I am crabby, too, with an underlying headache.  This is due to my withdrawal from sugar.  As I’ve said before, according to experts, getting off sugar is harder than getting off heroin.  I believe it. And it is just as hard not to relapse, which I’ve done more times than I like to admit.  Just to be clear here, I am addicted to sugar, not heroin.  But just as being addicted to an illicit, illegal drug can rule and ruin your life, sugar, in its own way is just as destructive.  Some of the problems with sugar are: it increases insulin and contributes to obesity and diabetes, it can deplete essential minerals from the body, it can lead to food allergies, it can weaken your immune system and it can increase your risk of cancer.  Do any of these possible effects of sugar sound like a good thing?  I don’t think so.  The time has come to break this habit once and for all.

Yes, it is still very early in this process, but I am very hopeful that, once I get over the hump, the benefits of eating clean and not putting poison into my body will override any desire I have to slip again.

Stay tuned…

 

 

A QUESTION OF TRUST

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I was recently asked, given what I went through because of my sexual assault, if I trust again.  I was pretty sure what I was being asked, but I replied, ‘You mean people in general?’  Hesitantly, he said, ‘Yes.’  I suspect he was asking if I trust men again.  What I told him was, ‘Yes.’  He thought maybe I look for ‘the lie’ when dealing with people.  No, no, I don’t think I do.  I’ve thought about it a lot in the last 10 days or so since the question was posed to me, and the longer I think about it, the more I know this is true.

I have definitely been accused in the past of being naive.  Seems hard to believe that someone  would think that of me just because I tended to expect the best from people, and tended to give people the benefit of the doubt.  As Anne Frank said, “Despite everything, I believe that people are good at heart.”  I do my best, though I am not always successful, to live my life this way.  The truth is, even immediately following my assault, when I was still in shock, afraid of most everyone, men, women and children, I still knew, deep inside, that in spite of what had happened to me, most people were not bad.  And just as I really hated living on Coronado for a long time after 24 September 2011, I also knew that it wasn’t the island that had done something to me.  It was one person; well, and the entire process did not help, but it was never Coronado that hurt me.  Didn’t make it any easier to live there though, until I got through it.  I can’t even tell you exactly when it changed back for me, but one day I was walking home from uptown and it suddenly hit me that I no longer wanted to move away anymore.

I believe what I am told…is this the same as trusting someone?  I don’t think people are going to lie to me.  If you tell me something, I trust that you are telling me the truth.  Somerset Maugham said, “It’s a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.”  I prefer to live my version of his quote:  It’s a funny thing about people: if you expect the best from them, you very often get it.  Or as Claude M. Bristol said, “We usually get what we anticipate.”  I think Anne Frank, Somerset Maugham and Claude M. Bristol sum up the way I used to be pre-attack, and the way I have, finally, gotten back to after a whole lot of work.  Part of what made my healing process so difficult was getting my head around the fact that it happened to me at all.  The only thing I did ‘wrong’ that morning was be tall, thin and blonde, and was be in a place that a predator was looking for just that type of woman.  I never expected it to happen to me.  Never.  And in spite of doing everything I was ever told or ever heard about how to behave in a situation like I found myself in, nothing worked, starting with no warning bells going off in my head when I first encountered DCD.  I attribute that to the fact that I didn’t expect to be attacked.  I trusted that I was safe.  Turned out I wasn’t, and my world turned upside down as a result.

What I do know with absolute certainty is I cannot, I will not, live my life being afraid.  Part of the reason I worked as hard as I did to heal from this was because no way was I letting one person, one awful event, determine the rest of my life.  I was very lucky that at the time of my attack, I was in a healthy, happy, loving relationship.  I know that my healing process would have been very different, and much more difficult, had that not been the case.  The fact that my boyfriend was very supportive and encouraging made all the difference, and even though, ultimately, the relationship did not survive, he was there for me through the worst of it.  For that, I will be eternally grateful to him.

Back in 2013, I chose TRUST as my word for the year.  This is what I wrote then:

“I TRUST that everything is working out. I TRUST that I am right where I am supposed to be. I TRUST that I am doing just what I am meant to do. I TRUST that everything happens for a reason. I TRUST that even if it may not seem like it at the time, everything truly is happening for my highest good and to make me a better person. I TRUST that the right people, the people who can be helped by my story, will read my story. I TRUST that the right people show up in my life at the right time.  I TRUST that even in the darkest hour, there is light. I TRUST that I am safe. I TRUST that even behind the clouds the sun is shining. I TRUST that I am making a difference. I TRUST that all my dreams are coming true. I TRUST that everything happens in perfect and Divine timing.”

Yeah, what I said more than two years ago!  And since I am two years further along my healing path, I can honestly say that, yes, I do trust people again, though I’m not positive I really ever stopped.  And last, but not least, my new favorite quote from Pinterest:

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And while the patience part is challenging, I do TRUST my journey.

 

THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE

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I loved this book by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.  I just finished listening to it yesterday, though during the middle of it, I ordered the actual book, too.  I knew it was one I’d want to have and be able to reference.  It was a tough listen as times, but it explained a lot of what I’ve been through and continue to go through.

 

 

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What makes this book even more relevant to me is the fact that it was just published in 2014, which means it has the latest information about trauma that is available.

The inside dust jacket has this to say about Dr. Van Der Kolk and the book:

“This profoundly humane book offers a sweeping new understanding of the causes and consequences of trauma, offering hope and clarity to everyone touched by its devastation.  Trauma has emerged as one of the great public health challenges of our time, not only because of its well-documented effects on combat veterans and on victims of accidents and crimes, but because of the hidden toll of sexual and family violence and of communities and schools devastated by abuse, neglect and addiction.

Drawing on more than thirty years at the forefront of research and clinical practice, Bessel Van Der Kolk shows that the terror and isolation at the core of trauma literally reshape both brain and body.  New insights into our survival instincts explain why traumatized people experience incomprehensible anxiety and numbing and intolerable rage, and how trauma affects their capacity to concentrate, to remember, to form trusting relationships, and even to feel at home in their own bodies.  Having lost the sense of control of themselves and frustrated by failed therapies, they often fear that they are damages beyond repair.

THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE is the inspiring story of how a group of therapists and scientists–together with their courageous and memorable patients–has struggled to integrate recent advances in brain science, attachment research and body awareness into treatments that can free trauma survivors from the tyranny of the past.  These new paths to recovery activate the brain’s natural neuroplasticity to rewire disturbed functioning and rebuild step-by-step the ability to ‘know what you know and feel what you feel.’  They also offer experiences that directly counteract the helplessness and invisibility associated with trauma, enabling both adults and children to reclaim ownership of their bodies and their lives.

Readers will come away from this book with awe at human resilience and at the power of our relationships–whether in the intimacy of home or in our wider communities–to both hurt and heal.”

What this book also showed me is the things I did, EMDR, yoga, to name just two, were the ‘right’ ones to undertake and have contributed mightily in my healing process.  I also realize I still have more healing to do –dang it– but that it is possible to rewire the neuro pathways in my brain even more than I’m sure they have already been rewired.  It is a process and as much as I want it to be finished, the simple truth is it’s not.  I think, too, that for people who are on a healing path, it is lifelong endeavor, whether you suffered a traumatic childhood event, a devastating car accident, the death of a child or spouse, or just the day-to-day living of life that can sometimes be unbelievably difficult.  I’m realizing more and more that we are never really finished.  As I always told my therapist, I do not have a choice in this.  I have to keep moving forward.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who has suffered a traumatic event personally or knows of someone who has.  The knowledge and insights you will gain will be invaluable to understanding the why of how trauma affects the body and mind.

 

HERE, TAKE A PILL

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Why is it, generally speaking, that Western medicine tends to throw pills at the symptom and not get to the underlying condition that may be causing the problem to begin with?  Is it because we are lazy and want a quick fix?  Is it decades of training doctors in a certain way?  Is it an inability to change with the times?  Is it fear of some kind?

Don’t get me wrong, I myself took an antidepressant because I needed it to get my chemical imbalance, well, balanced.  I suffered for years from depression and/or clinical depression, and it had gotten to the point that even though I so did not want to take it, I knew I had to.  I fought it for a long time, but when I was in Key West in the bright February sunshine, out of the frigid Chicago winter, and I was still feeling awful, I knew the time had come.  At the time, I was seeing a therapist and he recommended a psychiatrist to me.  I reluctantly went.  The deal was I would continue with my therapist and I would see the psychiatrist once a month.  I made sure my doctor knew from the very beginning that I had no intention of staying on the medication indefinitely.  I asked how long I would have to take it.  My doctor told me, and keep in mind this was in 1997, usually people took it for about a year, maybe a little longer.  I said, okay, but I’m not taking it any longer than that.

At the time I was trying to get pregnant and, again keep in mind it was 1997, at the time the only antidepressant that was approved for and that had been tested on pregnant women was prozac.  So that’s what I was given.  Pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, but it nearly killed me.  Every bad side-effect it was possible to get, I got.   I know now I should never have been given it at all, since I am in the bi-polar spectrum, and prozac is a huge no-no.  Not sure if this wasn’t known back then or that my doctor just dropped the ball, in a way.  It doesn’t really matter.  What matters is I was closely monitored and switched to wellbutrin as soon as it became clear that I was on the wrong medication.

What I find astounding is the number of people, mostly women, who have been on antidepressants for years.  YEARS!  And they have no intention of ever getting off of them.  I understand that there are legitimate reasons for being on a drug long-term, maybe even forever; but, mostly, I don’t believe this to be the case.  (Bi-polar disorder is a different story and those with it should take medication, though many don’t/won’t.)  I could not wait to stop taking it, even after finding the correct one for me.  It was a hateful drug, and though it accomplished what I needed, the re-balancing my chemicals, I was not sorry when I no longer had to take it.

And these days the hottest new ‘disorders’ to be diagnosed with are ADD and ADHD.  In the November issue of Oprah, an article written by Anna Maltby addresses this phenomenon, and it is alarming.  “A groundbreaking report released earlier this year by the prescription management company Express Scripts stated that the number of adults in the United States taking ADHD medications (which include Ritalin and Concerta, in addition to Adderall) rose 53 percent from 2008 to 2012.  It also found that women are using ADHD medication at notably higher rates than girls, with those in the 26 to 34 age range posting a staggering 85 percent jump in the use of such drugs in just five years.” According to ADHD researcher Keith Connors, PhD, professor emeritus at Duke University and the creator of a highly regarded rating scale commonly used to help diagnose the disorder, “It’s clear that one reason for the recent rise is over diagnosis.”   He goes on to say that, “There is a swarm of primary care doctors and psychiatrists who really don’t know that much about ADHD but are willing to give out a prescription.”

According to webmd.com:

“Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most well-recognized childhood developmental problems. This condition is characterized by inattention, hyperactivity and impulsiveness. It is now known that these symptoms continue into adulthood for about 60% of children with ADHD. That translates into 4% of the U.S. adult population, or 8 million adults. However, few adults are identified or treated for adult ADHD.

ADHD in Adults
Adults with ADHD may have difficulty following directions, remembering information, concentrating, organizing tasks, or completing work within time limits. If these difficulties are not managed appropriately, they can cause associated behavioral, emotional, social, vocational, and academic problems.

Common Behaviors and Problems of Adult ADHD
The following behaviors and problems may stem directly from ADHD or may be the result of related adjustment difficulties:

Anxiety
Chronic boredom
Chronic lateness and forgetfulness
Depression
Difficulty concentrating when reading
Difficulty controlling anger
Employment problems
Impulsiveness
Low frustration tolerance
Low self-esteem
Mood swings
Poor organization skills
Procrastination
Relationship problems
Substance abuse or addiction”

(After reading the list above, I doubt there is anyone on the planet that doesn’t suffer from several, if not most, of them.  Doesn’t mean you need to be medicated, though.)

Okay, the truth is I probably had/have ADHD, but even if this is the case, I have learned how to manage in spite of it.  I have a friend who kind of makes fun of me because I have, in her words, a very rigid routine.  What I now understand is, in order for me to function at the level I need to, to be able to be self-employed, it is imperative that I have a fixed routine.  I don’t consider it to be rigid, but I do my best to stick with it on a daily basis, otherwise nothing gets done.  Or at least not a lot gets accomplished.  Would a drug like Adderall help me?  Maybe, but I prefer to have my ‘rigid’ routine.  And let me say again, I do believe there are people who legitimately need to be on one of these drugs.  At the same time, I believe that many are misdiagnosed/overdiagnosed by physicians who simply do not know enough about it.

I feel like there are so many other available choices, such as diet, exercise, therapy, that may help, if not alleviate the problem all together.  Ultimately, though, we each need to do what we decide is best.

 

IT’S NOT A STRAIGHT LINE

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As much as I’d like it to be, as much as I’ve tried to make it be, it simply is not a straight line.    In my mind it goes something like this — you get attacked, you do whatever it takes to make sure your attacker is prosecuted and sent to prison, you go to therapy, and you are healed.  But what happens when you get attacked, you do everything you can to make sure your attacker is prosecuted and sent to prison, you go to therapy, and you aren’t quite healed?  If you are me, apparently, you beat yourself up for not being where you feel like you should (there I go, shoulding myself) be at this point.  I have been accused in the past of being too hard on myself, for holding myself to some impossible standard or ideal that pretty much no one could ever attain, and when I, of course, fail to achieve it, I then beat myself up.  This is a vicious cycle and it needs to stop.  The question is how to do I do this, how do I get off this merry-go-round?

I am not sure why I have such a hard time acknowledging and being proud of myself for how incredibly far I have already come.  I can easily say that I understand this to be true on some level, but I’m not sure I truly understand that to be the case.  I think I want it to be true, because otherwise all the work I’ve done, and it is considerable, would seem to be for nothing, and that might just put me over the edge.  Some days I do see the progress I’ve made and I feel good about it.  Other days, though, the most innocuous comment sends me off the deep end.  And, worst of all, sometimes it is me who makes that comment.  Like today.

I was accused (and rightly so) of being mean to myself.  At first I did not see it this way.  I was being sarcastic about what I was saying about myself.  I used to be a very sarcastic person (pre-Hoffman), but these days I rarely use sarcasm because I now understand that sarcasm is just thinly veiled anger.  And I make an effort to be kind, not condemning to others.  I somehow forget to include myself in that effort.  (How’s that for irony?)  Then it was pointed out to me that perhaps it is myself that I am angry at, for not being what I call ‘done with my healing.’  This, of course, starts me on the hamster wheel yet again.

All of this happened today in my energy healing session with Marsha Bliss.  I am still in physical pain, and though not a lot, it is still enough to make me want to do something to get rid of it.  While Marsha was working on me and we were talking about my post a week ago about my ‘new normal’, as in, is the way my life is now my new normal?  Marsha made up an example of someone who has lost a limb, and after a period of time, is now skiing.  This person has not let the lack of a leg stop them from moving forward.  This has become the new normal for them.  Something about that conversation triggered an incredible sadness in me and the tears to go with it.  Here’s the thing – when we see someone, (from the outside, because, really, unless you’ve been there, you can NEVER know what goes on behind the scenes, what goes on inside of them,) who has triumphed after a tragedy and we think, wow, this person is happy and has moved on and bla, bla, bla.  That’s just it, we simply do not know what happens when they go home at night, if they are crying themselves to sleep or are one step away from suicide or really are doing okay, in spite of it all.  We just don’t know.

 

I wrote the above paragraphs last night, and while I have no idea if they somehow influenced my dreams, I did have really weird dreams and woke up this morning feeling rather blue.  Then when I was going through my emails, I came upon the following quote, which gives me enormous hope:

“Energy and persistence conquer all things.”   ~Benjamin Franklin

I’ve been nothing if not persistent in my desire and actions to move through this traumatic event.  And something else Marsha said yesterday has been running around in my head, and that is that we are never done with whatever it is we are doing in our lives.  If we’re done, we’re dead.  I get this, I really do.  I understand that once we get through, put behind us or in some other way move on from a situation, traumatic or otherwise, something else is bound to come up.  We’ve all heard the adage that God, Life, the Universe (whatever word you want to use) never gives us more than we can handle.   I believe this.  I even have it posted above my desk (don’t always remember to look up to read it, but it’s there.)  And as much as I subscribe to this belief, I always just as often forget about it.  I think what all this means to me is I just have a lot more stuff to deal with, and not all of it, maybe even none of it, has anything directly to do with my attack.  I definitely attribute, if not all, most of what I am dealing with these days to that one event, and that would be because so much of it seems to stem from it.  Physically, I have not been the same since, so it makes sense that it would be the reason.  And, really, it probably is.  At the same time, what this also means is there is still unresolved issues from my past that are arising now because I am finally at a place in my evolution that I am able to deal with them.  That is both comforting and annoying.   So, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald from “The Great Gatsby,” I beat on, boat against the current, born back ceaselessly in the past.

 

 

YES, I SURVIVED, AND NOW I’M READY TO THRIVE!!!

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Three years ago today my life change in ways I could never have imagined.  Two years ago today I started this website to tell my story.  From the very beginning of this incredible journey, I was always very clear on what had to happen in order for me to move forward, to be able to truly put this behind me and get on with my life.  It has taken far longer than anyone ever thought it would.  I like to think I’m completely finished with my healing process, and then BAM, something happens that shows me I’m not quite there yet.  Apparently there isn’t a formula that I can plug all my info into and get a read out that tells me exactly when I’ll be all better.  Wouldn’t that be nice?  Perhaps it is something I will be dealing with, at least to a degree, and when I least expect it, for the rest of my life.  As much as I’d like it to be something that I can simply forget, that doesn’t seem to be the way these things work.

In the interest of honoring myself and my body, on this day of all days, I chose to hike up Cowles Mountain this morning.  I have only done it one other time, 3 1/2 years ago, and today seemed like the day it was important for me to do it again.  At 1593′, it is the highest point in San Diego.  The hike is only 1.5 miles, with an elevation change of 950′.  I got to the top in about 25 minutes.  The picture below is the view part way up.

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This is the view from the top looking west.

IMG_3452 And this is the view to the east.

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It was a beautiful morning, though I wish I had started just a bit earlier.  There were tons of  people going up and down.  I saw several that did the climb more than once.  I thought about it, but decided there was no need in overdoing it, as I am ever so fond of doing.  Tonight I will go to a restorative yoga class at Mosaic in Golden Hill.  Tomorrow I will do my beloved beach yoga with Danell Dwaileebe.  And then I have another appointment with Marsha Bliss, an extraordinarily gifted energy healer.  This is what I posted on Yelp about my session with her last week:  “I have been dealing with the after-effects of a sexual assault for the last 3 years, and though I am almost completely through it, there is still some residual ‘stuff’ hanging on. Since I have been to Marsha a couple of times in the past, knew that she would be able to help me again. My appointment yesterday exceeded even my wildest expectations! I do not understand HOW it works, but trust me when I tell you that it DOES work! By the time she was finished with me, I was literally floating. The only ‘bad’ thing was I had to get in the car and drive home. The feeling stayed with me the rest of the day, and I am still feeling it this morning. Whatever your issue is, I highly recommend that you go and see Marsha Bliss of Bliss Connections.”

(You better believe I am looking forward to my appointment tomorrow!)

This is what I wrote in my journal this morning, part of which I shared on Facebook:

6:28a  After reading my email and posting on Facebook, I’m off to hike Cowles Mountain.  It is a tribute to myself and to all those who have suffered a sexual assault.  Today is a GREAT day!  It is a testament to those who have survived and those who are still struggling to heal.  Today is the third anniversary of my sexual assault.  I honor myself for surviving, and I honor all those who are still in the process of reclaiming their lives.  I am proof of what you can do if you don’t give up.  I celebrate the new me, who is stronger and more determined than ever to not let the worst few minutes of my life determine the rest of my life.  With enthusiasm I choose to move forward.  I choose love.  I am love.  I am loving.  I am lovable. I matter.  My attacker matters.  (Hard words to write, but nonetheless true.)  Without him I would not be where I am right now.  And where I am is in a very good place.  As the title of this post says…I did survive, and I am now ready to thrive!

Going all the way back to one of my very first posts two years ago, I put this quote:

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I have been changed.  I am anything but reduced by what happened to me, though.  I am so much more than I was, and as I already said, without this traumatic event, without a violent sexual assault, I simply would not be who I am today.  All the way up the mountain this morning I repeated STRONG, HEALTHY, HEALED and on the way down I said, I now release all my trauma, I now accept all my good.  It does feel like something has shifted in me.  I smiled the whole way home.  It feels like whatever might still be hanging on will be energetically erased by Marsha tomorrow.  Best of all, I can honestly say that I forgive DCD for what he did to me.  And even more importantly, I FORGIVE MYSELF!!!

 

RUNNING AWAY FROM HOME – 1976

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For my 16th birthday, I thought I was going to see The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac perform; instead, I got a trip to a diving camp at De Anza College in Cupertino, CA.  What you have to understand is from as far back as I can remember, I always told my mother I was moving to California.  I just knew I was meant to be here.  I was to be gone for 2 or three weeks (can’t remember now) and would stay with my grandmother in Palo Alto on the weekends and my aunt and uncle in Sunnyvale during the week, so my aunt could take me to diving practice.  I flew into San Jose in the evening, with temperatures in the 80s.  That didn’t bother me in the least, as I lived in Atlanta and we had no air conditioner in the house.  No one did back then.  This was, though, a heat wave and when the temperatures went back to normal, I about froze to death.  I could not wear shorts past 3p.  Seriously!  Anyway, in between my all day diving practice during the week, I still managed to meet a boy, and for the life of me, I cannot remember his name anymore.  He was the son of a friend of my aunt and uncle.  Well, I thought I was in serious love and, unbelievably, he even asked me to marry him!  At 16!  Of course I said yes!  I was 16 and when a boy asks you to marry him at 16, what else would you say?  The fact that we lived clear across the country from each other didn’t seem to be a problem for either of us.  Nor that we were still in high school!  What can I say?  Needless to say, when my time in California was over, I went back to Georgia.  We wrote letters full of, I’m sure, declarations of undying love.

I am sure I’ve mentioned that I grew up with a bunch of monkeys, make that brothers, and to say that we mostly did not get along would be an understatement.  (I so wanted to be an only child.)  My brothers were mean and teased me non-stop.  My mother was not a lot of help.  She would simply say,’ ignore them, they’ll go away.’  Ah, no, not only did they not go away, they continued to make me miserable.  I very much loved my time in California when I was free of them.  So that fall, my junior year of high school, which by the way, I also hated, but that’s another story, I had had enough of them and their juvenile ways.  I decided I needed to get back to where I was the happiest I had ever been, which was California.  I came up with a plan to make that happen.  The only problem was airplane tickets were expensive, and I had no money to speak of.  It wasn’t ideal, but I settled on taking the bus, a 4 day trip.    The ticket, if I remember correctly, was only about $50 compared with about $200 for a one-way flight.  I did not tell anyone, least of all my best friend, Cathy.  It seemed smarter that the less people who knew, the greater my chance of successfully making it across the country would be.

The morning of my departure I took the bus to school as normal, but I packed a bag and hid it in the bushes outside the school.  Part of my plan meant taking MARTA, the public bus system in Atlanta, which I had never done before.  There was a stop across from my high school, and after home room, so that I would not be counted as absent, I walked out the front door, retrieved my suitcase/bag, and crossed the street to the bus stop and boarded the MARTA bus going downtown Atlanta where the Greyhound Bus Terminal was.  I somehow managed to get to the station and purchase my one-way, ’cause I sure wasn’t planning on coming back, ticket and got on the west-bound bus.  I was a little scared, but mostly I was excited to be going back to California.  What I did not understand about buses was they do not take the shortest route to wherever it is they are going.  The bus left around 10a, and we went through Alabama and Mississippi to get to Memphis, Tennessee.  I remember wanting to go and ask the driver if he knew where he was going, but I didn’t want to bring any unnecessary attention to myself.  We finally pulled into the station in Memphis around 6p.  I had a bad feeling that I wasn’t going to make it.  I thought if I could get through Memphis without getting caught, I’d probably make it all the way to San Jose.  No such luck.

As soon as I stepped off the bus the authorities were waiting for me.  They asked if my name was Tamerie Shriver.  I refused to answer and went into the ladies room.  I stayed in there until one of the (men) agents stuck his head and told me I couldn’t stay in there forever.  I shot back, ‘Why not?’  I eventually left the bathroom and they took me to the juvenile detention facility.  They had called my mother as soon as I got off the bus, so she was on her way to get me.  She flew in, and because it was late by that time, we stayed overnight in a Holiday Inn by the airport.  I was fingerprinted and photographed as a runaway, even though I was 16.  Turns out in Georgia and Tennessee you had to be 17 to not be considered a juvenile.  Details, details.

I cried and cried. I cried that entire night.  I cried for the entire flight back to Atlanta.  I was so sad.  Sad to not be going to California, sad to have to go back to my house full of brothers I hated, back to a school I couldn’t stand, back to the life I wanted desperately not to be in.  As it turned out, I never did get in trouble for running away, with my mother or with the authorities.  In order to not have a juvenile record, though, we had to attend family therapy for 12 weeks.   My actions finally got through to my mother, and she agreed to make changes at home so it was more bearable for me.  My brothers were basically forbidden to even talk to me, let alone anything else.  I was sad about my aborted trip for a long time.  And I never stopped wanting to move to California.

I did leave a note that my mother was supposed to get that night when she got home from work.  In it I used the words to Cat Steven’s song Father and Son (I substituted Mother and Daughter, I also did not include all the lyrics, just those that made sense for what I was telling her) to help me express what I had not been able to make her understand:

 

“Father
It’s not time to make a change,
Just relax, take it easy.
You’re still young, that’s your fault,
There’s so much you have to know.

Son
How can I try to explain, when I do he turns away again.
It’s always been the same, same old story.
From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen.
Now there’s a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go.

Father
It’s not time to make a change,
Just sit down, take it slowly.
You’re still young, that’s your fault,
There’s so much you have to go through.
Son

All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside,

It’s hard, but it’s harder to ignore it.

If they were right, I’d agree, but it’s them you know not me.

Now there’s a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go.”

 

Let’s just say, it made sense to me at the time, and bottom-line, it did get my point across and everything seem to change after that.

 

 

DEPRESSION…AND HAPPINESS

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Is it possible to be both depressed and happy?  Common sense would tend towards no.  But I’m thinking that it is possible to be both, at the same time, without even being aware of it, especially if your ‘normal’ state is some degree of depression.  I think that depression runs the gamut from mild sadness occasionally all the way to severe clinical depression.  I cannot honestly remember a time that I was not depressed, though if asked now, I would say I am happy.  What does that mean?  Being happy?  Obviously, happiness is subjective.  What makes me happy will not necessarily make you happy, and vice versa.

I can remember clearly the first time I was aware that I really didn’t want to be in this world.  I was 14 years old.  As I am thinking about this, though, I suspect that this idea occurred to me when I was far younger.  I simply do not remember.  Much of my childhood is a blur. I have very few actual memories, but knowing myself as I do, it makes sense that it would have come up long before I was 14.  So much more is known and understood these days about depression and the genetic link.  I am definitely predisposed to suffering from it.  My brother and uncle (my mother’s brother) are both diagnosed bipolar.  I believe that my grandmother, though not diagnosed, also suffered from it.  And plain old depression runs rampant in my family.  Two of my brothers have died as a result of it.  It is something I continue to struggle with, though certainly not to the degree I have in the past.

I think part of the reason that depression is still so misunderstood and seen by many as some kind of weakness, is because it is possible to live with it and function almost normally.   I did it for many years before I finally took the antidepressants I needed to get my chemicals back in balance.  I’m sure I even had times that I felt happy in the midst of my suffering.   I remember when my grandmother found out I was taking an antidepressant, she said, “You’re not depressed.”  Ha!  I told her that just because she didn’t see it did not mean it wasn’t there.   I was very good at hiding it from everyone.  I knew for years, and other than a few attempts at therapy, I did nothing about it.  My mother’s attitude was, buck up and stop feeling like you do.  Oh, okay.  Too bad I didn’t think of that.  Unfortunately, that is the attitude of a lot of people.  If you were stronger you could do it.  It does not work that way.  If your chemicals are truly out of balance, no amount of wishing, hoping, talk therapy, exercise or anything else is going to change it.  You must get the help you need.  What made me finally break down and admit I had to go on medication was being in Key West, the sun shining and I was feeling nothing but darkness.  I thought, oh crap, my therapist is right, I do have to take something.  I was always able, when I lived in Chicago, to blame it on the weather and the lack of sunshine, which were definitely contributing factors.  But when I was in sunshine and warmth and still had such negative feelings, I knew the time had come.

When I got back to Chicago, I asked my therapist for a recommendation of a psychiatrist so that I could do what needed to be done.  When I first went to him (I do not even remember his name now) and he confirmed that, indeed, I needed medication, I asked how long I would have to take it.  He told me that usually a year, maybe a little longer was considered ‘normal.’  I said, “Okay, but that’s as long as I plan to take it.  No longer.”  He agreed, and I continued with my therapist and once a month saw him as well.  All I can really say about the drugs were they accomplished what needed to be done.  I have always described the process of being on them as hateful.  I was first prescribed Prozac, which just about killed me.  Every bad side-effect that was possible to get, I got.  Finally, he changed it to Wellbutrin and though I hated it too, it was not quite as bad as the Prozac had been.  In the end I took it for 14 months, and when I was done, that was it.  Luckily, he agreed, and I went off of it.  I felt better than I had in years.  At the time, too, I asked if I would ever have to take it again.  He told me that I might, that there was no way to really know, sometimes people did and sometimes they didn’t.  There have been times when I thought maybe I should probably be on something again, but until my attack, I never seriously considered it.

If you’ve been reading this blog all along, then you already know what happened when I attempted to take something for my depression, post attack.  Because I had had such a negative experience with antidepressants, even though they did help me, I really did not want to take one if I could somehow do it more naturally.  So, Suzie, my amazing therapist, recommended St John’s Wort, which is an herb.  I thought this was a suitable compromise.  Well, just as the prozac almost killed me, the St John’s Wort almost made me kill myself by jumping off the Coronado Bridge.  Thing is, I did not realize it was the pills, I just thought I wasn’t getting better.  I did not tell anyone, including Suzie, for a couple of weeks.  I finally told her and she immediately knew it was the supplement that was causing the problem.  I had to wean off of it, but because of that and the fact that every other thing I had tried taking and had had such a bad response to, I was afraid to try anything else.  I had to white-knuckle it the rest of my therapy.  As I’ve said before, my depression after my sexual assault was situational, not clinical, and I was able to do it.

Ask me if I’m happy now, and I’ll say YES.  Some times I am happier than other times, and I still have issues that definitely challenge me, but, over all, I am happy.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

 

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