doc and doc

doc w says she is not happy because I am not happy. ok I'll up your wellbrutin but if this doesn't help i want you to see a psychiatrist. tell your therapist I'm not happy that you're not sleeping, not swimming, your blood pressure is up,  just tell her for me that I am not happy that you are not happy.

doc d wants me to read the four agreements. i am. i like.

had a v difficult week. nightmares about childhood sexual abuse. new ones and now remembering others. some dreams/nightmares stay with you forever. more vomiting. more anxiety. more trying to calm myself. more eating whatever I want and now drinking every day. no exercising in more than a week.

not enough to suffer

weds april 22

its not enough to suffer, whats the point of that? it has to count for something
so far in my life it has counted for
momma single parent group 1975-78
erie county task force against rape and sexual assault training of nurse docs lawyers judges teachers da office cops sheriffs high school students and ourselves
ujima theatre co.
prosecution of my rapist/rapist of at least 11 other women
hag theatre and my art
dykes do drag
pride festival moved from just drag queens to everyone in alphabet
dyke march buffalo
big gap cancer battle and recovery
racial equality in philanthropy
more art
love of artists

 now
when will i say I  have suffered enough?
will i be able to convince my body to stop truggering the thoughts
how will i stop the entrenched thought of unworthiness
when will the river of tears stop
could i ever allow myself to be truly vulnerable
will i ever dump the exaggerated startle response

enough already enough 55 years of enough

what replaces what fills up the empty space left behind by allowing suffering to exit stage left
what enters stage right and replaces it?
when am i center stage

choose courage over comfort and the familiar
choose the unfamiliar
keep saying the words outloud
keep telling
stop keeping secrets

stop speaking to please therapist

week/end

kate and company this past weekend and i was exhausted until i slept nine hours last night

struggling still to manage my stress...which is off the chart at this point. sugars are high i am eating to calm down not to be healthy and my work outs are sporadic not consistent. i have achieved low sugars healthy eating and regular exercise which informs me that i can do it and feel better when i do.

still shaky. bought the four agreements and am reading. i am locking door on regular basis now. had a coffee date with a woman from ypsi. mixed feelings. something about her is a bit off for me. might be her anger which is absolute and has no room for compassion. seems trans inclusive for michfest but her fb implies she feels differently. makes me uncomfortable. and i don't see her being attentive to me = to the attention i would give her, if i was to continue seeing her. much of our politics in line with one another but not all.

tired at work and forcing myself to go. this is my last year at hrwc. i need something that excites me. that motivates me. my work there is obligatory.tasks are piling up and im not caring..im avoiding. that is difficult for me. time to seriously assess how to move out and forward. need less hetero patriarchal  normative.

projects i a m currently working on
dyke march buffalo
pear kenya
girls group
queer community center  a2 ypsi
ark show
racial equity philanthropy afp
accountability


and then there is me. working on me
brene brown workshop
dalton

the robbery is dominating my thoughts. the robbery of my ability to experience joy
ntozake shange gimme back my stuff keeps playing in my mind

• "somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff" – Lady in Green

The lady in green says that someone has taken all of her "stuff". She feels that she is the only one that knows and can appreciate the value of her stuff. She describes her stuff as the way she sits with her legs open sometimes, her chewed up fingernails, her rhythm, her voice, her talk, her "delicate leg and whimsical kiss".The person who stole her stuff is a man. She made too much room for this man who has run off with her stuff, especially because he doesn't even know that he has it. By the end of the monologue she demands her stuff back from this man.

 why did i make room for the man my brother who took my stuff and never really knew it?

regardless

From the amazing ...Lynn Breedlove

how to be happy regardless of whatever bullshit is going down.

1. sometimes you get fame. sometimes you get disrepute. maintain enough distance from everyone's reaction to ride waves without tipping over.
 

2. if you find yourself thinking, i bent over backwards for you and this is the thanks i get! ask yourself why youre in that uncomfortable position. everyone's annoying from down there. straighten up and keep moving toward fun people.
 

3. life is boot camp. other people's hostility is practice for other arenas. as a comic, for example, detachment from jerky behavior trains you to riff off heckles, or stay focused until you start killing.
 

4. if you dont feel appreciated, do less.
 

5. YOUR boundaries control YOUR behavior, as much as you'd like to think they control others.
 

6. before heading into a treacherous situation such as your family, visualize yourself not freaking out at the inevitable.
 

7. admit your family freaks you out. you probably freak them out too. everyones freaking out. pretend you are patient and kind, and one day you will be.
 

8. assess your chosen mood adaptors. does ingestion of certain substances always seem to happen in conjunction with mishaps? adjust accordingly.
 

9. if you cant, get friends to help. unless they're in same boat. in which case steer clear and hang with people who aren't, until said mood adaptor stops running you.
 

10. do what's necessary now. then have fun until next necessary work comes up. if you find yourself worrying, set alarm. google problem. after ten minutes of study, have fun.
 

11. if you cant have fun, make list o shit that might be fun if only you... (fill in blank).
 

12. when you are not having fun, consult list. pick something. do it.

shakey

Last Thursday

i am shaky. very shaky. woke up that way. the previous post was shared with dalton yesterday. i stayed present during therapy. and after i did feel a lift of burden. had dinner w friends and did not drink. i was lighthearted and decided to hang onto that. but thursday morning i am v shaky. feel tearful and sad. felt unsteady and although my hands were not shaking i felt shook...texted dalton for reinforcement.

same again on friday. lots of crying-spontaneous archival crying that just comes...there is a realization of  the enormity of  the work ahead...pandora's box is open after all these years and i felt i would crack and never put myself back together again.  that scares me, it scares me to let go of my survival skills, that have allowed me to exist. now develop new skills of survival. and to do that I have to expose myself, or make myself vulnerable to pain and rejection, or so i think.

the lightheartedness of weds nite already gone.

made my luminary for fool moon. making the luminary i was v stressed and anxious very aware of shaky feelings. was hard to concentrate but i did make the luminary and liked it when done. felt better, shakiness not as severe.

fri nite robby and I went to fool moon which i love. such a funky cool event. then to aut for cocktails as he cruised the crowd and i learned about boy phone apps.

fri got pot for the boys and they left me a lil gift for my help. smoked pot late friday and again on sat which helped me ...i needed the break/slept a lot fri night over to sat morning- smoking was moderate-two joints one fri nite and one on sat morning.-the shakey stopped. the old movies stopped...but i have a new reel of images. a new kind of potency that i am trying to understand. they are of me reading in dalton's office feeling in suspension-once or twice i thought of not reading what i wrote but then read every word..chose courage over comfort...now to keep revealing uncovering allowing truth of what happened to come through. ...

saturday I saw sarah for show rehearsal w chris. was fun.always good to spend time with her. by sunday I was calmer..

now monday morning... and here i go

oh and an epiphany from the weekend....keep on keeping on until this is done...

masturbation and tears. after, i often cry a sorrowful cry. this is in part to me understandable and incongruous.  but i think i got it now.  so there are those big orgasms that come when with a partner that sometimes make you weep because the feelings and the charge are so big and the release is so big that it makes one cry...a good cry a cleansing cry...those seem pure of purpose.

but this cry is different...alone and masturbating and then i cry...but it is a sorrowful cry and i dont feel good...sorrow is the word..but now im thinking guilt and shame...and this is why...mu early forays into masturbating came to relieve myself of pent up feelings ... wait what do I want to say here...during abuse i would disassociate...so my mind wasn't there but my body was...and my body absorbed feelings and held them in...finding no release and or satisfaction... i taught myself how to get satisfaction (cue song here) i taught myself by masturbating and i got release..but as it is now i think i correlate those old feeling s still...im still processing those old pent up feelings of sexual tension that are loaded with guilt and shame......thats why i cry becasue i am sorrowful. i need to change that.

externalize it

take the shame i feel the guilt i exist under and externalize to finally let it go and live a freer life.

keeping secrets is a survival tool, learned very early and reinforced by others and now for many years by me. i believe that if i tell the secrets no one will ever love me again. that the people who love me now will stop loving me. that is a powerful deterrent to speaking my truth to power.

if they only knew....

that i have had 4 abortions, the result of not using birth control. maybe this is related to the same behavior that leaves the door unlocked. leaving myself open....physically..like someone who cuts themselves to feel something. but that does not work for me. because i do feel things, many things and deeply. i am not numb all the time. i do disassociate, but i think that is different than being numb and cutting to feel.

that my brother J put his penis in my mouth and peed. he did this in front of his friends, all of whom, as i remember laughed. on several occasions he set up situations to physically hurt and make it look like it was an accident. im embarrassed that i have a brother who would do these things and believe that other people's brothers would never do such things.

that my brother B sexually abused me from at least age five until age fourteen. i never told anyone. i kept it a secret so i feel i became a participant and was not a victim. he once brought my dog into the bedroom and encouraged the dog to lick my genitals while he watched. i was there to satisfy him. mostly through oral sex using my mouth to satisfy himself..

there was no sexual satisfaction for me. but these activities made me sexually aware and put me in a constant state of arousal.  i sought satisfaction to release the tension in my body-by masturbating in the bathroom behind a locked door.. after the bath i would roll up a towel on the bathroom floor,on  those cool tiny green tiles, lay down on top of the towel and grind until i came. sometimes for variety i would use the white hair brush for penetration. sometimes i would try to have sexual experiences with boys my own age - always a disappointing and confusing experience and i now realize threatened - so full of their own fears that they took it out on me by rejecting me publicly in the halls of my junior high. making themselves morally superior to me.

at grier i flirted with bill, the janitor who kept the schools 100 plus years old infrastructure operative. there was a coal burning furnace and in the middle of the night i snuck down to the boiler room and made out with him...he sent me back to my dorm without having sex with me, and my flirting days ended.

 at age fourteen i ended my brother B's sexual oppression-by getting behind a locked door in that tiny green tile bathroom-and saying no. and it stopped. he never attempted to do it again. until again at age 23 at my brothers invitation, i wen to his home and willingly put myself in his bed in his home and again did all the things we used to do.

full moon love

With That Moon Language

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them,

“Love me.”

Of course you do not do this out loud;

Otherwise,

Someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this,

This great pull in us to connect.

Why not become the one

Who lives with a full moon in each eye

That is always saying,

With that sweet moon

Language,

What every other eye in this world

Is dying to

Hear.

Hafiz (translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

lock the door

I like Fridays in the morning, then by the afternoon my mood changes and  I am anxious about the weekend. I hate being home alone on the weekend esp Friday nights with no plans. Dalton has a theory about this.


Describe what you do when you get home
I put stuff down and pet the acts. Pee, take off my work clothes. If there is pot I roll a joint and smoke while I cook dinner, unless I brought home dinner. Then TV or crafting or writing. Or I work on a project. Always organizing the sock drawer.


Do you ever just kick back and relax with yourself at home?
I usually keep busy, but yes I binge on TV but have to get up and do something and then come back to it. I sleep. I craft. I write. I keep busy. Usually in bed early. Sleep.

I think we need to find a way for you to feel safe at home. You were abused at home, that is not a safe place for you. I want you to walk in and lock the door behind you. And say to yourself. I am always  safe at home.

No. That's not true.

Okay say. I have been safe behind locked doors.

So I need to tell you that I often don't like my door.

Because you're invincible, or you know that you have survived it before and can again or?

I choose 2. But now I have another theory. I am familiar with being in flight or fight. The unlocked door puts me there. maybe I am more comfortable there because it is familiar. If that is correct, the meditation practice becomes even more important. I thought I was improving (here comes a negative thought but I'll turn it)....

I am improving because I am more aware and I am grateful for that. I know that I have survived it before. I have. Every last one. So I know I could survive it again.

Organized

There is this thing that I do. I've always done it. I remember doing it at Grier, Oakridge when I moved downstairs, every apartment, over and over. So there is no destination, just an evolution. Stop thinking about a successful completion.

Start appreciating the journey.

Today the CDs are gathered but not organized yet. There are several separate stacks of papers of various meanings.And there are 4 or more drawers of papers, photos and memorabilia of my own life. That needs organizing too. HAG tapes and papers.

So many things that need to be done should be done because I'll feel better when it is done. And I tell myself that I  must get it done before I do anything else. I feel better and work better. Then I buy pot, get stoned and none of it gets all the way done. Ever.

And so it goes.....its an ingrained pattern of behavior. It just happens.  The first steps are not in my memory bank. If I realize that I am going to do it, I try and talk  myself out of it. But I think sometimes that starts unconscionably, it like a sleep walker who wakes up in the middle of sleep walking. I look around and I have started and I love it, I enjoy it.  But I sacrifice the present when I do it.  I do ruminate during. We acquire and gather and store and then we give away, stop acquiring as much, and go lighter down the road.

I want to understand it so I can deconstruct it and change the behavior. Get a different result. All the projects are personal....and about downsizing the load or weight of it. Just keeping the essential parts for going forward with my life.

Explore.

 http://benourished.org/unlearning-shame/

Also have learned that by observing my own life in a detailed way helps me get away from old movies in my head. Such really watching the coffee change during pour over.  I sound like a dork I know. But it helps to do that.