Agitator Cycle: The Final Spin

Thursday, August 8, 2013


It's very early on Thursday as I begin to write.  I was expecting to be doing a consultation any moment now with a scientist based in Kiel, Germany.  That appointment was postponed to tomorrow.

One bit of excellent news I can report is that the injection procedure I had done on Monday to relieve my back pain and pressure seems to have worked remarkably well.  My back feels something like it once did when I was a man in my 20s.  My intention is to take advantage of this significant improvement and do a lot of core strengthening work in order to more effectively rehabilitate it.  My physical therapist gave me plenty of additional exercises to do yesterday; I am going to be a busy man for the next several weeks.

I have given today's posting the title of "Agitator Cycle" due to something that happened the other day as I was walking to the pharmacy.  I was casually walking down the street enjoying the beautiful warmth of a summer day when a thought appeared in my mind that was quite unusual and upsetting.  I began to see this visual image of my stepsisters forcing me into the dryer in our laundry room at home and then threatening to turn it on once I was trapped inside.  It was so bizarre to me that I should be casually walking along in the year 2013 and then suddenly find my mind full of an image that evokes a time from my childhood.  Given the fact that I can consciously recall them trapping me inside my bedroom closet it would not surprise me if this image that came to me recently is based on some sort of memory that is now present in my conscious awareness.

I have struggled in the last several weeks to maintain my composure in a variety of settings.  More than once at work I have had to take an unexpected break and go hide myself away for a few minutes so I can take some deep breaths or cry.  The frequency of these incidents was concerning to me.  After the most recent intrusive thought (or memory) came into my mind I made the difficult decision that it seems to be in my best interest to not work for a period of time.  My priority, first and foremost, needs to be on restoring my health.  And so later today I will be meeting with my therapist.  I will ask him to complete an authorization form that allows me to be taken off of work for a period of time no shorter than 45 days.  I want to be a part of the working world but I do not want to work under the current circumstances.  It seems necessary I focus almost exclusively on exorcising the past such that the present and future can finally ultimately be my focus.

I am truly hoping what I am going through now is most definitely my "final spin" down memory lane.  I've had my fill of how the past has haunted me in its various guises.  I want to be a happy, healthy man capable of doing the work he loves and loving the people he loves.  I was never so seriously harmed that I cannot recover from the harm I experienced.  It just requires some time and diligence to heal.  My healing requires a discipline characteristic of the most focused of warriors.  I am learning how to be that warrior each and every day.  It is not easy but the transformation I see myself undergoing and the person I see myself becoming is going to be worth it.

I continue to press forward in my search for suitable legal counsel.  This is another option I made a commitment to myself that I would explore.  Regardless of what ultimately happens with my explorations regarding whatever legal options I may have I can conclusively say that my formal relationship with my father is now over.  And he will learn this is true in the very near future.

Enjoy your August Thursday!

The Long, Long Road to Closure

Wednesday, August 7, 2013


Digging myself out of the impact of so much early life trauma is something like digging out your car from the consequences of a Minnesota blizzard.  It takes quite a lot of time sometimes to accomplish such a dig.

Today I made another huge stride forward.  I successfully reached the psychologist who performed the psychological screening on me many years ago when I applied to become a member of the Jesuit order.  I could not even remember the psychologist's name.  To track him down I first had to call the province headquarters office, explain who I was and then ask for the name of a man I had met many years ago.  Today my patience paid off.  The psychologist, a Dr. James Muller who is now semi-retired, called me.  I explained who I was.  I explained that I am doing something of a health history retrospective.  I explained that I am trying to understand how several different mental health care providers all somehow failed to diagnose the PTSD I was diagnosed with in late June of this year.

The file that once existed which provided a record of Dr. Muller's assessment of me is long since gone. It was destroyed some years ago.  With so many years gone by Dr. Muller himself struggled to recall who I was.  He had seen hundreds of clients over the years.  I suppose you will not stand out in the memory of a mental health professional unless you had a most unusual illness or personal history.  His inability to recall any significant details from my assessment was therefore not surprising.  But it certainly was disappointing.  It's a little difficult to ask someone to explain how a diagnosis of PTSD could have been missed when he can barely even remember you at all.

When I made the decision to conduct this retrospective I knew there was a very real possibility that outcomes like what took place today might happen.  That is the risk you take (among many) when you open up the past and have another look.  People will have forgotten you.  People have changed professions.  People have died.  That is simply how life is.  I feel disappointed that I could not gather more information.  But I also feel relieved.  I feel relieved that I have opened this one particular portal to the past, asked my question and now put the matter to rest.  I will have many more doors to knock on before I am done.

For those of you reading who are wondering why I might subject myself to such a process I will offer you the following.  I want to have the most accurate personal medical record compiled as is possible.  Having an accurate and thorough medical record will assist me in the remainder of my life as I seek out medical care.  I don't want to leave anything to chance.  Given how many times other people have failed me in my life I find it imperative that I be proactive and do the very best I can to create a comprehensive record.  It is one aspect of a larger strategy I have developed to improve my own self care.

I soon hope to receive a form from Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago.  This will allow me to order the medical record that exists on file there.  Once I have that record in my possession I can then speak to a psychiatrist I once worked with there when I lived in Chicago.  It will be another step forward.  It will be another step of many I still need to take.

This journey is not easy.  I am nonetheless committed to my own personal healing.  I will not rest until I have overcome the harmful impact of events from my childhood.

Sweating Bullets

Tuesday, August 6, 2013


As I recounted yesterday evening Monday proved to be an unexpectedly eventful day.  You can always say that when the phrase "Emergency Room" enters your vocabulary on any given day.  I looked over the paperwork from my office visit last night and chuckled when I saw the diagnoses listed.  They included anxiety (not news to me), depression (not news to me) and diaphoresis.  I had to look up the last word.

Simply put, diaphoresis means excessive sweating.  A funny expression for it that is, I suppose, more common in slang is "sweating bullets".  Yes indeed I was definitely sweating quite a lot when I arrived last night at the ER.  It was not an exceptionally warm or humid day here in Minnesota where I live.  I personally think the sweating is a result of my anxiety as well as perhaps a detox response as my body continues to cleanse from so much psychological garbage I was carrying around for years as a result of the abuse I suffered as a child.

The phrase "sweating bullets" is also quite fitting though because you could interpret it to mean I am sweating out all the anger that has been stuck inside me.  Since bullets are obviously one weapon among many out there in the world of weaponry it makes some sense that my efforts to expunge my anger could be termed sweating out bullets.  I certainly have suffered from plenty of internalized anger. One way to interpret depression is anger turned inward.  I have been put through enough in my life that I could probably sweat out the equivalent of a storehouse of bullets.  But I am gradually getting there!  Each and every day I feel a little bit better.  I am moving in the right direction and that is the most critical detail of all.

The most concerning measurement taken last night was my blood pressure.  It was 169/94 mmHg.  I do not recall ever having such a high blood pressure reading.  I thus rescheduled my next visit to my primary care physician for this afternoon.  I am doing everything in my power to restore my health in the face of very challenging circumstances.  I went to a gentle yoga class this morning in an effort to soothe my nerves.  That thankfully proved helpful.  It has also become radiantly obvious that a more appropriate form of exercise for me these days is something that requires a lot of energy and movement.  Though I love to do gentle yoga I believe I would really thrive on something like kick boxing, regular boxing and so on.  I will be meeting with a personal trainer later this week for an initial consultation.

In other news I continue to conduct the necessary research into my deep past to accrue evidence I may need if I attempt to proceed forward to address my issues with legal help.  I will be going into details about that in a future posting.

Enjoy your Tuesday!

Testing My Emergency Broadcast System

Monday, August 5, 2013


Today was a day quite like the day I received my diagnosis in late June.  In both instances the day ended in a way quite different from how I was expecting it to unfold.  Today I was cast back into job searching in the short term.  Today I also received my much anticipated steroid injection to improve the function and comfort of my low back.  The second experience was relatively painless and gave me some sense of continued improvement in the long term.  The first experience had the opposite effect.  I felt suddenly overwhelmed, cried and eventually went to the Emergency Room at Abbott Northwestern Hospital.  Now I am sitting her a bit later and enjoying the wonderfully calming effect of an Atavan.

Yes indeed, the August rocky road continues as I reopen past wounds left and right.  Here is one aspect of that reopening that promises to be something of an interesting journey.  Some might call me a masochist for what I am about to disclose.  Others might feel I am needlessly obsessed with the past.  But such labeling does not bother me.  Labels will not deter me from asking the following question:
How did two psychologists and two psychiatrists miss my dormant PTSD over the course of some sixteen years.  It just doesn't seem possible that it could have been missed several times.

Using my capacity for detective artistry I began the initial process of answering that question.  I tracked down a man whom I believe was the psychologist who screened me for entry into the Jesuit order of the Roman Catholic Church in 1996.  It baffles me that a man of his training would not have conducted a screening that can tease out something like PTSD as a standard part of an assessment for someone contemplating the very serious choice of entering the religious life.  Because that assessment was done so many years ago I cannot for the life of me recall any of the questions I was asked.  What does stand out in my recollection, however, is that I do not remember being asked anything that would seem to indicate a special screening for PTSD was done.  Another related question to ask in the instance of each of the medical care professionals I saw over the years would be the following: What was the broader standard of care practiced in that state at the time.  Was PTSD screening simply not considered a high priority?

The next two mental health care professionals I visited with were both trained psychiatrists.  Even they both seem to have missed it.  This especially perplexes me as the first of the two psychiatrists I saw seemed very skilled and capable.  In the coming weeks I hope to piece together this aspect of my medical history by speaking to these individuals by phone.  For my own peace of mind and determination to leave all these issues behind I very much wish to have a better understanding of how this condition repeatedly escaped notice.

I am doing my best to maintain a positive attitude in the face of continued challenges.  I spent a lot of energy today also re-exploring the very deep wound of nearly losing my father to attempted murder.  I'm researching this old case and considering what my options might be now in regards to the element of corruption that infuses this unfortunate incident.  It is vital that I pace myself.

And meanwhile I also continue to go to my therapist, to physical therapy, to my acupuncturist and so on.  I have an amazingly varied team of professionals I have sought out to help me.  It seems I need the continued grace to let go and move forward in a new direction.

The tears came quickly when I was first being triaged at Abbott Northwestern ER.  I thus know that my emergency broadcast system is indeed in good working order.

Tomorrow I hope to awaken to the positive impact of the steroid injection beginning to take hold.  Relief from minor but persistent back pain would be wonderful.  It would make it easier to manage that which continues to weigh on me now.

In Honor of Hawai'i

Saturday, August 3, 2013


I enjoyed the great blessing of first visiting Hawai'i nearly ten years ago.  Hawai'i will always have a magical and special place in my heart.  Today, as my blog entry, I share the following letter which I wrote to Hawai'i:

My Dear Beloved Hawai'i,

I write to thank you for your beauty.  I love you.

I thank you for the wonderful spirit of Aloha I was introduced to ten years ago.  Thank you for your beautiful beaches, your lovely palm trees, your amazing plants and animals.  I love the multiple colors and textures that have delighted my senses each and every time I have visited.  Thank you for the beauty of your sunsets and sunrises.  Thank you for the amazing beautiful people I have met in Hawai'i and the wondrous love I have experienced in your realm.  I could never thank you enough for all that you have given to me.  I am truly blessed to have met you.

My dear Hawai'i, I also write to ask you for your help.  My life is in a state of tremendous change now.  And this change is due in large part to a diagnosis I received in late June of this year.  I have found it necessary to redirect the entire course of my life and my priorities in response to what has unfolded so far this year.  I need a lot of help right now.  I feel tremendously sad and vulnerable as I go through an intensive process of healing.

As a way of honoring you and all that you have given to me I have dedicated this offering of birch leaves to you.  These are very special leaves.  I harvested these leaves from a birch tree that stands directly over the grave of my German ancestors in Germany.  I want a piece of my own ancestry to be with you forever.  I make this offering to acknowledge the amazing love, beauty and power I have experienced when I have walked upon you.  I also make this offering as a way of asking for help.  And this is my request: Please direct me to the best, most productive, most love filled life I can create for myself.  I do not know what path I must walk to achieve this so I ask you to help guide me.

Many a time I have dreamed of one day living upon you.  Perhaps that will still come to pass some day.  As for now I feel called to live and work in Germany.  Please help me to make my dreams of happiness and love come true.  I have never worked with such diligence and endurance to reclaim my life and my power.  I need all the help I can get.

I love you!

August Rocky Road

Friday, August 2, 2013


There is one very significant down side to starting a comprehensive healing process in the summer.  Everyone loves to go on vacation in August!  When you are dealing with an orthopedist, a chiropractor, an acupuncturist, a therapist and a primary care doctor it is almost inevitable that one of them is going to be on vacation at some point in August.  And to add a little spice to the mix I learned today that they will be resurfacing the floors at the YMCA where I now have a membership.  This means that many of the classes will be juggled around or cancelled.  It's such fun when you are attempting to find a new rhythm in your life to facilitate your own healing process.

I find myself becoming more accepting and able to let go of my previous plans.  These are the plans and ideas I had before the illustrious diagnosis of late June.  And even if the diagnosis were somehow wrong I would still not be able to go back to being the person I was earlier this summer.  I find myself contemplating a whole new course for my future.  But before that future begins to unfold I may very well revisit the past in a most intensive way.  Indeed, I am contemplating legal action.

Two issues stand out in my mind.  One is my amazement that a variety of mental health care providers somehow missed the PTSD over the course of more than a decade.  How two psychiatrists and two psychologists in different states managed to miss this astounds me.  And so I have been contemplating putting on my detective hat and reconnecting with each of them.  I want to try to understand how it is that these people missed something so important.  It saddens me that I was carrying around this "disorder" for so many years without receiving the proper help.

The second issue involves my family of origin.  I have borne burdens that no person should be asked to carry.  Much of my childhood is a blank.  I cannot remember months and years throughout different stretches of time.  I had my toys stolen when my father's marriage to his second wife (my first stepmother) ended.  This is a testament to how vindictive she was.  A boy of the age I was at the time should not have to endure such cruelty.  No child should be made to suffer in such a way.  I do not know how long I will need treatment but I have decided it is ridiculous for me to continue to carry the burden of this harm by myself.  And so I am contemplating suing my father.  There are other parties that I have thought to involve in this process as well.

In discussing the idea of legal action with friends I have repeatedly been encouraged to consider whether such a course of action will prove worthwhile.  That is a very good question.  Who knows if the stress of pursuing legal action may prove worth what I could ultimately gain from it.  The only way to know for sure is to try.  I am leaning very heavily in the direction of pursuing such action.  I will be discussing this with my therapist in an upcoming session.

Who would have thought that August would prove to be such an interesting month.  One goal I have, among many, is to make a decision by the end of the month as to whether I will indeed pursue legal recourse.  I need to determine if dredging up the painful past could ultimately benefit me.  If I could procure a settlement in the process that helps me to restart my life then it might indeed be worthwhile.

I appreciate those of you who follow my blog.  I intend to keep writing.  I wish you all the best.  Please keep me in your thoughts regardless of how well you know me.  There are all too many people recovering from PTSD.

Two People and One Path...Why the Colonial Mind Must Go

Thursday, August 1, 2013


My mind was filled with many thoughts today.  I thought a lot about my father.  I'm contemplating taking a course of action that I have previously fantasized about but never acted upon.  For all those who know me you can rest assured I am not conceiving of anything harmful.  Instead I am considering the possible actions I could take to find some measure of justice for the little boy I once was whose trust was violated repeatedly.  I also thought about a dear mentor of mine.  Her name is Pamela Colorado.  I first met her nearly ten years ago.  Meeting her changed the course of my life.

I believe it safe to say that my father is very much an old school type of man.  He seems to believe white men are the great gift of the world and that those many instances throughout history of European males conquering and subjugating other cultures are not really that problematic.  I do believe that my ancestors derive from cultural backgrounds that have contributed much to the world over the centuries.  Yet I would be a fool to assert a Eurocentric view of the world is completely warranted.  Peoples throughout the world and throughout the centuries have contributed much to the human experience as a whole.  Despite this reality there is still an abundance of ignorance, hate and lovely warped conceptions of Christianity out there being perpetuated by the all knowing old white man.  I may be a white man but  that doesn't mean I have to agree with what the men of my father's generation have been a part of in this country and in others.  I have always found it particularly odious when my father has told jokes or otherwise expressed his less than welcoming views about people of other backgrounds.  He seems to have forgotten our own ancestors are not from this continent.  White amnesia abounds.

In 2003 I met one of the most influential mentors I have been blessed to find in my life.  Little did I realize how profoundly I would be influenced by meeting Dr. Pamela Colorado.  I still keep in touch with her ten years later.  Dr. Colorado comes from a mixed background.  Part of her heritage derives from the Oneida Nation.  She has lived the experience of being both native as well as white.  Such an interesting mixture of backgrounds can make for a challenging and weird journey.  It's not surprising when people of mixed heritage struggle to puzzle out where they ultimately belong.

I speak of these two people in my life today because I recognize that I might very well have never met Dr. Colorado if the mentality espoused by all too many people (including my father) had prevailed more and wiped out more of those supposedly lesser cultures of the planet.  And I might not have been open to having a mentor with native heritage had I never spent time living on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota earlier in my own life.  As I noted in a previous entry that time in my life proved very formative.  Yet my father and so many other white men in this country simply cannot understand the perspective I developed as a result of this experience.  They live in a myopic world.  Their mythology of the evil immigrants hell bent on stealing those high quality minimum wage jobs that many Americans would raise their noses at is quite amusing indeed.

Individuals can develop their own case of PTSD due to events beyond their control.  And then there is the analogous experience of entire cultures.  Genocide must be one of the greatest evils human beings unleash from the darkest confines of the human heart.  I suppose you could call genocide what occurs when nearly an entire culture is oppressed or destroyed and the few survivors left have a collective case of PTSD.  I can only imagine what that must feel like.  I am grateful such horrors have not destroyed more of the peoples of this planet.  Had this happened I might not have seen the beauty of the Lakota people.  I also might never have met my friend and mentor, Dr. Colorado.

I dream of a time in which I will move beyond my PTSD diagnosis and no longer feel encumbered by the past.  I also dream of a world in which hatred will end.  I dream of a world in which we will collectively come to appreciate the beauty and gifts of all people.  This is the greatest dream that humanity could one day realize.  I want to build such a world.

And Now For Some Physical Therapy

Wednesday, July 31, 2013


I truly feel like a warrior many days lately.  It's amazing how much I have on my metaphorical plate to deal with.  It is also amazing how much discipline I am calling forth from within myself to create a structure that will facilitate my own healing process.  And it is still even more amazing that I am doing so well considering how little family support I have to go through this process.  Healing should ideally never be a solitary process.  Thankfully I have created a good team of people from numerous fields to help me restore my health.  They will effectively substitute, to some degree, for my blood family that simply doesn't seem capable of showing up and bearing witness to what is unfolding in any real substantial way.

I went for a physical therapy appointment today after work.  I now plan to incorporate a variety of exercises into my daily routine to help improve my health.  I have been experiencing issues with my low back, hip and neck.  Yes indeed the PTSD is not challenging enough to deal with alone!  I am confronted with additional challenges at the same time.  I might sound as if I am wallowing in self-pity. I do not believe I am.  I simply am marveling at how much hard work I am doing on myself.  I firmly believe one day this immensely transformational time will be behind me.  That will indeed be a time of celebration!

Lately I have also been thinking about my diagnosis and have found myself repeatedly wondering how it is that mental health professionals I have seen earlier in my life never detected PTSD within me.  Given that some of the traumatic experiences in my life history occurred very, very early it seems perfectly reasonable to infer that I likely had some degree of PTSD when I was a younger man and even a child.  I have been debating the merits of contacting the individuals I previously worked with to inquire how it is that they missed this diagnosis.  I believe mental health and diagnosing related issues can be a very complex endeavor and thus do not believe it should necessarily be easy to make a diagnosis of PTSD.  Yet at the same time the people I previously worked with were quite skilled; it baffles me that something like this could go unnoticed for so long.

I have set a goal to be complete with the therapy I am doing with my therapist by September of 2014.  I feel this is a very reasonable goal to have made.  I have made the commitment to go to therapy twice a week for the next year.  Hopefully that will be enough time for me to deconstruct the issues that were never resolved and find a way to move forward as a man finally and truly unencumbered by the past.

Tomorrow I will make a visit to my primary care physician to discuss my current medication, a potential referral to another local doctor whose background might prove very helpful to me as well as some of my thoughts about the process I am now going through.

I find it very difficult to follow the local or national news here in the United States.  So much of it consists of stories of trauma and human suffering.  I have plenty of my own to deal with these days.
The challenge is to find that fine balance between contemplation and seclusion.

Every step I take is a step forward.  I remind myself of that frequently these days.  I feel I am building good momentum now.

The Healing Way

Tuesday, July 30, 2013


I must be really committed to writing in my blog every day.  Here it is shortly past 11 PM and I need to be up at 6 AM already.  I just took a very long bus ride home from my therapist's office.  The good news is that my work schedule will change soon and should allow me to pick times to see my therapist when one of my friends can drive me there.  I so appreciate supportive friends as I continue this process of healing.

Tonight my therapist and I used the EMDR technique to work on yet more unpleasant memories that were still lodged in my brain.  I must say it really is an amazing process considering how I feel afterwards.  I specifically honed in on a very unpleasant experience with my second stepmother in which I was essentially treated like a five year old when I was about fifteen years old.  It's amazing to me how inappropriate so much of the parenting was that I received.  It's also often amazing to me how I  persevered through the challenges I did without suffering more harm.  Resilience is a wondrous quality to have.

I am trying to think of some amazing wisdom to share tonight from the process I am undergoing.  I suppose what is most timely to share is my sentiment that healing does in fact come when you remain loyal to the process.  I most likely have a lot of work ahead of me still but I can feel my very brain changing as the EMDR begins to repattern my way of thinking and seeing the world.  I even notice that my muscles are able to relax in a way I am not familiar with.  Trauma truly does stay in body memory until dealt with in an appropriate way.  As my brain releases the memory of various traumas I am confident that my body will begin to function better as well.  I look forward to those days coming in the future!

What a month July has been!  I've only been writing in this blog a month and already it feels like I have been writing for a long while.  I enjoy the challenge of sitting down each and every day to share my thoughts of my journey.  I suppose I could call July the month of Riding the Emotional Rapids.  Or perhaps Walking Through the Wreckage of My Old Life is an even more appropriate title.  August promises to be equally interesting it would seem.  I have so many medical appointments in August it truly confounds my mind.  But this is due partly to the fact that I am a very proactive individual and will be a true warrior to reclaim my health.  Sometimes it is necessary to employ such discipline to reclaim something you deeply value.  I hope that by the time August ends I will really feel I am settling into a rhythm and making great strides in my healing process.  I feel confident this will happen.  It is only a matter of time.  It is a question of when rather than if.

It is nonetheless amazing how long the imprint of trauma can hold on.  Even now I am aware of those echoes of the old fears that once captivated my mind more.  When a person is deeply traumatized it can be very easy to fear or expect additional trauma.  I can recall having those thoughts more frequently when I first began therapy at the beginning of this month.  But that voice of fear and anxiety is fading gradually.  The volume on the worry dial is growing lower and lower with each week.

Tomorrow I go in for a physical therapy appointment.  It will be the first of several.  Thursday I see my primary care physician to talk with him about my current health.  And then Friday evening I will once again happily subject myself to the wonders of Pilates!  Oh what an interesting journey it is when we commit to a healthy life!

You can indeed heal your life.  It won't likely happen overnight.  But make the commitment and you will quite likely see miraculous developments in due time.

Good night!

Moving Forward

Monday, July 29, 2013


Sometimes I feel like I am literally facing the challenge of climbing up a piece of thread so incredibly thin and weak.  The climb symbolizes the journey upwards out of the abyss and into the light and fresh air of freedom from the pain of the past.  The thin thread represents how tenuous the journey is.  Gentleness and mindfulness are required to climb up the thread that seems completely incapable of bearing my weight.

I feel quite overwhelmed (again) at the moment because it seems that my whole life has now become focused on "fixing" me.  I have physical therapy beginning this week.  I continue to loyally follow my daily practice of getting outside and enjoying the fresh air of summer mornings.  In those moments when I feel hesitant to do so I remind myself that summer will not always be here.  Change is a constant in life and eventually it will be autumn.  I try not to think too much about that either at the moment.  I do not feel at all ready for the changing colors of autumn that, though quite beautiful, presage the coming of the next season of winter.

I also feel overwhelmed because the response I have been garnering from my family as I disclose my diagnosis is not what I have been hoping for.  It is, sadly, what I have been expecting.  My feelings of being overwhelmed were so immense today that I had to step away from my job repeatedly to go outside.  On one occasion I went outside and cried.  I believe I will survive and be able to move forward but I feel immensely weary by the continued slog.  Each step forward feels so agonizingly slow.  So in an effort to encourage myself I am going to enumerate below the positive changes that have occurred since June 1st as a way to encourage myself.  Sometimes it seems necessary to literally write out what is good in my life so that my eyes can see it and I can understand that I still have a lot to be thankful for even now.

So here is what is wonderful in my life that has appeared since June 1st:

I now have affordable health insurance
I now have a good therapist to work with whose skills I trust
I have a primary care physician whose judgment I also trust
I have a team of people to work with for my upcoming physical therapy
In the last week I have begun to sleep better
I now have lowered my anxiety level because I have had all my major systems within my body screened
I now have the beginnings of a job doing something I enjoy that is causes me little stress and is compatible with my current needs
I now have clarity about what I would like to do in the longer term in regards to my career (this is a big win for me!)
I follow a regular daily practice that helps me to enhance my ability to remain calm and positive (this has actually been true for quite some time now)
I have supportive local friends who know what I am going through and are providing me much needed assistance
I now have a renewed sense of connection to my family in Germany


Seeing these positive developments written out before my eyes gives me some consolation.  I am hopeful that the quality of my life will continue to ascend from here.

The EMDR therapy I am doing in sessions with my therapist seems to be working.  Whenever I leave his office I feel quite different.  I realize I am processing my daily sensory experiences in a different way.  I do not recognize that person which I am becoming.  The invitation to let go is continuously before me.

After initially preparing to log off my computer for the night I had another powerful metaphor come into my thoughts.  My life right now is much like a tree in desperate need of extensive pruning.  Like me the tree needs time to repair itself.  It thus needs the skillful attention of people who can prune and care for it to effectively redirect its energy so that it may thrive in the future.

Have a blessed night everyone!

House of Lies: The Emperor Has No Clothes

Sunday, July 28, 2013


I did something yesterday that I did previously in early 2012.  I confronted my father on his inappropriate conduct.  I brought up the subject of his past pattern of lying.

In early 2012 I had thought it would be fun to throw a surprise birthday party for my father who was turning 70 years old in May of 2012.  I began discussing the idea with relatives including my stepmother.  Some time later my father called me.  In a very disrespectful tone of voice he told me to cease any and all efforts I was making to throw a party for him.  Somehow he found out.  I later ascertained it was my stepmother who had shared the information with him.  This incident in combination with other unexpected developments at the time so infuriated me that I decided it was in my best interests to cut my father out of my life.  I wrote him a lengthy letter and informed him the only way I would allow him into my life again would be in a secure room with an objective third party mediator that would allow us to work through our respective differences.  I had forgiven him for his past lies that deeply damaged my capacity to trust.

In the autumn of last year I allowed myself to renege on the boundary I had established earlier that year.  I let my father back into my life.  I opened a birthday card he sent me in September.  I began talking with him again.  I allowed myself to trust him.  I allowed myself to believe that he would not continue to lie to me or lie to others on my behalf.  I now feel I was wrong to do so.

Yesterday I decided to disclose my PTSD diagnosis to my father.  I had been weighing the merits of making such a disclosure since I myself learned of the diagnosis in late June.  I was hoping for a positive and supportive response.  Some might even interpret his response as being supportive.  And it technically was supportive.  And yet his terse two sentence reply was not, in my opinion, a reply commensurate with the nature of the information I had disclosed to him.  Considering the detail with which I described what I was going through the last few months his reply was indeed very terse.  And yet there is more to the story.  There is so much more to this particular story of my relationship with my father.

Earlier this year my father had provided me some financial support at a time when I was between jobs.  My father has been generous in this way before.  And looking back I realize I had come to depend on him too often in this regard.  I had long had mixed feelings about this aspect of our relationship.  By taking money from him I felt I was perhaps obligating myself to him in some way now or in the future. For example, I sometimes felt accepting such help would indicate I was tacitly condoning aspects of his behavior I have never cared for and believe are truly unethical.  The main pattern I can point out is his tendency to lie which I have already highlighted.

When my father provided me this help earlier this year he admitted to something that made me extremely uncomfortable.  He admitted that he had thought about lying to my stepmother about how the money was to be used.  When he told me this over the phone I could feel my own skin crawl just a bit.  I needed help but I didn't want to accept money that was bound up in a lie.  I did so anyway.


Between my father's terse reply yesterday and his past pattern of lying I finally came to a painful decision.  I made the decision I made in early 2012.  I decided to cut my father out of my life again.  Only this time I must stand firm and maintain my boundaries with him.  The price I pay for having him in my life in any way whatsoever is greater than the value of what I get by allowing him to be in my life.  I see that so clearly now.

As I have continued to work to develop a longer term strategy for the treatment of my PTSD I have looked at the various aspects of my life and made an assessment of what is working for me and what is not working for me.  If reducing unneeded stress is indeed one of many particular choices I need to make to effectively heal then I obviously need to look at the relationships in my life and determine which are serving me and which are not.  Which relationships are worth the energy I put into them and which are not?  And it is clear the time came (long ago actually) for me to say the emperor has no clothes.  The time came for me to no longer accept my father's tendency to lie as an acceptable behavior.  As I noted above the damage his behavior caused to my capacity to trust has been significant.

I would not be surprised if my father has a genuine (something that could be truly diagnosed) character disorder.  What do you call someone who has a pathological tendency to lie?  From what I have just read browsing around online I would say such a person is a compulsive liar.  I do not understand the genesis of this trait within my father.  Yet I do know what I must do for myself now.  I must no longer expose myself to the possibility of becoming emotionally involved with him.  I must cut him out of my life regardless of how painful it is.  The short term pain of what I am going through now will be worth the long term freedom I will gain through excising him from my life.  I just have to find a way to get through this time in my life.

I have often felt I have had to live the life of a hero at many times in my life.  By that I mean I have often felt I have needed to live in a very fearless way each and every day.  It has been so difficult so often because some of the earliest modeling I witnessed regarding mature adult behavior was not mature and not healthy.  When you grow up with a father who acts like a compulsive liar would it can so easily distort your view of how the world functions and what you can expect to experience.

During my morning walk today I was reflecting on the events of yesterday.  Looking within myself I noticed that one of the feelings I now have after making the choice I did yesterday is relief.  If there was no feeling of relief in me I would feel concerned today that I had made a bad choice.  Yet I do indeed feel immense relief.  Removing someone from my life who is so comfortable with lying is necessary for me to restore my own health.  By cutting my father out of my life I can reduce my anxiety level.  I won't have the thought running through my mind all too often questioning whether he is being honest with me.  I do not need that sort of anxiety.  My present life is stressful enough.  I often feel it is a miracle that I survived what I have gone through without feeling more hurt and betrayed than I did.

There is still a deeper reason for my choice to cut my father out of my life.  It is my opinion that what we choose to allow in our lives can sow karma and lay down a course for our future years of life that can later prove even more difficult to break out of.  By allowing people in my life who lie (or tacitly condone such lies by not challenging such behavior) I feel I am essentially saying to the Cosmos at large the following:  I accept and agree that lying is a permissible and acceptable form of behavior.  I welcome people to lie to me because I tolerate it in the people who already are in my life.  And yet I do not want to make such an invitation.  I want and ask the Cosmos to fill my life with trustworthy, kind and generous people who live lives of integrity each and every day.

Removing myself from the house of lies has been an immensely difficult task.  Now that I have done so I can begin the necessary process of grieving and move on.  It may prove to be a Herculean task but the alternative is simply not tenable.  My life at this time is requiring me to become a warrior.  The training of a warrior is not necessarily an easy task.  But I will take it up with the faith that one day I will be a better man for it.


NOTE:

To those of you who have become my fans I am closing out my entry today by informing you that I will no longer write on Sundays.  Writing in my blog six days a week is more than enough.  Eventually I might change the settings of my blog to allow for comments.  Until then I welcome you to continue to follow me and thank you for your attention and interest.  The fact that people throughout the world are indeed reading from my blog is very consoling for me.  And consolation is one thing I need a lot of right now!

Parents of Murdered Children

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Parents of Murdered Children.  Not exactly a light topic for a Saturday morning is it?  I do promise that eventually some of my postings will have a lighter feel to them.  Those will probably come later as I continue to walk my healing path.

A confluence of events on Thursday somehow led me to recall an organization I discovered when I was living on the West Coast.  That organization is Parents of Murdered Children.  This organization exists to support those who have lost a loved one through the horror of murder.  More information can be found on the organization's website located here.  The vision of POMC is to "provide support and assistance to all survivors of homicide victims while working to create a world free of murder".  This is a lofty mission and one I feel a deep resonance with.

I thought of Parents of Murdered Children this past Thursday evening.  The confluence of events on this day involved the anniversary of my grandmother's death, the last session I had with a counselor I first began seeing in the spring (not the same person as my current therapist) and my discovery of the disappearance of two trees from the park across the street from where I live.

In late June we had a powerful storm blow through the Minneapolis area where I live.  According to a person I overheard on the bus one day thereafter the city of Minneapolis apparently lost some 3,000 trees to the storm.  Two of those three-thousand once stood in Phelps Park across from my home.  I have grown to love that park in the time I have lived in this part of Minneapolis.  I was saddened to discover the two trees blown over shortly after the storm had passed.  And then these two trees remained tilted over in the park for some five weeks.  Each day I would marvel at how these two trees remained alive despite the damage they had sustained.  Enough of their root systems had remained within the ground that they could continue to live.  As the weeks passed I had begun to wonder when the City of Minneapolis would come to address these two trees.  Given that the trees did not die I had naively hoped that perhaps the trees could somehow be made to stand upright again such that they could be restored to their former glory.  But alas I was disappointed.  On Thursday evening I went out to walk and discovered the trees were gone.  All that remained were the trunks of the two trees.

I had already been thinking of loss and endings that day due to the anniversary of my grandmother's death and the end of my work with a counselor.  When I saw the trees had been removed my heart ached a bit and my appreciation for the ephemeral nature of life was heightened all the more.  I found myself meditating on the gift of each and everything we have in this world.  I thought of the people in my life.  I thought of the sunshine, clouds, rain, birds, wind.  I thought of the taste of chocolate, of laughter and of so many other countless small delights.  And then I thought of Parents of Murdered Children.  I suppose it was only natural my mind drift to this memory considering I was meditating on loss and death.

It sometimes amazes me when I think that my own father could have perhaps become a member of this organization had it been me who had died when he was still in his second marriage.  Instead it was my father who nearly died.  Though I have worked through this trauma in talk therapy it seems I might need to do EMDR or some other alternative technique.  On some level I suppose the events of this time still haunt me.

On that Thursday night my mind ultimately drifted to the awareness I have long had of the amazing potential each human being has inside and how tragic it is when that potential is never realized due to something as horrible as murder.  I have come to realize how, in a related way, I need to alter the course of my career to acknowledge and honor the deep feelings I have about the power of human potential.  I need to do something that honors this potential in a very tangible way.  This has now become part of my journey.  I am now meditating on what to do with my life from this day forward.  As cliche as it may sound I had this thought this morning "Today is the first day of the rest of your life".  Indeed it is.  Now what exactly will I do with it?

I know what I am going to do with this day.  I am going to get outside and enjoy it somehow once I have finished my appointment with my therapist early this afternoon.  Days like today are not to be ignored for their beauty.

Aloha!

Creating Stability in an Unstable World

Friday July 26, 2013


One of the most difficult aspects of healing from my diagnosis of PTSD is the challenge of creating sufficient stability in my life to nurture my healing process.  As I have already noted in previous posts a person can develop PTSD in response to a variety of events.  My particular case of PTSD is due largely to childhood trauma that itself was a result of dysfunction within my family of origin.  I did not have the best models of stability during my earliest years of life.  This lack of healthy modeling still seems to affect me to some degree many years later.  I suppose one hallmark indicator of when my therapeutic process is complete will be an enhanced capacity to create a stable life for myself.

And yet it would be ridiculous to believe that the broader milieu in which I live doesn't exert some degree of influence upon my efforts to create a stable life.  As I have also noted in a previous post everything in the world is interconnected.  And I have to say I cannot remember ever feeling so disenchanted with the state of affairs here in the United States of America.  How can I and the millions of Americans who have PTSD heal properly when our very nation is beset by the host of issues it is consumed by now?  I don't know about you but it seems to me that job security here in this country is now a thing of the past.  I remember reading an article recently focused on the rise of temporary labor here in the United States.  It certainly suits the needs of diverse companies to hire temporary employees when they don't want to invest in their employees long term.  And yet when you fail to invest in the people you employ why should they show any loyalty in return?  Corporate greed, economic efficiency and other factors have synergistically worked together to send jobs overseas.  And in the process American prosperity is now a luxury of the wealthy.  Our nation has not been so economically polarized in generations.

It seems to me that it is in my best interests to leave this nation in the not too distant future.  I'd like to find work in Germany where I traveled earlier this year.  Yes indeed I am all too familiar with the Euro crisis and the suffering economies in the south of Europe.  Many parts of the world are suffering immensely now and have been for several years.  But some of those European economies (like Germany and France) at least have one thing right according to my way of thinking.  There they have something more of a social conscience.  A larger portion of the population actually sees it as problematic and even immoral when their fellow citizens die in the streets due to lack of healthcare or exorbitant costs that force people to use emergency rooms as their primary care.

I still vividly recall feeling absolutely appalled when I witnessed some of the thinking from the right wing in this country regarding healthcare as exposed in the last few years as the American healthcare system came into focus due to President Obama's efforts to reform the system.  I found it utterly revolting when I realized how certain people on the right fringe find it perfectly ethical and reasonable to consign their fellow citizens to the streets and sewers when they are suffering serious health problems.  A citizenry that willfully and even gleefully allows its poorest and most vulnerable to suffer horribly and die due to their inability to afford healthcare is a citizenry I do not feel proud to count myself a member of.  How can you create stability when your neighbor is all too happy to disown you?  And what is all the more revolting is that these hard hearts beat within people who profess themselves to be Christians!

Learning to be disciplined and create a stable life can be challenging under the best of conditions.  We have not had stable conditions here in the United States for several years.  Instead we have a Congress with some of the lowest approval ratings in history.  We have Republicans in the House of Representatives so determined to make President Obama look bad that they will willfully obstruct any and all legislation that is remotely decent and progressive.  These so called representatives of the people are willing to undermine the security of millions of American citizens because they are hell bent on securing only the interests of those they care about.  They are happy to leave the rest of us jobless, homeless and eventually hopeless.  How we reached this precipice is indeed a sad tale.  Such long term insecurity leaves me scratching my head wondering how we reached this sad impasse.

Please do not misunderstand my perspective.  I am no great fan of the Democrats either.  It is my opinion that there is plenty of blame to go around if you want to be childish and play the blame game.  It galls me that so many of our so called elected representatives act like a bunch of spoiled five year olds who expect the world to be handed to them on a silver platter.  It's sad, pathetic and deeply troubling.  How we as a nation can find our way back from the brink is a mysterious question.  I love my country even now but I have little confidence we as a nation will turn back from the brink until we are already collectively going off the cliff.  Perhaps my PTSD is partially to blame for my less than optimistic view.  I cannot be entirely sure at this point.

I would like to see compromise reenter the lexicon as an important principle of conduct.  Right now the very idea is anathema to so many.  It is my deeply held conviction that we as a species are going to fare very poorly in this century if we do not spiritually evolve.  Greed, hatred, ignorance and apathy still hold such power in the human heart and mind.  It's time we all grow up.  And our Congress is a shining example of why we need to grow up.  Gridlock is no way to run a nation.

I want to heal my PTSD and move forward with my life.  I am sadly not convinced that living in the United States is the best place to do it.  I pray for the strength to make the journey forward.  I empathize with the millions of Americans who are currently suffering through circumstances as challenging as mine.  We all deserve better.  We need more open hearts, more integrity, more generosity, more kindness.  We need more love in the world!

Good night.

Remembering My Grandmother

Thursday July 25, 2013


Today has not been an easy day though it would appear it was from the outside looking in.  I can tell how I am very much consumed with the memories of a different day because I nearly typed that day as I began this entry.  The day I nearly typed was July 25, 1993...twenty years ago.  My father's mother passed away on this day twenty years ago.  It doesn't seem possible that it has been so long since she passed away.  It seems like only yesterday.  And yet it was twenty years ago.

I can still vividly recall how I walked out the front door of the house I had always known as grandma and grandpa's house.  Several of my relatives were there at the house that day.  I delivered the news to them that grandma had just died.  And then I began crying.  I wanted to cry today.  I wanted to cry today for many reasons actually.

Twenty years have passed since that day and it doesn't seem possible how little I have to show for those twenty years.  Yes I have an amazing amount of formal education but I have little to show for it recently.  I have not had a job worthy of my skill set in several years.  Twenty years ago I had never imagined I would live through the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.  My grandmother was a young woman at the time of the Great Depression.  Somehow she lived through it and raised a family of seven children.  I wish she were still alive today so I could hear some of her wisdom.  I really need the love and encouragement of a grandmotherly type these days.  Twenty years may have passed but it seems like she died just yesterday.

One of my favorite memories from my childhood were the times I helped my grandmother pick strawberries in the plot of land behind the house where she and my grandfather had a garden for many, many years.  My grandfather was not quite as diligent as my grandmother was in regards to strawberry picking; he would leave the strawberries he could not easily see behind.  My grandmother could often find a veritable harvest of berries on the underside of the many strawberry plants in the garden.  In some small way I can honor her memory by recalling that memory to mind on this day.

My father's mother was the grandmother I knew.  My mother's mother passed away when I was a mere infant.  I have no conscious memory of her.  Grandmothers hold a special place in our hearts.  Once they are gone there is not a single person who can replace them.

I wish my grandmother were still alive today.  I really need a hug right now.  I also need a piece of her amazing apple pie.

I love you grandmother.  Wherever you are now I will never forget you.

Disintegration and the Ego

Wednesday, July 24, 2013


I went to the local YMCA today and did a brief boxing session with a trainer.  I cannot recall the last time that I have actually boxed with anyone.  It's just another example of my commitment to refashioning my life in a very new form.  I cannot clearly see the person I will become when this process of healing is over but I do have a strong feeling I will be a very different person from the one I am now.  As I continue to overhaul my identity in ways large and small I realize how vital it is to allow my ego to have a light grip on my sense of self.

My calendar for the month of August is quickly filling up as I make a variety of appointments to build momentum as I continue to move in the direction of restoring my health.  I have scheduled visits to my therapist twice a week for much of August.  And I will be seeing my acupuncturist frequently as well.  Much of my waking time outside of work is now filling up with my commitment to myself.  One day I hope to find my life in a state of balance.  I still feel far removed from such a state of equilibrium now.  But at least I am moving in the direction of renewed balance.

I try to remain grateful for all the good in my life.  Some days this proves very difficult to do.  Other days it is much easier.  On occasion I will try to motivate myself by reminding myself that there are many people who are never able to completely restore their health because the incident that harms them either permanently disables them or kills them.  I am fortunate in that my particular health challenge is not something that is terminal; it can indeed be overcome.  For all the hardship I have experienced in my own life I am still quite fortunate.  When I focus on that which is wonderful in my life it is easier to breathe each and every day.

I keep praying for more guidance to come to me in my dreams during my hours of sleep.  I trust it will come to me in good time.  I simply wish the nightmarish imagery would cease and desist.  I have experienced my fair share of nightmares throughout my life.  And enough of those have occurred during waking hours!  Perhaps I will recount more of my dreams here in this blog as I continue to write.

I do truly feel as if my identity is in a process of disintegration.  Something new will emerge in time.  As for now one of my many challenges is to allow and accept the process to unfold with minimal ability to see the outcome on the other side of the process.  This letting go is not an easy process but it is the most timely lesson that I am being reminded of again and again.

Another challenge I find myself confronted with on a daily basis is what I allow myself to be exposed to.  Whether it is the media, people on the bus or my own thoughts I find myself much more circumspect and cautious in what I allow myself to absorb.  There is so much trauma and sadness in the world.  But there is also an incredible amount of beauty, kindness and generosity.  It is good to focus only on the latter.  And the greatest of all is love.

Let me focus on love as I fall asleep tonight.

A Can of Worms

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

It is quite late as I compose this.  Today was my first day at my new job.  My life is becoming very full now as I work to heal myself and return from the brink.  I do not savor what stands before me but it is necessary to do the work I am embarking upon.

I saw my therapist again today.  I had a lot to share given how much has unfolded in the last ten days or so.  I shared a dream I recently had to illustrate how upset I have been feeling as of late.  In my recent dream I dreamt that I had heartworms.  I had long been convinced that heartworms is only something that dogs and cats can develop.  However, upon waking from this unpleasant dream, I decided to briefly research the condition anyhow just to make sure.  I was relieved to confirm that humans cannot get heartworms.  Yet the metaphor from the dream stayed with me.

Tonight, after describing this dream to my therapist, I later used the expression "open up a can of worms".  My therapist made me pause after I made this statement and drew my attention to what I had just said.  It was an informative moment.  I now have some greater insight into what I am feeling and thinking lately.

Put bluntly I feel a certain amount of fear that the work I do in this therapeutic journey is somehow going to "open up a can of worms" that will significantly alter the course of my life.  And when I speak of significantly altering my life I mean to suggest such a profound change that it will somehow feel like much of my past life has been invalidated.  When our egos have a tenacious hold on our sense of selves  it can be difficult to allow such immense change to take place.  But take place it must.  And it's obviously especially vital that it take place in my case.  I feel like an old identity is actively disintegrating right now.  I would do well to let it go even if it is very painful to do so.

The worms in the heart can perhaps be interpreted as a symbol of the many turbulent feelings I have within myself.  My heart is troubled as I come to recognize how my life needs to fundamentally change.  As I open my heart to this process of change it becomes clear I need to honor all the threads of feeling therein.

It wasn't easy for me to go to see my therapist tonight.  I do not mean that in a logistical sense.  Thankfully I have a friend who helped me to get to my appointment today.  Instead I speak in a psychological sense.  The parking lot was virtually empty when I arrived.  The journey to self realization can be a long and lonely one on occasion.  The emptiness of that parking lot felt like another metaphor.  It was a symbol of those wide open spaces that sometimes yawn vast and desolate within our interior lives.  I pray that all good things necessary for me to move forward fill my life so that I may have the courage and endurance to move forward and heal.

When Restoring Your Health Becomes A Full Time Job

Monday July 22, 2013


The sun is about to set now.  I have spent another day of my life continuing to work on issues from the recent and distant past.  Reclaiming your own personal freedom can be an all consuming task.

My relatively unscheduled last day before my new job ultimately became a very full day as a result of my morning appointment to the Institute for Low Back and Neck Care.  I was quickly referred for an MRI and X-rays of my low back and neck.  In addition to the PTSD I am dealing with I also have some other health issues to address.  This afternoon I followed up and made an initial visit for physical therapy.  I was given an order for physical therapy as a result of my first appointment this morning.

More and more of my waking hours are being filled up with my efforts to restore my health.  And as more of my life becomes consumed with my "Restore Me" project I find myself feeling a whole range of feelings.  I am quite excited that I am finally being as aggressive as I apparently need to be in order to restore my health.  I have no intention of allowing anyone or anything to stand in the way of my full recovery.  And yet I also feel very sad and annoyed as well.  I feel sad because the impact of my earliest years of life is still affecting me now so many years later.  And I feel annoyed because it feels like my life keeps getting postponed further and further into the future.  I was not planning on having my life be like this at my particular age.  I had imagined something quite different.  And yet here I am.

I do take some consolation in the fact that many, many people throughout the world are living through the year of 2013 in ways they never likely imagined.  Despite the economic recovery supposedly in progress there are so many people throughout the world still suffering the effects of the economic implosion of 2008.  I know I am not alone.  It's amazing what the greed and self-absorption of a select few helped to unleash upon the world.

We humans sure can be excellent at royally screwing our own affairs up...as well as those of people we don't even know.  Don't get me wrong: I have no desire to be pessimistic.  But there are days when I just want to throw my hands up in the air and just give up.  I've felt caught between a rock and a hard place for so long that it has become incredibly old.  You know you are perhaps really struggling to maintain a positive outlook when your thoughts include something like "Well at least I don't have a terminal illness."  I indeed do not have a terminal illness and I am quite grateful for what I do have in my life.  My health is still quite good in comparison to many, many people throughout the world.

Among the many ideas I am being asked to let go of now is one that my life should have looked different than it ultimately will when I celebrate a milestone birthday in September.  Given how my waking hours are becoming consumed with my efforts to restore my health it is also looking increasingly likely that I will need to ask for more time to complete the project that took me to Germany in May.  This was not my plan.  But healing requires an immense amount of flexibility!

I pray I can enjoy each day and be grateful for the gifts that come to me.

My German Mother and Aunt Jemima

Sunday, July 21, 2013

I struggled a bit to decide what I would write about today.  In the future I may very well make Sunday a day of rest for myself as many do throughout the world.  But as for this particular Sunday I will once again offer my thoughts.

I made pancakes this morning and drizzled them with Aunt Jemima syrup.  As I sat eating I thought about my mother who lives in Germany.  My mother turned 65 years old today.  It doesn’t seem possible that she is already that age.  As I ate breakfast and reflected on my mother’s life my thoughts turned to my own life.  I found it a strange exercise to ponder my own life due in part to the many influences that have shaped me.  I have a German mother, an American upbringing, enjoy pancakes and occasionally use Aunt Jemima syrup on them.  I still recall when the Aunt Jemima label portrayed her with a white kerchief that evoked the history of slavery in the American South.  Years later (I don’t recall exactly when it happened) I saw Aunt Jemima in the grocery store again and marveled at her makeover.  She looked ‘liberated’ yet had the same smile.  Life seemed much better for her.

I have enjoyed the great privilege of traveling to diverse destinations throughout the world including Hawaii, Norway, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain.  I have been exposed to a variety of cultures and have witnessed their manifold beauty.  Looking back it seems odd that I have become the person I am now.  Before completing my undergraduate degree I never had planned to live on a Native American reservation.  At that time I did not plan on living in California for a number of years.  I have an adventurous spirit and have allowed it to guide me throughout my life.  Exposure to such a diversity of cultures and worldviews has been an enriching experience.  It helps me to find the humor in being an American citizen of a German mother as I live in the Midwest and contemplate the marketing technique of a well-known syrup.

You may ask what relevance my reflections offered today have to the particular issue of PTSD.  That is a good question.  I suppose I would say that just as there is no one culture that is superior to any other there is likewise no one particular best way to heal.  Each and every culture alive in the world today has some basic seed of wisdom that has allowed it to thrive through the centuries.  In a similar way there are many effective methods one may employ to restore health.  A mind open to many possibilities is key to living a rich and rewarding life.  I am still puzzling out the best techniques to use in my own particular journey.

Now I think it is time to go see Aunt Jemima again.

The Amazing Power of Human Touch

Saturday, July 20, 2013

I suppose it is no accident that I have been thinking of my birthmother today.  Her birthday is tomorrow.  She will be 65 years old.  Had she stayed married to my father and remained in America she would perhaps be retiring now.  But that is one possible reality that never came to be.

I made a new friend today.  In making this new friend I was reminded of the power of human touch.  I am convinced that the pain I have been carrying around regarding my mother’s illness and her disappearance from my life at such a young age awoke within me recently due to my recent visit to Germany in which I took the opportunity to see her.  I still remember the feeling of walking with her after lunch and how I held her arm to guide her.  The touch between a mother and her child is very powerful.  Human touch is so vital to healthy human development.  Studies have shown that children deprived of nurturing touch often do not thrive in the way that children who received such care do.

I cannot now remember when I first heard of a particular study that really fascinated me.  I believe it must have been when I was in high school.  I managed to find the background story of this study by looking on Google today.  Here is the link.  The most important section of the story’s content follows:

Harlow’s most famous experiment involved giving young rhesus monkeys a choice between two different "mothers." One was made of soft terrycloth, but provided no food. The other was made of wire, but provided food from an attached baby bottle.

Harlow removed young monkeys from their natural mothers a few hours after birth and left them to be "raised" by these mother surrogates. The experiment demonstrated that the baby monkeys spent significantly more time with their cloth mother than with their wire mother. "These data make it obvious that contact comfort is a variable of overwhelming importance in the development of affectional response, whereas lactation is a variable of negligible importance," Harlow explained (1958).

It is truly amazing that these monkeys would prefer the contact comfort over the offerings the wire “mother” provided.  I find the results fascinating and completely believable.  Yes, naturally human beings are not the same as monkeys but the discoveries made in this study (and many others) demonstrate the significance of touch in healthy development.  I have heard stories of how children who spend long periods of time in orphanages often stop crying.  From what I have read this change in behavior is attributed to the lack of sufficient individualized nurturing; eventually the children stop crying out because their cries are simply not answered to sufficiently meet their needs.

I attended massage school several years ago.  I recall the power of human touch.  During and after my training I came to conclude that America is a very touch deprived culture.  People are very busy watching television, walking down the sidewalk looking at their “smart” phone, listening to their headphones and so on.  The art of being present to your actual surroundings has become a lost art.  When was the last time you had an actual conversation with someone on a bus or train?  And by conversation I mean an interchange that includes more than a few three to five word sentences.

Despite the challenge that stands before me I am nonetheless optimistic that I will completely heal in due time.  I am resilient; if I survived the anxiety and stress I initially experienced at the age of two I can certainly process the impact of it now as a grown man.  It might not be easy but I can certainly do it.

I leave you today with this question: What is the role of human touch in your life?  Where do you find such support?  Do you have enough of it?  What could you do to bring more of it into your life?

What is a Miracle? Everything is a Miracle

Friday, July 19, 2013

I dropped by my chiropractor’s office today to pick up the x-rays that were taken over two years ago in the wake of my car accident in March, 2011.  I picked them up for an appointment I have scheduled next Monday with a local institute focused on back and neck health.

As I made my way home after meeting with a friend I reflected on all the obstacles and challenges I have faced in my life.  I believe it is truly a miracle I am alive today.  I do not exaggerate.  I survived a childhood that featured my mother suffering a schizophrenic breakdown, stepsisters who verbally abused me and a stepmother who made multiple attempts on my father’s life.  I also survived the impact of the corruption that allowed my stepmother to go free with no conviction for her crime.

In addition, I survived the homophobia and ignorance all too common in the state I grew up in.  That state is Texas.  Texas has been in the news recently because of its efforts to restrict abortion.  This is nothing new.  Texas politics is often dominated by hypocritical people who call themselves Christians while they busily work to oppress any number of minorities.  Jesus was not a prophet who advocated the oppression of people; he advocated love, forgiveness and inclusivity.  It’s amazing how much his message has been warped over the centuries.  Christians who advocate the oppression of others are not Christians.

As I noted in a previous posting I once lived and worked on a Native American reservation.  I have seen deep despair and pain in the lives of many, many marginalized people.  I have survived two car accidents.  And I narrowly escaped being in a car accident as a very young man; I did not see a stop sign (because it was essentially concealed by foliage) and drove into an intersection.  Had I done that about seven seconds later I would have been broadsided by an oncoming car.  Yes indeed I think it miraculous I am alive today.

I have been reflecting on the idea of miracles lately.  Formal institutions like the Catholic Church have their own definitions for phenomena like miracles.  I believe their definition is not correct.  The Catholic Church has been wrong many a time before; it is thus clear it is capable of significant error.

In my opinion miracles are everywhere and can be seen each and every day.  What is the amazing process of photosynthesis if not a miracle?  Could the most brilliant human being have dreamed up the intricate process by which plants fix sunlight and convert that energy for their own use?  How could we dream up such an amazing process?  And such is also true of the many aspects of our planet.  Consider rain, lightning, dew and wind.  These are all amazing forces that have been present on the planet for countless millennia.  But I believe there are many more miracles than what you see in the flora and fauna of the planet.

Each living human being is a unique and miraculous creation.  Each of us is composed of so many cells that developed special qualities while we were still in the womb.  Our bodies perform countless functions without our conscious awareness.  We sleep, eat, walk, think, exercise and dream.  And our bodies heal without needing us to direct that healing process with deliberate thought.  Have you ever had to order blood cells to rush to a cut in your finger?

Do you even know how amazing it is that you exist at all?  An amazing collection of events had to take place for you to come into this world.  For you to be born your parents had to meet somehow.  And they had to be born.  And your parents only came to be because four originally unrelated people came together and later became the people you would eventually know as your grandparents.  The further back in your ancestral history you travel the more astonishing the story becomes because more and more people were involved in ultimately joining together to later produce you.  The odds were stacked against all of us.  The chances were remote.  And yet here we are.

I do believe it is possible to heal.  I do believe it is possible to overcome the meanest, harshest, most painful of circumstances.  It certainly might not be easy but I believe it can be done.  I survived many tragic and painful experiences when they actually came to pass.  I believe I can work through the impact they had on me now.  It might not be easy but I believe I can do it.

The greatest healer in this world is Love.  I ask love to find me and hold me in its tender and eternal embrace.