rush of wind

Three graves on a hill.

This family lost a infant daughter each year.

I was a young girl when I found those three small head stones.

By that time I had already lost three baby brothers. I understood them more than a pre-teen child should.

I wonder, did that mother try again? Or as she wrapped that last tiny body and laid it in the coffin her heart broke and she closed that door in herself forever.

What is it in us that breaks?

What physical part of our body - brain snaps...disconnects....breaks?

There is a stilling in my heart when life whispers to me. With a rush of wind I am filled with a sensation that I can't explain. But just for a second I am taken apart at the seams and I become a conduit that taps into an energy that is so intense I don't dare grab it.

Like all my emotions are quick silver and they pull away from me in tiny beads. The weight of this place crushes my heart and I feel skinned, inside out and contorted. In this place I have the answers.

Its too much. I close down, I feel the hold on me release and the wind recedes, and returns me to the vacuum of my daily presence.

It is in this place that she writes.

The one who reaches out with scarred arms. The one who the past didn't kill. The one who loves despite of all of it. The one I can't be. The one who words I read the next day and can't believe they came from within me.

reader feedback on last blog

"You forgot to put a trigger warning on your last blog!"

"that was painful to read, it should have had a trigger warning."

"Trigger warning next time!"

The omission of the warning was intentional.

After all, with rape, you don't always get a nice handy warning its coming.

What its like to be raped

Imagine a fairy tale life where you were safe and protected and there was no bad guys or danger. Where parents kept you safe and could heal your booboos with a hug and kiss.(that is how childhood should have been for all of us)

You grow up and are excited to be on your own and take charge of the world and do great things. You feel powerful and in charge. You charge out into the world demanding respect and love from it just like you received in childhood.

You build a strong house on a firm foundation and life is good.

Then you are visited by the man with the flesh knife and he breaks in and leaves his filth on you like a shadowy grime...and in you like some oozing slimy cancer.

The sun rises the next day and you discover all the walls of your carefully built house are gone. There is blood and dirt and darkness everywhere in your house staining all that is yours and you.

The sun is shining.

People are walking by looking inside your destroyed house and ignoring the devastation that is RIGHT THERE. Your soul is hanging inside out and withering from the immense mental pain.

You fall down from the weight that is crushing you. Breathing is a chore and you are afraid you are going to die...and afraid you are NOT going to die.

The sun keeps shining, the world keeps turning and everyone and everything goes on oblivious to your pain.

You look at your house and are so overwhelmed you don't know where to start the repairs. Every broken thing you pick up cuts you and makes you bleed.

At last your mind can take no more and the numbness sets in.

You seek the calm, comfort of nonexistence...maybe if I just look away it will all go away.

and the sun rises, and you find the world has gone on without you, left you in some cruel wake where you are neither alive nor dead.

then the fear sets in.

You sit in that wall less house realizing JUST HOW VULERABLE YOU ARE. That anyone can just come in and disrespect you and kill your soul.

The fear turns to anger and unfocused it boomerangs back to you.

YOU HATE YOURSELF.

You want to make sense of all this soul churning madness and the only way to make madness make since is to see it as this.

"I" must have done something to deserve this. "I" must be evil, bad, etc etc.

But the love you received in childhood conflicts with this new madness.

You seek to protect yourself. Nothing you do returns that sense of balance and safety. No matter how thick the walls are rebuilt you can't escape him as he haunts your memories.

You turn to things to self protect.

thoughts like...."I will make my self so ugly that no one will touch me want me again." you build fences by shoving those who love you away, you don't want them to get caught in the poison you feel yourself oozing.

You shove all those who love you the furthest away. So when you can't take it anymore and die from all this pain in your heart they will be protected...and not miss you.

You fall so many times tying to catch back up with the world spinning away from you at 10000000 mph that you give up and just lie on the floor with eyes clenched.

You wait for someone to come help you. To rescue you and help you.

Then when they do you bite their hands and chase them off.

Their compassion and love seem like dangerous sink holes that threaten to consume you.

That if you accept the offered love then you have to face, REALLY FACE that happened.

If you keep running you can keep 10 feet ahead of the horrifying truths that claw inside your head.
This is how it is for so many....way too many.

You can run forever and the truth will chase you the whole time. At some point hopefully, someone will see your pain.

Someone who will climb over the rubble and wade into the madness and set their lantern down.

In the dim light you will fight like some captured animal. You will say and do things to self protect and keep any help from you.

The person with the lantern will stay with you.

And in time you will tire of running and the rope will fall slack and in an exhausted heap, you will look up and the anger will return and you stand up and fight like a mother fucking wild cat to take back your power. And you will heal.

The journey is different for us all. Some fight the whole way, some give up, others are too afraid to loosen there grip on the floor to get up and start it. Some have no strength in there hands to reach out for help, or even hold on to the life lines offered.

Thankfully there are those with strong hands who can hold on for us.

Ambiguous genitalia

Finally got the MRI and cardiac stuff set up with the hospital.

But boy howdy did that test my patience today.

Caller: Hi may I talk with R____ Page-ah

Me: That's me, I'm Mrs. R____.

Caller: I'm calling to schedule his test at the hospital

Me: (sighing) That's me and I am a woman and my name is Pa-juh R______.

Caller: Oh will he need an interpreter?

Me: (chewing on the phone cord) No, I'm sure I speak English.

‪#‎unusualnametroubles‬ ‪#‎sigh‬ ‪#‎IlookedIdonthaveapenis

What is it that opens that door with in us?

The other night at work I learned one of my male co-workers wife has been cheating on him. I have known this gentleman for a few years. It devastated him. He came to me later and wanted to talk to me about it.

He said things like "I felt uncontrollable rage" I wanted to cut the pain away" "It burned my heart to learn this" "her actions punched me." etc...lots of terms that sounded to me like this man was on the verge of using Self Inflicted Violence as a coping method.

BTW he and I have talked extensively on the subject of SIV as he is very interested in it. He has a psych background and had learned about it before meeting me.

He said he felt the urge to SIV, to step over that line and deal with the emotional pain with SI. He was hurting so bad he wanted to inflict physical pain to equal it. But he couldn't. It piqued his interest later when he calmed down. He wanted to know HOW I was able to do it. How I justified it to myself.

I had to really think on that one. For me I have self injured since I was very young. Others treated me badly, so it just made sense. I was not worth protecting. I was not worth it. Simple as that.

He has a strong support system and healthy normal self esteem. Nothing erodes his sense of self. Loving parents, good friends, goals, dreams, direction etc. He feels "wanted/needed" by others.

I didn't feel that/have that until I got married (and surprise) that's where the true healing set root. In that environment the SI went to zero for many years. Because I felt "wanted/needed". The SIV resurfaced only after life stressors and things surfaced that I needed to deal with.

Somewhere in the past years I gained a sense of self worth. Not a egotistical " I am super person - bow down to my greatness" but a quiet voice in side that says "I am worth something." I am worth fighting for, I am worth protecting.

We came to the conclusion the SIV came close to taking a bite out of him because wife's actions, gouged a hole in his "worth". Opening the door/weakening his defenses to a choice that cropped up because of his interest in the subject.

Does that make sense?

I was left with a spinning head of thoughts and ideas. If you are never exposed to SI would it never crop up in your coping skills? If so then WHY do we discover it? Are the children of SIers more at risk for it cause they have been introduced to it?

What breaks in your spirit that allows this coping skill to suddenly become a tool you reach for?

When does pain cease to be pain and transform into something else?

What pathways are created/activated in your mind when you seek and welcome the pain and override the urge and basic impulse to avoid injury?

aaahhh, interesting stuff to think about.

*******************
I wrote this on a message board years ago.  I was reading through my file of post that I wrote and printed out. Some deep and powerful writing in there. Some....some absolutely great writing and insight in there. Stuff I can't post here because I haven't opened that door here yet. Hinted at it, yes but not addressed it.

I am having a powerful push from my gut/heart to open that door, and go there. 

let me give you a direct hint at where we are about to go:

"The number one most common denominator among SIV-er's is a history of sexual abuse..."

I guess this is your chance to jump ship if you don't want to go down that road with me.

Over qualified

This is the blog I wrote as my sister and I were polishing up my resume

I was so burned out and run down from a YEAR of fighting for my life due to the levoxyl recall and the adverse side effects that the generic levothyroxine and synthroid that my cheese had slipped off my cracker.

Its interesting to note that I was only back on the synthroid for a week. Then after reading up it came to light the first batch of levoxyl wasn't up to par and everyone was feeling like crap on it. I returned to it and upped my dose, and peace returned to my head. (well my version of peace anyway ha!)

Any way...its the last part of the blog that catches my attention:

"Right now there is a company who doesn't know it yet, but there going to put out an ad looking for a new employee, and I am going to walk in and be more then they ever expected."

I am highly respected in my line of work. It used to baffle/bother me, but I have gotten used to it, as my confidence in my self has grown.  I simply do my job and do it well.

It wasn't always that way, I was once a young goofball with no experience, and no confidence.

Seventeen and dumb as a post.

 I had the opportunity to work with a LOT of fantastic nurses, CNA's, patients, families and doctors over the years and I paid attention. My life experiences enriched me as a employee, but more importantly as a human.

A little older and wiser here, but still learning...come to think of it, I'm STILL learning even today. Knowing you are human and capable of making mistakes helps keep you humble and mortal.

Anyway.  When I made the jump to the town I lived in, no one knew me. I was a blank slate. I didn't have 31 years of people who knew me or what I was capable of.  Which was actually, nice. There was no expectations or demands of me.

I was just a face to my new employers and co-workers.

It gave me time to switch gears and get my feet under me in a new company, without the expectations that I was some supreme super employee.

I fooled everyone but the residents. They saw right through me from the start and fell in love on the spot.

But that was par for the course, because, the love and affection was mutual.

So my incognito blending in got blown. I was busily passing the morning med pass when I lifted my head to say good morning to a person walking down the hall.  I found my self face to face with an RN from my past.

Neither of said anything for a second, then we smiled, and I ducked my head and chuckled.

"So here is where you have been hiding." He smiled.

"Ssshh! don't blow my cover." I laughed.

He walked closer and whispered, "You are WAY OVER qualified to be working here!"

After a quick chitchat we both returned to our jobs.

His statement ringing in my ears and leaving my gut twitching like a dog petted the wrong way.

It was sitting with me like the statement "I'm just a CNA" used to sit with me eons ago. I have written many manifestos ranting about how "You are not JUST a CNA, you are a CNA...etc etc" Barking from my soap box in defense of my profession.

That was in the days before the internet, so you all missed out on them.

My passion on the subject hasn't faded one bit.

"You are WAY OVER qualified to be working here!"

Really?

So you are implying that the basic, basic, BASIC care of a human being is above me? That my age/experience some how rises me above caring for other humans?

It makes me want to get a stick and poke you off your high horse, and soundly thrash you with it.

We are beyond the herd mentality. We have evolved beyond taking the weak/sick/elderly/disabled out and leaving them in the woods to die. Being in a position to give a person kindness and compassion and be part of their last years of their life journey is a profound HONOR.

And I never forget that.

The pay check is a nice bonus, but the real pay is the human connections I make. There isn't time to meet all the fabulous souls in this world. So I stay put and those that need to meet me and visa versa are arranged by the (universe/heavens/pick your deity of choice) to come to where I am. And we travel the winding path of lives journey together.

Be it years, months or days.

I love my job, and I am not overqualified to do it. People who are "overqualified" for the job are the ones who think they are above being a decent human being.

"It's never lupus"

So the search to get a diagnosis for me has now lead to us having a white board and playing Dr. House.

The search has stepped up and here are the pending tests incoming. MRI of my brain, Ultrasound of my carotid artery and Echocardiogram of my heart. If all normal then their going to do an EEG.

On the white board we are ruling out cardiac damage due to years of untreated hyperthyroidism with the accompanying super high cholesterol levels that brought on.

The MRI I reckon is to make sure I actually have a brain in there...LOL.