Survivors in the Night

Restless, you wake up tired. Sheets entangle you from head to toe. They’re wet with sweat. So’s your shirt.

Slept in your clothes again, didn’t you?

You get up to use the toilet.

You can’t bear the thought of going back to sleep, where terrible things await, ready to continue tortures you never asked for.

The things you know you don’t deserve.

They’re waiting even so, and there’s no way of stopping them. You can’t even go back to the bedroom.

The memories flood your consciousness. You can’t stop those, either. Those are the things that you can never forget, the source of your nightmares: helpless, taking the torture, crying, wishing you were dead, yet having no way to escape it all.

The crack of leather on skin, imparted with force, driven by rage.

The sexual assaults, then rapes as you grew older but still not old enough to stop them.

The public humiliation. Your face is constantly hot, making you wish you had none.

You know people stared. They don’t now. Now they look away.

You just had another birthday. It’s been so long since it all happened, but years turn to decades, and still, you remember everything.

After waking, minutes turn to hours. What have you done?

There’s nothing. Maybe you went outside to smoke a few times. But you’re scared. You don’t know what could be out there. Something to cause new nightmares?

Perhaps, but the old ones would still be there. Who needs more? After a while, you decide that it might just be better to go back to sleep.

There are some things you can never forget. There are wounds that never heal. You know that. You’ve lived with them for so long.

So, you rest again. Back to the darkness. Back to sleep. And there’s one thing that you need to do, and never could. Maybe now you can.

You’ve trusted God before. Trust Him now.

He has forgiven you.

Forgive yourself.

You know that He loves you.

Love yourself.

Only then will true rest and true peace come to you.

The Costs of Reducing Human Contact

Sometimes, we, as PTSD survivors, have difficulties with different things. These are as varied as the experiences that caused the condition in the first place. For too many of us, those traumatic events are prolonged or repeated again and again. It makes no difference how much time has passed between events, nor how prolonged such things were. We are usually affected considerably for the rest of our lives. Treatment is essential; it can not be avoided. Going through life without help is to live in hell, and I don’t care how many victims or “experts” say otherwise.

Sure, you can get by, but there will always be symptoms that cause problems, and that is true with patients in treatment or not in treatment. Those who seek help and can afford it are likely to experience relief. Dialing in the right medications is important. The wrong ones can make you worse, while the best ones for you should have you telling your doctor about your feeling better. The process is sometimes hard, but it can be done.

Therapy is a subject I’m personally exceptionally bitter about. It’s difficult enough to find one that you’re comfortable with, and covid made everything worse. During the worst part of the initial outbreak, many left the occupation or moved away from their patients’ areas. The shutdown caused the necessity for telehealth sessions, which I detest. You have to pay, but there’s no contact, and that’s unreasonable and unrealistic.

AI: Already A Problem

AI has replaced even triage for certain physicians. Everything from height and weight to blood pressure is monitored by a computer, and I find that to be an expensive startup for medical groups, but an attempt at eliminating jobs. You see this elimination everywhere, especially when you go shopping.

You know exactly what I mean: self-checout at supermarkets, the CVS, Walmart, and more. And it is a real problem, too. First, because it costs jobs. The Harris Teeter supermarket I go to always had this but recently renovated the section to accommodate more registers. There are a bunch of cashier registers, and I’ve forgotten how many. That’s because I have never seen all of them open. Sixty percent of the time, only one is open. I’ve seen this store decrease its employees over the years, and it’s sad. Ones hired as cashiers can often be seen picking orders for customer pickup. They may be seen stocking shelves and even going out to the parking lot to bring in carts.

Those employees may be thankful to have their jobs, but may also resent their use as utility workers. There are employees who work shopping cart detail. The store does a lot of business, so when the cart detail lags behind or takes unscheduled breaks around the corner, it becomes a pain that customers have to get used to. Go inside, and you may not see any carts at all. Seeing workers not hired for cart detail doing it reflects low employee morale and store mismanagement.

The second problem is much worse: theft, or “skip-scanning”. This is when self-checkout customers properly scan and bag some items but not others, stealing expensive ones like steaks and prepackaged deli meats, or ring one donut or bagel when the paper bag really has five. Shrimp and even staples like condiments or butter can also be tucked into a bag without being scanned. One employee watches this section but is rarely attentive. It’s boring, tedious work, and often, they have to leave the section to go to the customer service counter.

There is, to make it all worse, no security except for cameras. A room with tinted windows marked “Security” is obviously empty. Nobody goes in or comes out, and in ten years of shopping at various times of the day or night, I have never seen anyone detained for theft. It may happen, but you’d think that a decade should never have passed without me seeing an HCPD cruiser out front. A woman managing the customer service desk once told me when I reported a panhandling offender outside of the store, “I live in Baltimore City. You think I really care about who be outside?”

Except the fucker in question who once told me his name was “Travis” when he asked for a dollar, is a problem. He knows that most people carry no cash. He also knows that, should he ask anyone who does carry cash, he will be unlikely to get one dollar. More likely, it will be at least a five dollar note or maybe more, and he constantly lurks from one end of the shopping center to the Harris Teeter. Last week, before Christmas, he was back. He asked me for a cigarette and I said no. As soon as I finished my coffee and put the cup in the trash can near a letterbox, I turned around and he was urinating on a brick pillar under the overhead in plain view of the store’s doors. I guess nobody from Baltimore City would even blink at that shit. But it’s indecent exposure, urinating in front of a minor, and you can probably add a couple more misdemeanors to that. I didn’t have anyone to tell, either. That lady behind the counter would likely have said, “Come back when you catch him usin his junk for somethin a lil worser, honey.”

And I couldn’t call 911 for an imbecile that brazen who’s left behind no evidence except piss that will be dry before cops get there, and yet the act might have been visible on a security camera if they had it active and if they had security, and if anyone in the store gave a shit.

I suppose I could have kicked him in the balls for it, but that’s no misdemeanor. That’s assault. It goes too far against my sense of right, wrong, and my code of honor. But he will be back. He’s no stranger to the justice system, and they always come back. And nobody will report jack shit. And, his mental health is off, so no judge really wants to see his name on a district court docket. There’s no law to force anyone to get help and take meds.

The indifference of underpaid, overstressed employees notwithstanding, underpaid managers are worse. Why go out of the way for a wage like that in a store whose corporate fatcats have a strict opposal to having employees organize or to have too big a payroll? It is a mistake. It makes investors orgasmic, according to UBS securities, which recommends stocks to portfolio holders. Parent company Kroger has some stores that are unionized but that has no bearing on Harris Teeter, a subsidiary. Those were, in September 2023, “determined to remain union-free” in a Q&A session of corporate dickheads and securities cocksuckers. Therefore, the stores have high turnover and newer employees making lower wages. That guarantees cash savings. This is important because stores operate with bank loans. To buy inventory, they secure loans. But there’s one drawback, and most chains will need another loan before the interest is paid and the principal amount can begin to be paid. To keep up, major chains keep costs low, from payroll to overhead to transportation.

But…

Between inventory and gross income, I’d wager that if the store doesn’t lose money, it is because of price gouging. In other words, they’re jacked up, passing the costs to consumers, earning fat profits. To do this, the variety of available brands keep getting eliminated, leaving customers less items to choose from. It’s efficient and very effective.

In Maryland, Giant and Harris Teeter are two of the most expensive of chains. Covid and supply problems made prices on things like coffee double. But the same can of Folgers may be 12 bucks or perhaps 14, and if you wait two days, that changes. Maxwell House Columbian could be high, but Folgers is down half on sale. That’s to turn over inventory to keep customers and nothing more. People may avoid items and let them sit until they’re on sale. As a result, taking a look at sell by dates on a ribeye on sale can be stressful. You see today’s date. It has to go right to the freezer when you get home.

Customers, therefore, steal. So do employees, some of which are caught, and you never see them again.

Or, getting back to self checking, they may skip-scan. So, saving money on payroll has a price. I can’t see how this store isn’t hemorrhaging cash. And if not for being union-free, it would have to be.

Bodycam footage on YouTube is enlightening. I’ve seen a few where Walmart security called in police who arrived before the thief could get away. If I were you, I wouldn’t steal from Walmart. I can’t bear the thought of stealing, and I don’t even like getting gifts. It makes me feel dishonest. Guilty. And those caught at Walmart are Brazen. Their cart is full. They were observed getting a purse, duffel bag, or the like, stuffing smaller items into it, then scanning the bag alone but with other items so as not to call attention to the bag. The alarms at the doors? If they still have those, thieves know how to evade them. For every person caught, though, who knows how many get away?

And this ain’t no joke: people are caught with $900.00 USD in merchandise they have not scanned. You may hate Walmart, but it is, on the whole, efficient, because of real people always on the floor, stocking inventory but watching everything. And they aren’t union, either. And real human beings man the security office as well.

This brings us back to the loss of human contact during medical care. Patients with trauma or serious somatic conditions like hypertension and heart disease can not be assessed by machines alone. First, how do you know they are calibrated and properly maintained? Or even sterilized? Answer: You don’t.

Telehealth was necessary during the pandemic, but even now, with it spreading again, it should only be occasionally used. Mask requirements have largely been lifted. Antivaxxers should be kept to ER visits or telehealth. Otherwise, we’re still better off wearing them in close-quarter settings and in large stores. It’s just safer.

Loss of contact during the shutdown traumatized people who had been stuck without their spouses, children, or friends. I’ll never forget talk shows aired from the host’s homes. They couldn’t even go to their place of business and do a show without an audience. Of them all, John Oliver seemed to weather the crises best. Colbert was never the same. He has turned into a real dick. Once you’ve turned into a dick, you have to be deprogrammed like a Moonie. Odds of that happening aren’t very good.

Most of all, trauma patients suffered in helpless silence. And that, folks, caused more trauma. No one but these patients know what it’s like. Because trauma patients are far easier to be traumatized again. And again. That’s the nature of the beast.

How to Help Yourself

One therapy you can do by yourself that I find to be fun and helpful is to get out of the house. Take a walk, get a bit of exercise and some fresh air. You can get your blood flowing, decrease your blood sugar level, help reduce blood pressure, and relieve sore, stiff muscles. It’s a big help, though, not to let your mind wander. As PTSD patients, we know how unhealthy that is. You can avoid some of your visual and audio triggers by keeping your eyes busy. Look around, focusing and trying to spot things you missed while driving past them. Seeing something new is amazing once you spot it. This is something I call the “Sherlock Holmes” game. You can not fall into dissociative thinking when walking, driving, or almost anything else. It’s dangerous and fouls the mood with memories that are distressing. I’ve read pages of books, only to not remember what was written. I’ve crossed bridges and not remembered it. Accidents happened, and I got to my destination depressed, stressed out, and never known why.

This morning, as the sun was low but brilliant, I couldn’t face east. But I looked west and was surprised at the view. Tomorrow, the sun will rise at a slightly different angle. I will not see exactly what I saw today. The light and shadows allowed me to see some details in the background in beautiful relief, seeing depth that I normally can’t. Seeing at a longer distance with more clarity than normal. That’s magical. A gift.

Try to see new things, little details. Keep your eyes moving. Don’t stare because that’s when you fade out of the present. Focus, but keep the eyes moving. You’ll get better at it, so don’t give up. This is part of cognitive behavior therapy. Look that up. Study it on your own or ask your doctor about it. A counselor is the best coach for this. Avoid “life coaches” because they’re a scam like all of the self-help books from the 80s and 90s. They cost money and make you believe that you’re going to get better when the mere suggestion itself is an attempt to condition you to keep writing checks.

Between a good doctor, a licensed therapist, and a bit of work on your part, you can find peace of mind and a measure of recovery that you may not otherwise get to enjoy.

That’s if you can find the professionals that will see you. Because most of the cashier lanes… are closed.

Hey, Friends, What Have We Learned This Week?

What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?

What can anyone at all get out of my posts this week?

Anyone? Some are way ahead of me. Others are just mystified that I share so much. But mostly I go unnoticed. I’m not an influencer. Not widely read or known. I’m nobody. Just an asshole who’s honest about being an asshole.

But this week was kind of different from from my usual complaints about life. Or my stupid observations and even worse interpretations.

Because this week, I came close to really losing myself. “Beware the fury of a patient man” is truly a term that applies to me. Being two steps from Hell feels very real and dangerous to me. And certainly, my sister Michele was right: my soul has been shattered. Pieces of it, scattered around, I don’t know where. One, subconsciously left behind simply because I loved my siblings, like she and my youngest brother, and I feared leaving them behind. But, had I remained, even for another month, I would surely have gone insane.

I don’t know how my sister senses things like those, but all of us emerged with “gifts” that typically show up in extreme trauma victims. Later she would become a survivor, but all of those retain those same perceptions that, all are born with, but by reason of extraordinary survival challenges, develop to degrees many people never imagine. Or believe.

All my dreams were long since gone by the time I turned 14. I worked that summer as a carpenter’s helper, and he so impressed me with his patient and humorous, gentle nature that I decidid I, too, wanted to be like that. The foundation was there, all I had to do was to build on it.

But such was my anger and trauma that my coping was crude. I couldn’t be kind, or gentle, and the monster we each have sleeping inside us just became more hungry, demanding to be fed. I had to go through a lot more, to mature with time, to learn how to ignore it. Decades slipped past.

My ability to be patient would eventually come, but it took a lot out of me; it’s a fight that never ends and the initial caging of the beast was only the beginning.

Rarely, I encountered people who threatened the security around my personal creature. I came damnably close to disaster when aggressive assholes decided I was a good target. No longer a coward, but somewhat willing to engage in combat, I fought instead that hungry demonic thing in me that screamed, “Let me OUT, you know you want to. Together we will avenge your soul!”

That kind of payback would have cost me my soul. It would avenge nothing. You can’t get back what’s lost, not your fragmented heart or soul, not your lost childhood, wrongly destroyed though each was. Its over.

But nothing is over in your mind. That is a battleground that will be fought for until the end of your life.

In the clip above, you saw a movie scene that still makes me weep. Sometimes, I can’t stop.

John Rambo. All he wanted was something to eat. And nobody cared to let him, starting with the sheriff.

This scene, at the end, is entirely accurate. It has been played out too many times in too many places. If this 80s movie isn’t your cup of tea, or if you just never got around to seeing it, I recommend it. There’s nothing major in this scene that I think is off. This is a man who was triggered, whose guard against the inner beast was dropped, and it ended up this way.

And while every sequel that followed this film was ridiculous to the point of being comical, and this as a standalone film is perfect, the ultimate takeaway is this one question: is it really possible? The answer is, of course, yes.

Now, watch this. It’s vloggers reacting to “First Blood”, and mindfully pay attention to the facial expressions of each as the final scene plays out:

Most end up crying. But not all. One woman looks up, almost as if she is about to roll her eyes. But she doesn’t. She’s clearly keeping busy holding in her own monster, and it’s hard. Dasha, in particular, is very emotional. In empathy, she already sees where this is going. It clearly hurts.

I was shocked at their reaction to the brief glimpse of all the police lights flashing outside. How could they not have seen that coming?

These reactions are priceless. None of them knows what the end scene has for them, and when it’s over, they’re somewhat stunned.

In the book, they don’t know, Trautman shoots Rambo. Call it a mercy killing. Things had gone so wrong that they couldn’t be fixed. Rambo had been triggered, mindlessly obeyed training and rage, and once released, that beast must be exhausted, played out and then caught and killed. His life was over. It was over when he was drafted.

All trauma patients harbor The Beast. All fight their own battles to cope, to survive, to keep their worst hidden, not from others, but from themselves. But triggers can be anything, anywhere. And this week I was triggered and sunk to helpless victim behavior because that’s what I learned so long ago. Victim behavior is, ironically, one of the things that I didn’t even know was holding back my personal beast of rage, vengeance. I would freeze but not fight. Could not run. I just stood there. For years.

I lived by a code. Be kind. Be polite. But kill when given the order to fight. To this day I call people sir or ma’am. To this day I search for honor, a thing I lost or never had. And that sandbag and rock base was such a small part of it all. Exchanging fire with an MG nest, you don’t forget. The sound of bullets tearing through foliage a foot away from you is horrible. You think at least one round will surely get you.

You know, it’s the same feeling as being under my father’s lash gave me. Live? Die? Go mad? Which will it be? But you never think it’s going to be like this.

Not this. So many years of hiding, suffering, shamed by even a spouse if you had a nightmare, shook for no reason, or cried. You’d better not cry. You do that and you’re a pussy.

You can’t laugh. You’re inappropriate. You can’t talk. You’ll piss everyone off. You can’t go out. “Everyone” will surely be watching you and thinking how crazy you are. Your life is gone.

I keep thinking. That time the old man held his .357 magnum against my head. Scared, yes. But not until later did I realize that I wouldn’t have cared what happened either way. The threat of death can only cause so much fear after you’ve already lived with it all your life.

Now I seek peace. Honor. A place I can call home.

But I’m sure that it is not to be. It saddens me. My reaction to what I know from experience to be stalking behavior proves that I am not an honorable man. That I will never find peace or my own place. No, I am not honorable. I am not even a good man. I’m just an asshole. There were better ways to handle it. Those ways I cannot do. It is disgraceful. I am ashamed.

But I will never be able to go shopping again without scanning the cars going by, or the people inside, because I fought being triggered and ignored red flags. Trying to keep the beast trapped. My post about not testing the patient man whom you know to have a violent past stands. Don’t push them. Don’t mistake them as being what they cannot possibly be. Predators make the world hostile for more than their victims: they make their victims to be potential time bombs that endanger others. And if most never act on triggers the way Rambo did, please understand that it can happen. That it does happen.

My advice is that you take these past few posts to heart. Be kind, be careful, be gentle to and with others. You don’t know what battles they are fighting. Pray for them. Get them to trust you and let them talk. You just might be saving lives by showing that you care. Otherwise, please just leave them alone. Never start a war you can’t finish. As for what lessons I’ve learned, I think you know by now.

“BEWARE THE FURY OF A PATIENT MAN”

For Michele

“Must I at length the Sword of Justice draw?
Oh curst Effects of necessary Law!
How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan,
Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.” —John Dryden

For years, I have been patient. “Calm, cool and collected”, as a departing friend at a state hospital once described as what he would remember most about me. Even in a madhouse filled with pedophiles, felons, psychopaths and the broken, I did my best to keep that part of my core self intact. I had the fight of my life doing it.

I wanted to break the madmen in half. I wanted to give victims the justice they deserved from the felons, who had escaped a stay in prison to come here. I wanted to drag the pedophiles into the woods, torture them, castrate them, then string them up and bleed them like a slain deer.

But I never did.

Growing up around truckers who would get furious over the slightest thing, having a father who worried more about outward appearance than the mental health of his own children, beating them bloody by flogging with a 50s-style thin leather belt in secret, I learned what a horrible thing true anger was. My lesson should have been to vent my own anger freely with all possible violence.

But that is not what I learned at all.

What happened to or in front of me terrified me, showing instead what evil looked like, and not the kind you see in movies, but true evil. As in, satanic, demonic and in every opposition to God’s will kind of evil.

Be kind to those who hurt you and spitefully use you. Do good things for others whom you don’t even know. Love, without condition, those who declare or show themselves to be your enemies.

These are things I retained from my life outside of school and my father’s business and home life. A dual life I had no way of understanding. By circumstance, a dual life forced on me by a man who wanted to appear to be a Christian, but, in secret, raped and whipped his children. Sometimes I felt I would go, or had gone, insane under his fucking rage and depravity. Aware that no child should ever have to endure what I and my siblings did, I felt but concealed and contained my rage, believing that, on the most basic level, abandonment (which he often threatened) was far worse than any whipping.

Ralph Leon Smith Sr. was a monster for the ages, yet he was not unique, and far from the worst. I’ve since read accounts of the deeds of both men and women who were in a class by themselves. Human beings who, on the inside, had shed every basic characteristic of humanity and given themselves to madness, power, greed and more.

How could I feel so hurt when compared with what others had endured, often to their dying breath?

The victims of the Holocaust…

I have never been able to reconcile the two. They are at odds with my living code and sense of self, my soul.

Because even as a child, no matter what I endured, I felt the most outraged at–and for–my sisters.

How I wanted to love them. And how I did love, for so long, siblings who went through what I was sure was more horrible than anything I endured.

Because girls were different. Old movies where the scene of a man slapping a woman triggered me. Badly. My father using the belt across my mother’s face fractured my soul and that part of it was lost. Since then, like Lord Voldemort, I’ve dropped many pieces of my soul all across the Eastern seaboard.

Out of all of this, I have one sister left, of four, whom I treasure, love unconditionally, and adore. She’s the youngest, and a special woman who endured too much but faced it with courage and honor, and raised an amazing family of her own. She once told me that after I left the House of Pain, she occupied my room. She sensed me in there, as she described it, as a piece of my soul left behind to protect her. I no longer doubt her.

But things happened with my older sisters. By terrorism and manipulation, our father encouraged snitching on one another. He divided us and put canyons between us that can never be closed. I have no love for my oldest and my next-youngest sisters. For years I pretended to love them. I honestly tried to.

I failed. Say goodbye to another piece of my soul. The failure to love and forgive cost me. It hurt me, but I buried that for a long time. Even that has a price. Terrible as it is, I’ve put paid that one.

As a child, then a teen, I usually spent my anger on myself, but I, being an asshole, could not stop myself from lashing out at neighbors. I destroyed property mostly, causing damages I never had to pay for. Oddly, I knew to pick on those whom I’d have no motive to quarrel with, so suspicion didn’t fall on me. Not once did the police question me. Occasionally I was seen in the act and punished. Not often. All the shit dumped on me had to come out.

With age I was able to reign it in. Then, I began to truly withdraw, avoiding party invitations and eventually dodging weddings and memorial services. I discovered I liked being solitary, closed off. Shut inside and watching movies and playing video games. I especially loved playing video games with my children, like we did with Candyland and Cootie when they were wee ones.

They were the only good things in my life, and then they were gone forever. My soul broke with my heart, leaving me grieving to this day, feeling guilty, as if I failed them, and missing them more every day. I keep expecting the phone to ring, then picking up and hearing, “Hi dad,” and it never happens. The emptiest I’ve ever felt.

My one salvation is my God, what’s left of my family, and 3 very special friends, Maggie, Jane and Kevin. They love unconditionally and constantly. They know my madness and they support me with kindness and understanding. They insist I’m not mad, just broken. And they genuinely want me to be happy.

There’s still the danger, though, of testing my patience. Even I don’t know my limits. Last night as I wrote “The Return of the American Asshole”, I pondered this scary subject.

Dan, the man who would remember me as “calm, cool and collected”, was right. He saw me broken down to my rock-bottom self. I’d hit hard, with 3 botched suicide attempts and possibly some brain damage from pulmonary arrest.

Three heart attacks. Mini strokes including impaired speech. Deep psychological trauma. Children who preceeded me to death. How much was one man supposed to take? I felt like Job.

But though I did question God, I never gave up my faith. And so I lived by my code. Honor, loyalty and love. Protect, defend, forgive. Simple as that, as Jesus taught and I learned, through personal agony…decades of it.

Abuse. Psychological, physical, sexual. They turned me into a monster. A monster I had to control. A monster nobody knew was hidden inside me.

And now that monster roars from within, challenging that control, threatening to break loose and feed its anger again on those I fear. The monster thinks it can protect me, avenge me, but I know that it will only destroy me.

ABeware the fury of a patient man, for if you fail, his soul will finish dying when his terrible wrath is unleashed. That wrath will consume all that stands within striking distance of the monster’s awful fangs and claws.

Damned if I Do…

This is always how it ends up. I delete my account. I break all contact. Because I never get anything right.

I’m too fucking old for this shit. I invest time and effort to help people. Offer encouragement. A kind word.

There’s no payoff. I just fuck it up. When will I learn that I can’t be on forums or social media?

I think I just did. Got slapped in the fuckin mouth. Another account deleted, another app uninstalled. I don’t ever want to go back, either. Cause this time, it got me nervous and then it got scary.

Because some people are fakes, wolves in sheep’s clothing. Everywhere, and you’re best off keeping to yourself. Don’t encourage others to be safe. They take offense. How dare a retard like me give anyone advice?

And if someone claims that you’re okay just as you are, don’t believe them. If they meant it, they wouldn’t have to say it. Beware the liars who have no criticism of you. Soon enough, it will change. Now you have a bridge you can be certain is worthy of being burned.

There are those who attack you, no matter the forum. Then there’s those two-faced ones with nice chat who suddenly hint that you’ve overstepped with your questions or assumptions. They’re going to hurt you. A person like me should never have friends. I’ll fuck it up. Then comes the part where they bitch slap you.

I was meant to be, and to die, alone, friendless, forgotten. I finally know how to do it. So there’s that. I only have family as friends on Meta. That…is as far as I go. No man can avoid his destiny. And I’ll never try to again. I’m just one of those dense motherfuckers who is slow to learn and slower still to apply that knowledge. This time I’ll get it right.

CPTSD: A Life Sentence

Since men learned to make war, there was PTSD. It was little-understood and often called the masculinity and character in question, in general, of veterans returning from war.

A great many people today believe it’s a recent “thing”, but it is far from it. It’s old, and it is hardly limited to war veterans.

Look through history: everything is bloody, battles, conquests, raids, military persecution, whatever you wish. You will not read of PTSD. But it’s always what’s left. In the Peloponnesian War, to use one example, which was started by Athens on the orders of Pericles, it turned into more of a nightmare for Athenian civilians than the short-sighted leaders ever stopped to consider. While superior to Sparta on the seas, Athens could not withstand field battles. Eventually the citizens of Attica, farmers, craftsmen and more, were forced to retreat within the walls of Athens.

What followed was hellish. Sparta burned their crops, committed savage war crimes, and soon food ran low, and supplies cane to the city by ship only. On the seas of the Aegean, Sparta sought help from an old enemy, Persia. This would have been enough to finish Athens, but the Ionians got some extra help: the Plague of Athens, which today is still an unidentified disease. It caused high fever, explosive diarrhea and killed by the numbers. At the end of it all, survivors, both military and civilian, would never be as they once were. The siege of Athens, and the war itself, left those who survived with serious, lifelong PTSD.

After the most destructive war in history, US soldiers, Marines and sailors returned home on overcrowded decks of ships. Flat tops had their aircraft dumped or stored below while flight decks were invisible beneath their human cargo. Public service films were shown in theaters warning family that their returning sons and husbands were “different”.

And indeed, they were. Many could not adjust to civilian life after three years of harrowing battle after battle in France, Holland, Belgium and Germany, Italy and North Africa. When the war against Nazi Germany ended, there was still savage fighting in the Pacific against the Empire of Japan.

While Allied soldiers were still dealing with Nazi concentration camps, other Allies were pinned down in volcanic rocks, bleeding and worrying about an invasion of mainland Japan. Upwards of a million soldiers could be expected casualties. By VJ day, every island touched by war, every soldier, pilot or sailor left standing, every civilian involved, were damaged. They would live their lives forever unable to escape the memories, nightmares, flashbacks and physical complications that went with it all: migraine headaches, digestive disorders like IBSD, “the shakes”, substance abuse, nausea and panic attacks that nearly shut down the body, and more.

There is no way that a normal and functional life can follow.

And history is loaded with people who so suffered.

Not until the late 1970s did we get the psychiatric term “PTSD” and yet, there are, all these decades later, people who deny its validity and those who deny that they have it.

And this does not apply to grunts who fear ridicule: so many civilians are not forced into denial, but choose it. And this has a high price. Missed time at work, workplace accidents, lost productivity in industrial jobs, medical care for physical symptoms only, not mentally related, abuse of spouses, violence in general…these hurt our country in ways we still can’t understand.

Since I’m shaking just thinking about all of this, I’ll have to continue tomorrow. Sometimes the subject itself triggers me. I apologize.

Movie Review: “Ghosts of War” (English, 2020)

First off, this very dark and graphic movie isn’t for everyone. Most critics hate it and won’t recommend it. And although it is a release of the Lockdown, not many got to see it then because of limited access. As subscription prices rise to rival the cost of cable, free streaming is a myth standing in front of the growing cost of internet service.

Assuming that you have internet access, then, I suppose you already subscribe to at least one streaming service. Through the magic of the web, once online you can see a load of free movies and TV shows with ads that aren’t unbearable in the commercial break length.

So what to watch, with horrible weather and too many reasons to just chill inside?

Take your pick. Search any film title and the results show where you can see it. Some are on specific subscription services like Disney Plus or Hulu. Not worth the cost, since you’re already paying for Wi-Fi.

I’ve been getting Fios emails warning me that my service will increase in cost in January. They ignore the fact that they’re not the only game in town and should stay competitive, but then again, when does a corporation ever care about its customers?

Tubi is my go-to app for free movies and TV, but I still love the Amazon Prime benefit of tons of movies for cheap, without censorship or ad breaks.

That being said, the heat of summer and the bouts of rain here keep me indoors a lot. Discovering Ghosts of War was one rare treasure that I found compelling and intense. On Tubi now, it’s worth seeing by anyone who likes science fiction, horror and war in one movie.

That’s not to say that it’s particularly frightening; my first viewing had me pausing to take considerable breaks for smokes. It’s ugly stuff, as any movie about war should be. I’m not pushing an anti-war conviction here; all wars have always been nothing but humanity at its very worst, full of carnage, disease, war crimes, and the always present deaths of civilians, crudely called “collateral damage”. I’m saying that in my view, war is terrifying, leaving damaged or dead people everywhere it goes, like a plague. It is stupid, but not merely so; it is the very height of the stupidity of the human race.

I have never been in a major theatre of combat, but I’ve had a brief taste and it can’t be described. The closest thing on screen was the Omaha Beach portion of Saving Private Ryan.

When grenades and mortar shells hit nearby, the loss of hearing except for ringing in the ears and general shock and disorientation Captain Miller experiences are real. You’re terrified by bullets zinging past you, but that state is, and must be, overcome by the adrenaline it produces. It is unforgettable. Years later, decades later, the haunting memory of it gets worse, not better.

Our movie begins in the French countryside in 1944. Five soldiers from the 82nd Airborne are camped at night. The squad leader awakes and sees someone in the trees lighting a cigarette and watching them. He clenches his eyes shut, as a child does when trying to banish something out of a nightmare. When he opens his eyes again, the mysterious man is gone.

The next morning, they continue toward their assigned destination, a chateau 30 miles away by foot. On hearing a German jeep coming, they mine the road and watch as the vehicle hits it. This is our real introduction to the squad: they shoot the survivors, all but one of which would die anyway. Butchie, the big guy, wants to fistfight a major who’s in remarkably good shape considering what just happened. It’s unlikely. Also, the jeep was completely blown apart, but is now lying upside down and basically in one piece. You think it’s a goof, a cheap plot device by the director.

But it’s not. This is how they’re experiencing it. Butchie starts out strong in the fistfight, but the Nazi major quickly begins to beat him. That’s until the squad leader shoots the major in the head with his pistol.

Here’s the cast of the squad:

Chris, the squad leader: Brenton Thwaits

Alan Richson as Butchie, the big, tough guy

Theo Rossi as Kirk

Skylar Astin as Eugene, the brains in the outfit

Kyle Gallner as Tappert, squad sniper, who chews up every scene he’s in. Without him, this movie wouldn’t be worth watching.

Not to be overlooked is the dynamic between the squad members. There’s mistrust, apprehension and a tension that is visible from the beginning, but which becomes palpable later.

On reaching the chateau to relieve the current squad on watch, they find that the relieved members are dodging questions, antsy and far too anxious to leave: our first clue that something isn’t right here.

Searching the house, they find clues of a disturbing nature, and experience doors slamming shut, noises from the fireplace that sound like voices and then Morse code, and a dead animal dropping from the chimney. Eventually, even the level-headed, dedicated Chris admits that the chateau is haunted. Butchie wants to leave, but Chris refuses, saying that abandoning their post is sure to end in their court-martial.

But things get worse. Eugene finds the journal of a Nazi soldier, which describes what the Germans did to the Helwig family, the owners before the Reich moved in and made the beautiful chateau a headquarters. It’s ugly, merciless stuff, enough to horrify anyone. Having discovered that the Helwigs had sheltered Jews, the family’s executions are appropriately gross and barbaric; Nazis executed almost everyone suspected of harboring Jews.

This theme could trigger Holocaust survivors or their descendants, or anyone with a soul. But that’s not the end.

Through the course of the movie, I spotted what I thought were major mistakes. One was the 90 degree angled flashlight. But I looked it up and found that different models were in fact issued, but not widely, to G.I.s in WW2. The earliest had black caps at either end, but later the entire thing was OD green. No problem there.

The use of Thompson machine guns by everyone but the sniper is as incorrect as you can get. Squad leaders (like Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan) would bear a Tommy, while the others would have carried the M-1 Garand, a rifle so superior to everything the Axis had that General George Patton called it the best weapon of the war and credited it with the Allies’ victory. All of these men carry Tommies, and sidearm, a mistake.

But, I do not consider this or any other inconsistencies to be mistakes.

For one, the squad wears the patches of both airborne and infantry. This is accounted for in the end.

Tappert overhears the others talking about him and later tells Eugene the story behind the cat’s cradle. This makes him both sympathetic and the worst mental casualty of them all. His face is worn by extreme fatigue and yet he tells the story of how he didn’t sleep for 5 days after Strasbourg.

“What I did to those Hitler youth was a fucking nightmare,” he says, but describes the scene as seeing it as an out-of-body experience. “I wanted to kill the eggs before they hatched,” he says. He describes decapitation of one boy who then sits up and makes a cat’s cradle with string. Eugene had told the others, “it wasn’t the first move”, which is inexplicable. Tappert gives that wan smile, tears coming from his eyes, and says in a southern accent, “…and what am I gonna do? I mean, I just cut his head off, am I gonna be rude? So I played cat’s cradle with him and then he just layed back down. It was like a fever dream. I forgot that happened until you reminded me.”

He already told Eugene that his mother liked scary movies. He names two: Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy and I was a Teenage Werewolf, both of which were not released until a decade after the end of the war. Some are quick to jump on this, calling it a glaring mistake. I believe it’s not a mistake at all but is explained in the end.

The chateau ends up getting attacked by Nazis, but the squad fends them off, but Butchie jumps on a grenade and won’t live much longer.

He comes awake through the morphine shots and screams, “This isn’t real” several times, then saying, “it was us!”. Then he tells them to “Remember”, and dies.

I’ve checked everything I saw and questioned in the movie and came away with very little that couldn’t be explained by the end.

In closing, I’ve met many war veterans in my life. Almost to a man they displayed behavior that can only be explained by trauma and tremendous guilt. And which is worse? Or are they always together and come in a bundle like insurance? I’ve known men who bore guilt but never admitted it. I learned how to spot it and adjust my discussions accordingly. The more I learned about my own condition, the less I understood it. PTSD costs millions in lost time at work and accidents from dissociation. War and abuse have more power to wreck lives than modern medicine has to fix the damage.

Here, we see a shocking end that makes a wild payoff, but leaves questions. I found no evidence of the curse used, and the men could not have “all said it at one time or another,” as a doctor claims. Chris had a tube for ventilation or feeding, Tappert has no lower jaw, and Butchie died. The questions linger. But that’s effective, as are the jump scares, phantom images and floors creaking. Critics call this a movie full of clichés. I don’t. I recommend it and score it 9 out of ten.

Flashing Back

Warning: language and subject matter for adults. Trigger warning.

It just doesn’t stop. I’ll be outside smoking and if I’m not careful to be observant, to stay alert,

it’s 1967 or 1970 or 1972. I mean, I’m really there, back in that cursed House of Pain in Pasadena. I don’t know, it just happens. The reality is crystal clear, I’m back there, reliving nightmares that actually played out in real life.

It could be a particular lashing with a thin leather belt; my mother atop me, moving up and down with no expression, like a robot; my sexual desire for girls my age because I had been “trained and indoctrinated” for sexuality while other guys in 3rd grade thought of nothing but toys, baseball and TV.

Going back hard always makes me sick. If I can’t pull myself out of it, I’m going to spend days recovering. And recovering is just the word I use; it’s really nothing of the sort.

Why does PTSD remain so powerful all these years later?

What I mean is, why me?

And the technical answer is, trauma changes the brain. The damage even shows up on MRI scans. But the other answer to this question is, nothing is fair.

I never imagined that I would live this long. God knows that I didn’t want to. I courted Death for decades. Almost 5 of them. Too much of a “pussy” to kill myself and just hard-headed enough to live through heart attacks, open heart surgery, strokes, 35 or more traffic accidents, having a .357 held to my temple and refusing to surrender, 3 bouts of covid-19, industrial accidents, being shot at with a Machine gun, falls, being knocked out and thrown down stairs, and, I’m sure, more.

When I finally got round to suicide, 3 times in two months, I screwed even that up. Failed romances? Shit. Girls laughed at me, called me names, gossipped. By the time my one and only marriage was over, I knew I was going to be alone until death. It was not all my fault, but I certainly screwed up my fair share. Then, the two people who mattered most, my children, died.

It’s been a real shit show and I’m sick of it.

But I ain’t quitting.

I have faith that God has a reason for interfering in my death. He’ll send for me in his own good time.

I hope that someone like me has read my posts, and in so doing, learned enough that they have sought help and intend to keep fighting the unfairness of life.

If you are reading this and you have been troubled and afraid, or know someone else who has, I want to reassure you that there’s hope. That maybe you will never heal, but bits of sunlight will come to you, that your life, horrible though it may be or has been, is still precious and of a value nobody can put a price on, and that your experience can help others. You have a story to tell, and people need to hear it. So many survivors think that they are alone; yet there are more of us than can ever truly be known.

PTSD is often a disabling mental illness and it can cause a lot of bad things to happen. Do whatever you need to in order to stabilize the symptoms. Familiarize yourself with the different effects of it, seek out competent proffesionals for treatment and remember, there will be days when you won’t even want to get out of bed. That’s okay. I worked 30 years until one day it became unbearable. In that time I had so many jobs I’d be hard put-upon to remember them all.

The bad days, with treatment and faith, will always give way to better ones. Until we draw our final breath, God can be called on to forgive us. There’s no better reason for hope.

If you, or anyone you know is suicidal, please call the suicide hotline at 988, text SMS to 988, or go to the website and chat.

Once the thought of suicide enters someone’s mind, they’re a third of the to doing it. The next part is making a plan, and the last is the act itself. Sometimes it is done on impulse and all that’s needed is time to think. People dying by their own hands often regret it afterwards. Sometimes they pull through. Sometimes they don’t. Take time to catch your breath and calm down. You are worthy of that. Believe it.

God bless you.

New York City Confidential: The Visit

Warning: The following contains graphic and disturbing material and it contains triggers. This is intended for mature readers only and must be read with caution.

Present Day

In a hospital somewhere in the Big Apple lies a young man near the end of his life.

It is just another day in the city that never sleeps: the patient will, without a miracle, die. And it will not matter, nor even be known, to any but the handful of doctors and nurses treating and tending to him.

And one earthly angel who knows how beautiful he truly is.

Because they adore him, these nurses. He is mostly silent, but despite his condition, despite his loneliness, his sadness, he is polite and warm.

And on any given hospital floor or ward, patients like him always seem to affect one nurse, perhaps more. In this case, more. He received no visitors.

There came no calls inquiring as to his condition or prognosis. No one cared. Nurses tend to feel at least some sorrow or anger over such things. For some, their necessity of a disconnect fails. No one should be left alone to face death.

And it did look bad; his kidneys had failed. His recovery from a coma was a great development, but the young man was in critical condition. He still is. He had HIV or AIDS before, but treatment had made the virus undetectable in his lab work. Then he contracted COVID-19 and the virus returned. Now, but for the Grace of God, he would already be dead.

But who knows? Perhaps God keeps the dying alive for a reason, because there remains a chance that they can find peace before death. And, just maybe, He plans on a miracle because He loves us all, equally, and does not want us to perish in the Pit.

I cannot say, but without speaking for God, I nevertheless have faith in His unfailing love and forgiveness.

If ever a young man needed a miracle, it’s surely this young man.

His story begins in Texas, where far too many horrible stories seem to start.

His father was the pastor of a church, and his mother was a nurse. Neither should have been so employed, for the father was far more evil than good, and the mother was his carbon copy.

His father the preacher man sodomized him while his mother held him down.

She held him down.

And there is more. When he came out as gay, his father called him a “faggot” and beat him. Whether he was kicked out or ran away is unclear but it does not matter.

Eventually the young man wound up in New York. In his ears it must have reverberated, his father, who routinely sodomized him, calling him a “faggot”. The damage was no doubt extensive. There is no reason given for his attraction to New York, but many gay men move there, most seeking acceptance and some type of human compassion.

But for him, if ever he found it, nothing good could last. Haunted by his past, he could not find lasting friendship nor any other relationship. At one point he wound up in a mental health facility. It is easy to see why. What is more difficult to see is that some part of him, despite loneliness and severe depression, wanted help, wanted to survive.

While he was there, a young woman was also a patient. She had clearly been through a hell of her own, and she was still in it. He decided to not only befriend her but to watch over her as well. And this he did, because his own broken heart hurt even more to see someone trying to fight back from a break, from loss, from addiction, from too much time spent hounded by demons.

The two bonded, improving over time, each very much a part of the other’s recovery. Then, she went home, and although they exchanged phone numbers, and did talk from time to time, the miracle girl he had watched over began getting very serious about finishing her recovery.

The system of replacement therapy is rigged, as I’ve said before. Rigged to keep you dependent on methadone so the clinic keeps getting funded. She emerged from a life-threatening breakdown to realize that the only way to regain her life and her soul was to fight the battle of a lifetime. And she argued with the clinic about stepping down her doses. They would alternatively encourage and discourage her and, with most, that strategy of manipulation works.

But the young woman was never going to be tricked again by the system that would not let her go.

Consulting a doctor not affiliated with the clinic, she did receive support, but also caution. Yet, in all his years of practice, he had never seen anyone so determined who might actually be able to do what she claimed she could, and would do.

Just like she said, exactly as she had said, she stepped down her doses rapidly. The clinic fought her but she was not having it. Finally she had had enough, and got her intake of methadone so low that despite her doctor’s concern, she ceased taking it. Silencing every critic and every rule of the system, what she did would not seem astounding to you or to me, but for her it was the drug equivalent of jumping from a second story window, landing as gracefully as a gymnast, and getting the winning score. And her doctor was astonished. What she had done, in the time in which she did it, with no lasting effects, was something he had never seen before. He was proud, but not of anything he had done; it was all her, she who possessed the fighting spirit of a tigress.

And that analogy is not off: a tigress is among the fiercest fighters in the animal kingdom, an apex predator with almost no fear of humans. The young woman had put up a fight, the like of which few have ever survived.

That fight was not short nor did it come without pain.

She continues to fight. Every day. But the entire time she was suffering, prayers came from all directions including her priest, who lit the tapirs and said the rosary in her behalf.

Her past was known to the priest. A violent multiple rape while a young teen. Comfort sought in hard drugs. Dysfunctional relationships that only lowered her closer to the abyss. Until death and shock and trauma piled upon trauma broke her and she met the lonely young man in the hospital.

She had lost her way. Lost everything she was, everything she thought she knew. The lonely man was there to help her get that back. These things are never chance meetings. God knows when two lost people need each other. He leads them to the quiet waters but never forces them to drink. That’s always up to them.

I always found in my worst stays in hospital that there was one person I could be comfortable around. It’s funny, that. And it always helps.

But as time went on, the young woman began grabbing her life back. An awesome man came into her life and a romance began. She made fast friends with his family and his friends. She had begun to live after decades of being a prisoner.

Then came a day when she found an unknown number on her phone. A number she did not recognize. Usually she would let such a thing go, but not this one. She felt strongly about it and knew she had to return the call.

It was the lonely man she had been watched over by in the hospital and he’d come out of a three-week coma and was very weak. It was difficult to speak because of the tube he had been sustained by, but she knew: he needed to see her and she needed to go to him.

Her boyfriend made a stop along the way, took her to the hospital, but because of covid protocols had to remain in the car.

Upstairs, the lonely man lay, withered, 60 pounds lighter, weak, fearing death. His friend walked up to the nurse’s station and one nurse smiled and said, “I’m so happy to see you. He’s had no one come in or even call and he’s so sweet.”

She went into the room, greeted him, and had to lean close to hear him. Clad in protective gloves, mask and gown, she listened.

He said he was happy that she was here. She gave him the stuffed unicorn she had bought on the way over. He loved it. Bending low she heard him say, “I’m scared of dying. I’m scared I’ll go to hell.”

She assured him that it wasn’t true. He would not go to hell. God knew the kindness of his heart, and would never allow such a kind soul to descend to the pit.

She asked him if he would like to talk to the priest they had both met before. He said yes, he would, and he seemed comforted by the suggestion. She said she would get the priest to come and see him.

After a few more moments that I will leave private, he thanked her for remembering him, for answering his call, and said, “I think I can sleep now.”

Before leaving home, someone had asked her why she had to go see this guy. “Because,” she said, “he’s my friend. He looked after me and protected me, and now he needs me.” It wasn’t about owing him or feeling obligated; it was love that drove this extraordinary woman to go. And nothing on this earth is more powerful than love.

This truly heartbreaking story is also a reminder to us all that no act of kindness, no show of friendship and loyalty ever goes unnoticed by God or under-appreciated by those we give the kindness to. We were given a command: love each other. When we fail, things happen that hurt. When we do it, the world is better for it. You and I may not feel it, but I know it’s the truth.

Have a great week, and God bless.

Dog Day Afternoon

Ain’t About The Heat

Caution, adult language and graphic content ahead!

I really am having a very shitty day. And you can’t always know when you wake up if it’s going to be a shitty day. There’s rarely any warning before the first incident happens that indicates well, shit. This is not gonna be one of those daisies and cream days.

Or was it strawberries and cream, because I can’t remember anything on shitty days.

Fell asleep around 05:00, slept fitfully and awoke around 13:00. This summer I sleep at night as often as I can because invasive insects are getting on my nerves. Plus, this year being morbidly angry with weather, it’s much safer. Or much more safe; pick one that suits you best. I’ve no wish to offend grammar Nazis.

But that reminds me: I’ve gotten a hold of a rumor that Murder Hornets are being called something else because people are offended by the name. Yet once they’ve killed enough honey bee colonies (as if the little guys weren’t already suffering CCD) we will be murdered by mere loss of pollination of food crops.

So what, now we gotta be politically correct about bugs? You gotta be shitting me! Stop this liberal bullshit and put your energy and indignation into saving the human race.

And then there’s yesterday.

Because yesterday wasn’t really a good day or a bad day. It was just a regular day. Until I saw a Reddit news alert that had me burning with rage.

Because a woman who taught middle school had, for three years, sexually abused a male student of thirteen years of age (his age when it began. Had she waited one year, it would have been a lesser charge. After all, we’re talking about Texas).

Sorry to use such language, but that is fucking sick. And against the law. So finally the kid himself called the police in secret and begged for help.

The sicko bitch was arrested. Prosecuted. Found guilty.

The amount of prison time she will serve? None.

The amount of jail time she will serve: six weeks minus time for good behavior. She gets a short time for probation, and will be a registered rapist and pedophile for the rest of her life.

But get this:

MARKA BODINE: Lord Voldemort, Bellatrix Lestrange, Ivan the Terrible and Kristen Heather Gilbert, all combined in the body of only one woman.

this pedophile does not have to report to prison until the summer of 2023.

Presumably because she just had a baby. News reports I refuse to link to claim that the boy is not the father. As if that’s never happened before. One woman eventually married the boy she was obsessed with and who did father a child with her, but even that’s not a new thing.

But the boy who desperately called police? He got screwed out of justice. She started by texting and playing Fortnite with him online. Then came the nude selfies she bombarded him with. Then classroom sexual abuse after classes. Then she was bold as brass and even visited his house!

Where were his parents? It might have been different had the teacher been a man and the student a girl, because only the most grossly negligent parents would not be outraged. But boys, like men, get raped all the time in familiar places right under everyone’s nose. Even cops don’t take men seriously.

But this boy?

The cops answered his desperate call.

We men, when boys as students with hormones assaulting us, may well fantasize about a beautiful teacher. Of course we do. But no sexual or romantic fantasy should ever actually happen. The results are traumatic and a complete interruption of normal growing emotionally. That is something that can never be restored; everything changes.

Perhaps, with such horrors on my mind, it was inevitable that I was never to sleep last night and that today would be a shitty day. I don’t know.

But at 13:00, I staggered out of my bedroom. I made coffee, a big mistake. I did not yet know how dreadfully big my mistake was until I stepped outside to smoke. I had a shorty, a Marlboro Red 72. I wanted another as I listened to distant thunder and lit the second one. Then I got a pang of warning, deep down in my gut. I squeezed my ass cheeks together, hobbled down the steps, trying to make the latrine in time.

I failed. Almost at the door, it started. This time, I couldn’t stop it. It was humiliating and disgusting. I’d already filled my shorts and the overflow ran into my jeans and getting them down took too long and I’m still going when I finally hit the commode, and sitting there in shame I look, and none of it is solid, because that is controllable, and shit, I just figure I’ll use my stiletto, cut the shorts free, and get rid of it in the sink so I can rinse them enough to get them in a trash bag.

Except it’s too heavy, and it doesn’t quite work out that way. Because now it’s everywhere. My boots, jeans, web belt, socks, the floor, wall, side of the tub, everywhere.

I sit, trapped, unable to do anything until it’s all over. Air freshener doesn’t help. It’s about the equivalent of a gastrointestinal exorcism. Demons flying everywhere!

Still clothed, I returned to Mother Earth and cursed her: this shit ain’t fair, you bitch!

And, still clothed, I just stepped into the shower to begin the process of getting the heavy stuff off of everything. It took so long that by the time I’m stripped and washing up, the water’s getting cold because even with a variable spray shower extension couldn’t get it all. Now I’m really mad. I can’t put this stuff in the washer. Everything goes in the trash bag, which by all rights should have been red with the word Biohazard on it.

It all goes: boots, jeans, socks. The boots were cheap, years past being comfortable anyway. I dried off, dressed in fresh clothes, walked the bag to the dumpster and went back inside for some immodium. Four of them. No shit (hopefully).

Then, as if that shit weren’t enough, I finally settle a bit from a Klonopin and decide it’s safe to go have a cigarette to finish calming my nerves. But on shitty days like today, nothing is safe.

A neighbor walking her dog comes by on the sidewalk. Right in front of me, the cute little beast takes a shit.

On the sidewalk.

Then, this dog, whose mama had walked her past me a hundred times, looked straight into my eyes.

It knew.

That fucking evil beast knew, and it was making fun of me!

Because her shit was turds.

Solid nuggets of what used to be kibble. Her eyes bored into mine. My shame and humiliation came surging back, from brain to toes.

While not all victims of abuse and the traumatic stress disorder that will never leave them have the same symptoms, this is a common one seldom listed by doctors. IBSD or irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea has been a part of my life for more than half a century. Other symptoms you may be more familiar with and medicine to treat them are not effective with IBSD. What do you think the boy so relentlessly abused by his teacher will have to endure for the rest of his life while his rapist freely raises a family? Do you honestly believe that fact alone cannot torment and damage him even more? Because if you do, then you don’t know jack shit.

Jack Shit? You ask.

I know him better than I know my shadow.

Even that snobby dog knows. That dog, she…she knows everything.

The Fog

The fog rolled in last night. It didn’t leave. This afternoon it was still there. Not heavy, just enough to blot the sun and lower spirits. Nobody was cheerful, and perhaps it was a hangover and maybe just the lack of sunshine.

I walked through the market. No one was talking. Nobody was in a hurry. Starbucks had no line. Cashiers were not swamped.

On New Year’s Day in the 70s, everything was closed. Driving through Glen Burnie with Dave Lowman, on our way home from buffing floors at a warehouse office my father owned, there were high winds blowing the traffic signals horizontal so you couldn’t see whether it was red or green, made the scene surreal.

I’d rather have the fog. Or a blizzard. Anything but just the wind by itself, especially after dark. I hate windy nights in winter. I don’t know why, but outside of a metro area, they scare me. But then, I’m also scared of metropolitan districts. For different reasons, of course.

But somehow, fog doesn’t bother me. One night I was in an 18-wheeler, dragging a 48 ft. Trailer full of paper towels and toilet paper through the Pocono Mountains. I was following another B.Green & Co. driver, but it was so foggy that I had to keep his rear clearance lights in sight or I’d have been in trouble. I didn’t know the area, which exits to take, nothing. And I couldn’t see worth a damn. If I’d lost him I’d have turned off my headlights. Just the marker lights would have been sufficient and they didn’t offer up the glare feedback that had led so many drivers before me to their doom.

But it was the worst fog I’ve ever seen, even to this day.

There’s a different kind of fog.

The kind you get in your brain when you mix mental illness and chronic somatic illnesses with too many fucking pills.

They keep me alive. Sometimes I wish they didn’t. Sometimes the fog facilitates dissociation or runaway thoughts. And dissociation always takes me through time to the source of my mental illness: severe child abuse including brutal beatings, torture, both mental and physical, rape and other sexual abuse.

It’s inescapable. It sucks. And the pain crushes me. The blue pills, Klonopin, are for my nerves. I take it twice a day, but sometimes anxiety hits me so hard that I can’t breathe. So I take one extra dose. That calms me but if I’m not in the fog, I soon will be.

I have to go. I’m fogged up and coffee didn’t help.

Traffic Stop

WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS DISTURBING DETAILS

The officers probably didn’t want to do it. And nobody can know whether the woman driving had rolled past other cops who also didn’t want to stop her. Or maybe they didn’t get a look, a close enough look at the plates. Temporary license plates. In Maryland it is not uncommon for drivers to abuse temporary plates by driving past their expiration dates.

But the officers turned on the cruiser’s lights and proceeded with what they thought was a routine, if slightly irregular, traffic stop.

But it wasn’t routine, and irregular can’t begin to describe what really happened.

It is the type of thing that police officers everywhere would find horrifying no matter how many years they have served. Yeah, that kind. The one which any cop would wish they had never made. Because no matter what, it is life-changing. It has to be. Because no human can anticipate horror like the brand these cops had to face the second those lights started flashing.

And you’d think, in the end, that the motorist would have tried to flee, make a chase of it. That they did not at first do so may be the most terrifying part of all.

They got out of the cruiser. Or cruisers; which is not clear and makes no difference.

Nicole Johnson turned out not to have a driver’s license. Driving without a license is a moving violation which could, but rarely, put one behind bars. I got six months once for driving at night using an “inspection tag”, a kind of temporary tag meant for moving your car to an inspection station and back to the DMV to prove it has been certified road worthy, then get standard license plates (Maryland requires two, front and rear). I was fortunate in that the judge placed me on probation. I had to be Peter Perfect for the six months and if I was, the record would be cleared. I was Peter Perfect.

Nicole Johnson seemed unconcerned. So she had no driver’s license. So what?

It’s Essex. A place where there are lots of poor neighborhoods. Drivers with no licenses are likely common. It can be difficult to have a shit job, feed your kids and afford rent plus monthly insurance premiums. That’s life in a country where the minimum amount you can legally pay a full time worker is below the poverty level. You think it’s okay, paying someone less than what it takes to be called “poor?” Try living that way and maybe you’ll feel different.

But there was more to Nicole Johnson not having a driver’s license and her income than met the eyes. Much, much more.

And when I first heard about it I knew somehow that I would have to write this post.

At some point, officers told Johnson that her car had to be towed. She was driving with more than an expired temporary license plate. Hers was fake. You don’t get to drive home and be told to park it. Not in this state. You can’t even have a car without insurance and plates sitting in your back yard. And for every day that your car goes uninsured the financial penalty piles up. I find it to be an unfair law which puts the poor at a severe disadvantage. But in this state you may as well criminalize poverty, though there’s plenty of it. The poor don’t catch lucky breaks. They catch visits to Courtroom B and cell block 4. Social services don’t give a rat’s ass about their kids. You don’t want to know what’s next for them.

Nicole Johnson. Age, 33. African American. In this state she could easily have been white, 23, and you’d get the same result. Because poverty and mental illness know no boundaries, no limits. Even if Johnson was white, she was going to be busted.

She said of the car being towed and officers ordering her to show up in District Court within five days, “It don’t matter. I won’t be here in five days and y’all going to see me on the news, y’all going to see me on the news making my big debut.”

Wait, what? What’s that supposed to mean? Any officer would already be on edge, but those words, those arrogant, callous, cryptic words, had to have been chilling. Their eyes would have widened for the briefest second, then narrowed. I know. I’ve made cops do it. I didn’t mean to, though. Nicole Johnson did.

It is summer in Baltimore County. The heat out west has not affected us much. Less than an average summer, truth be told. But summer all the same. Heat does things that make natural things hang about. So it was that officers caught the unmistakable stench of decomp, short for decomposing bodies. What happened next was the thing no officer anticipates, the thing that haunts any cop for the rest of their days. It leaves a residual shock.

I call it trauma. A damaged cop is left in place of one who hit the streets that day, tough, jaded from all the evil things they’ve seen, weary inside because the evil has become a routine. There isn’t enough help for them. Having counseling, as in the military, is often viewed as a deficiency, a weakness to be chided. The hard code of the brotherhood of officers guarantees that sometime in the future, a traumatized person wearing a badge may break and make the news himself.

A bag with a suitcase inside revealed maggots. And then…the body of a child.

Finally Johnson ran. Presumably on foot. It was incongruous considering her declaration and arrogance she had displayed moments ago. She knew she had no hope of escape.

Eventually another body was discovered in the trunk. Johnson’s deceased niece and nephew. Malnourished, abused and post morten exams revealed months of malnourishment. With a decomposing body it is sometimes difficult to fix the cause of death. Holes appear in the dermis which could be wound or decomposition…or maggots. Underlying bone and tissues must be carefully examined. The girl, Johnson said, had been struck by her, then fallen and fatally struck her head. That’s first degree murder. A homicide straight and pure. Johnson said the boy died of blood loss from a leg wound.

There are many questions remaining. Johnson was arrested and charged with multiple felony and misdemeanor charges and waived a bond hearing. She won’t see daylight for a very long time.

The questions, though, linger. Why had neighbors never asked any? Why had no reports made it to Child Protective Services?

And why was their mother unable to care for her children, leaving them in her sister’s care? Why did she wait so long before enquiring as to their welfare, and why did she try to get her children back, only to have her sister not show, then wait for so long to get police involved? She never heard anything until police told her that the children were dead.

These riddles are more than troubling. They stay with you and nag at the soul, begging you to find answers. The questions will never be answered. Nicole Johnson made the news. Her debut is accomplished. She will go down in police legend as a monster straight from Hell. Something in a human body which, they’ll tell themselves, is not human.

Nobody knows what they’re going through, but Baltimore County Police Chief Melissa Hyatt has said that they were seriously affected. Only time will tell if they can continue to do police work. The community,, family and friends, Hyatt said, were all deeply affected. She apologized on behalf of the BCPD and the county for such a monstrous tragedy. Because that’s the only thing she could do. It appears that she, too has been touched malignantly by the monster inside Nicole Johnson. It has been speculated that the boy may have been in the trunk since May, 2020.

As a community and a state where they have to handle that which never can be, Johnson is headed to a place where other women will have heard of the high profile case. They will be waiting for her.

The charges faced by Nicole Johnson in Baltimore County

In the meantime, coroners continue their forensic work, nobody knows how the mother feels, and word of the case spreads around the world because it’s too horrible not to.

And we are left with a decision.

When we are going to do something about the horrors awaiting the children of America. Will we continue turning away, not saying anything, reading that the kids we knew were neglected have become a homicide statistic?

Can we continue such bestiality and the approval of it by our silence?

What were the last months of these kids like?

What were the last minutes of their lives like?

You have to imagine it and see through their eyes the terror, the unfair finality of it all.

Because if we can’t do that, we are doomed. And in God’s eyes, perhaps that would be for the best. What does it mean to be human if we are really no better than this?

What does it all mean?

Sources WJZ CBS Baltimore

And WBAL TV

Take “Positive Thinking” and Shove It

CAUTION: this post deals with sexual abuse and suicide. If you are feeling suicidal just scroll down for information about help. Some readers will find this post disturbing.

All my life, I’ve heard — no — had — Norman Vincent Peale thrown at me. In case you don’t know who he was, he was a religious hack who wrote a book about how to change your life with “The Power of Positive Thinking”. He probably got a lot of people killed.

I’m not going to give a boring recap or critique of the book. I am not in the habit of regurgitating pseudopsychological bullshit.

Nobody throws that positive thinking doctrine at me and gets away with it. I’ll throw curse words at you that you’re never gonna forget. Please don’t make me do that. I really don’t want to.

“Dr. Peale” made a name for himself. He wrote more bullshit in his life than anyone else besides Billy Graham. At least the latter had the honesty to solicit your cash after his crusades. I’d rather someone be a thief and be up front with it; at least they aren’t guilt-tripping you like Pat Robertson or selling plastic buckets as life preservers the way Jim Bakker does. And at least he wasn’t overtly antisemitic like John Hagee (my auto spell doesn’t have your name, Pastor Hagee, jeez. I wonder why? You should sue!)

Pseudochristian writing is as old as the first Easter. And with it comes all the bullshit you know and love: Medieval demonology, the execution of witches, the thievery of the Templars.

Then the bloodshed of the Crusades stained the roads from Europe to fallen Israel, then we just had to let them get into our heads with writings that led to the 20th century and beget idiots like Peale. Not so much an idiot about making money; but definitely a man out of his league with psychology. And why, you ask, all this animosity, and why my claim that he took lives?

Because he, like so many other straight, white conservatives was a preacher who “reformed” his church, thus perverting the doctrine of Christ, who taught that true evil is real and that in our lives, we would suffer. He never promised an easy path, but instead warned against false teachers and fake messiahs. Peale had an answer for that: Think positive.

His first book was absolutely torn apart by critics in the mental health field. In fact some were outraged.

My mother bought me a copy. Fucking ironic, isn’t it? I mean, she and my dad would come into my room on Saturday nights (Saturday was always my night) and take me into the den so she could mount me on the sofa while my father watched TV or read the newspaper, or joined in. Perverts.

My father berated me every single chance he got. He called me a retard, threatened to send me to two different mental hospitals (Crownsville State or Spring Grove, whichever was on the tip of his tongue). He called me stupid. Then, so many names I can’t remember them all, he criticized everything I did, tore it apart, made me feel like I couldn’t do anything at all because I was such a retard. He damaged with his words whatever his whippings, that left me bloody, or the sexual abuse hadn’t fucked up yet. In the end he turned me into a scared shitless little kid who hated himself. The days I could venture out to ride bikes or play football became more rare. I’d lie by my window and listen to my friends, way down the street, playing at dusk, and cry myself to sleep. No child should go through that, okay? Not one.

This verbal abuse combined with trauma from being flogged until I was bleeding or tortured in ways none of my siblings ever knew because of all his kids, he hated me the most. After he could no longer control my older brothers and sister, he took out his rage and need for control on me.

He did a fucking number on my head. Years of this went on. I sit here now, and can barely believe that one man can live who survived all that. And when I began to show signs of having been through too much, my mother thought I might benefit from good old N.V. Peale.

It was such crap that I couldn’t read it. The world, I knew, didn’t work that way. But I started to feel guilty. The people he wrote about, they were so much stronger than me. There was something wrong with me.

Because my world worked the opposite way. I didn’t take him for the crank he was until I learned more about mental illness.

I remember when the trial of the State of Maryland vs. Ralph and Betty Smith (my parents) was over. How people said, “Now you can move on” but never told me how to. I was angrier every time I heard it but knew that if I told them what a mess I really was I’d get a lot of flak. I held my tongue when I just wanted to scream, “What do you know? Fuck you! Walk a mile in my shoes and you’ll scream to be let out.”

And that’s the problem. Some things cannot be magically forgotten, no matter how positive I think.

It’s not over. Never will be, not for me. There’s too much damage and too much pain. Trauma isn’t a skinned knee that you put some Neosporin on, then bandage and go skipping merrily on your way.

Since then I worked years in a union job. I was good, but still very sick. Focus isn’t easy with trauma and the dissociation that goes with it. I had accidents and injuries and sent out product that couldn’t even be used. After that I wound up in a dollar store, three hours a night, four nights a week. I had come full circle. A total loser like my father had predicted, because I had trouble getting through those three hours. I was growing worse and didn’t understand why. Because I knew by then about PTSD. I thought that I knew everything about it. How was it getting worse? How could the Universe be that cruel to one man? I began to drink, cognac, whiskey, rum, vodka, you name it. Just make sure it’s the whole bottle; I wasn’t a bar fixture. I drank while walking home or in private. Because, fuck everyone else.

When I tried for the third time to kill myself I came damn close. I was given the chance to have a bed at Springfield Hospital (which was one my father never mentioned; one last joke on that piece of shit). I was told it used cutting edge trauma therapy. I grabbed that bed up.

Nobody there told me to think “positive”. They didn’t call me lazy or a failure and not once did I hear the word “retard”.

First, the doctors and my therapist allowed me to be sick. They didn’t tell me I had to move on. In the Men’s Trauma Group there were no comparisons; we were all encouraged to tell our stories and we were given treatment. Gently, one step at a time, each of us being on different levels of capacity for effort. One day one of the two women who ran the group saw me outside and said I could be the “poster boy” for PTSD. And so I could be.

I loved my time there. Being treated as who and what I was, I felt somehow liberated.

Since then, in ongoing treatment and assisted living, I’ve made a serious mistake. I tried to be more than what I am, and someone I’m not. The old thinking I was programmed for has never left; I feel like a freak and a failure even though my monstrous parents are long since dead and buried. That’s not fair, but it just doesn’t wear off. I feel that more intensive treatment is called for, but physically I’m running out the clock. So I say “What’s the use?” The tendency to give up is so pervasive that I may never again seek that kind of help.

***

I used to be able to draw and paint. I walked away from it; nothing I ever did was good enough and none of my work was spared the bins. I don’t think I can do either anymore what with my left hand shaking all the time.

In my mind I know it could be caused by lots of things but I go straight to Parkinson’s disease, one of the worst case scenarios. Negative thoughts not from pessimism. From trauma and learned behavior.

Personality disorders are learned behavior and thinking. They are most difficult to treat, and positive thinking isn’t part of that treatment.

In the hospital I was taught cognitive behavioral therapy. It challenges one to not think positive, but to stop and think about what they are doing and saying. Since having covid, my memory has trouble with the list. It consists of various types of actions, responses and spoken words that indicate one is acting on learned behavior that is flawed. If I say “I’m going to fail” for example, cognitive behavioral rules tell me that I’m engaging in fortune telling, which of course I cannot really do. I’ll post a link below for the list.

Another part of cognitive therapy is being “mindful” and I like this part. One day in one on one therapy, my doc unwrapped one of the biggest, deepest red strawberries I’d ever seen. It was organic, he said, and I had never heard of that. He instructed me to take a bite (it was too big to eat otherwise). I was to slowly chew, paying attention to the taste, the texture, and to clear my mind of all but the strawberry. He explained that people often gulp down a burger for lunch, talking to a friend or coworker, never really tasting, fully, the food. And we carry that behavior into every facet of life, and it’s not merely flawed, it’s sad.

I’ve never enjoyed a strawberry more.

Cognitive therapy works. I have to get back to it and do as much on my own as I can. You’re not thinking positively or negatively; just concentrating on the moment. What you’re doing and saying. Particularly what you’re thinking.

One cannot undo a lifetime spent living with mental conditioning that has hobbled oneself and kept them reinforcing every bit of said conditioning (I would do things to sabotage my relationships or jobs because I was convinced deep down that I’d fail anyway).

But one can learn to live each second more aware of what that conditioning has wrought, and once there, changes start to happen. But that is far from easy. It is a tall fucking order.

One problem is that extensive damage can never be cured. Recovery is not complete. That’s not possible. I know this, know my limits and obstacles. But I can at least accept some of them.

***

The problem with positive thinking is that whoever attempts it will invariably fail.

It’s superficial and does nothing to address what lies beneath. The core behavior and thought patterns taught them from an early age when they were helpless and defenseless.

When the failure comes, and it always does, the first thing a person does is to get angry with themselves. They see weakness where a simple task, being positive, is too much for them. Some act out, angrily lashing out. Others, determined to get it right, keep trying…and falling short.

It is enough for me to know that suicides lay in the wake of Peale’s egregious con. You tell someone that simply thinking positively will get them a coveted job. They don’t get the job but they won’t blame you, they’ll think you’re full of shit, but they still blame themselves. With a string of failures already behind them because they need professional help, what do you think will happen?

You hear that his wife has left him.

Next thing you know you’re attending his funeral.

No one knew him well enough to give the eulogy. You surely didn’t. His wife, filled with guilt, stands to one side, sobbing.

The pastor does the eulogy. It’s generic and wooden. None of it needed to happen. But that’s lost on you because you believe you gave him everything he needed to succeed. “Think positive, Hank.”

You’re lying to yourself. You gave him a phantom tool, one that got him to commit suicide.

The human race is not made up of failures and successes. It’s not made up of dark, negative people and those who live charmed lives. Everyone has the same potential at birth. Sure, some have different talents and gifts, but it’s still potential for great things. When natural development is interrupted by evil acts and resultant trauma, the future has been changed. Not just for that person. The world suffers. A man or woman deprived of love and proper care as a child now has less to offer. They’re damaged. They need help. They rarely get it in a system that still neglects and minimizes them. Society still stigmatizes them. They suffer from attendant physical illnesses and it all falls apart. Born with incredible potential, they linger in a health system that isn’t staffed or funded to help.

We see a mass shooting. Suddenly we want mental illness treated, like yesterday. But it doesn’t happen. There’s no budget. Conservatives think mentally ill people are faking to get benefits. That’s when they use “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” and “they’re draining our budget” when both are lies and the worst of insults.

America eats its own. Men like Norman Vincent Peale only ever made money for lying and getting people killed. Self help books are a huge industry. Almost all of it is total bullshit. Don’t give charlatans your money. Seek help. Ask for references. Don’t give up.

If you’re stuck to your sofa and need a shower, but can’t make yourself do it, you’re not lazy. You need help. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you fail because you are too negative. They don’t know you. Tell them I said to fuck off. This is your life we’re talking about. You can be in real danger and not know it yet.

If someone tells you to “move on,” you tell them I said to go to hell. There are too many armchair and shithouse psychologists out there. Piss on them. Most of all be wary of church and “spiritual leaders” who all have agendas, and you’re not on it; your cash is.

Finally, don’t forget what I said. Seek out help from professionals with good creds. I don’t want you to suffer, and it breaks my heart that you do. There may not be a cure, but there is help. You just have to want it.

If you are feeling like a failure, not measuring up to the expectations of anyone else, and you are thinking of calling it quits, believe me, I know how you feel. But the best panacea I’ve ever found is in the act of helping someone else. The ways to do that are infinite; you don’t even need money. Just observe and the door will open. Knowing that you have made a difference, however small you may think it is, is one of the most magnificent feelings anyone can ever have. It cheers you, warms you in your heart and tells you that no, you are not worthless. You’re a decent person. But first, before all else, you need help. And there is nothing wrong with that.

IF YOU ARE FEELING SUICIDAL

For help if you are feeling suicidal, call 911. You need to be seen in a safe place by people who want you to live.

If you don’t want to go that route, call the (US) National Suicide Hotline at

1-800-273-8255 or click Here.

Thinking about suicide is a deadly sign. I can’t bear to think of the world without you in it.

For more information on cognitive behavioral therapy, click here.

Sources: Wikipedia, Google Search

Author’s Note to you, the reader:

I didn’t care until recently whether I had followers or not. Or whether I got “likes” or not. You’ve changed that. With over 60 followers, the other day I received 8 likes in one day. To most bloggers, a thousand is a disappointment. But for me, 8 broke my previous record. I found myself grateful and humbled and I want to say, thank you. To my new followers, I hope you have the chance to read all of my posts. Part of my goal here is for everyone who visits to get to know me. To hopefully find something you can use, learn or at least enjoy. Let me know in the comments section if you can’t access something and I’ll fix it. Feel free to leave comments and tell me what you’re thinking. I’d love to know.

I want to help others like me, to let them see that they are not alone. The only way I can do that is by telling my life’s story and being honest, not holding anything back. To show my damage in all of its ugliness as well as the decent part of me who empathizes, loves and cares about people I’ll never meet. I hope also that still others will gain something to simply think about. I’m not an authority on anything; I offer only a raw look at my feelings and my thoughts. A long life gives one many stories to tell, and I hope you’ll browse and read and continue to keep me company. I’ve realized that I need you, I appreciate you, and I love you. Until tomorrow, be well. Many thanks.