9: Purple Mornings

There used to be so many holes in her gate.  Her fence. The walls around her inner-space. But not anymore.

(smiling)

I am Her and She is Me.  Our brain relived a nightmare last night.  We don’t drunk dial.  We “dream text.”  She gets scared and I don’t notice.  People mix together.  It’s a rehab thing.  Temporary.  Thank God.   Sorry if I was mistaken.  I just can’t tell.  I’ve never felt so strange to myself.

This stroll is lovely, though.

My friend Mike shares while we’re walking:  “Catch the moments when wholeness happens. Make them a part of your being. Rub your hands together, touch your ears, listen and integrate.”  He doesn’t use those words.  He’s less eloquent, but more real.  Choppy and candid.  A fellow artist I trust.  I always trust the ones who speak poorly.  The articulate ones can be tricky.

The negative moments stand out too hard; don’t give them the attention they say they deserve. Allow them to die of neglect.  Feed the other side.  The purple side.

Her brain is mine.  We have to share it, unfortunately.  Sometimes it doesn’t feel like there’s enough space for the both of us.

She wants to look for the Tigers, but the Tigers don’t exist anymore. This is 2018 motherfucker.  There’s nothing wrong with your life.  Only thinking makes it so.  Just like the philosophers have always said.  Be Here Now.  Just like her favorite Soren once wrote: 

 “...in the heart of nature, where a person, free from life's often nauseating air, breathes more freely, here the soul opens willingly to every noble impression. Here one comes out as nature's master, but he also feels that something higher is manifested in nature, something he must bow down before; he feels a need to surrender to this power that rules it all.” -Kierkegaard

Her nauseating air was her memory.  A radio of narcissistic anxiety.  Warranted then, but not anymore.  So She opens her soul to the noble impression of mailboxes.  The mailboxes are everywhere.  She can’t stop staring.  Oh, and a golden retriever!  It’s magic.

Mike, her walking friend, is an artistic fitness instructor.  His calves are bigger than her face.  She hates weights.  She was an aerobics instructor, once.  Paid for her artificially pretend enthusiasm.  She can excite a corpse with compliments.  She’s a machine in that way.  A cheerleader for the cheerless.  For people who’ve forgotten their purple in their pockets.  They’re Purple.  They’re Passion.  They’re Love.

They’re.  They are.  That was not a grammatical error.  She hopes I remember.  She hopes you do, too.  We’re Worth.

These are called Vinca.  The Passionate Pink.  Magenta.  They’re hard to kill.  Vincas have wild roots.  They thrive despite negligence.  Passion is like that.

My dad taught me when I was young; he told me all about the flowers.  I memorized their names.  We watched the clouds and labeled the trees.  My dad taught me a lot of things, but I choose to only remember the nice ones.  Nice.  I can be nice to myself now; the fear is erroding.  This makes room for forgiveness.  Forgiveness makes room for the power Soren mentioned earlier. 

Nice.  It’s nice to have choices, it’s nice to never be trapped.  Children can be bound by people with stronger arms...bound with bodies and loud noises.  But adults can’t.  Even if they deny it.

This sacred ability to unbind oneself is a great responsibility, a great gift.  Freedom is such a tricky, special thing.  I wouldn’t trade it for the world.  Did you see those purple leaves?

Flashes of Arizona reframed.  For the better.  Because that’s what adults can do.  When fear is released, joy is what’s left. ‘Maybe Arizona won’t be so bad after all,’ she thinks.

We love our purple mornings.

8: I am a Bird. A Grackle. Yesterday, I Found Purple.

This entire experience took place yesterday (September 18th), but I’m documenting it today (September 19th).  I truely believe that reading this post is the closest thing anyone can come to witnessing EMDR without being a practicing therapist or volunteer patient.  For those who have asked me about it, here ya go....

___

I am five years old.  And I’m 35-years old.
I am both at the same time.
I am making art and healing my brain.
Because I have superpowers, just like he said.

Here are the colors.  They’re very important.  They distinguish between Pleasantville and real life.

I am real now.  I’m becoming a real boy, like Pinocchio.  But a girl instead.

I have to learn how to not be afraid as a girl.
Here are the colors.  They’re on my feathers.  My feathers are made of the colors.
Here they are, in order:

• Bright Clear Water Blue = Quenched Relief. Refreshed. Clean. Finally.
  
• Yellow = Energy. Movement. Momentum. Can be panick, terror, or not at all.  Can be neutral. Energy dancing around in the body. It has to get out or it hurts.
  
• Pinkish Magenta = Passion. Different than Power but similar. “Haha, I’m Here!”
• Nice Green, Gentle Green = Empathy.  Kindness.
• Orange = Boldness. Courage.
• Red = Anger. Protection. Actions of Justice.
• Steel Blue = Nourishment. Depth. Satiation.
• Purple = Royalty. Dignity. Value. Worth. Not entitlement.
• Brown = Grounded Stability. Safety. Something to count on. The earth. The material. Reality.
• Black = Grief. Pure grief. Grief in it’s purest form.

My tail feathers are the color of sky.  Sky Blue.  Full of possibility.  Endlessness.  Imagination, but not.  Potential and future and “what could this be?”  That’s what Sky Blue feels like.  It feel like anything I need it to be to fly.  To escape.  To succeed.

My Sky Blue tail feathers provide me with Balance and Purpose and a sense of Direction.  My tail feathers are very important.  The give me autonomy from the flock.  They give me freedom to flee from predators.  A bird becomes prey without her tail feathers.  It’s true.  Look it up.  I know.  I save wounded birds in my back yard.   That’s not a figure of speech.  The chickens will kill them if I don’t.  It’s not a metaphor, but it’s also a metaphor.  It is the most true thing I’ve ever written.

You should read that again.

The child speaks to me, because I am Her and She is me.  We are together, making art.  She writes on paper, an extra sheet of paper.  Scrap paper.  We’ll call it her notebook.

Notebook: “Being quenched and relieved is different from the satiation of nourishment.  They are both blue, but they’re very different.  One eradicates existing pain.  The other adds comfort and nurturing to a neutral body.  I know I need both very badly but the people who kept me in the cage were not good at protecting or caring for me.  They think birds can take care of themselves.  They think birds can cry themselves to sleep.  But they can’t.  They can’t take care of themselves when their kept in a cage.”   

It’s the crib.  But it’s a cage.  She couldn’t get out.  Tortured.  Poor bird.  Couldn’t sing.  Couldn’t cry.  The needles made her silent.  The choking kept her still.

Notebook: “I am allowed to have colors I never had before.  I’m a late bloomer.  Only thirty-five.  Cute.  That was a cute joke. ”

I am painting myself black with pastels.  I’m a black bird.  A Grackle.  I am made of sadness.  My whole body is made of it.  I grew up in a black body.

Notebook: “The grief is not badness.  Badness is different.  It’s not even of the bird or of me.  The badness is far away and does not touch me.  But the grief.  The grief is not badness or darkness.  It is just the expression and expelling of what was pain.”

It shoots out everywhere.  Purple lines pour out of my eyes.  I don’t know why they’re purple since they’re grief.  You’d think they’d be black.  Streams and streams of purple lines.  Black outlines every feather. It is the shadow of every other color. I’m crying and coloring at the same time. Just like I used to as a child.  I try to take notes.

Notebook: “Grief is the propeller of my existence.  I am propelled by grief.  Colors are defined against the grief.  Black gives color definition.  Contrast.  Light vs. Dark.  Grief embodies all of me.  It shoot our my feathers.  It’s released into the Universe as the positive emotions.  A rainbow of feelings.  I have never had access to them before.

“My heart still has grief in it, but it is open.  We have claw feet.  Talens.  And a big beak.  For weaponry.  But we only use them to care for ourselves; tools.  They are tools.  Some people use tools like weapons...but not me.  Not unless it’s an emergency...because I am a bird of kindness.  Bird of Paradise.  When it’s integrated instead of dissassociative, Grief helps Us be in reality.  Fantasy happens when grief’s not allowed.  Depression is my reality.”

I can cry and color at the same time.
I can cry and be smart at the same time.
I’m 35-years old.  Bawling.
Just watch.  Just watch us make it out.
I’m the smartest girl in the world…

Notebook:
“I am a Grackle.  Maybe I am a sad bird, so what.
Brokenness is beautiful because Light can shine behind it.
Black Bird.
Dark Bird.
Beautiful Bird.
Healing Bird.
I help mirror peoples’ grief to themselves when they have too much fear to face their grief alone.
That is my gift.
As a Black Bird.”

I use the Black oil pastel to cover my whole bird body in blackness.  I am black with a beak.  I am grief with weapons I never use.  I overlap layers and layers of black oil until the pastels are peeling off the page...and then I add more.  I can’t stop making me black.  Nothing has ever felt so right.

Notebook: “And.  And, and.  And, hhmmmm.  (Pause).  My bird body is like a prism.  It reflects emotional colors that have never been seen.  (Pause). Because. (Stuttering, thinking).  Because I am a miracle.  And miracles are speshal.  S-P-E-C-I-A-L.  Special.  (Stuttering.  Thinking.  Gripping my earlobe.  Figuring things out.  Tapping my head with her index finger).  And I can be special, even when I am by myself.  I can be special even when I am lonely.  I am still special even though there was pain.  (Crying is happening to me.  My eyes make wetness that falls down my cheeks).  And I am allowed to be free.  To be special even when...  Even though the bird...  No.  (Thinking hard. Intense focus.  School is hard.  Reading is hard.  Writing is hard in Kindergarden.)

Notebook:  “I can be freely special even though the people outside the birdcage tell me to be quiet.  I am allowed to sing now.  Because singing before was dangerous and invited pain to find me.  But NOW - today - I am allowed to sing?  (Pause.  Curiosity. Confusion. Observation.).  Will the pain come get me if I sing?  I don’t know.  But I want to sing.”

Her speech is so disfluent.  It’s as if she’s learning to talk for the first time.  She sounds out every word with my mouth.  She practices vowels and consonants by reshaping my lips.  She tries hard in school.  In this art-therapy class.  In EMDR.

Notebook: “I want to be a loud bird.  I want to caw like a hawk echoes in the desert canyons.  I want to be heard.  Because no one could hear me before - trapped in that cage.”

She hides.  The Child-Me hides.  The Adult-Me tries to find her.  Her energy vanishes.  In the closet, maybe?  I’m not sure.

Notebook: “Rachel.  Are you there?  Hey Rachel, we are not in the cage anymore.”

Something comes back.  I can’t tell if it’s Her.  It doesn’t feel like either of us.

“You are afraid to draw singing.”

I am afraid to draw singing.  To draw it on the paper.  Holy Shit - I’m terrified!  That’s why I distract myself with electronics and Cheerios here at the Bridges!  I eat so many fuckin’ Cheerios it’s ridiculous. Like a hotdog contest with cereal.  I’m a cereal killer, for real.

“You are afraid bad things will happen to you and you will get punished.”

Whoa, that’s right!  Even as an adult!  Dude, girl, how’d you know that?

“But you can sing if you’d like even though you don’t believe me.  Maybe we will be brave and draw it anyway.  And then we can try it all over again tomorrow, too.”

I have to consent.  (I never consent). I have to agree.  (I never give in).  And I know what It’s saying.  The Wisdom.  It’s saying we’ll blog about it tomorrow, which is today, so we can relive the entire thing.  So we can practice the Truth.  So we can make neurological connections that solidify this Truth in our brains.

“Ok, so let’s do that.”

I’m afraid.  I ask Her.  I ask Myself, ‘Hey Rachel, if we weren’t afraid, what would we write?  What would we draw?  Let’s color like we aren’t afraid.  Let’s just color what we would want.’  She agrees.  She takes the bait!  It takes courage, I’m proud of her bravery.  Desire is Orange.

Orange: “WANT.”

Want.  In big, orange letters.  ‘Yes!’ I think to myself.  One for the win.

I draw purple lines everywhere.  They aren’t tears anymore.  They are speech bubbles.  They are the heights to which my voice will reach.  There is no ceiling.  There is no end.  There’s an end to the paper, but not to my voice.

I write what I want.  What I want writes itself through me...like a channel...I’m just a body receiving the Truth.  This Truth sets me free...but it’s slow.

Sky Blue: “We move in the direction of LOUD and SAFE and free.  And singing however I want.  We want.  Forever.”

His rules have to be written.  They have to come out with the pencil before we can erase them.  His rules are like laws.  Enforced.  The penalty for breaking the law is death.  Eternal hell.  That’s what he said.  He has very few rules:

Pencil: “It was his job to create fear and inject it into birds.  He likes keeping birds pretty and in glass where they can’t move.  He says ‘SSSSSHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!’ all the time and it is so mean and loud.”

I take out my red, angry protective voice.  She does.  We write:

Red: “I can do what I want!”

But the energy tells him it’s a facade.

Yellow: “Facade.”

It’s written in yellow.  The “F” word.  Facade.  It’s fierce and afraid and feels like ‘ants in my pants doing the boogie dance.’

the yellow is energetic fear and expression in the same wave.  It’s survival, that’s all.  That’s what it is.  He calls it sass.  But it’s a plea, really.  It’s sassy words, but a pleading body.  Begging the monster.  Begging the Tickle Monster to leave her alone.  The Big Black Cloud of Nightterrors.  The Boggie Man.  The yellow is a bravely disguised.  It’s spiked and jumpy.  Always seeking escape.  Yes, that’s what yellow it.  Anxious escape.

The color brown picks up the oil pastel and tells me the truth.  It’s truth doing the work for us.

Brown:  “I want to be real.  I want to never have to ‘sshhh’ again.” 
Red:  “I don’t HAVE to ‘SSSHHHH’!  That’s mean.”
Red & Orange together: “I DON’T WANT TO SHHHHHH!!!!” 

More purple lines.  Violet is everywhere.   I don’t know why, but I don’t need to know.  The Truth will tell me.  I already know I’m special.  I already know I’m a special miracle.  She already knows that.  She’s just stuck in an argumentative circle, that’s all.

Purple: “My worth and dignity and value are safe.” 

Notebook: “My worth and dignity and value are safe.  WHOA!  My worth and dignity and value are safe.  Timelessly safe.  No matter where I fly!!!!  I can fly anywhere and SAY ANYTHING AND STILL BE SAFE!” 

I keep needing more pages.  More paper to write on.  I keep needing blank sheets of “notebook” paper to work out the Truth.  I wait patiently for my teacher to get me some.  What a nice, gentle, art therapy teacher.  I never liked my art teachers in school...but I like her.

Notebook: “I can fly anywhere!!!!  EVERYwhere!  And I can SAY ANYTHING ANYWHERE and I AM SAFE(!)  Because my worth and my dignity and my innate value are my safety.  And they are in my wings.  You can spread them everywhere/anywhere and create safety for yourself.”

Notebook: “Very nice.  I am proud of you.  Very nice.  Let’s integrate this, deal?  Deal!  Cool.” 

I take the purple pastel and I color the pages.  I cover the pages in purple!  I draw like a violently passionate autistic child - spreading the violet as if it’s a contagion.  My arms are ridid.  I’m determined.  I ask for more paper just to color them purple.  To color the whole, entire earth purple.  I even draw on my forehead.  I put a purple line of compressed oil on my face.  Right above my eyebrows.  Horizontal line.  A joke, but not.

I’m beaming. 

I’m beaming and tired. 

I need a nap. 

I think I’ll give Her one. 

 She’s earned it.

7: She’s Her Photographing Self Again. This Camera Will Do, I Suppose.

She went on her walk this morning.  She’s Me.  I’m Her.  Her name is Rachel.  Not Rachel Lynn, not Rachel Curry.  Not Rachel Lyon, not Rachel Hart.

Just Rachel.  “Rachel.”  There she is!  ​Found alive.  With an i-phone instead of a camera.  Oh, well.  “I don’t care.”   “Look at all of it...”

Her eye balls sparkle a little.  The white part; it’s white again.

Monterey Figs.  Dinosaurian Roots laying in the dirt.  Dinosaurs sun bathing.  Branches grow and gravity pulls them back into the ground.  “These fig trees are genius,” she thinks.  Self-affirming.  Self-enhancing.  Self-soothing and self-loving.

She is a fig tree in the making.  A California dinosaur in a young woman’s skin.  A adult woman’s body.  Skin baking and body bathing under the heat.  Self-made love.

Arizona willows weep themselves into small, crusty, yellowish trees.  They are sad and dry, but don’t mind being so.  The weeping willows of California weep less... because their soil is rich with the nutrients of a grounded, stable earth.  Even in the Los Angeles earthquakes, the Great Mother always gives them what they need.  The desert sun hasn’t cracked their trunks.  Because they’re protected.

She is a California Willow, now.  From Arizona.  She feeds on her own breastmilk.  Because she can.  Because that’s how nature designed it.

”Biology is genius,” she thinks.  It repairs itself in the skull of human Arizona Willows looking for California soil.

I am Her, and She is me.  My reconstruction is a secret, but it’s beautiful.  It’s awe strikingly peculiar.  It’s healing to watch, inspiring to see.  It is pure hope.

Locked away inside the deepest parts of her being.  Untouchable.

White and purple and spotted blue steel.  That’s how beautiful it is.  The green is everywhere.  Growth is like that.

So write me letters if you wasn’t.  Emails.  But I’ll respond with short, dismissive phrases...if at all.

The wet brick, not pavement.  I live on the musty smell of a wet brick patio.  Delicious.  I lay it on...I love the hardness.  Water always makes the red stand out.  Nourishment.

She logs her thoughts in her camera phone memo pad.  She collects pieces of wisdom from Heaven.  She cherishes them; never wants to forget.

“Energetically speaking, Ian has become one of my greatest friends.  Like with Caleb, I believe this happened so we could witness the healing of each others’ trauma instead of using eachother to repeat it.  So we can watch the energy shift, change, transmute, and shed light on what used to be shadowed.  Ian and I use language to heal ourselves. We speak the unspeakable, we become less afraid. It’s an integrative relationship. It has great purpose.  It’s kind.  Very kind.”

Today I put lotion all over my body. For the first time in many months. I have white sun spots on my arms.  I never noticed.  I don’t mind.  I’m always dirty, but I don’t mind.  I’m not really dirty anymore.  It’s just dust on my pants.

I didn’t just apply vanilla scented cream to my calves and my ankles, or my wrists and my elbows. As I usually would.  Minimalist.   Need nothing.  My Arizona self.  Looking young but feeling old.

Today I put lotion all over my body. I massaged it into my thighs and my hips. I covered every inch of my flesh with Value, Dignity, and Worth.  The first time in months?  No, the first time in years.

Since before I was born.  Since the womb.

I used thick, oily lubrication.  Bath and Body Works worked it’s way in.  My shoulders. My triceps. My neck. The blades of my back. I put it everywhere, I spread it everywhere. The timeless Dignity, Value, and Worth I discovered yesterday.  In the color purple.  When I made the bird.

Today I’m purple.

I am the color purple.  I wear it. 

Because it’s safe now.

Tears of gratitude and grief for what never was before.  Real tears.  But mostly gratitude.

I’m beaming.

6: Transference on Fire. Everyone Die. I Guess I’m an Agressive Sexy Savior? Stay Away. Yikes.

I just got super fuckin’ angry at my therapist for telling me not to talk about my trauma in front of the other house mates.  “You have an exceptionally awful situation.  It can be triggering to others.”

So they can talk about theirs.  They can be open and free.  But mine is too weird.  Really?  Really guys?!  Sixty-fuckin-thousand-dollars for this shit??

You know what that feels like?  It feels like my Dad...and Mom...and older brother...telling me not to tell...because I’m dangerous and unstable...and I could hurt people...and I’m a bad person for being a wreckless virginal whore who’s trying to survive while he’s raping me every night.  THAT’S what it felt like.

And I know how to be sensitive to peoples’ needs.  I’m not a fuckin’ sociopath.  I have empathy.  I can tell when people are upset.  But NOT WHEN THEY HIDE IT...because they HAVE NO LIFE SKILLS...because they REFUSE TO GROW UP...and will never TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEMSELVES. 

Anger and rage = orange and red. Panic and terror = bright yellow. Shame, guilt, dirtiness, nihilism, helplessness, hopelessness = grayish purple.

Obviously I’m feeling resentful that my Dad held my younger brother’s survival over my head...my whole life.   Even when I was 29, and informed my folks I was moving in with my husband prior to marriage… Even then, my father scolded me, displaying a typed-up outline of bible verses and bullet points.  Printed.  Crisply folded in his shirt front pocket.  He followed up with interogating religious questions about my “disobedience.”  My mom followed his lead with disapproving comments about my unwillingness to have children.  Bob thought the whole thing was awkwardly hilarious.  Gotta love a guy like that.  Oblivious.  Good at jig saw puzzles.

“What do you think this type of behavior will do to A—?  What type of an example are you setting?  What you are doing is selfish and destructive.”  I calmly informed my father that A—, as far as I understood, was an adult...24-years-old...living on the East Coast...making more money than me...probably fucking his girlfriend for all I knew....going to church...had his own friends...I told Steve that we were separate human beings, and I doubted I was powerless to ruin my brother’s life just by changing my address.

None of this quieted my dad’s passive-agressive inquiries.  He was an extremely jealous man, but I didn’t understand that then.  A jealous man, a jealous God.  Jealous of my worship and affection.  That’s what they taught in church.

When I was a kid, I wanted to help A— grow up so I could be free.  I wanted him to hit puberty and learn how to drive.  I wanted him to escape so I could relax.  It was selfish, I know.  And it probably made me mean sometimes.  I think I picked on him for being “young for his age.”  I regret that terribly.  I hope he doesn’t think I pressured him.  He was everything to me.

Jumping around here.  The thing I like about the 12-Step model is this: everyone is forced to take responsibility for their own “triggers,” and grow up.  If you’re “triggered,” you aren’t pittied and coddled and rocked back to sleep.  You go do a 10th Step, make a call to a trusted friend, get your inner-dialogue straight, meditate, and heal yourself.  You push through, use courage, developed perseverance.  You GROW.

In 12-Step, we don’t say, “Oh, I’m having a shitty day because Johnny shared too openly in a group therapy session.  And I’m so fuckin’ sensitive that someone needs to tell him he should talk less because I’ve decided he’s responsible for making sure I feel good all the time.  And because I’m broken, I rule the Universe like a spoiled child.  In fact, Jonny should read minds.  He should know when the phrases he uses makes me face myself and deal with my shit.  The shit I want to avoid.  The shit I’m paying you thousansands of dollars to treat.  In fact, I’m such a entitled wuss that I’ve decided Johnny should be punished for not anticipating my needs...even though I have no idea what they are until after I’m already upset.”

That’s insane.  Literally insane.

My anger is spewing everywhere; I apologize.  I should use less profanity but I can’t.  Using the pen...the blog...is how I expand my lungs.  And I have to breathe the fire of rage I’ve never allowed myself to expel.

12-Step is amazing.  It throws you in the deep end of the pool.  You’ll figure out how to swim if you can read.  If you just learn how to speak.  If you ask someone for help.  If you’re determined to save yourself.  All this shallow water stuff is just enabling.  Too many inner tubes and noodles.  It’s distracting, a waste of time.  I’m the only one in this place who hasn’t been to treatment before...over 20 treatments before.  The industry is ridiculous.  #imsuchabitch

God Bless Anthony DeMello. 

What ever happened to detachment?  Depersonalization?  Boundaries around your self?  Self-soothing?  Reality checks?  Having the balls to remove yourself from people who are too much to take?  I’m not offended.  Unlike you, I’m never offended!

LEAVE.  Just leave the fuckin’ room in the middle of my share.  I’ll keep talking.  I’ll talk all I want.  Because I haven’t been able to talk MY WHOLE DAMN LIFE AND I WANNA SHOUT!  And that’s why I dipped into our retirement fund to be here - so I can talk openly and feel to heal.

Let’s be God-Damn equals, already.  Let me be the adult that I am.  Let them be the adults that they are.  I have tusks now.  I sit at the Big Boy table.  And if you try to edge me out, I’ll stomp you into the ground.

So, you fancy professional in pretty clothes, don’t tell me: “Rachel, go to therapy groups, but don’t share.  Rachel, visit with your housemates, but be quiet.  Rachel, have your own experience and be free, but don’t get anyone else dirty.  Go be yourself, but don’t isolate.”  What a double-bind.  Fuck that shit.

No, I’m NOT going to groups if I have to be silent.  And no, I will NOT visit with my housemates (family members) if I have to censor my energy.  And YES, I will be free to have my own experience.  And if I have to be free alone...all by myself...at the table outside...on the pavement with the birds...then I will.

I do it everyday in Scottsdale, at the Coffee Plantation.  I sit there, me and the Universe.  No stings.  No voices.  We love eachother, the Universe and me.  We read and inspire ourselves to evolve.  I’m a needless, wantless, lonely lion.  I don’t need my housemates (anyone) to heal.  I just need my SLAA peeps.  I just need my escape. I just need to breathe.

I don’t need my housemates to heal; I will heal myself, mother fuckers. 

I don’t need my family anymore; they’re needy and abusive and soul crushing.

I don’t need anything from anyone because I was trapped in a cage and denied all my rights. 

I’m 14, 16, 19, 22.  I’ve died and come back to life so many times over.  I’m exhausted and angry.  My skin is riddled with infectiously puss-filled wounds that ooze with emotional disturbance.

I’m leaving the house.  Never coming back.
I will fly the way I want.  My wingspan is wider than Camelback Mountain.
My tail feathers are agents of balance and direction.
My colors astound spectators from miles away - they’re blindingly beautiful bolds to behold.
I am a Bird, Motherfuckers.  A mother fuckin’ Lioness Bird.
I am both.

I have claws that kill and a beak that bites.
I have cheeks that are colored with the fragrance of roses.  Pink and delightful and subtle and mute.
I’m a delicious Bird that no one can catch - watch me swoop and dodge and disappear.
Watch me cum on strong before I become invisible.
 “Where’d she go?”
 “Oh, that’s just Rachel.”

I pop in and pop bubbles and charm with my smile.  I’m so empathetic...sort of.
Watch me say what I mean and mean what I say without regret.
Watch me be fearlessly direct, and infinitely gentle.
Watch my lioness tongue soothe the open backs of my injured young,
While I lie in wait for revenge on the predators that underestimate me.
Fools.

My revenge isn’t YOU, you conceited man-child!  Get over yourself.
My revenge isn’t putting you away for your criminal indulgences.  Nor outting you to your professional friends.
My revenge involves nothing you’ll ever be able to reach...or touch.

My revenge is becoming Myself.  Speaking my Truth.  Roaring with fire.  Feeling my body.  Vibrating with passion.
My revenge is using you for the greatest orgasm I’ll ever have - the kind where we don’t even touch...and I win...’cause I’m free.

My revenge is creative and envied and out-of-the-box...and you’ll never, ever get to see it.
My revenge is a secret ‘cause they tear you apart.  Secrets are sharp and serrated, aren’t they?
Not knowing is fearing and fearing is death.  You’re addicted to control, so I’ll give you none.

I want you afraid...so you’ll stop bothering me...that’s all.

My revenge is allowing you to make up stories about me.  Crazy stories.
So go away; go gain the trust of your family by deceiving them all over again.
Go manipulate your followers by accusing me of being manipulative.
I’ll let you, and I like it.  I like the fact that you’re petrified.
Charm and disarm.
Disarm and detach.
Detach and stand up straight.  Shoulders back.  Tits upright.
They just hate it when I do that.

(Awkward silence as I realize I had to try to kill to stay alive...kill or be killed...every night of my adolescence.  Which is why I love rough-and-tumble-play...and always beg Bob to wrestle even though he won’t...because his knees hurt...I’m bitter about his avoidance...his ability to live without touch...my inability to live without it.  Maybe I’m a sex addict after all....a sex-addict who’s only slep with four people. And I see why predators fear me.  I intrigue them.  Even though I thought I was so sweet.  Whoa.  Breathe.  Take a break.  Maybe tone it down a little, Rach.  People could actually read this shit someday.)

My five-year-old is loud.

Oh, and also, I’m not wearing a bra (and Mackie and Darylle said it’s fine).  So there!  Take THAT!

And, I just ate 800 calories of Honey Nut Cheerios with whole milk!  (Gasp! The calories! My word! For Heaven’s sake! Forbidden!)

Ha! I drew outta the lines, you Big Meanie!  How do you like me NOW?

I broke the rules and you can’t do anything about it...

Because it’s my body...and I get to pick what goes in my mouth.  I get to pick what comes out.  Anorexia.  Get it out, never swallow.  Bulimia.  Get it out, I don’t know?  Will someone get hurt if I refuse?

Once I can speak, it all goes away.  AA saves my life.  LITERALLY.

AA gave me a voice.  Gave me my body back. Gave me the strength to leave my Evangelical “family.”

It’s my body, and I get to pick how to use or abuse it.

It’s my body, and I don’t give a fuck about yours.

#thisiscalledanger.  #firsttimefeelingangerhard.  #emotionalregulationisabitch.  #Imareallymeanpersoninside.  #alwayslearningnewthings.  #vanitytosanitytoinsanityagain.

5: Brother of the Mother

The Longest Poem In The World.
By Rachel Hart.

Written while painting a picture to deal with grief about the difficult mother-daughter bond.
Sang to herself, mixed colors and words.  It was a seven-hour project.
Watched it morph into supressed anger about sibling rivalry and the root of her mysterious “crushes.”
Figured out why she saves young little “Ian’s” without ever laying a finger on them.
Learns she’s brilliant and loving and trustworthy and kind.

Understands her father is a genius, mind-controlling, sadist pedophile.
Reveres the fact that no evidence will ever be found against him.
Doesn’t care anymore.
She’s a free bird.  35-years-old.  No kids.
Married to a man with a tapered temper, lots of money, and access to a lifetime of powerful lawyers.
An acre in Scottsdale.  He’s richer than Dad.
She made sure it worked out this way.  And she didn’t even know it.

She’ll probably do nothing about it...but she could.
And if he leaves her alone - her family alone, her animals alone, her friends alone -
If he leaves her the FUCK alone, she’ll not press charges.
He might even feel like killing himself.
And that’s Ok.
She doesn’t need vindication.
She remembers.
And that’s enough.

I don’t know why I’m bleeding but it hurts.

I don’t know why it hurts.
It’s always inflamed.  I don’t know why it hurts.
I don’t know I’m bleeding, but it hurts.
I don’t know why it hurts to be a girl.  To wear pink.
I don’t want to be her.  I don’t want to be me.

I feel like my throat hurts.
Why are my lips bleeding?
Why does my jaw ache and crack? Why does it lock open?
I don’t know.  I’ll never know.  None of the doctor’s can figure it out.

But He’ll fix it.
He’s my doctor.  He’s my dad.   I’m proud of my dad.
He likes to fix things when they’re broken.
He likes projects and taking things apart before putting them back together.
Right now he’s into radios.
It used to be cars.
It’s probably people, too, but I don’t know.  I just don’t know.

I don’t why I’m bleeding, but it hurts.
Why is my neck frozen?  Why am I afraid to speak?
Why does it feel like it hurts to have a voice?
Why is my neck so...tight?

I don’t understand why, if you ask.
Don’t ask me about my body, because I never have an answer.
He says it’s genetic, but it’s not.  It’s inherited, but not genetic.  Whatever it is.

It’s a mystery, really.  I don’t understand why being a girl hurts so bad.
I don’t understand why She hates me for being a girl.
I don’t know why am bleeding...but it hurts.

“You’re too young to have your period.”
Ok.  Not that, then.  I’ll just make it go away.

I was always petrified of getting pregnant.
He said I was paranoid.  A paranoid liar.  A pathological liar.
That’s what he told Her, so she’d never trust me.
That’s why my mom died.  While remaining alive.
That’s when I became an orphaned elephant.

Seven pregnancy tests in one day, remember? With Neal?
I was always petrified of getting pregnant.
I was always petrified.  I was always pregnant?  No.  Just once.

I had an abortion once, I was devastated.
I was dating Tom.  I was sober.  I thought I was smart.
He said he’d stay with me if I killed my baby.
He said he’d stay with me forever if I gave up my most prized possession.
He said he’d stay with me - never abandon me - if he could control my body.

So I said OK.  To stay safe.  To be not left alone...in the house...with Him...in my mind.
I said ok, “You can hurt me to keep me safe.” But I didn’t know I said it.

And he lied.  HE LIED!
And when we broke up, I scoured his house for my baby.  My son.
Where was he?
It was a mild psychosis...probably?  I don’t know.  I’m not a doctor.  I should ask my dad.
He’s my best friend.

When he lied, when Tom lied.  I died.  Crushed.  Seeing black.
I couldn’t even brush my teeth.  Would I hurt myself?  I didn’t know.
Crushed.  He wasn’t; back with his ex-wife in a few hours, probably.
I went to his house and barged through the door.  I started screaming.
I opened his cabinets and closets and drawers, wondering if my baby was hiding somewhere.
My dead baby, the one that’d been flushed down the toilet six months prior.
 “What did you do-do-do to my BABY?!?!” I shrieked.  I stuttered.  I was five.
He’d never seen me like this.  He thought I was crazy; I was.
It’s called PTSD.

Was he dead in the crib??  Oh my God!  Oh my God! Oh my God!
Is he dead?  Is my baby brother dead???
 How come mom won’t wake up?  How come HE always walks me back to bed?  The Boogie Man.
I’m having night terrors - this is an EMERGENCY!
But it wasn’t.  Not to Him.
He’s in charge.

You know I was a virgin when I got pregnant…practically.
With Tom.  It was only my second time.
So I thought.
My second consensual time.  That’s true.
But something changed once we had sex.  He got detached.  I started crying.
It was the only way he could do it.  From the back.  I froze.  I died.  I couldn’t move.

Steven. The Doctor.
He promised me that if I gave up my body, my most prized possession, I could save my baby.
He promised.
He promised me.  If I gave up my body, he’d leave Aaron alone.
He promised.  And then he lied.  I hated him.
I wanted him to die.  Like me.
I wanted him to give himself the shot.
I wanted him to swallow his own medicine.
What a jerk.

He promised me, and he lied, and I hated him, and I obsessively check on my son.
In the crib.  In his room.  On the phone.  Via text.

He’s 30-years-old now; he’s not dead.

My baby brother is 30-years-old.  Terrorized at night with bad dreams and backaches.
He doesn’t know where they come from.
He doesn’t know why it hurts.

He doesn’t know why his brain bleeds.
He doesn’t know why his mind tortures him in his sleep.
It’s PTSD, but maybe it’s best he doesn’t know.
Maybe it’s best I protect him, like a good elephant mother should...like Steve tells me to do.

I’m a good elephant mother.  I keep Dad’s secret to protect my baby.
My mom was killed by poachers that stole her tusks.  I was so sad.
I am so sad...and lonely.  All the time.  I don’t know why.
I’m scared and alone.  I’m obedient.  He calls me mature.  I don’t like it.
I starve.  I want to die.  But I don’t.  That would be wrong.  God doesn’t like suicide.

Like Dad always says.
I’m obedient when I take care of my baby brother.  My cub.  All day long.  Diapers.
All night long.  I’m sad.  I don’t know why.  I’m a little Ann.  A little wife.  I’m confused.

Why are my tusks in this painting?  Where did these tusks come from?
See my elephant painting?  Look at it again.
I don’t know if my tusks are breasts or a period or a brain.
I don’t know.  I can’t tell.  I’m not allowed to know.
I don’t know why they’re forbidden: breasts and periods and brains.
Women should submit to their husbands.

But not me.  I disobey.
I rebel because He lied.  And I hate Him.

Mom’s upset.
She wants me to be a princess, her sister princess.  My zombie elephant mom, with no tusks.
She misses her sisters who kept her safe.  She resents me from being a tom-boy.
She wants me to be OK with shopping.  Like a girl.  A princess.
She wants me to be all the things that hurt.

It makes him happy when I obey her...when I listen to my mother.
“Don’t upset your mother,” he says.  Over and over again.

But it hurts to be a princess. I just can’t do it.
She wants me to be how he likes her.  Dumb and cute and Christian and doubtless.
She wants me to wear pink and put on tights and show off patent leather shoes with ruffled socks and I just don’t know.
I don’t know why I hate it so much.
I feel dirty in girl’s clothes.

I wear sports bras and gym shorts and live in my room.  I workout and hide.
I live in my room to protect my brother, duh.  But I don’t know that.  I just can’t remember.
I draw and stay home even though I want friends.
I draw and stay home with A— and Her.

That’s what He told me to do.
I don’t want to get punished.
So I obey.  Sometimes.
I always obey when it comes to my son.

Foreshadowed redemption.
There are bits of hope because I keep secrets.
There are bits of hope because I put them there.
There are bits of hope because I live a double-life.

There are bit of hope.  Orange and yellow.  The sun.  Bold and gold.

Everything secret’s alive.
Everything secret gives life.  Keeps me breathing.
My dance is secret.
My best friends are Orange.  Orange is forbidden.  It’s the only way out.
He patrols and watches and hates it when He finds out.
He accuses me of being a whore who hates God.  But I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“I’m a virgin!  I’ve never had sex!”  He doesn’t believe me.  I don’t know why.

I ask A— and M— to never tell on me when I lie to escape.
I ask my friends’ parents to lie for me.
They all think I’m unstable, just like He says.  It makes them tell.  The idea that I’m mentally ill.  It’s a lie.  They all drink the Kool-Aid.
They’re good neighbors and church-goers.  They tell Her.  She tells Him.  And I get punished.
That’s the cycle of my whole life.
Not even the Holemon’s can save me.

I am punished for secrets, which makes me collect more.  Safety precautions. 
It’s a gamble every time, but it’s my only chance.  So I do it.  I lie.

I lie, like a dirty slut would, but I’m not.  My best friends are boys and I use them as refuge.
We play video games all night long and snuggle on couches.
They both think I’m a whore - my older brother, too.  This makes me sad.
He never believes me.  He helps Steve find me when I escape.
“Forgive him, Lord, for he knows not what he does.”

I’m punished for secrets, so I become Yellow.  It’s like my disguise.
The boys love yellow.
Safrine - it’s yellow in French?  I don’t think so, I don’t know.
The boys love yellow...and they leave it alone.

He wants me to be white and virginal.  They all do.
She does and my grandparents do and the entire community does.
They want me to wear white.  Be a girly girl.  Be normal, like the other teens.
They want me to get married.  Early.
I never want to get married.

So I dressed in yellow, instead.  They don’t know the difference.  It looks the same, but it’s not.
This family is a bunch of dumb bitches, except Aaron.
My pets are dead.  Aaron’s all I have left.

I am Yellow now.
Obnoxiously golden.  This shade of yellow is strong and bold.
Sassy and bold.  Confident...but hidden.  Usually an accent color.
That’s what I am.  An accent.  It’s a costume.  Easily dirtied when worn.

But I never get punished outside the house.
Who wants to WEAR yellow?  Make it their mate?  No one!
No one at church, that is.
Dark, mustardish yellow.  Tainted a bit.
The boys love yellow, but they marry the white ones dressed pretty in pink.
One of the boys, at least.  A Big Boy who cheats.

That’s what I am.  One of the boys.  With safety pins in my ears.
A pretend cheater, but loyal to the bone.  A pierced belly-button.  An under-aged tattoo.  A fake ID.  An eating disorder.
I’m not actually yellow, I just dress like it.

I’m a suppressed punished princess.
I’m a glowing yellow son.
I’ll never be Gold but I can try.  I can try to be a boy.
Needless and wantless...succcessful...but not really.

Look at the elephant picture again.  Look at my painting.
I have tusks now so I don’t know what color I am anymore.
I grew up under Her feet, under Her soul-piercing high-heels...but I’m not white or yellow anymore.
And I’ll never be pink.
I swear.
I swear to God.
Don’t make me wear it or I’ll kill you.
I’m 22.  I got out.
FINALLY!  I CAN BREATHE!

What color should the letters be?  Look at my elephant painting.
 “I have tusks now.”
 “I grew up.”
 “I am.”

I can’t leave them white...
 ...but what color?
What color am I?

Lightening in my brain.  It hurts.  This “Magic Mountain” moment is a wicked ride.
Intense.  Maybe I should sit one out on the bench.  It’s EMDR, but with paint.

Oh my heart breaks!  She was my mom!  My innocent mom!  I loved her so much!
She protected me from Him...sometimes.  She used to...sometimes.
She’d keep my secrets.  She’d keep me safe.  But when He started to like me...
When I grew tusks she abandoned me.  But I was only ten.
I was only ten!
“Mom, where are you!  Mom, how could you!  Mom, don’t leave me!”
Nothing I do is enough to please you.  You’re always rejecting me, but you deny it.
It cuts deep.  As if I asked for it - as if I asked him to find me delicious.

Sitting at the dinner table. She watched it all.
The terror in our eyes, the abuse of her own young.  She watched the threats.
He made us eat our meat.  It was violent - the threats he made.
For a piece of chicken...or beef...or pork.  He was obsessed with the meat on our plates.
He passed around x-rays from the hospital.  Of bottles shoved up people’s rectums.
We all thought it was funny.  We were all such dumb bitches ask then...even me.

Oh, I’m so sorry Mom!  I’m so sorry you had to see that!
You always ate dinner so slowly.
In a trance.  In a dream.  You looked so lonely like that.
We ran from the table.  We hid our food in napkins and threw it away.
You finished supper all by yourself.  While he groomed us with sugar and wrestling in the pool or on the carpeted living room floor.
I was so sad for you.  I felt so guilty.
He was so mean.  You cleaned up the dinner table all alone, so nicely.  Every single night.
I promise I’ll never leave you.  I’ll never forsake you.

You looked so sad in the kitchen, sitting in that chair.
When we were little.  You looked tired and unappreciated.  Because you were.
You cooked.  You cleaned.  You were a slave to him.  To us.
To all of us.  Because he took us away from you.  And you simply couldn’t remember.

Oh, how broken your body must have been!
How broken your brain, like mine.
A hunched back woman with scoliosis and hip problems.  Lock jaw.  We’re twins.
I can’t imagine what he does to you.  Why you seem disabled and absent-minded.
I have compassion.  I’m enmeshed but I don’t know why.
I’m sorry I’m a bad daughter.

“I’m sorry I’m a bad daughter.  I don’t know why or what for, but I’m sorry.  I’m sorry you’re never happy with me.  I’m sorry I’m a fuck up.  I’m sorry I don’t wanna have kids.  I’m sorry I’m not a Christian.  I’m sorry I’m not playing the game.  I’m sorry I don’t swallow the pills.  I’m sorry I can’t placate the fantasy world everyone lives in.  I’m sorry.  I’m just sorry, but I have NO idea why.”

I’m sorry I grew up.
Maybe I’m bipolar.  Maybe that’s why you hate me?  Is that what you need to hear to accept my awkwardness?  Will a diagnosis fix it?
I’m sorry I grew tusks.
I don’t know why I’m failing in school.  Will you forgive me?

You’re a puppet Mom, and I need you to wake up!
You have two brains in one scull.  Separate, disconnected.
The silent treatment is cold.  It stings.  Do you hurt me on purpose?  I can’t tell.

Oh, Mom.  I get you, girlfriend.
I’m sorry we were such jealous bitches.  You of me, and me of Matt.
Matthew, my brother.   Mad at him for being free, for being spared, for having rights.
Mad at him for being The Boy.
For getting out, for escaping the rest of the story.
For getting out and getting to forget.  What a luxurious life that must be.

Rights.  He has them.  The first born kind.
Matt was the hero child.
Ian is, too.
Passed up by obeying and saving your life, Mom.
He was your favorite.  Your little man.  Your special guy.
Your first born.  You always kept his secrets.  You never kept mine.
You hid him from Dad...by bragging.  There was nothing to punish him for.
So he stopped getting punished.

Older brothers promise to protect, but they can’t.
They leave you, forsake you, accuse you of being lazy and broken.
They lie and forget about it; they break their promises.
Why do older brothers behave this way?  They don’t want to be mean, but they are.
Their words and their eyebrows never match.
Because they’ve been held back and beaten.
But they don’t know.  They don’t believe you because they don’t remember.
They think you’re being dramatic when you’re being honest.
“Not Dad...not Dad, of all people.  He’d never do that.”
Ok, fine.  Whatever.  I give up.  You win.  Fuck me.

That’s how older brothers are.
Too loyal.
Too trapped.
Too forgetful.
Requiem for a Dream.
It’s their life ‘till they die.
Hero children are addictively dangerous.  Watch out.

My older brother.  So sad he just doesn’t remember.
Marries his own damsel in distress.  Just like Mom.  Memoryless.  Trained.
His wife needs Pinterest children and a brand name kitchen.
But why must he punish his sister for destroying the family name?
Or maybe he doesn’t...Maybe he “needs” to be punished so he can escape...?
If he’s like me, he wants to escape over again.  Wants to be wanted to he can escape the obligations of being desired.
Escape Dad.
Get out.

His shame is so old.  Older than me.
By two years.  27 months, exactly.
His shame is so deep.  It’s in the amygdala.  He’ll never remember.  He can’t.
It’s scientifically impossible.
So he just assumes he’s right.  That’s what first borns do.

His shame is so deep.  Six feet underground.
Where his sister belongs?  Maybe.  If she talks.
Thinks just like Dad does.  He wishes he wasn’t so similar.
Becomes the man he resents.  It’s math.  The trauma does it to him...
...but he can’t remember.

Six feet under, where his sister belongs.
To preserve his sparkling image.
His personal matrix.
She knows things that will pop the balloon.  His balloon is his favorite toy.
He loves shiny things.  He loves his balloon.
It reflects his sparkling-self right back to him.  It’s a mirroring device.
Must be made of metallic foil.  The expensive ones always are.
And so full of air.  Secretly, of course.  Humble approach.
I know ‘cause I married one.

It’s dissassociative denial.
“I get you, Bro.”
I get you, Bro, I can take it.
You don’t know how strong I am, you tricky friend...stab me in the back?
Why not the front?  At least be honest about it.  Be a real, blood sibling, for Christ’s sake!  Don’t turn on me like that!  Don’t turn me on and turn yourself off.  That’s not fair.
We had a pact!

Now I’m crushed.  I want to die.
You rich loser.
With your fancy car and secret bitches.
You placating “Christian” son with more secrets than Satan.
“I hate you, don’t leave me.”  Just like the book.
No really, DON’T!  Don’t leave me in his house alone with him!

You don’t know what it’s like when you’re not in the house.
You think we have legs that we don’t.
A— and I - you think he gave us a leg up, like you...but he didn’t.
Even your name means “Gift from God,” you dumbass.
M—, the apostle.

Rachel.  “Little Lamb” in Hebrew.  An adult sheep is an “ewe.”
Ewe.  She’ll always believe she’s gross.
She waited seven years for Jacob.  Her father made her...him...them.
He made them do it.  With mindtricks.

Rachel was always “the favorite of the two wives.”  That’s what it says in the Bible.
Rachel’s father tricked her first “husband” so He could keep her for Himself.  His name was Grant.
We broke up, remember?  Because Dad liked him too much.
He tricks the ones he wants to keep.
Her father tricks everyone.  All of her biblical boyfriends.
All of her bible-following family members.
He’s a tortured soul, that Steven Curry.
A tortured toxicologist who tortures others for fun.

Older Brother.  Don’t you see you’ve been bought?
Bought with unending favoritism?  Doesn’t it hurt to live without integrity?
I’m sorry, I have to betray you...

But don’t get me wrong: I love you.  I really do.  I love you so much that I need to leave you alone.
Let you live in illusions.  Live in denial.
I’m going to block you on my phone, but it’s not ‘cause I don’t love you.
It’s to protect myself from getting hooked.
I admire you, envy you, and resent you at the same time.
Because you’re mean to me without realizing it.
And it hurts.
That text really hurt.
Blaming me for having been molested by a grown man when I was a helpless child.
Blaming me for trying to protect your kids.
Blaming me for putting you in a tough spot?  Really? Really?!
That seems a little fuckin’ ridiculous, Dude. 

Go be the man you’ve forgotten you already are.
Compensate for no reason.  Your accolades astound us.  You’re already famous.
You’re a fuckin’ man, and you don’t even know why you can’t stop achieving.
You don’t even think it’s compulsive.
You work addiction is obvious...you have to...you need the strokes...you can’t live without them.
No, really.  Literally.  You would have died without them.  He would have done to you what he did to me.  You had to sacrifice me to live.  And I forgive you.  But stop already.  It’s over.

Don’t you get it?  That’s why you don’t like to share.  Why you’re happy to take credit for others’ work.
So go collect your dollars for having been first.  First in line.  To the horror house.  Whore house. 
“It’s cool dude.  I get it.  I’ll be the loser.”

Peace.
Truces,  right?
Right?  I hope so.  I pray to God I’ll be Ok.
My mother is dead.  My brother has to hate me because he can’t stand to lose.  My father’s a rapist.
It might just be best if I die.
“Bro, just let me go.  Just leave me alone.  Please?  Please just leave me the fuck alone and let me do my thing.  Stop judging me.  Just pretend to stop.  Just pretend you approve of my dysfunctional life.  Just be nice.  I miss you, Dude, and it hurts.  Not having you around hurts hard.  So don’t poke me, Okay?  I’m in pain.  It’s real.  I’m not fuckin’ faking it like Dad says.”

I know what color I am now. 

I’ll be pastel fluorescence.
Loud and proud and translucent.
Capable and free.
Empathetically grounded.
Not yellow or white, but yellow and white combined.
Just the good parts.
Only the assets.
The defects are gone...because I remembered.

But M— won’t leave me alone...in my head.
He was purchased with privledge.
Don’t you realize we weren’t?  A— and I were game for his hunting.  
I married someone like you, but less so.
Abused, but less so.
Less so because he has a 12-Step cushion. 
But that’s probably the only difference.

I married someone just like you.
Denial is his favorite pill to swallow.
 ”Better living through chemistry.”
Better than living in TRUTH?! 
No way!
Maybe if competition is your only means of play.
Bobby, you gotta learn how to have fun.
Bobby, you gotta relax and chill the fuck out.
Bobby, you should try Al-Anon for your ladder-climbing work situation.

But M—, that text was mean.   I may never see your kids again.
I may never see my nieces grow up.  All because I have a voice.
All because I won’t take his hush money.
I’m done being a slave.
And you think that being embarrassed is death - Ha! 
You’re no better than Him!   Our common enemy who’s made you His ally.
You’re no better than that Big Black Cloud of terror.
Stop keeping the networks alive so their vocal cords aren’t.
Stop using your reputation as a shield.
Stop hiding behind your global leadership trophies.

And if you can’t, then fine.  But don’t hold me down.
At least set me free.  At least let me rescue your daughters.
You hate that my conscience is too good for your games.
You hate that I tattle when I’m small and afraid.
You hate that you think my vagina is power.
But it’s not!
Come on, Dude.  I had it WAY worse.
I call front seat this time.
Be nice to your little sister.

You hate that I can’t keep secrets because I don’t know how.
He beat ‘em outta me, you idiot!  You think I wanted you to get hit?! 
You think I liked watching you suffer?!
Are you fucking kidding me?!   You’re my BROTHER, Dude.
You’re my BIG brother.
I think you’re so cool.  I wanna be you.
I follow you around.  Annoy you with questions.  You only want me when you’re bored.
I can’t keep up with your mood.

And when I get tits, your bros think I’m cool.
Oh, so we’re allowed to be friends now?
Now that I’m not your obnoxious little sister anymore?  Now that I’ve passed your tests? 

I know we’re old now. I know you’re competitive.
We both know I’m not.
So be nice, Ok?
Just let me do my thing.
Let me live my life.  Tell my version of the story.
Just let me be a bird, at last. 

Let’s stop fighting.  Please?
Can’t we all just agree that Dad’s fucked up?
Can’t we all just agree that it fucked us up, too? 
Can’t we just wave white flags instead of our egos?  Our costumes?
Can’t we just kiss and make up and forget this whole thing ever happened?

“Say sorry to your brother.”
Sorry, Stupid.  Sorr-eeeeeeeeeeeee.
 “No, Rachel.  Say it like you mean it.”
Sorry, Bro.

Sorry, Bro.  Whatever.  I don’t care.  You win.  Like always.
He doesn’t know Mom watches me for Dad.
She’s His eyes and ears.
She makes me his bitch.
And Matt hates me.  Wrestles me and pins me down.
He hates me and he doesn’t know why.
But I do because I remember.

He thinks their pity is real.
They tell him they feel sorry for me.  That I have such bad genes and a fucked up brain.
They lie to him together.  Because Steve lies to Ann who tells M— that I’m difficult.
My brother thinks I make my mother’s life difficult on purpose.  He thinks I like hating myself.  He’s jealous I get a break.  Even though I don’t.
That’s the whole fuckin’ narrative, right there. 

Bro, they tell you they’re so glad you’re not like me.  Not unreliable.  Not a loser.
These are diamonds to you, aren’t they?  Delicacies.
The only alternative to neglect.
Approval.  It’s your addiction.  Your kryptonite.
Get some help.  You need it but you can’t see it.  The secrets keep you safe, but I got raped for keeping mine.
When they caught me trying to be dualistic, like you...I was punished.
And you just thought I was a bad liar, you naive prick.
When I say it, you scoff.
You wish I’d go kill myself.
Wouldn’t you like that?  For me to be a deaf-mute.  As if I wasn’t one already.  Ha! 
If you only knew, motherfucker.
I’m toast.
Fuck me.
Go to bed.
Sleep it away.

Wait a minute, no-no-no.  No, I’m not toast.  I’m 35-years old!
I’m Sunrise Mountain Lion.
I’m yellow, but not.
I play boys like you on the school yard.
I groom you with praise and leave you with nothing.
Well, you’re my brother...so I’ll never leave you with nothing.  That would be mean.
You’ll always have my unconditional love and support.
But you won’t have my loyalty.
I’m sorry.
I’m only loyal to myself, now.
And you can’t buy my silence.

I already said I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I sing for a living.  I’m sorry I love people, and want them to heal.  I’m sorry I throw the skeletons in my closet around like their nothing...because they are.
I’m sorry this inconveniences you.
I’m sorry I’m a Grackle.
A black, sleek bird.
Grackles are untamably violent, but I’m not.  They kill smaller birds for sport, but I don’t.
I don’t cause hurt because I know what it’s like to be dead.
I know what it’s like to be choked to death and brought back to life.  Literally.
I know what it’s like to be date raped in my own bedroom.
And you hate the weakness you sense in me because you repress it in yourself.
Forgotten.  Like Inception.  You’re whole life’s a movie that you haven’t figured out.

To be honest, I feel bad for you.  I feel bad for your numbness.
We’re complete opposites.  We go together like peanut butter and jelly.  We’re a deadly pair.  I’m the Yin to your Yang and together we feel complete.

I’m the embodiment of compassion and touch.
My skin is made of pure velvet.  Forever young.
My well of kindness is infinite.  I never get tired of hugs.  I’m fuckin’ Jesus.
I befriend victims and criminals alike.  You think it’s a game?  You think I’m crazy and too trusting?  A dumb-bitch bimbo who’s clueless?
Guess what?  You go ahead and think that, you fool.
I. Just. Don’t. Care.

And I’m sorry, but I have to tell.
I have to set myself free from the cage of my past.
I have to save the children of the world.
I opened a non-profit, for Christ’s sake! 

My name is Rachel.  Rachel, Lyon Hart.
Hey there, I’m Rachel...here on the computer, meeting myself.
I’m a bird.  I’m not a boy, but that’s Ok now.
Because I’ll always be a bird.  Cage-free and kind.
Redemption is real.
I love you, Bros.
I always will.
I’m sorry you can’t accept it.  There’s no catch.

Believe me, I know; you’ll always be faster and smarter than me.
You’ll always be the wolf.  I’ll always be the lamb.
I don’t try to beat you at your games anymore.  I gave up so long ago.   When my baby died in my boyfriends house.  When my son died right in front of my eyes.  When he was an infant and I was a kid.  At 3444 E. Caleveros Drive.
Yeah, I gave up then.  Way back then.  And you’re still trying to wrestle.
You poor thing.  Take a break, already.

Honestly, I don’t trust your control disguised as “protection” and “support.”
I don’t trust your paranoia disguised as “wisdom” and “experience.”
I just won’t ever trust again.

That’s the way wild birds are. 

4: Intro to Art Therapy

I make art.  Alone.  Outside in the sun.  Coffee Plantation.  Just like Peter.  He uses walls, I use the trees.  He grounds with touch, I ground with sight.  Birds.  We both need to me rooted.

Oh, Coffee Plantation.  The hard metal chairs.  The hard, iron tables.  The concrete pavement bread crumbs for grackles.

Grackles are mean.  But beautiful.  Sleek and black.  I love green tea.  Plain.  No sugar.  No touching.

I’m using my phone to write this post; I’d rather use paint.  I’m using people to process.  I’d rather use dreams.  Athletic blocks on my feet for running.  I’d rather use flip-flops.  I hike in them.  Barefoot is best.

Freedom is best. 

He needs the window to breathe.  Open air.  I need the sunshine to live.  Never inside.  Pacing when stuck or trapped or being responsible.  Movie theaters are my enemies. 

“Hey.  Hey there imaginary friends.”

Hey sunshine and grass and clouds and cactus.  Wanna see what I made?  Where’s your mom?  Wow, she has a job?  That’s weird.  And cool.  Whoa, moms can have jobs...

Mine is at home, but she’s busy.  I don’t know.  I don’t know what she’s doing.  Laundry and taxes and organizing paper.  Piles and piles of notes on the counter.  Phone calls galore.  Stuff about the Bibles and baking pies.  She is very into calendars right now.  She says “put it on the calendar” and “the calendar won’t let me” and “is there room? Let’s look at the calendar.”  I don’t know what that means.  I don’t know.  She doesn’t have time to play. 

Do you? 

“Hey there, imaginary animal friends.  Wanna play?  Look at what I made!  I have crayons you can use.  Uncle Brian bought me a purple box to put them in.  He calls me pumpkin.  He’s so nice to me.   Will you be nice to me?  Being nice is important.  It’s the most important thing in the world.”

Let’s be nice, and share. 

 This piece is what it felt like to be anorexic.  I used all my “superpowers” to keep femininity and ambiguity and indulgence away from my body.  I used religious philosophies to stay “empty.”  And my demons were validated by evangelical youth leaders who confirmed I was innately sinful without a man to save me.  Jesus?  I was afraid of men.  But I had to befriend them to live?  I was dying.  But dying is good?  Self-sacrifice.  Like the apostles.  Such a double-bind.  Such a confused little corpse.

As a professional photographer, it’s fruatrating not having a camera to document my art.  These pics were taken using the iphone6 (not-plus).  If you zoom in you can read the words.  I cannot separate visual art from language - I always want to mix them.  Sometimes I go to Savers and pick up random novels I’ve never heard of for 60 cents each.  I tear out chunks.  Paragraphs and short phrases out of serendipitiously nostalgic pages.  Sometimes I just use the index...if it’s non-fiction.

This next piece was created the afternoon I’d found myself in the crib...shivering, wet, sweating but freezing.  Screaming and afraid; exposed and violated.  “Where is my mother? Are you my mother?”  She can’t hear you.  Or see you.  Or find you.  It’s dark in here and the Big Black Cloudy Boogie Man is God.  He always wins.  Fuck, dude. 

But in EMDR, you can save yourself from your past.  You can create your own salvation.  Your very own matrix of blissful redemption.   A new ending.  A new beginning.  The sequel is real.

3: The Longest Boringest Chapter Ever

I pulled this image from a site about PTSD.  The brain pattern is the same whether from war of a national battle, of the battle of a familial war.  We’ll cover how memories get blocked and pain is relived, despite our efforts to avoid the trauma.

After this annoyingly cerebral chapter, I’m just gonna write about my life.  I’m gonna get emotional.  I’m probably gonna have real-life feelings and a lot of those “Mountain Moments” are gonna spill out.  I’m going to start posting my art and skipping these damn “group therapy” sessions so I can face the things I remembered...and purposely jammed in the closet…to prevent a mental collapse.  But it’s safe to have a mental collapse here, so I should probably take advantage.

But before all that, I think it’s really important to justify the validity of EMDR...to my loved ones...to myself...to the part of me that self-doubts and shuts up and shuts down when intimidated by wolves...to the people who doubt and deny our shared sexual trauma to protect their worldview. 

Allowing people to live in denial is usually loving, especially when they’re facing an existential crisis, like pending death or a cancer diagnosis or some other earth-shattering shift in perception.  It’s rude to watch someone’s life crumble into pieces just because you felt like talking too much.  It’s rude to destroy people’s lives with the truth they refuse to acknowledge.  It’s rude to force people out of illusions.  It’s rude to turn on the blinding, fluorescent ceiling lamps when someone’s trying to sleep in.

I’m a rude person, but I’m not a mean person.  It’s mean to placate a secret that could harm young children.  And since my father has a genius-like ay of manipulating social perceptions, I have to actively remind myself that I’m a smart woman, not a naive child who needs to be corrected with mansplaining and discrediting rumors.  Writing this chapter is a self-affirming action; it’s Me giving Myself a hug and whispering, “Hey girlfriend, we got this.  Guess what?  You’re not a dumb bitch afterall.”

What was EMDR like?    Oh, what a great opener, so kind of you to ask.  Well, I sat in Karen’s special chair, sometimes watching a mobile light beam, always feeling bilateral pulsations in my palms.   Bilateral brain stimulation is important because – when it comes to PTSD, no matter how minuscule the trauma – there’s a disconnect in the brain.  An amnesiac problem, really…

 Lesson One: Black Out Periods and the Double-Brain Problem.

When a child or teen’s natural development is interrupted by overwhelming pain, the “reptilian” part of the noggin (that basal ganglia limbic system thingy) doesn’t properly communicate with the “really-smart-human” area (the prefrontal cortex).  If you’re a total nerd like me, you can learn about polyvagal theory by clicking here…or watching this famous guys’ three minute video. 

Essentially, there’s a mental block, a disfluent absence of communication; two parts of our brains fight with eachother, compete for attention.  They wrestle for dominance instead of joining forces and becoming friends.  This lack of integrated oneness leads to impulse control problems, compulsive habbits, and disassociate day dreaming.  It can also look sort of like ADHD...and mood disorders...and self-sabotage...and sex or food or work addiction.  You might say we have two brains trapped in one skull.  One of these brains says “fight, flight, freeze, drink booze, get sexy, kill enemies, numb out, escape, start over, oh shit.”  The other says, “hey there, let’s be civil and balanced and moderate and achieve our principle-based goals one step at a time.”

If you’re an addict…or a trauma survivor…or a self-loathing depressed person…or a hypochondriac with fibromyalgia…or grew up in a family that looks perfect on the outside but feels “off” on inside, you’re usually stuck watching yourself do shit you don’t want to do all the time.  The reptilian brain takes action, and the prefrontal cortex is like, “WTF Dude?!  How did I end up here? Why do I feel so miserable and not   normal.  Not-satisfied.”

Or you might turn into one of those compliant, guilt-ridden humans who behaves properly, but continues to feel flooded with negative emotions that toxify your spirit.  These waves will come at unexpected times, and demand to be numbed with temporary escapes using electronics, working out three times per day, or thoughts of wishing you could skip the living part of life and jump straight to heaven”

And whether we’re rebellious saints or saintly rebels, we end up hating ourselves for our powerlessness to fix this neurological argument...the tense of being torn into two people in one body...because we don’t know it’s biological…and we think we’re losers when we see magazines with beautifully artificial people on the cover…but we keep our problem a secret…because who the fuck wants to advertise being privately miserable?

So, to summarize: We have two brains in one skull that don’t get along.  We can’t remember most of our childhoods.

Moving along…

Prior to age 3 ½, all of our memories are stored in the amygdala.  But they aren’t really “memories” in the way we typically define them.  They aren’t mental movie reels of home videos.  In the amygdala, experiences can’t be preserved as contextual images or auditory records because the brain hasn’t yet developed language.  And since these memories are preverbal, they’re preserved as…mmm…I’m going to use the word “feelings,” although it might not be totally accurate.  It would be better to say: body sensations.  The awareness of our abuse is “stuck” in the body.  It’s an inner-knowingness.

These intuitive body memories are safeguarded in somatic storage.   Naturally, the quality of your amygdalian memories will depend on how heavenly or hellish your infantile years were.  And yes, you can remember the pain or the pleasure, whichever the case may be.  #amygdalianisnotarealword.  #imakeshitupandownit.

After age 3 ½, our memories are piled high in the hippocampus (not to be confused with hippopotamus…which spell check seems to prefer).  This is the cognitive collection bank of mental movies...film noir, usually.  Full color.  Because the brain is rad.  Although we store them here after learning language, they can still be “blocked.”  Locked up with deadbolts.  My husband, for example, remembers virtually nothing from his pre-college years.  He just “came to” once it was safe to experience his own life.  His whole childhood is a nap...and when he wakes up, he’s a player in Uni - a diplomatically rebellious frat boy with big dreams.  Many of us can’t remember what our lives were like before we escape the dysfunction of our own homes.  We’ll discuss that later...

By age 3 or 4, we’ve developed language…which is actually a superpower if you compare us to apes and monkeys.  Despite speaking English, however, many people with painfully blocked-out pasts suffer from Alexithymia, which is a difficulty recognizing feelings and naming emotions  And if you can’t name something, your brain has trouble making sense of it.  While trying to find and label one’s reality, a brain maze of firewalls leads us astray...lost in the laundry basket of sad, abandoned socks.  And we give up.  Ignore the problem.  Adapt.  “Whe needs   feelings, anyway?” we conclude.

So, to summarize again:

1. We have two brains in one skull that don’t get along.

2. We store bunch of somatic pain and/or pleasure in the amygdala before age 3.  But if we have sex issues, it’s usually pain; fear, arousal, and generalized pain.  To access and release  “memories” trapped in the amygdala, we use creative and somatic therapies - art, music, poetry, or EMDR.  “Body work,” like yoga, massage, and acupuncture can also stimulate this area of the brain so it can release old pain.

3. We store a bunch of full-color movies in the hippocampus after age 4.  But only the non-threatening ones are easily accessible.  To find the dirty bits, we need help via 12-Step or therapy.

If you’re like me – if you have preverbal trauma, whether it’s unintentional neglect or sexual abuse or feeling chronically cold and wet and hungry – you might be really, really bad at knowing what you feel…or why you’re feeling.  Why you’re feeling anything at all.  You might wish you were a monk or a robot or a transcendent spirit who feels no pain.  You might feel like a failure for getting interrupted by too much empathy or lack thereof.  You may discover thousands of micro daily irritants, because you assume you should be comfortably numb all the time…or euphorically happy…which, to people like us, can often feel like the same thing.

 Lesson Two: More On Alexithyymia; Humble Yo Damn Self.

If you think you might have “an addictive personality”…if you feel “restless, irritable, and discontented”...then read closely, because we’re are a special breed of human:  We don’t know how we’re feeling…ever.

We think we do…we think we know how we feel about things…which is not the same as having feelings in our bodies.  And because we have obsessive thoughts, opinions, agendas, and mental commentary, we assume we know exactly how situations make us “feel.”  But we don’t.  We just think a lot.  Our bodies and brains are attached by a tiny string.  And we spend most of our energy running around on the hamster wheel in our heads.

Our “feelings” are usually just a bunch of bundled up heaviness in the gut…or a rush of anxiety between our ears…or a sore back…or a restless temperament…or OCD ticks…or a tightness in our throats…or a compulsive behavior...or mysterious guilt for being alive.  When people ask us how we’re doing, we usually say, “shitty” or “alright” and rationalize our emotional discomfort with clever intellectual games…and delicious marijuana…and icecream…and obsessively checking-boxes…and porn.  Sometimes the body - the emotional energy center of this beautiful life experience - makes us do things our brains tell us not  to do if it’s not connected to the brain.  The brain and the body need to be unified; they need to work as one organism.  But when they don’t, we have affairs, or passively aggressively rebel at work...or steal heroin from some poor junkie who really needed it, you jerk. #realfriendsshare. #dontbeselfish.  #getyourOWNfuckinheroin

Leaning to feel feelings and name emotions is something that should be taught in preschool.  Since it’s not, it takes an intentional, nurturing, patient, non-judgmental caregiver who’s not in a hurry.  And let’s be real: we live in a world of disempowering religious dogma, stress induced sickness, familial addiction, workaholism, and an obsession with fancy toys.  It takes serious commitment to counteract the urge to “let the kid figure it out.”  Which is exactly why I didn’t have kids…because I’m considerably lazy and selfish.

Personally, I think it’s a tragedy when the brain’s natural development of feeling recognition is disrupted.  And this is why I spend my life working with addicts...like me.

So, to summarize again-again:

1. We have two brains in one skull that don’t get along.

2. We store bunch of somatic pain and/or pleasure in the amygdaloid before age 3.

3. We store a bunch of full-color emotional movies in the hippocampus after age 4.

4. If our parents aren’t perfect…or they’re sadists...like my dad…we’re prone to emotional recognition and regulation problems, along with compulsive habits around food, sex, money, body manipulation, or mind-altering substances.

In my case, for example, I could easily rattle off heinous facts about my past with absolutely zero emotion in connection with them.   I also had inconvenient waves of negative depression with no memories of their origin.  My brain wasn’t integrated - it was split into two.  It’s as if my mind recorded historical data and empathetic sensation on two different cassette tapes, and filed them under different genres of music.  I needed music mixing software…the kind DJ’s use to merge soundtracks.  My brain was completely cut off from my body.

So, to summarize again-again-again:

1. We have two brains in one skull that don’t get along.

2. We store bunch of somatic pain and/or pleasure in the amygdaloid before age 3.

3. We store a bunch of full-color movies in the hippocampus after age 4.

4. Since our parents are inevitably set up to fail and doomed to fuck us up on accident, we have problems.

5. We can educate ourselves about this shit to get better and feel less alone.

Lesson Three: Emotions for Dummies; A Cheat Sheet.

Pia Melody created a model outlining eight core human emotions:

Anger
Irritation, resentment, frustration
Felt all over body (power, energy)

Fear
Apprehension, overwhelmed, threatened
Felt in stomach, upper chest (suffocation)

Pain
Hurt, pity, sad, lonely
Felt in lower chest, heart (hurting)

Joy
Happy, elated, hopeful
Felt all over body (lightness)

Passion
Enthusiasm, desire, zest
Felt all over body (energized, recharged, spontaneous)

Love
Affection, tenderness, compassion, warmth
Felt in heart, chest (expansion, warmth)

Shame
Embarrassed, humble, dirty
Felt in face, neck, upper chest (warm, hot, red)

Guilt
Regretful, contrite, remorseful
Felt in gut, core (gnawing sensation)

Lesson Four: Habbitual Disassociating & Unconscious Denial; Why We Live in the Matrix Instead of Planet Earth.

Ok, now that we’ve covered how memory works, it’s time to talk about our adorably disassociated personalities.  If you’ve blocked out giant chunks of your past, your brain has secret computing compartments that control you without your permission.  If I remember right, I think I talk about these little black trauma boxes later in the book…in a chapter I already wrote…before I ended up in this sex-rehab looney mansion…I’ll be bringing up airplanes…but right now I’m too lazy to check, so we’ll use a different analogy.

Those cassettes we mentioned have material on them that’s hard to listen to.  If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be in storage.  They’d be in your 1990 Chevy Lumina…because who doesn’t want to feel cool in a broken down mini-van?  Since the cassette tapes of your brain and hiding in super-secure storage closets with alarm systems…ugly closets that look like dungeons…with nightmarish content inside….there are no keys to open them.  They’ve been welded shut since before you can remember.  And if there were keys, you swallowed ‘em when you were little.  Don’t worry, I swallowed mine, too.  #twinning.

Oh, wait!  There’s more.  #toothpastesmile.

If you stumble upon one of these cassette tapes on accident…if you “get triggered” by someone or something that disrupts your peace of mind and sends you into a tailspin of eradicating thoughts, a giant sign will light up with neon orange font that reads:  DO NOT OPEN EVER…EVER…FOR REAL, LIKE NEVER.  GO AWAY DUDE.  IT’S TOO MUCH.  I’M SERIOUS; THE AWARENESS IS DEADLY.  IF YOU TRY TO OPEN ME, I’M CALLING THE COPS, BRO.  OK, NOT REALLY, BUT YOU GET MY DRIFT.  JUST STOP.  GO EAT 10 BOWLS OF CEREAL INSTEAD.  THEN YOU’LL FORGET YOU EVER DISCOVERED THIS CLOSET IN THE FIRST PLACE.”  Mmmm… Frosted Flakes...  #youaintgotnothinontony.

Lesson Five: Accomodating Trauma vs. Healing

 It’s my understanding (and I could be wrong) that unless you have access to somatic therapies and EMDR, you will probably have to work around your trauma with cognitive behavioral therapies (12-Steps or peer recovery groups included) and DBT.  That’s what I did for over a decade.

I tried to use education, meditation, 12-Step work, and philosophical books to pry my childhood open.  But the crow bar was never strong enough, or thick enough, or long enough to render lasting change or real memories that I could trust.  The closet was jammed.  Plus, I read lots of articles about the unreliability of memory, and was skeptical of my own intuition.  The last thing I wanted to do was traumatize myself with my own fuckin’ imagination…or worse, accuse someone of doing something they’d never done.  #imnotameanieremember?

Don’t get me wrong, 12-Step work and family-systems therapy and psychiatric help did save my life.  I became not-bulimic and not-alcoholic and not-masochistic and not-codependent and not-jobless.  These were no small feats.  But post marriage, I developed other symptoms that were dragging me down:

• General sadness and loneliness.
  
• An inability to believe in myself.
  
• Agoraphobia and claustrophobia; getting easily overwhelmed.
  
• Obsessiveness about my dogs’ quality of life; fear they might be in pain or need to be rescued from loneliness.
  
• An inability to orgasm with my spouse.
  
• Transference issues (finding things wrong with things that are fine).
  
• Strange crushes on manipulative men I didn’t want to date.
• Nightmares and waking up sweaty...so sweaty that I’d have to change my clothes, change the sheets, and sleep in the other room. 

My tough love approach was limited.  The models I used left me wanting.  Guessing.  Wondering what might be unconsciously contributing to my dysfunctional inner-life despite a pretty house and more money than I’d ever dreamed.  I had friends and wore normal sized clothes.  What the fuck is wrong with me?  Why am I so ungrateful?  So stuck?

When it came to my “body-aching depression and sex problems” – which I now know to be symptoms of untreated PTSD – inventories and 5th Steps availed me little.  Helping people kept me sober, but not vibrant.  My life was getting a little grayer every year.  I kept smiling, but my husband could feel my dwindling spirit.  I felt bad.  Poor guy, I thought, he marries a hot fitness instructing super-woman and gets stuck with a broken down, dried out, closed up vaginal canal.

Opposite my self-propelled healing tactics, EMDR was gentle.

Mmmm…gentleness….

It rusted those closet hinges slowly, eroding deadbolts into a piles of orange dust.  And instead of swinging the doors wide open, instead of letting all the skeletons tumble out at once, EMDR cracked the edges of the closet…just a smidgen…just a sliver.  Just enough to let my prefrontal cortex make sense of the devilish treasures seeping out.  Once these treasures were sorted and categorized and processed and known, the door would open a little more to reveal more memories…more cassette tapes…more music.

If you’re an exceptionally lazy person, EMDR is a dream module.  Here is the recipe I followed to remember myself:

1. Show up to Karen’s office with cash.

2. Talk on couch.  Be charming.

3. Sit in “The Special Chair.”

4. Feel miserable for two days post session.  Eat donuts on accident.  Engage in useless self-loathing.

5. Record your miseries and enlightening insights on iPhone’s voice memo to replay for Karen so you get the most for your money.

6. Repeat until you are (a) passionately happy and secure, or (b) have flashbacks and a psychotic break..which will eventually lead to passionate happiness.

2: Born Again, Age 23

Well, that was weird, right?  That thing that happened in Chapter One?  It wasn’t a flashback – those came later.  It was more of an “EMDR Mountain Moment.”  I dictated that funky-poem-acid-trippy thing into my phone on September 1st, 2018.  These Mountain Moments started to happen whenever my brain was bilaterally stimulated...such as when hiking...which you’ll learn about in Chapter Three.

But before I get lost in my love of neurology, let’s go back to my bio.  Let’s get back on track.

Who am I?  Where did I come from?

 In my early days of recovery, I was a self-employed hairstylist and a cocktail waitress for El Paso restaurant in Scottsdale.  I was a salesman to the core…with a vagina.  Yup, I was in She-Sales.  I’d hustle restaurant strangers into becoming salon-chair clients.  I had two strategies for monster tips: (a) convince every male patron you might want to go home with him (but don’t) and (b) convince every female patron you’re her undercover ally; an emotionally detached bestie; a cheerleader; an advocate (and follow through).

As soon as I sobered up and stopped eating out of dumpsters, I used all my money to suck up as much CBT as possible (CBT stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy).  I quit sales because it didn’t feel “honest.”  I started working at the local YMCA and a small, church bookstore for extra cash.  I sold Bibles even though I wasn’t a Christian…nor a believer in God…and had regular identity crisis.  Eventually, I cut my cost of living to less than $18,000 per year.  I lived with my equally poor roommates in Phoenix, used a drug-infested laundry mat, and only saw movies when Jeff and Billy were buying.  #ripbillyloveyoubro. 

My extreme frugality allowed to me to take out a $20,000 student loan, sign up for one college dance class to justify the lending (I have an extraordinarily sensitive conscience), and hire the best psych professionals in Scottsdale.  Cash pay only.  It was financially brutal, and totally worth it.  #goschulteitsyourbirthday.

Aside from using a sponsor, friends, a therapist, a nutritionist, and Effexor to get my feet on the ground, I became obsessed with exploring alternative 12-Step programs.  By 2008, I’d delved into some inner-child work and CoDependents Anonymous.  In the early 2010’s I discovered Al-Anon and Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families.  And finally, in mid 2017, I fell into SLAA on accident.  I opened a non-profit called Studio164 with a few friends, and someone requested an SLAA meeting.  Since it didn’t exist, I started one.  For fun.  ‘Cause why not?  #accidentalmiracle.

Despite all this self-determination, despite my obsession with “fixing that one thing I couldn’t seem to find,” despite leaving a cult-y religion and reading bajillions of books and watching katrillions of documentaries by scientists and artists alike, let me just say this: EMDR was so effective that it put my self-help accolades to shame.  The invention of EMDR is nothing short of a modern-day miracle.  When it comes to healing and transcending past pain, I’d never experienced such unwavering clarity or permanence.

This book - the entire thing - is about what happened after EMDR.  Once the memories returned.  It’s about remembering who I am, where I come from, how I survived, and what I love.  It’s about relearning to feel my body, enjoy the present, grieve the past, create a future, and express myself.  So, thank you for listening.  Thank you for reading.  Thank you for supporting me.  Thank you for being a part of my journey.  Truly, I mean it.  #sappybutreal.

Anyhoo, I eventually went to college.  When I got to University, I loved it.  I got government grants and used my hairdressing salary to pay for those too-god-damn expensive books.  I refused my folks money…I didn’t know why, but it felt dirty to me.  Strings and hooks and weird unspoken agreements.  So I cut them off.  I cut them off in the same way parents typically cut children off.  Cold turkey.  No announcement.  Don’t ask, don’t tell.  And it was awkward, but right.  I rejected their loaded dollars unless I was short on cash for therapy.  I stopped seeing the doctors my dad had chosen for me.  I stopped visiting my mother because it was hard...and sad...and made me grieve the loss of a mom I never had in the first place.

Once there, at Arizona State, I immersed myself in a sea of social and behavioral sciences, covering topics like gender fluidity, the psychology of religion, cults, group-think, social comparison theory, the Stanford prison experiment, and a wee bit of marketing.  I ate up sociological theory and childhood development.  I was obsessed with cultural histories, tyrannical “happenstance”, equality, and art.  Anonymous recovery programs brought me back to life, but a love of learning gave me a reason to live.

I was interested in criminology, but never pursued it…the program looked long and scientific and “not-fun.”  My dream job – back when I was 29 – was to become a college professor…but I’d of settled for adjunct faculty or substitute social studies teacher, to be honest.  I hold a pretty low bar for myself.  Embarrassing low.  #notsuicidal.  I was willing to shop at Good Will forever if it meant I could study social psychology for the rest of my life.  But after getting admitted to an interdisciplinary Masters program, after tasting the delicacies of epistemology and digital art, after feeling empowered and capable and autonomously successful, and after getting my wedding photography business off the ground, I crashed.

I crashed hard.

Really, really, hard.

You see, once I graduated with my BA, I got married.  Oh, and by the way, my husband is the most amazing man I’ve ever met.  Fifty points for Bobby.

I got married.  That’s what almost did me in…but it didn’t.  It was the great trigger I never understood.

I got married, and all my dreams came true.  I got married and we had dogs and a house and a car for each of us to drive.  I got married and…I got sick.  Really sick.  Peculiarly sick.  My whole body ached with what I now suspect was somatic illness and idiopathic pain.  My symptoms were real, my body was ill, but my blood work was fine.  This is called “PTSD.”

I know, the way I said “PTSD” was kind of sarcastically condescending...but I was a dunce to have missed it. 

Before last month (August 2018), my muscles were tense as rocks.  They’d spasm.  I had TMJ.  Endocrinological and gynecological problems galore.  My hormones were outta wack.  Chronic fatigue, PMDD, vaginismus, absent periods, basement cortisol levels, and no and testosterone.  I wondered if I was perimenopausal…at 29!  But the cause – as health professionals now understand and should have suggested  – was trauma.  Yup, trauma stored in the body.  Just ask Google.  #forrealsyo.

Believe it or not, I withstood these “mystery illnesses” for over six years.  I accommodated a smaller and smaller life each season.  By the end, I’d quit photographing weddings and teaching aerobics.  I stopped making art and eating anything that had gluten or dairy or bad juju in it.  The compulsivity was getting worse...until I met Karen...and did EMDR.   #karensbirthdaynow.

It only took two months of EMDR for my physical symptoms to clear up.  Two fucking months!  That’s it!  That’s eight weeks!  That’s nothing!  I didn’t know what was being treated, exactly, but I knew I was getting better.  My hypochondriac obsessions shrunk down to zero.  By month five, some of my sexual aversion had started to wane.  Intercourse was still painful, but not shameful...and this was a huge victory.  By month eight, I no longer felt the empathic pain of my younger brother’s life struggles.  I stopped wondering if he was depressed or anxious or doomed to fail as I’d been.  By month nine, I stopped believing I was responsible for the suffering of the entire universe…or factory farmed animals…or babies in Africa...and felt completely comfortable dismissing the philosophy of original sin.  And at the end, the very end, I remembered.

Flashbacks.  An impulsive call to my brothers.  Fuck, did I worry them?  They’re gonna think I’m crazy.  They don’t know what I know.  They haven’t done the healing.  Yikes.  More flashbacks.  The Meadows in Wickenberg.  They can’t treat me.  I’m too much to handle.  More flashbacks.  Copper Springs in Avondale.  Alright, cool.  Stabilized.  Transfer to LA.  Hey guys, I’m Rachel.  Here we are.  Working on integration.  Welcome to my blog.  Let’s Get Better Together.  #wink.

Three years ago, if you’d have told me that people “store their issues in their tissues” or that “the body keeps score,” I’d’ve punched you in the face for being densely imbecilic. #wedontusetheRword.  I’d of thought you were some sort of hippy-dippy, yogafied nut-job using mushrooms to self-actualize or “cure” your apparently undiagnosed mental illness.  And if you’d’ve had a degree I admired, I would  have assumed you were just making shit up for a chance to bill my unreasonably expensive health insurance.

As my father used to say, I categorized wholistic doctors as “quacks.”  That’s what he would have wanted – my father.  He raised us to be skeptical of everything he disliked, and blindly swallow his abuse disguised as altruism.  Maybe it was unintentional.  I mean, I don’t really believe it was unintentional.  I’m just saying that to be nice.  Because, dude, come on – I’m an outrageously nice person...

...But let’s be real: he’s a sadist psychopath.  So the abuse was probably on purpose.

I’m using this time in California to write a book....obviously.  My entire life was reframed in an instant, and uncovering the true narrative I deserve to understand is going to take a little bit of time.  My hope is that writing will help integrate the parts of myself I’ve previously abandoned.  The brain is so awesomely extraordinary that it can black out entire years of our lives to protect us.  Survival.  It’s a survival adaptation that kept me (and many like me) alive.  I’m grateful for my “amnesia.”  I needed to forget to be strong enough to eventually remember.  And when the Universe knew the time was ripe, EMDR helped me open what’d been locked up for years.  Here in Cali, I have journals and art and conversations with other survivors.  I’m becoming one whole person.  I don’t feel like a child stuck in an adult body anymore.  I feel like an adult who has answers to her life-long identity issues.  #seriousvictory

On another, more judgmentally pretentious note, there are some seriously nutty people here..  I mean Fuucckkeedd Upppp.  And I’m not claiming to be the most balanced block in the Jenga tower, but living in looney bins the last few weeks has been challenging.  Why?  Because - as we all know - I’m pretty fuckin’ normal.  I know everyone in treatments thinks this about themselves, everyone wants to be the exception to the rule...but the doctors agree with me.  The keep telling me it’s clear I’ve “done a lot of work.”  Sometimes I suspect the peer-staff members pity me for using a mental institution as a refuge to figure out my shit...but then again, they say that I’m courageous for going to any extreme to heal.  Plus, the professionals here get paid loads of money.  Like, loads.  So they sort of have to be nice to you.  And I’m a sucker for flattery.

On the upside, I’m an eternal optimist.  I’m finding the perks.  Here’s what I’ve realized: Listening to people’s unhinged personalities is quite inspiring.  When I look at my fellow patients with compassion, I see my old self – my teenaged self.  A cut-up, self-harming, secretive vacuum for pain.  And although I’m often frustrated by my house-mates’ lack of insight, lack of solutions, lack of a step-by-step recipe for growing themselves up, I feel deeply grateful to have escaped the ingrained reality issues that continue to dampen the quality of their lives.

Reality issues; identity issues; getting lost in existentialism; confusing yourself with a role; wondering if you’re real; an incessant need to be mirrored or attached to something that’s solid and guaranteed; an obsession with the eternal; self-doubt; an inability to identify your emotions unless they’re extreme; bi-polar; whatever.  It’s hard to understand unless you’ve been there.

I’ve been there.  I know.  I get you, Bro.  I get you, Girl.  We’re in this together.

Some of my readers will probably be closeted sadists - “accidental” predators - unconsciously addicted to harming people with diminished power.  I think that’s Ok.  If they keep reading - if they finish to the end - I’ll assume they want to get better....at least a little bit...sort of...probably...actually, I have no idea.  But I’m choosing to believe it, even if I’m wrong, because the idea of social progress increases my quality of life.

Other readers, however, will be people like me.  They unknowingly make themselves prey - “accidentally” attracting sadists - unconsciously addicted to feeling victimized.  I suspect we all endured the same abuse - blocked-out childhood sexual abuse - but handled it differently.  We adapted by becoming the predators that devoured us or the prey that struggled to escape.  We got hooked on wrestling.  We’ve disassociated too much, too long.  We’re blocked off from ourselves.  We either became Russell Brands or Rachel Currys.  Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde, but usually both.   #sadistsanddumbbitchesunite. #wereonthesameteam.  #forgivenessisreal.

Now, concerning the above statements, I’m not a fuckin’ professional.  I can’t 100% “guarantee” that what I just said is true.  Technically, I haven’t done the research.  And I’m wrong all the time.  But from attending SLAA meetings, I think what I assume to be correct is correct...or at least a good guess.  Just give me some points. 

Back to my California adventures...back to my Hotel California (such a lovely place, such a lovely face).  Being in this treatment center is both painful and joyous at the same time.  I never know when my hand will want to write, my fingers will need to type, or my heart will draw a picture of itself…and…color it with my non-toxic, staff-approved paints.  I never know when my body will insist on stretching.  I never know when listening to these peoples’ tangled up lives is gonna help me untangle mine.  But I know one thing for sure: I’m going to keep track of every single bit of it.  I’m going to put it in this word document and publish a raw, inedited, grammatically incorrect piece of art.

Literary critics may probably call it garbage.  It’s going to be messy and rebellious and colorful and politically incorrect.  But I don’t give a shit.  I’m just gonna be Me.  I’m just gonna spread Love and Compassion.  Because for the first time in my entire life, I’m proud of myself.  And I know I can do it.  And sharing is my Superpower.

1: WTF Am I?

You might not know if the W in “WTF Am I” stands for Who, What, or Where.  Don’t worry, we’re gonna answer all of that.  Also, I’m just gonna talk to y’all like we’re besties, and this book is gonna be extraordinarily disorganized.  I’m gonna jump from topic to topic like a rubber bullet ricocheting  off the inside of a metal can.  It’s just my personality.  #sorrynotsorry.

I started working on this book prior to my first and only visit to the nut house (which, of course, we will cover in great detail in later chapters).  As of August 2018, these were the working titles for this book:

• Sunrise Mountain Lion

• Escape Artistry for Dummies

• When Purity Kills

• Virginal Suicide

• Dumb Bitch

• The Smartest Girl in the World

Here was (and still is) the confirmed subtitle:

“A memoir of surviving sadism, evangelical escape, and the poison of purity.”

Right now, I’m nestled away in a ridiculously boujee treatment center in Los Angeles.  My stay was prompted by a sudden series of vivid flash backs chronicling my painfully abusive childhood.  These PTSD black outs started September 2nd, 2018, after a long nine-months of EMDR with the greatest doctor on the face of the planet.  #karenismyhomie.

EMDR is fuckin’ amazing.  But before I go into details about that (see the future chapter on memories and the utterly magnificent brain), let me explain what I know about myself...for sure.

I’ve been clean and sober for over 12 years, and became quite the therapy nerd in college.  I didn’t graduate high-school on time.  I was too depressed and unstable and abused to show up for class on a regular basis.  I never slept, but didn’t know I never knew it.  Drugged with anesthesia.  Intense, I know…we’ll get into that later.

In 2006, I achieved recovery from alcoholism and self-harming behaviors (bulimia, mostly), and I did a shit-ton of homework.  Brain homework and heart homework and soul homework and dancing.  I was a broken high school student, but a brilliant client and expressive artist.  I was determined.  A sponge.  I had to be.  If I wanted to live.

I believe we all have persevering resilience buried within us.  The problem isn’t our ability to change, thrive, or spread the loving light we carry.  We’re all capable.  We’re rad.  Each and every one of us.  As human beings, we have access to the accumulative power of small, incremental changes.  The problem isn’t life.  The problem lies in our untangled minds; they are full of illusions that find us and bind us and blind us.  The human body is riddled with false narratives and competing voices that keep us trapped in cyclical patterns of behavior we wish to transcend…but typically can’t…

But we can…we can change...if we become escape artists.

I didn’t know I was a master escape artist until I had a semi-crush on a boy I didn’t even want to be with.  It wasn’t really a sexual crush, per se...it was more like a “friend-crush.”  That “OMG, we HAVE to be best friends or my life will be missing something SUPER important even though I’ve been absolutely fine without knowing you until this moment.”

Let’s call him Ian.  We attended the same Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous meeting, which was frustrating, since I was attending these meetings to eradicate crushing in the first place.  I love my husband.  He rocks.  I’ve never been unfaithful - and didn’t wanna start - just because my vagina was screaming profanities...insisting I should pay attention to tattooed, rebellious, bad-boys trapped in pretentious, nice-boy clothes.

But even though I ignored my vagina...and my “friend-gina”...I listened carefully to his story.  I listened to the crush’s story, that’s is.  I read between the lines.  And the message he shared was nearly identical to mine.  And when he spoke, memories of my blocked out childhood came back quite suddenly.  The poetry flooded my being.  The art of my soul told me the facts I’d sworn to forget.

Because I was simultaneously doing EMDR, Crush Boy’s memories were triggering mine.  He didn’t even need to say much.  Mention a little church.  Mention a little family.  Mention a little fantasy.  He was literally giving me back my brain.

Here is an example of the extraordinarily strange journal entries prompted by attending SLAA, and befriending my Bro, Ian:

Yesterday, Ian and I verbalized what we already knew – that we were all equally fucked up.  All of us sitting at the table had been both manipulated prey and manipulating predators.  While being petrified of each others’ sexuality and its infinite magnetism, we refused any fictitious power our traumas held over us…and that’s when we became teammates.  Ian and I.  We became real human friends instead of weird, crush-avoidant, half-strangers.  At least, that’s what happened for me.  To be frank, he could have felt nothing.  Which is hilarious to imagine.

But there’s something else that happened at the end of the meeting.  We held hands during the serenity prayer, and there was energy pulsating from our palms (my palms).  And even though I didn’t do it, because it would have been outrageously inappropriate, I wanted to grab his fist and hold it up to my face, and squeeze it as hard as I could.  I wanted to break the bones in his hand with the seriousness of my convictions.  I wanted to look him straight into his pupils. I wanted to burrow my She-Powers deep into his amygdala, and tell him he’s going to make it.  “Dude, you’re gonna make it.  Don’t give up.”  #talkabouttransference.

You know what I really wanted to do?  I wanted to sober up his fucking brain.  My brother’s brain?  Ian’s brain?  And which brother?  I don’t know.  I didn’t know for sure.

I wanted him to remember everything.  Everything that had ever happened to him.  I wanted him to remember, like me.  I wanted us to match so I had a partner in crime.  I wanted him to be my ally.  #thisiscalledtraumabonding.

I wanted to say:

“Dude, Bro, you’re going to make it.  You’re going to make it out of this fucking house.  You’re gonna make something of yourself, and be big.  Get out.  Get the fuck out of here.  And if I have to stay behind so you can get out, I will.  I’m going to do it.  I’m too far gone.  Too broken.  But you’re a runner – I know it.  Big brothers have longer legs.

“M—, he’s never let you run before; he tried to break your legs like he broke mine.  But you’ve always had arms, motherfucker!  You use ‘em.  You put him in his place before he puts you in yours.  You’re mischievous.  You can crawl out the crevices of these barred up windows once he’s asleep.  You can sneak out without getting caught.  You’re addicted to travel.  So just do good...‘be good.’  Perform.  Stay secretive.  Keep your head down, and get out.  Forget Jesus!  Save yourself.

“Hey A—, Bro – listen to me.  Look me in the eyes.  Do it!  Do what I say, damn it!  Look me in the eyes even though you’re used to staring at the floor.  You’re a bad ass.  You have resilience and strength and tenacity even though he never let you know it.  You’re tough, even though he softens you.  You’ve got brains, and wit, and demons in the closet that were stripped away from me when he made me into his stripper.

“Hey, M—.  Big Bro.  Hey, I’m not done yet.  Don’t run away yet.  I know it seems surreal.  But I’m not full of shit, I swear.  Despite what he tells you.  I don’t have a fuckin’ ‘mood disorder.’  So listen.  Support me for once.  Placate me if you have to think of it that way.  It’s just one more thing, I swear.  I’m locking the door so you have to listen.

“You have Superpowers, Bro.  Superpowers I don’t.  You can dance people’s minds!  You trick mine all the time.  I’m gullible and virginal and femmy and young.  But I trust you.  Why?  Because I know you know how to read him...and dodge him...and stroke his ego to evade the strokes.  I watched you watch him my whole life.  You’re a quiet watcher with knives in your back pocket.  I put them there.  I put those knives there.  I gave them to you so you could stick it to him.  I was your helper.  I tried to cry wolf, but I was too weak...and Mom couldn’t hear...’cause she was ‘asleep.’  I know you’re sharp, but be careful.  Be kind.  Don’t be like them.  Don’t hurt the lambs.  Be good to the weak.  Your competition is fierce  , so remember we’re broken.  It’s the only thing that will bring gentleness into your life...empathy into your heart.  You think you know how to empathize, but you don’t.  You punish on accident...when people inconvenience your image...when they threatening to steal your trophies...when they know something about you, you think they have ‘leverage.’  But they don’t.  They’re just humans.  Stop being mean.  It’s not your fault when it happens...you just can’t remember.

“And Little Brother, A—, I made sure you knew you were something.  Something worthwhile.  Something important...worth saving.  Be kind to yourself like when I was kind to you.  I held you every night to make sure you made it to sleep without dying from the shivers he sent down your spine.  Sometimes I thought you were dead.  A dead, lifeless baby.  Cold and blue, just like you were born.  Dad always said you were born blue in the face.  Maybe it wasn’t a story.

“You were paralyzed and couldn’t move.  That’s what happens when we visit the doctor...or they visit us.  I was terrorized by the thought of you being in danger...because, like me, you always were.  Panick was my middle name.  An obsessive checker and light switcher and counter of steps.  Superstitious and careful to stay the the lines.

“Hey, hey.  Calm down.  It’s cool.  Don’t freak out, Man.  Sorry.  I know it’s a lot.  I know it’s so much…you’re probably gonna have a mental breakdown, but you have to know you’re perfectly sane.  It’s just a trauma response.  It happened to me when the flashbacks returned.  Don’t be afraid.  Ask for the help you need.  Tell a shrink what’s going on.  Print out this blog if it helps.  But just listen, please?   You gotta  listen.  Just listen to what happened...Ok, thanks.

”I know it’s random, but remember when Mom died?  When she turned into a manikin puppet?  An emotionally absent Mother Theresa?  It’s called ‘battered woman’s syndrome.’  Remember when she became deaf and dumb and gave up her brain to be his eyes and ears?  Maybe that didn’t happen to you...’cause you were a boy...and she was needy of your attention.  She loved her sons.  Can’t let them go.  But she got rid of me as soon as she could.  As soon as I got my period.  She didn’t want her mistress living in the house.  Her emotional absence was cold and lonely.  Her silent avoidance and vengeance could break my heart.  It killed me.

“Remember when the Great Black Cloud snuck into our rooms to ‘punish us’?  Do you remember being in the crib, like I do?  I was surrounded by a mobile of dirty sensations.  It was terrifying.  I was cold, wet, shivering under the ceiling fan.  Do you remember him ‘crawling into bed’ with us to ‘tuck us in?’  Remember when he had to ‘teach us a lesson?’  Lessons that gave us nightmares of being trapped?  Suffocating?  Drowning?  Chased by criminals?  Do you remember the Boogie Man?  Remember how Mom had no idea what type of pain she instilled when she threatened to report our ‘rebellious behavior?’  When she threatened to ‘tell your dad?’  When she had the power to inform Him - God of the Universe - of our our ‘disobedience’?  Can you see how his chosen religion kept the the demonic hooks active in our brains?  24-hours a day?   We revered this patriarchal evangelical god-figure because we ‘were born into sin.’  Sinful for having been born onto Planet Earth.  Sinful because it’s a ‘fallen world’ that belong to a fallen angel.

“Well, listen up, Knuckle-Head!  Knucklehead who cries uncle.  You’re a dumb bitch like I was.  And there’s a reason we never feel forgiven.  There’s a reason we feel guilty for not answering their phone calls...for parking in the wrong space...for breaking the rules.  And there’s a reason we hate going back.  For Christmas.  For dinner.  Especially dinner.  We eat alone...subdued...keep to ourselves for a reason.

“Bro, I need you to know that I took it for you...I took it for you.  I took it for you as long as I could to keep you safe.  I wanted to protect you, Dude.  I wanted to protect you.  I wanted to protect you!  I’m bawling, I’m sorry; you hate it when I cry.  I cry all the time, and you can’t stand feeling responsible even though you’re not.  I wanted to protect you - I wanted to protect you so bad, and I took it as much as I could.  I was told to watch you in the daytime.  I babysat like it was my job...’cause it was.  And he held your safety over me like a dirty blackmailing judge.  I hated him for hurting you.  It was a murderous rage....a rage turned inward...which - as the therapists explain - creates depression.

“Oh man, I wanted to protect you…I’m so sorry.  I hated myself for failing.  For being so pathetically small.  For being a stupid girl!  For flailing about like a ‘pansy.’  That’s what he used to call us: pansies.  I hated myself for being young and disabled.  But I didn’t fail all the way.  I made myself his favorite.  And I eventually got out.  You got out, too!  And so did M—.  He got sucked back in...when he had kids...and they needed support.  But we all got out in our own way.  We’re out of that damned house.  And I gotta remind myself that to stay strong...

“Hey, chin up, Little Bro.  Hey Bro, I said chin up!  I know I’m mean to you sometimes, but gimme a hug.  I’m trying to make you emotionally calloused because I see your pain.  It mirrors mine.  You display the vulnerability my brain refused to remember.  Until now.  I play with you and shun you when you’re small.  I was a terrible big sister sometimes; you never felt fully included...you always wondered if you belonged.  Well, you do.  So come here, you Douche!  I’ll never dismiss or ignore you again.  Never!  Never, ever.  We got this.  Fist bump me.  I’m gonna hold onto you as long as you need me.  I’m right here.  I’m two hours away.  I’m alive now.  We escaped.  We’re safe.

“You can cry if you need; don’t be afraid.  No one’s watching us anymore.  We don’t have to stay off the grid.  We don’t have to be home-bodied agoraphobic, claustrophobic weirdos.  Not anymore, at least.  We don’t have to be afraid of our own bodies.  We don’t have to shower twice a day or live in the squalor of our immature messes.  It’s 2018 and I’m not going anywhere.  In fact, I came all the way to California to be with you.  Treatment centers are everywhere, but I needed to be close by.  To see you, and remind myself you’re a grown man.  And your capable.  Strong.  Ready.

“I hate to do this, but I gotta tell you the rest.  It’s gonna take a long, long time.  It’s a fucked up story without redemption.  But I’ll always try to be your Christ.  Your bearer of ‘good news.’ Good news that’s so awfully bad it’s pure sin.  Bearing the weight of this cross is painfully heavy, but I have to keep you informed.  You have to know the details so smiling can happen to you again.

“You used to smile a lot...when you were three...and I was your protector...you real  mom.  When we lived in the old house...the one you were born in.  Caleveros Dr.  Our phone number was 602-494-0125.  Wait,  was that it?  Or is that the second chamber we lived in?  Oh, the second I lived in.  Your first and my second.  I forgot about the rental house.  When the family was poor...and M— and I ate off TV trays...I always picked Care Bears.  Care Bears and He-Man.  Those were our favorites.  This was before Atari, before you were brought into this cruel family named ‘Curry.’

“‘Dr. Curry.  Everyone knows how brilliant his is.’  He’s admired.  Left to live on his high-horse alone in the dark.  He reads Einstein’s book of relativity for fun.  He’s a strategist.  Revered at the office.  In the hospital.  His work.  His delightful escape from reality.

“You have to hear the details so you can sleep soundly again.  So you can have intimacy with your wife.  So your sex life wont be as fucked-up as mine was for six whole years.  Knowing is power.  The truth will set you free...

“I kept him in my room on purpose.  I poked the bear and spit in his face, and I didn’t let him pay a moments’ attention to you so long as I was awake.  I tried to do for you what M— tried to do for me when the wooden spoon was his weapon of choice.  And I was proud of being a total dick-face.  A dominatrix Bitch.  I was mean and strong and ready to fight.   You know why?  ‘Cause you were my son - my baby.  Five years younger is a lot!  And I was not gonna let my son get devoured by a fucking wolf!  I was not gonna let what happened to me happened to you any longer than necessary.  And I’m sorry I had to leave; oh God, I’m so sorry.  I’m so sorry.  God, that stings.  The tears don’t stop.  The guilt is hard; it aches.  It cuts through my ribs, and sinks to my pelvic floor.  God, I’m sorry I left you, A—.  I was so torn.  Literally.  I was 18, 19.  I saw the proctologist for anal fissures.  There was always blood in my stool.  Everything hurt.  I even had sphincter surgery.  Twice.  Grant was my savior.  I had to get out.

“‘Why did I leave you?’ Your sweet, young face is staring into the hollowness that I’ve become.  I’m a shell of a person.  A battered skull.  A filthy crotch.  A dumb bitch, that’s all.  I was always keeping busy to stay away from that monster.  Dancing.  I was a competitive dancer until Mom made me quit the team.  I hated her for that.

“I’m sorry you felt abandoned.  Oh babe, I never left you.  I never left you, I promise.  I just had to get my body out.  Out of the room, out of the house, out of the state, out of the country, out of his medicalized drug-obsessed hand, out of his munchausen by proxy, out of that shame-based religion, out of the patriarchal politics, out of anything he’d ever touched.  I had to get out because he was going to kill me.  I had to detangle his web.  His wrecklessly orderless black-windowed web off inevitable death.

“I know you don’t believe me, but he had plans to kill me. I knew it; he said so.  He talked about Hell and death with an absense of empathy.  Girl Interrupted.  You know that movie?  I didn’t want to be her.  Institutionalized for life?  That sounded worse than suicide.  Maybe the death was metaphoric; so what.  It doesn’t matter.  He was going to keep me handicapped and silenced and passed out, withering away in that mansion forever.  Living on his million-dollar paycheck, dependent on his doctor friends and pastor friends and considerate contacts.  He wanted to build me a guest house in the back yard.  He wanted me to dance to Christian music and hang artwork in the church.  He resented mom for rejecting me because it kept me far away, pushed me out of the house, made me headstrong, and gave me the strength to cut ties.

“Before I escaped, he wanted me to remain disabled, but blamed me for acting helpless.  He wanted me to be a good-little-obedient lamb of God, but scolded me for acting powerless.  He’d come into my room at night and punish me for things I’d never done or thought to do.  He was obsessed with my virginity…and loyalty…and faithfulness to him…no, wait, to God…no, wait, to Him…no, wait, Christianity…no wait...wait....they’re all the same.

“The ‘Big Black Cloud.’  The incessant shame.  The confused reality.  It’s just a big mess.  A mess he made for us to clean up.  A mess he made for us to get tired and submissive and worshipful.  A mess he designed to ‘cause us to stumble...into sin’...into lust.  Lust for pain.  These are the things you might not know in your brain, but recall in your bones.  Because they happened to you, too.

“Dude - A— - he made sure everybody thought I was crazy.  I’ve been on SSRIs since age eleven.  Since the move to Horseshoe Road.  Dr. Riccardi was his name; another friend of Steve’s, so happy to see me.  He made sure everybody thought I was crazy, and everybody thought you were lost.  But guess what?  We weren’t! I was stable, and you were smart, and we were doped up on prescription strength antihistamines three times per day.  M— was, too.  Delsym cough syrups and breathing machines before bed.   Cholesterol lowering statins to erase our memories.  Read up.  Read up on the side effects of that shit.  Get smart.  He can’t slap the sass out of you anymore.  You can’t get too smart for your own good anymore.  Get sassy, get smart, spit out the pills.

“Man, we didn’t know WHAT the fuck was going on back then.  But I know you knew that I knew you know that I know we knew that there was something between us.  Something we couldn’t remember, but never forgot.  A traumatic bond that M— had suppressed to survive.  He was the first born, the golden child, but I don’t think he was spared.  Not in infancy, at least.  Not before age seven.  Not before the age of reason.

“He said I was an emotional liability, that being myself brought shame to the family.  He said I was dangerous without using that word.  He was afraid of my body, and resented it.  And so did I.  He needed me to fear myself and resent myself to stay quiet.  But guess what helped me shine?  You.  You, Bro.  You saved my life so many times over, and you never even knew it.  How? You didn’t believe him.  You never believed him when he called me a liar...because you loved me...and you knew I wasn’t.  Thank you.  Thank you for that.  Thank you for holding my hand, for sending me sunshine, for being my brother, and for keeping me alive.

“When he said I was crazy, I watched your loyalty.  I cherished it like a diamond.  Besties.  We had a pact, a bond to stick it out.  But then, I broke.  I got weak in the knees.  I saw all your ticks.  All your compulsive quirks that mirrored mine.  An obsession with not getting dirty, a terror of the new things, walking on egg shells to evade getting ‘punished.’  Chatting at school, and quiet at home.  Crying over spilled-milk...not because you were entitled, but precisely because you weren’t.  None of us were entitled to our own bodies.  We had no autonomy.  We were medicalized and ruined.  And this inner-knowing of mine - this preteen ability to sense you’d been prey - it was like an electrifying awakening; a strike of lightening inside me.  It was pure HATE.  A hate that could actually KILL.  A hate I swallowed, and then refused to swallow, and then swallowed again in a different way.  A hate that made me suicidally anorexic.

‘Wait,’ I thought, ‘the same ticks?  The same ticks my niece has?  The hand-flapping and water-drinking and shivering and robotically stuttered speech?  The nightmares and night sweats and chronic sickness?  That seeming sudden regressive child developmental stage?’  And I know I’m a sinner for saying it, but I wanted him to die.  I wanted to kill him.  I wanted to kill him for touching my son.  My niece.  My nieces!  My son.  GAWD!  FUCK!

Ian!  Help me!  Ian, I’m so fucking confused.  I’m like your dumb bitch mom!  You hate me and love me at the same time; you don’t know why I’m your prototype.  But I’m NOT your mom!  I swear!  And I’m healed from my issues...I think.  You’re my friend; just give me some fuckin’ advice already!  Tell me what to do!  You’re my Big Brother!  But we’re adults now - we don’t have to wrestle, we just have to TALK.  So what do you think? Can I tell them this?

Whoa.  What the fuck is happening to me.  There are two voices: ‘Ian, you’re the only one in SLAA who’s gonna get this shit.  Because you’re my eldest sibling, and I need your help.  If I tell my family the truth, they’re gonna hate me and shun me and accuse me of ruining their lives.  What if there’s no evidence?  Will you hear my 5th Step?’  And the OTHER  voice: ‘Wait, no!  That’s not appropriate.  Tell Bob, Rachel.  Tell Karen and Dr. Schulte and Bob.  No, don’t tell Bob.  Tell the others, but not Bob.  Bob freezes up, gets stiff and awkward.  He can’t handle the emotionality of being alive.  He can’t handle intimacy.  He’s like Ian, when married.  So Bob’s passion lives elsewhere and his numbness at home.  He’s a predator in the office, a corporate success.  He’s attracted to prey...but never the powerful ones.  For some reason, he doesn’t like them when they have power.  He wants to save the innocent train-wrecks.  The virginal dumb bitches.  The sweet ones.  Like me.  The self-sabotagers who hold themselves down on their own.  He needs you to be girly to feel he’s safe.  But you’re not.  You HATE  being a girl.  You’re a WOMAN...a Lioness, damn it.

Oh, Bobby.  Sweet Bobby.  He loves you but doesn’t know how to love you.  He’s such a good man, a safe man, your favorite man.  He just can’t handle your pain.  He runs away from you.  It’s dusguised as work, but hurts the same.  Just like Mom.  He’s avoidant and absent and impenetrable.  He ignores you and pretends he forgot.  You’re so fucking tired of playing dumb.  But your loyal.  To his needs.  To his image.  That’s how I was trained before we met.

Fuck.  I’m stuck.  I hate feeling trapped.  I have to get outside.  Be barefoot and far away from the house...

‘Hey Rach, it’s gonna be Ok.  Just wait.  Do nothing.  Remember.  Just remember.  Relax and remember and breathe slow.  Feel peace.  Relief.  Self-soothe.  I know how to do that now.  We know how.  We have a Higher Power...sort of.  We have a Higher Way.  So be still and trust the process.’  That’s what my voice says.  My Real voice.  My Real Self.  My Highest Self.  Thank god I’m discovering She’s Me.

“Lil Bro, once I knew you were his prey, something in me lit on fire.  Cracked and burned and shot through the sky like bottle rockets on steroids.  It was deep and red and overpowering.  It was alchemy gone bad.  This virginal lamb by day turned into a dancing gazelle at night.  I had so much adrenaline in my body; no amount of ‘medicine’ could keep me limp.  I starved myself because I wanted to die.  And I did die.  I died of shame and believing I was evil.

But a few years later, I was sick of hating myself.  I was sick of dying.  I knew he’d fuck me into suicide.  So I started eating...a lot.

I ate the house!   I was a crazy, binging, bulimic wreck.  I turned my boney anorexic corpse into a Fucking Mountain Lioness.  I became a huntress dressed in the skins of prey.  I glided.  I danced.  I worked out like crazy.  I was agile and fast and brilliant and dominated every time.

“‘If you dominated, then why did you keep losing?  Why we’re you always crying?  How did he keep winning?’ you ask.  Dude, you don’t remember the shots?  He told us about them.  At the dinner table, in jest.  You have to eat your meat, he said, or I’ll shove it up your rectum.

You better be well-behave, he said, or I’ll give you a shot.   And then there was always his routine complaint: Why doesn’t Rachel take her medicine?!  He raged when he found dozens of useless pills collected in the trashed up top drawer of my pretty pink bathroom.  The medicine I never needed.  The medicine prescribed by his charmed-up, philanthropic doctor friends.  The same friends convinced of my unwarranted diagnosis by a helicopter parent named Steve.  ‘Wow,’ they’d say, ‘You’re so lucky to have such an involved father.’  Samples and samples and samples and samples.  Never a real prescription.  Well, isn’t that interesting?

Gross.

“He is a toxicologist, after all.  He has a 200 square-foot closet of drugs labeled in neatly organized file boxes.  Labeled and stacked; a collection of treasures.  Let’s not be dumb bitches anymore, Boys.  I’m all done being a dumb bitch.

“I know you’re tired.  I know you’re tired but wired and want to sleep but can’t.  But before you go, I need to talk about the move.  The move that killed me.  I know you were only five.  Matt was thirteen.  I wonder if puberty saved him...because he was a boy.

“It was the move that ripped me away from the escape of my Phoenix friends, and fantasy school, and girlscouts. The Calaveros people were suspicious.  They were suspicious because I told them.  But they were poor; protective of their own kids.  There was no internet back then.  No dirty laundry hung out to dry.  People thought it was shameful, not sad.  And so there was nothing.  And I don’t blame them.

“When we moved to the rich side of the tracks...to a gated community in Scottsdale...he made sure my bedroom was far, far away from yours.  From yours and Matt’s.  And I was crushed.  Crushed.  Lonely.  Scared.  I was so confused.  I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be by my brothers.  Isn’t this floor plan a split master?  You personally designed this 4,000 square-foot house!  I remember - you had Collins build it.  Rick Collins.  A friend from church.  There’s a 500 square-foot guest room up there!  There’s even an extra entertainment room for the boys...and there wasn’t room for me?  For ME?!  Not even a closet?  Not even a goddamned chamber?  Why am I WRONGED for being female?  Why do you need to watch me so close, and put me bedroom next to yours, you sick fuck?  Why are you such an evil master-minded sociopath?  That’s what I thought.  Those were the things that I thought.  That’s why I cried myself to sleep.  And that’s when he called me depressive.  That’s when I swallowed the pills.  That’s when I let him medically rescue me from being medicalized, from playing Doctor with the Devil himself.

”I missed you guys.  Your protection and comfort.  Maybe I just missed the company.  Those were the saddest years of my entire life.  It’s why I tried to starve myself to death, stave off my period.  I wanted to disintegrate.  I wanted to die.  I was so ashamed of having been born.  I was terrified of getting pregnant, of being punished for becoming a woman.  Can you get pregnant that way?  I didn’t know.  I was terrified of my own fleshiness.  So I prayed to be a boy...

Dear God, make me a bird (a boy), so I can fly far far away from here…’. Oh Jenny, I get you.  God, please make me a boy.  Please? I’ll do anything!  Make me a boy, so I can be with my brothers.  Make me a boy.  Take away my period.  My hips.  My budding chest.  Take it away.  Please, I’m begging you!  If you can move mountains and I have the faith, please just make me a boy.  Mustard seeds galore.

“Hey, Big Bro!  M—!  Don’t shut down on me now!  Don’t block me out!  I know it’s painful.  I know it’s like spears in your brain, behind your eyes, entrapping your jaw.  I know I’m giving you migraines and neck aches.  I know the truth is painful, and the disassociate fantasy-version of your childhood is reasonably tolerable.  But don’t leave me yet!  Please!  Please, keep listening!  I need you to know me.  I need you to know who I am.  A filthy, used up little girl who hates wearing dresses and never picks pink.  I need you to know what a dirty, slutty, sinfully dumb bitch I was so you can tell me I’m alright and I’m accepted.  So please, please don’t leave!  Just tell me I’m loved, that I’m not a piece of trash.  And don’t leave me alone in the house with him.  M—, why’d you have to join a band?  Why’d you have to get so busy? Can’t you take me with you?

“Don’t go out of town, Bobby.  I know you’re working, but we’re married.  I know it’s important.  I know it’s your job, but please just stay home.  Just this ONE time?   You haven’t touched me I  ages.  It’s as if you’re repelled by my existence.  It makes me feel empty and cold and rejected.  Why won’t you touch me? Or hold me? Or kiss me?  Why do you want me to be your wife, but not your lover?  It’s just me in this gargantuan building we call a house...it’s just me and the dogs.  I get so lonely….

“Bros - both of you - you may not believe me, but I allured him away from your bedrooms with a murderous rage shoved in the closet of my chest.  My ribs cages were bursting with rebellion!  It’s the only reason I got fat at age 15...and stayed fat…because it was just one more thing for him to hate…and punish…and it kept him busy.  My body fat was compacted with passion and terror and anger combined.  It wasn’t even an emotion; I had no feelings.  This bundled up tension and pain was more like an energy that embodied me.  I was a ventriloquist doll, just like Mom.  And he was the puppet-master.  But guess what?  I still had my brain and eyes and ears.  I placated him.  I let him think I was compliant.  But I wasn’t.  I wasn’t.  I NEVER was.  Not Once.

“Hey.  Hey for real.  A—.  I gotta tell you something important.  Because he did to you what he promised he’d never...because he betrayed our father-daughter contract once I was paralyzed with anesthesia...because I threatened to tell if he touched you.  And because of what a sociopathic sadist he is, you might not feel like a man.  But you are.  You’re more of a man than he’ll ever be!  You’re a fuckin’ MAN’s man! You BOTH are!!  And you might dress metro and geek out on nerdy, artsy, cultured hobbies, but don’t fool yourself.  Brothers, my two Brothers, I know you’re a machismo in the closet.  And it might manifest as accidental misogyny on the dark web, it might slip out in affairs with sluts or work or strung out addictive vices, it might cause sexual anorexia and emotional avoidance...but don’t worry.  Like I said before – you’re gonna make it.  You’re gonna get out.  You Just. Have. To. Remember.

“A—, M—, Bob, Ian, Caleb, Erik, Mike, Grant…I don’t know who I’m talking to anymore.  But this is the message I have to proclaim:

You might not feel like you’re strong or masculine or good enough or rich enough.  You might feel guilty and obliged and pressured to perform for invisible reasons.  You might become enslaved to the approval of authoritative figures you secretly hate.  But you’re wrong about thinking you’re weak.  You’re wrong about believing you’re bad.  You. Are. Good.  I don’t care if you’re a fuckin’ rapist.  I don’t care if you black out and come to.  Dudes, you’ve got hope in your bones and power in your hands and too many layers of sandpaper protecting your hearts.  You’re tenacious and tough and hardy and courageous.  You are awesome; the strongest men I know; survivors and thrivers.  So whether you’re trying to escape, or trying to stop setting traps, don’t give up.  Don’t choose to forget...to justify it away.  Your past was heinous...and I need you to remember...

“...I need you to remember, ‘cause I’m already dead.  I’m eleven years old, and I die everyday.  So be vengeful.  Be vengeful for both of us.  Go get justice.  Go get justice and kill the motherfucker.    Kill what’s left of him.  The part of him that lives in your brain.”

Uhm, obviously I was shocked when this came out on paper….err, in my iPhone notes.  It happened while hiking, which is when these strange parceled memories would spill out of my guts.  Just like EMDR, the bilateral stimulation of scaling a mountain was making connections in my brain that were fragmented and shadowed with ambiguous metaphor...but not this   time.  This time everything was crystal clear, in perfect focus, zoomed in.  Crispy.  Karen said that would happen...eventually.

I took a break from hiking to bawl my eyes out.  I remembered the sodomy and terror and the protective anger I suppressed to survive.  I remembered his sociopathic arrangements and strategies.  But then it kept going – the writing, that is.  Sometimes I was talking to A—, but other times to my older brother, M—,  And I’m not sure how my friendships with Ian and Caleb brought all of it out of me, but these four men mixed together like a swirling, abstract, lucid dream.

I’m not going to keep typing.  I’m done for now.  My heart is so heavy.  I need to rest.

G’night.