Impervious, Part 2

Lying in bed this morning long before dawn, reflecting on what to write about my piece of art "It was all in my head but it's not anymore" I was struck by the power of my reaction.  I decided it was time for a second installment of Impervious.

I'm going to thoroughly rant so be forewarned.  I'm going to do an old testament "Job lays out his complaints" thing here for a while. 

I've been in pain for as long as I can remember.

In my 20's after graduating from college, my birthday tradition became doctor visits.  I remember when I first saw the pattern after I had spent several birthdays in a row in various offices- urgent care, gynecologist, internal medicine- and I remember thinking something down the lines of, "Next year in Jerusalem," hoping for redemption.

My symptoms were many and varied and mostly subjective- head aches, itching, nausea, back pain, abdominal pain, aching feet, runny nose, sinus pain, menstrual pain, bladder infections, tingling pain radiating down my arms, extreme weight losses and gains, mood swings, panic, and anxiety.  No broken bone to x-ray or bloody gash to stitch, they had to take my word for it, on faith.

I remember a nurse practitioner to whom I'd just explained the horrible menstrual pains and mood swings I'd experienced since starting The Pill.  I'd changed types several times over repeated visits to no avail.  As we wrapped up, she absent-mindedly offered me yet another prescription saying, "We could get rid of that facial hair with birth control pills."  I declined.  "Oh, yeah, that's right.  You don't respond well."  I left feeling flawed and so strange, so off the charts, that I couldn't be remembered even when I was standing right there.  Uncomprehendable.  Forgotten.  And miffed.

I experienced persistent pubic area itching and the doctor who examined me couldn't find anything so he prescribed a steroid.  I went to the pharmacy to fill it and unsolicited, the pharmacist said, "You do know that steroids are hormones and can thin the skin with prolonged use.  They simply mask the itching."  I walked away without filling my prescription, thankful and angry.  Thankful that I'd avoided more hormones.  Angry that he would offer me such consequences as a solution for a problem he couldn't even find!

The internal medicine guy, I only remember going because it was all so inexplicable and my father-in-law, an orthopedic surgeon, thought that internal medicine guys were good at puzzling out odd cases.  Lots of tests which all came back indicating that I was in great health.  Nothing wrong with me.  Gotta say that living in pain while being told there is nothing wrong is totally crazy-making.

I went to the podiatrist because my feet ached so badly.  He removed my large callouses.  This had no impact on the pain and re-grew quickly.  I'd wager that the invasive wart above that regrown callous was introduced into my compromised skin following that procedure.  But at least he was polite and as helpful as he could be.


I went to allergists, a really out-there group for the mid-90's.  They told me that I was reacting to wheat, dairy, beef, artificial colors, preservatives, molds, yeasts, and some pollens and should follow a Candida diet avoiding sugars.  I find myself wanting to be charitable.  "At least they took me seriously and found something and had a way for me to respond.  Doctor didn't want to talk more than 2 minutes but at least he had a book for sale in the bookstore.  Turned my life upside down, sure.  The diet helped but never eliminated my pain.  And I lost weight so fast that I gave myself gall stones.  But hey, at least they tried." 

The medical people couldn't find anything.  I self-medicated.  I took Advil and aspirin every day, working up to 10+ each/day.  I was doubled-over, grasping my searing guts when I decided to try a different path. I decided that maybe the pain was trying to communicate with me so I'd listen.  I gave up all aspirin and Advil for over a decade and began chiropractic.

As part of my early chiropractic experience, I did a functional thyroid test for body temp and pulse rate.  When my pulse and temp were low, I was considered to have a low functioning thyroid.  Not enough outside of the normal range to register on a blood test but functionally not high enough for my particular body. When I next filled out insurance paperwork, I reported honestly and in good faith that I had thyroid problems.  They denied me coverage.  Next place accepted me but at more than double the rates.  Took me more than ten years to get that off my record.  I was furious!  They couldn't find it, much less diagnose or actually treat it, but they have the gall, the unmitigated gall, to penalize me for it!  @#$^*%@!  Now I only report to traditional medical people what other traditional medical people find and not all the alternative stuff I know.  My good faith was betrayed.

Let's talk for a moment about being fat.  Being fat seems to void the warranty as far as medical people are concerned.  Every problem, every pain that a fat person has must be because they are fat and the solution to being fat is simple- lose weight.  If the fat person doesn't lose weight, well, then, there's absolutely no reason to look any farther and nothing anyone else can do.  Unexplained foot pain- fat.  Menstrual problems- fat.  Immune problems- fat.  Back pain- fat.  Oh, and my favorite- morbidly obese which was my actual diagnosis on the form so I could get a visit to a nutritionist covered by insurance.  To get the help I asked for, I had to accept their label of 'deathly fat.'

Lots of labels when I asked for help- fibromyalgia, chronic pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, pre-menstrual syndrome, chemically sensitive, morbidly obese- and not one of them kind or even helpful.  I can't remember a medical person in my 20's or 30's ever complementing my body.  I go in desperate, in mysterious constant pain, and I don't get one kind word much less a helpful one.  No kindness.  No help. 


Then there was the neurologist.  This was the coup de grace.  My arms were tingling with this electric, nerve pain.  I really, really didn't want to go to one more medical person.  Really.  Had avoided them for years by this point.  But my wise friend Sheila said, "There are some things too precious to risk." So I went.  I described my mother's narrowed vertebrae, my sister's scoliosis, and both of their extra ribs in their necks along with my symptoms and concerns about my own nerve-neck-arm pain.  I did all the evaluation tasks and went for an MRI.  The MRI made me feel panicky and it wasn't the closed space.  Something's not right about aligning all the water molecules in one's body in the same direction.  Unnatural.  And I'm guessing, not nearly as benign a process as they'd like me to believe.  Yeah, I do hear my strident tone there.  Yeah, I'm a little paranoid.  What medical people assure me will "do no harm" and "have no side-effects" doesn't correspond at all to my own experience.  I've lost faith.

But this wasn't the worst of it.  I asked for a copy of my chart, all the neurologist's notes, to take back to my chiropractor.  I read it.  He was scathing.  In clinical terms, he shredded my credibility.  Hypochondriac, hysterical, and psychosomatic.  Assuming my mother's and sister's condition's to be my own.  Perfectly fine.  No neurological problems he could see although given that I moved despite being given instructions to hold still during the MRI, he couldn't say definitively.  'Paranoid, uncooperative bitch' would be my paraphrase.

My head is tingling and my blood's up as I write this.  Lot of energy behind this stuff.  Lots of momentum.  I went vulnerable, trusting to their kind help and found none.  But even more so because I wondered, too, whether I was crazy.  Losing touch with reality.  Paranoid.  Psychosomatic.  Hysterical.  A hypochondriac.  Yeah, I wondered if all the pain was in my imagination.  I knew my body was totally screwed up, flawed beyond repair.  Nobody else's body seemed to respond this oddly.  All the experts said all the tests were normal.  Couldn't find anything.  Nothing wrong.  Must be imagining it.  Must be my fault.

I quit job after job, sick.  No one else was getting sick in those buildings.  Just me.  I freaked out in the hospital when both my children were born.  Heck, I was panicking in the doctor's office for prenatal exams.  They were going to hurt my baby doing something which 'has no side effects.'  How can you trust people who routinely perform tests which kill a small percentage of their patients?  Everyone gushed about how great this ob-gyn was.  I was a wreck.  I dreaded every visit.  What kind of a freak was I?

No kindness.  No help.

Angry, bitter, silent, absent.  Scared, embarrassed, hurt.  Humiliated, inexplicable.  Impervious.

What galled me was that I needed them anyway.  After 38 hours of labor, I needed their help to birth Anjali and two hours of reconstructive surgery afterwards.  I needed help birthing Mark, too, and with his horrible case of eczema.  They absolutely freaked me out and I needed their help anyway, tainted and limited as it was.

Gramma Kathy was a Sunday School teacher in the nursery at our old church.  She is a nurse practitioner, women's specialist.  I liked her and decided to go for an appointment since I was hoping to have another child and would need to deal with someone.  I had purposed going in that we would talk only- no procedures.  She briskly carried on her normal routine and before I could gather my wits, I was frozen and having a pelvic exam, pap smear, the whole nine.  Left feeling violated and frightened.  She called with the results- I had HPV, a venereal disease which could cause cancer.  The test for it has only been available since 2003 so when I had gone in before, no one was even looking for it.  Long process later, the good news is that as of spring 2011, I tested normal- no more pre-cancerous cells.  And as long as I take my natural antiviral capsule every night, I'm symptom-free- no more itching, discharge, menstrual pain, or any other sign of infection.  I hung my letter reporting normal results up for months like a blue ribbon, I'm so proud.

There was something wrong and my body wouldn't relent but kept telling me so despite all the experts to the contrary.  I dogged it and dogged it and now I feel good.  I'm really proud of myself.

Which brings us to the teeth saga.  I promise not to rehash the entire thing.  I've blogged about it extensively from October 2010-April 2011.  Here's what I want to say- I knew something was wrong and the experts kept assuring me there wasn't.

I repeatedly had dreams about my molars falling out.  Very disturbing.  Different molars.  Chunks falling out.  Pieces missing.  Emergency dentists' visits.  Very unnerving.  So I mentioned it to my dentist who poo-poos me, assuring me in an exasperated tone, "Your teeth aren't going to fall out." 

I went in in 2008 with an infection up there and the dentist's assistant x-rayed it and told me they couldn't see anything on the x-ray.  It was fine.  Maybe TMJ so I got fitted for an appliance to keep my teeth from grinding.  Paid hughly for it, wore it once, hated it, and returned it, getting half my money back.  Which incidentally means that I was still out hundreds for a wrong guess.  Ginger worked on the sore spot and it went away.

Until fall 2010 when the infection came back with a vengeance.  Went in.  Nothing on x-rays.  But then the assistant saw the huge swollen bump on the side of my jaw.  "Oh, that is an infection!"  Antibiotics were ordered and taken.  Several rounds.  More than I had taken in the previous decade combined.  No joy.  Tooth 14 is re-root canalled for more pain and more money.  Fifth root found which had been sitting infected for 11+ years since this dentist's office had done it the first time.  Root canal doesn't solve it so then for more pain and more money, it's pulled out.  Two months later after more pain and more money, Tooth 15 is pulled.  More antibiotics, pain, and money with no diagnosis in sight and I go to the oral surgeon.  Who, you guessed it, finds nothing on the even fancier x-rays, prescribes more antibiotics for more money, and assures me it's all going to be ok.  Yeah, right.  I have no confidence but I need their help anyway.  More pain leads to a CT scan.

If my life had a sound track, this is where the score would signal a profoundly unexpected happening.

There, in black and white, was the huge cyst.  The mother load.  The breeding ground.  So big and obvious, I could see it myself before the doctor got to the room.  Holy smokes!  It was the Metrodome expanding up into my sinus like a balloon over the hole where my teeth had been.  Yuck!  And no wonder I had headaches and sinus problems and chronic infections and felt like my throat was constricting with that bastion of nastiness pouring pus down my throat, inches away from my eyes and brain.  Yikes.

When the oral surgeon went through the tooth hole and cut the cyst out, he said that he could see straight through from my mouth into my sinus because the mucus membrane had a large hole in it.  I'm supposing that this might have played a role in my allergies and post-nasal drip since all the contaminants which are normally filtered out by the mucus membranes would have been passing straight into my body.  I'm pretty confident in my hypothesis since I haven't had post-nasal drip or significant seasonal allergies since the surgery.  Yep.  Seriously.  And I'd wager that this also explains the panic and pain I felt when flying since under changing pressure the pus sack would have expanded and contracted erratically.  Oh, and did I mention that I don't snore anymore either?

Even before they removed it, I knew I was going to commemorate this find.  We actually discovered a cause.  I was not crazy.  My teeth did "fall" out.  There was a huge problem.  And my body was so clever and persistent it kept trying to get through to my consciousness even when all the experts and x-rays said otherwise. I let them poo-poo me, I let myself be "assured" against my better judgment, and I seriously doubted myself.  But I didn't give up on myself and in the end I had the photo to prove to myself that I wasn't crazy.  "Nee-ner, nee-ner, nee-ner," I want to say to all those who dismissed and disdained.  "I do so have a real illness."

It was all in my head but it's not anymore.  The delicious irony of them being right but oh, so wrong all at once tickles my funny bone. 

Now, please don't think I'm not grateful for all the help.  I am deeply grateful.  Had I been born in another time and place, I would have died from this.  The fact I didn't is a miracle.  Women in many countries today would never get well.  I am grateful and I have given all the money which came back after insurance paid to Medical Teams International for their work with women's dental clinics in honor of those standing ready to do me good.

Also, please don't think that I'm angry because the doctors and dentists and surgeons didn't know how to help.  I hope I'm adult enough, with enough awareness of my own limitations, not to hold their lack of knowledge against them.  How could I reasonably expect a doctor to diagnosis a disease that hasn't been discovered yet?  From what I hear from my dentist, who's been in practice for 30 years, this is a once-in-a-career kind of thing.  Oral surgeon said it was beyond his scope of practice, too.  My situation was an odd one.  One off.  One in a million.

What I do hold against them is their disdain, their arrogance, and their complete disregard for the consequences I suffered while they treated me for things they couldn't find.  Steroids with side effects which would only mask the symptoms of a problem which they couldn't identify.  Birth control pills they recommended after I recited my previous issues.  The mocking cruelty in my chart from the person I appealed to for help.  Dismissing my pain because they couldn't find the source.  Rolling their eyes.  Assuring me everything was fine when I said it wasn't.  Telling me I couldn't feel the stitches because there was no way the epidural had worn off and then acting shocked when I moved myself onto the gurney because it had.  Not believing me when I explained my idiosyncratic response to pain medication.

They assaulted my dignity and my sanity.  They did harm and withheld kindness and for that I do hold them accountable.
 
I will never have the confidence in medical people that I used to.  And I will always be surprised by their kindness.

Dr. Z never gave up on me through the whole tooth mess.  He redid my pain medication every 10 minutes, every time I said it hurt.  He gave me enough Novocaine it should have numbed my whole head.  He took extra time for no extra pay to cut my tooth into pieces so it would pull out easier because I dreaded the creaking and groaning of having it pulled out whole.  He hugged me and observed I'd had a bad night.  He listened to my fears about losing part of my body and talked me through it.  He coached me on how to say, "No latex today, please" instead of my longer, more grating attempts.  He called me at home on his day off to check in with me.  And Karen, his after hours person, well, she was fabulous, returning my calls, dogging paperwork, and never groaning when I'd call again.  Full points for kindness here.

And Dr. Jenny's office was a miracle of kindness.  Sue, the receptionist, was an absolute gem.  Jane, the CT tech, a doll.  I told Dr. Jenny and Nurse Jenny about the abuse in my past and the smothering and how things could get touchy.  They were leaning over my face, inches away.  They paused.  Compassion filled their eyes.  I saw it.  Then we took a deep breath and continued.  The scrub nurses were so gentle when I freaked out at the anesthesia.  I warned them I might freak and I did.  Very embarrassing.  I told them that I wouldn't be there if I didn't trust them but my body remembered the abuse and unconsciousness.  But this one nurse crooned endearments to me, calling me Sweetie and Dear until I lost consciousness.  It really wasn't as bad as I thought it might be coming out.  No bodily fluids running down my face, nothing like that.  Months later when I called saying I had pain and post-nasal drip, they didn't make me jump through a million hoops.  They believed me about my body.  They sent the CT scan order to insurance and told me to go ASAP.  Turned out I had a cold and no cyst.  Their kindness has changed me. 

******

Well, I've been sitting with this for 48 hours.  I stalled out after the paragraph above and have been waiting to see how it's going to conclude.  I haven't gotten to that satisfying, ah-hah place yet.

I've started two different paragraphs to no avail.  I'll wait some more.  It'll come.

*******

Another day has passed and I've got it.  Today during church, we prayed the Lord's Prayer and that part about being forgiven as we forgive really hit me.  If I want to be free, I've got to release others.  Then, as the pastor was talking about prayer and Biblical standards, the phrase, "Pray for your enemies" hit me.  That's it.

I'm going to pray for my enemies- in this case, the unkind, unhelpful medical people- every day from now until Christmas.

I am going to release them so I can be free.

My first yoga class

After a year ad a half of practicing and preparing, yesterday I joined a beginning level yoga class.  I am pleased and proud and stiff.
I bought and ate a piece of cake to celebrate.

Vampires, faith, and a better master

Ok, I'm about to make an embarrassing confession.

I have been watching Angel.

Yeah, that Angel.  The brooding-vampire-with-a-soul-and-a-black-leather-coat, "We-help-the-hopeless," Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off Angel.

Yep.  Like I said, embarrassing.

There were the predictable fight scenes and beautiful damsels in distress and all that but what grabbed me was when they started to talk.  In the first episode, the main character is challenged not just to do penance to atone for his crimes but to care for people, not just to save lives but to save souls.   He opens a conversation with a stranger he's assigned to help by asking, "Are you happy?" 

Holy smokes!  An altogether fresh conversation about forgiveness and atonement, hope, love, and happiness.  I couldn't look away for all of Seasons 1 and 2.

Angel has faith.  He believes in The Powers That Be.  He believes in soul and God and Hell (several Hells actually).  He believes in right and wrong.  He believes some beings are pure evil and deserve death.  He believes in forgiveness and believes, too, that he is unforgivable.  He believes he must atone for the crimes of his past.  He believes that if he ever has sex and experiences a moment of pure happiness, he will lose his soul and conscience and will revert to evil.  He hopes against all vampire history that The Powers That Be will make him human again someday when his work atoning as a champion is completed.  He longs for love, a family, and a place of his own in the world but knows it can never be and so he expends the juice of his life helping people who can have the joys he cannot.  When he's not helping the hopeless, he sits in the dark, brooding, self-sacrificial, profoundly envious and grieved.

In a scene in season 2, episode 5, Dear Boy, his old sadistic lover says, "See.  No matter how good a boy you are, God doesn't want you.  But I still do."

"Wait," I wanted to gasp, "that's not true.  God wants everyone."  As I said it, I could feel how deeply her statement and his silent concession had struck my own heart.  I went to bed with a heavy heart, wanting to believe that God loves me, but protesting too much not to notice my discomfort.

Here's another embarrassing confession.

I believe a lot more like the vampire than I'd like to admit.



Here's what I wrote in my journal in September 2004, addressed to God.

I'm so afraid I'm going to blow it.  I'm afraid that if I don't try to make it happen that (it) won't go.  That You won't bless me.  That I'll be left stranded alone without enough resources, powerless.
Yep, that about sums up.
I'm terrified that You'll torture me.  That like Tantalus, what I desire will be held just beyond my grasp.  Forever.
I'm afraid that you'll get me excited, that I'll have a vision, that I'll be pumped and that You'll hold it close enough and just far enough away to try for.  But not reach.
I don't really believe that You're going to fulfill my heart's desires.
I'm afraid to try but I'm more afraid that if I don't keep reaching for it, that the one split second in all of eternity it is within my grasp, I'll miss my chance.
It's not like I can say, 'Oh, it doesn't matter.  I'll just get another passionate gift.  I'll just go for another heaven, another twin, another childhood, another God.
This is it.  If it isn't Your presence, if it isn't You, then it isn't.
And I'm terrified that You won't let me in and I can't make You.
Instead of feeling like You've practically dragged me to Your party and seated me at the head table, I feel like I'm standing with my nose pressed against the window hoping to...to what?  Sneak in?  Stand in line to get tickets before they sell out?  Wait on pins and needles for my name to be drawn in the lottery?  Be attractive enough to catch Your eye and get picked?
Ooo, ooo, Mister God, sir, pick me, pick me!


Then, here's February 2008.

If I just keep the words coming
     more books
     more videos
     more classes....
If I just keep the words coming
I can live in my head
     ride the wave of words
Then
Then I won't have to listen to the screams
and I won't have to feel the remorse and anger and revulsion


What kind of people could do that-
      Sacrifice with own willingly?
Why would God ever entrust a child to me?
There's a taint in the blood
I'm contaminated
And I'm afraid I'm contagious
I feel sick in my guts
I feel like throwing up
Nobody wants to hear 
    that my people and
      not too long ago
   sacrificed babies for personal gain....
I will never be able 
   to lead
      or touch spiritual power
Without lust in my womb
      blood in my mouth
   and someone else's suffering in my ears


We are child killers
   sex-mongers
   deal-makers
and willing cause of suffering to others


And God,
   what precisely
   are You going 
   to do about
             that


How can I ever be
   a true healer-
      ever
   after what the
   gifted healers in my
   line did when they
   took their glory as 
   a weapon and became
   predators....


God
If You don't have
   a balm to heal
   the sin-sick soul
then no one has


I would repent
   renounce
   and make reparations
but there is no way 
   to give back life
     to the dead
   or virginity to the raped
   or wholeness to the tortured
There is no way for me 
   to do that


Come, God, and pick up
   our self-made 
   catastrophe


Party's over
   God'll pick up

I can't stop the past
   I can't bring back the dead
I can't even remorse or 
   revulse this into goodness ....


Which brings us to last summer.  I went for EMDR to help me digest my terror and discovered through the process how tainted I felt, like a bowl of hearty, nourishing soup with a spoonful of arsenic mixed in.  I said so to the counselor, a lovely lady who assured me as so many other counselors and wise women before had assured me, that it wasn't my fault.  I was a child.  I was powerless.  This wickedness was not mine to carry.  And yet, I bear the consequences and the people were my people and the wrongs are our wrongs.  Their encouragement never satisfied so I decided to try something different.

I was inspired my something my massage lady, Tara, does with joints that are tight.  She gently rotates a joint, a finger for example, clockwise and counterclockwise, observing which direction moves more easily and which direction has more limited motion.  Then, she pushes into the joint slightly and rotates the finger in the easier direction, farther and farther as it relaxes.  After the easy direction, she releases and then begins again in the opposite, more limited, direction.  This to me is totally counter-intuitive.  I would assume that one would start with the sticky direction, but no.  One listens to the body, goes the direction it wants to go first, and then asks it to flex the other way.

So, I decided that instead of walking away from the responsibility like my grampa had, I would turn around and walk into it.  As the weight of evil settled upon me, I realized that I had always believed in my guts that I was tainted, broken beyond repair, beyond redemption, not worth coming back for.  Other people would be happy.  Others would be saved.  Others would be chosen.   But not me.

I served a cruel master, always demanding more.  Maybe if I was cleverer or sweeter or stronger- maybe then I wouldn't have been raped and tortured.  Maybe if I tried harder or longer or more creatively- maybe then I could feel safe.  Maybe if I gave my life making other people happy then they would make me happy.  Maybe if...

But like the vampire, no matter how good a girl I was, my god didn't want me.

"Atonement's a bitch," Angel says.  I'd tried atoning for decades and the bell of evil was still ringing in my life.  I was perhaps serving a good master instead of an evil one, but goodness without kindness is still cruel.

Now, I've heard all about God and forgiveness and atonement all my life but it wasn't until I walked into the weight of wickedness and finally saw my own soul crushed under decades of striving to right painful, life-crushing wrongs that my soul perked up and said, "Atonement- ah, yes."

And there was God's crazy offer on the table- God's death for my freedom.  The ridiculousness of this struck me.  Part of me wanted to keep trying, but all my other parts stared it down, insisting four decades is enough.  Stupid deal- everything for nothing.  And yet, it stands.  I can't negotiate; I did accept to the best of my ability.

Watching Angel not accept atonement, not receive forgiveness, continue to champion because his god doesn't want him- I think this has driven the cure more deeply into my soul.  This could be me.  I could go back to the master who inflicts pain and calls it love.  I really could.  I could pour the juice of my life into other people's happiness and never cultivate my own for fear of losing the truth of evil.  I really could.  I could keep hoping that if I suffer enough everything wrong will be righted.  Yep, I could.

But I'm not going to. 

I've decided that in my experience, the belief that pleasure and happiness lead to evil is exactly opposite of reality.  The only way to happiness is if my atonement is done, if evil is vanquished, if someone bigger is righting all wrongs.  It's time to serve a master of kindness.  I'm choosing happiness.  I'm saying yes to God's offer of atonement.  I'm accepting forgiveness.  I'm cultivating pleasures.  I know exactly where the other path goes and I'm getting off that bus.  By the start of Season 3, his atoning began to feel sad and unnecessary.  I stopped watching.

Which leads me to where I am now currently stuck and it's a doozy.
As a survivor of child sacrifice by rape and torture, how can I accept that God's Son died atoning for me?
As a Christian, not to mention a desperate woman who's spent four decades crushed under the consequences of wickedness, how can I not accept?

If my bleeding just made more suffering, how does Jesus' bleeding make life?

I totally don't get this and I've told God so.  The whole "Jesus dying for my sins" thing is not working for me.  Crux of Christianity, so to speak, and I find myself shaking my head.

I'm ok with this because I'm ok with us- me and God.  I'll go so far as to say that I think God's ok with us.  I'm finally asking the right person the real question and in the fullness of time it will be made clear to me.  Or not.  And whether or not I get the concept, I'm determined to follow a new master of pleasure and forgiveness and freedom and life and happiness.

When I lose focus, I can go back to Angel Season 2 and watch what happens when atonement never ends, pleasure doesn't matter, and pain becomes master.  

If anybody wants to watch it with me or wants to chat about it, let me know.  I could use the company.

My new favorite quote

From Hairspray

"Brace yourselves for a whole lot of ugly coming from a never-ending parade of stupid."

My truer response to evil

Recently, I've been experiencing a lot of pain in my head- upper left above the old sinus surgery site and behind my eye.  Had the CAT scan and nada.  Then last week, I had a flashback about the childhood sexual abuse.  Skip to Paragraph 3 if you want to avoid the gory details.

I remembered being tipped upside down and held by my ankles as a two year-old.  My grandfather reclined and forced my mouth over his penis and held my head down while I struggled to breathe as he ejaculated into my mouth, throat, and sinuses nearly drowning me.  Damaged my head, the bastard, and now I've got these blinding headaches as all the old nasty energy pours out.

When I remembered, I got mad.  This was a big step for me.  Most often when I've had flashbacks I've felt scared or terrified or sad or unworthy- that sort of flavor.  This time, I felt mad. 

I re-watched an old Bones episode, the pilot (season 1, episode 1) in which the victim's family asks if their daughter suffered.  The forensic anthropologist begins to answer truthfully as to the full horror of her death and the FBI agent answers that she never saw it coming.  On their walk to their car, the agent justifies his answer claiming that they don't want to know the truth.


Something rose up in me and I saw that I have done the same thing.  I wanted the easy truth.  I wasn't going to read the full report.  I haven't wanted to tell myself the ugly truth about my experience.  I didn't want to know.  No one really wants to know.  I was hoping that I could just scrinch my eyes up and avert my face while all the old nasties paraded on out of my life without my ever really having to acknowledge them.  Close my eyes, cover my ears, and hum loud until they've all marched out.

Yeah, that's not working for me anymore, good people.  I'll wager it never really did.

This is one reason why Bones has so captured my attention.  They look, really look, at the fullness of evil and then respond.  Maggots, smashed eyeballs, adipocere, bone bits, crushed skulls, bloody chunks, rotting flesh- they look at it all.  Then they pursue, prosecute, and/or shoot the perpetrators.  Honest look, genuine response.  Because people matter and life matters and therefore stopping evil matters.

If I refuse to really look at the fullness of evil how can I possibly be prepared to respond?  How can I be prepared to protect myself and my kids if I refuse to know what I'm up against?  How can I teach my kids to protect themselves if I won't read the report?  So I looked and I saw my own experience of suffering and I got mad. 

I decided it was time to revisit his grave, salt it again, and paint "Pervert, Murderer, Pedophile, Rapist, Traitor" on his gravestone.  I planned the art I would do to commemorate my defiance.  I thought of where my stash of paints are and how much salt I would bring. 

But then something happened I didn't expect. My next blog is going to have more detail on this but let me sum up.

I realized that acknowledging evil was only the beginning.  Remorse and striving for atonement.  Oppose evil.  Do good.  Pursue righteousness.  This isn't enough.

Living a happy life.  Finding pleasure in the world.  Working for healing.  Gratitude, awe, and creating beauty.  This is my deeper, more vital response to evil. 



Not participating in evil is important.
Preparing to respond and protect is important.
I need to give my mashed skull and injured nerves a real look along with the evil that set them in motion.

But paramount to that, I must live.
 
Evil is true and I must stand against it because life is more true.


Being mad isn't going to work any better than flinching from evil did as a strategy.

Happiness and pleasure and kindness and laughter- that's going to work for a life.

So, I've decided that instead of going back with paint and salt and pouring my energy out on his grave as a victim, I'm going to make myself a list of pleasures, a checklist of happiness, and I am going to do at least one every day.  My own version of a Bucket List with stuff like:

Sing to live music.
Eat fabulous flavors. 
Play a game.
Watch some comedy.
Feel the breeze.
Stand in the sun.
Indulge in a great conversation.
Hug someone I like.
Breathe deep on a fabulous smell.
Stop to examine natural beauty.
Dance.

I am going to hang my Pleasures Checklist up and check it off.

I will cultivate my happiness until it grows roots and bears fruit.
I will tend my pleasure until my body is permeated with it bones to skin.

Then I will laugh and touch and listen and teach healing.

My life is so beautiful.

Impervious

I thought this was several separate blogs until I started writing and somehow it all belonged.  It's a long one but then, so was my life process.  I eventually saw why and so will you. 

Once again, Bones got me.  Just when I think they've lost the touch, they pull out a conversation like the one at the end of Season 6 episode 16, "The Blackout in the Blizzard."

Brennan starts talking about how she's getting stronger.  Booth interrupts and asserts that she's always been strong.  She elaborates by describing how being strong is different than being impervious.  If something is impervious, if nothing can touch or affect it, it doesn't need to be strong.  She says that she used to be impervious, allowing no one to touch her, but that she's becoming less impervious and more strong.  She hopes that soon she'll be strong enough to engage him.

I watched this several times and have been reflecting today on these themes in my life.  I, too, am growing and can do things now, can hold things and live in ways I never could have 10 years or 20 years ago.  Maybe equally importantly I want to live in ways that I would not have valued or even seen before.

I, too, have been impervious.  I think back to high school and how hard I was, how calloused.  With good cause.  I was overwhelmed and afraid in an environment of indifference laced with just enough cruelty and disdain to send me into chronic anxiety which colored my every perception.  I secretly believed that I was irreparably flawed and I hated how I felt in my body so I became judgmental and superior and hard.  Self-righteous, smug, holier than thou, ferociously Christian.  Brittle, rigid, driven, impervious.

I heard a sermon on Sunday about kindness and I found myself stuck in a moment- equating kindness with codependent dysfunction and kindness with Christianity.  I'm in the pew, trying not to get sucked in to all the old craziness I've labored so many years to climb out of and I leave the sermon asking myself, "What does it mean that when I think of kindness, many of the people who have been most kind to me are the people from whom I'd least expect it?"

It took me a couple days of sitting with that to remember where I've been and what I've learned.  Jesus consistently interacted with the people the good religious folk of the day knew were complete losers:  a heathen mother of a demon possessed girl,  a loose half-breed and a foreign royal, an officer in the occupying army, the unclean who could not live in decent society, and a woman whose flaw kept her unable to enter the temple.  And not only did Jesus talk to these unclean, indecent, heathen people, he touched them, did what they asked, and then to really top things off, he praised them and made them the heroes of his story.

And so it should come as no surprise that my healing came through the very people I had been most impervious to.

Now when I'm thinking impervious, I especially think of beautiful, thin, and extremely physically competent people- the exact combination most likely to put my hackles up.  I can't tell you how many of these beautiful, thin, athletic people have dismissed me or mocked me.  There was junior high phy ed where the school washed and provided swim suits.  To keep sorting simple, each size was color coded. There were the slim reds and the average blues aplenty but I was a muddy purplish brown as I recall- the only one in sight.  In 7th grade, I joined a volleyball team, got bullied mercilessly, stood up to the bully, and quit, never returning to sports.  Then there was downhill skiing, the popular pastime of Bloomington, my new hometown.  I tried it since the kids at my bus stop raved about it and I wanted to be included.  After two humiliating nights of unending falls and crashes on the bunny hill, strategically located right under the chair lift where all my athletic peers could jeer and point on their way to the black diamond, I declared that there had to be a cheaper, less painful way to commit suicide and never set foot on a ski hill again.  And then there was "running the mile," that quintessential humiliation of high school, repeated every fall and spring. My classmates groused about it, but got down to business, and faster or slower, running or jogging, finished in minutes.  I walked the 6 laps and it took me 20+ minutes with everyone standing around for the last five or more, rolling their eyes and tapping their toes or chatting up a storm, with as much regard for me as for a late bus they were waiting for.

Even worse were the beautiful, thin, athletic people who tried to coach me in learning physical skills.  They would tell me how to do the activity and show me and then would grade and coach (read criticize) while I tried to do what they did.  I never could.  They'd tell me to keep trying like I hadn't been.  They'd encourage me to keep practicing which didn't help.  Ski instructors, gym teachers, youth group leaders, typing instructors, my parents- all these well-intentioned people tried to pass on their know-how to pretty much no avail.  I was uncoordinated, slow, awkward, and seemingly unable to learn the simplest things like how to throw a frisbee with accuracy or to snow plow down a hill or to touch type with speed.

But perhaps the worst of all were the beautiful, thin, athletic people who included me in their activities, over-riding my protests with assurances that it was a piece of cake.  My one attempt at cross-country skiing comes to mind.  My sister, a beautiful, physically competent person, invited me to go cross-country skiing with her because it was a sport as easy as walking, really.  We left our parents at the chalet, telling them we'd be back within the hour, and set off around the park.  My legs simply wouldn't  glide straight ahead so I basically did a slip-step-hobble which my good-sport sister assured me would turn into a glide with practice.  So we kept going way past an hour and whatever gains I had made in technique I had lost in exhaustion.  The light began to give out but we were past the half way point so there was no choice but to trudge on.  In the pitch black, we were met by a naturalist with a rescue sled 50 yards from the chalet.  Last time I skied. 

Other people seemed to have physical competence and I didn't, despite my best efforts to learn and their best efforts to impart their skills and include me in the fun.

Speaking of fun, these athletic people would talk about the high they'd get and how great they felt, how their stress melted away, and how that pleasant ache the next day reminded them of their good times.  I'd do an aerobics class and I'd tone the intensity level down or risk feeling exhausted.  If I hadn't worked out in a while, I'd feel nauseous and light-headed.  In my 20's I had a walking partner- yes, you guessed it a thin, beautiful, competent lady- and even though I enjoyed our walks, my feet ached so badly even with orthotics for my shoes that I could barely go.

Pain.  That's what I remember.  Pain and failure.

I've never written this all down before and I see now how flawed I felt, how I internalized all this failure, became extremely jealous, and came to hate the beautiful, thin, athletic people.  Not overnight.  I see now that I did try over and over, different years, different activities, until I had taken as much as I could.  Then I became impervious.

I was 30-something, in a lot of chronic pain and the person who eventually helped me find a position I could sleep in with minimal pain was Tara, my massage lady.  Very talented.  And thin, beautiful, and extremely physically competent- a yoga instructor, no less.  Blond, even.  Her help gave her a lot of credibility with me and she tried over several years to teach me various yoga things- stretches, techniques to shake out muscle tension- that she would model and then have me do.  Performing under her observant eye made me uncomfortable in ways I couldn't articulate, even to the point of silent resistant hostility.  She did mention to me once, very calmly, that I seemed very resistant to trying this stuff and she wondered why.  I didn't wonder.

She mentioned her work teaching yoga at an eating disorder clinic and then invited me to her beginner class.  I told her that I wasn't comfortable with people who were focused on physical perfection and she made a memorable comment about "yoga ass."  She talked about her own instructor and how she encouraged everyone to step onto their yoga mats for peace.

A year and a half ago, I decided I'd like to try her beginning yoga class so I asked for a private lesson or two to catch me up to speed beforehand.  She treated me like a standard beginner and I was completely overwhelmed in minutes.  I challenged some instructions saying they wouldn't work, and others I couldn't understand and others I simply couldn't do.  I felt humiliated and like I had disappointed yet another physically competent teacher.  I stayed for my massage, then went home distraught.  I wasn't starting on the ground floor; I was going to need to start in the sub basement.  I left Tim and the kids at home and drove to my high school track.  I began to walk in the rain.  I did a mile lamenting all the past failure and shame and cruelty.  Then, I turned around and walked a mile in the rain in the opposite direction for me.  Soaked and determined, I decided that no matter how many years ago I had abandoned myself, I was going to come back for myself every time.  I went to Conversation Circle within a couple days and lamented the whole thing again, wondering if I should just quit.  I remember Angela saying, "Well, if you left yourself by the side of the road years ago, get your keys, go back and pick yourself up."  This clinched it for me.

I approached Tara with a new proposal.  Would she give me 10 minute lessons?  This was as long as I felt I could handle.  I would practice at home between times.  Although she'd never heard of such an arrangement, she agreed.  I began where I really was- one minute on my hands and knees, a pose called Table.  I put post-it flags where my hands and knees were supposed to go because I couldn't even tell if they were under my shoulders and hips.  A week of practice later, we added Cat and then a week later Cow.  I was skeptical of Tara and her perceptive observation of me.  No that's not true, exactly.  I was afraid of Tara and her keen eyes.  I was really afraid that I would never be able to do what she said, that I would fail her as I had failed all the other thin, able people who could never understand how it could be this difficult.  How I could be this difficult.  But I tried anyway, with this odd attitude- part willingness, part defiance, part this false positive attitude, part self-deprecation.  Defensive wasn't the half of it.

But then we got some traction.  I learned some basic stuff and I experienced some success.  My post-it flags fell off and I could find my position without them.  Tara got the hang of giving me instructions, learned how much I could adapt at a time, and gave detailed instructions, one little piece at a time, over months, refining until I felt some mastery.

She also started demonstrating for me.  I was intimidated at first by her strength and agility but soon her matter-of-fact attitude about it all started to calm me.  And then I began to see in her body a pattern, like an archetype of where I was going rather than a standard I was straining to live up to.  I wondered if I touched her body if my body could learn directly.  As I grew stronger and more flexible, something began to give way inside me.  I began to bring problems to her and she would watch and then give feedback which actually helped me.  I began to feel proud of my progress instead of just embarrassed by my physical retardation.  I tried modifying poses or transitions into and out of them, trying to accomplish the goals she talked about but in my own way.  We added on and I had a routine going.

This is all in one paragraph, but it happened over like 9 months.  Very slowly yet steadily.

I remember the day she had me get on my knees and try to get my butt to my heels.  I moved like 1 inch and had 8 inches to go.  I laughed outloud! Hilarious.  It was so far but for the first time I knew that I would steadily improve and get towards there eventually.  "Yeah, that's going to take some practice."  And I started doing it three times a day.

We started abs.  I told her I couldn't find them and she instructed me to my best.  Ginger helped and Tara massaged and I practiced to my best some more.  Within a month or two, I could find them and now half a year later, I can actually contract my abs without contracting my chest muscles which I'm particularly pleased about.

And then my shoulders.  She wanted me to pull in my shoulder blades to support and lift my heart.  Couldn't find those either.  I'm about 6 weeks into this and am still trying to separate my upper and lower back muscles from each other and from my neck muscles.  But I'm getting better.  It'll come.

I've come to realize that I lost track of myself.  I literally couldn't find parts of myself.  I attribute this to the sexual abuse coupled with pain and other nasties.  My parts couldn't find either other, couldn't coordinate or communicate so whole structures of accommodations and work-arounds formed.  I was uncoordinated- my parts didn't "co-" anything.

This is a sad truth but it is not the final truth.


This last week, I had a new experience.  Since Tara got married and is moving away for a grand adventure, I asked to do a yoga recital for her.  She moved her massage table, I threw down my yoga mat, and I yoga-ed for 40 minutes, doing everything I knew to my best.  I was so proud of myself.  This was not one of many accomplishments by someone who always knew they could.  This was my first accomplishment and I was surprised and pleased and deeply moved.

I've got a new yoga instructor and am starting her beginner class in November but she will never see what Tara sees because I will come to her as a beginner like every other beginner and not as the frightened, impervious, stunted learner I was with Tara.  No one else will ever appreciate exactly how far I've come.  No one will ever see me again like Tara and I find that I already miss her kind eyes and her strong hands and she hasn't even left yet.


I've been reflecting a lot on a Bible verse which says that "love covers a multitude of wrongs."  I didn't get this.  It says "love covers a multitude of wrongs" but what what I heard was "make love cover a multitude of wrongs" like somehow if I believed hard enough and clicked my heels together and said that it would, my love for others would cover their wrongs.

In the days since my recital, I realize that it is Tara's kindness and goodness and competence which have covered over a multitude of wrongs done to me and perpetuated by me.  I had lost myself but she came all the way back and taught me how to find myself.  I will never again believe that I can't learn physically and I will never again put up with teachers who shame or blame or guilt me about how far back I am.  I will come back the long road for myself every time, as long as it takes.  And I believe that there will be good teachers with kind eyes ready to cultivate my strength. 

Doing everything I'd learned for the kind eyes of the woman who taught me everything, who remembered how I started at one minute with post-it flags- this changed me and what had begun to give way inside me broke open and spilled out.  Without trying I find that I have forgiven.  I have been wronged but now I have been righted.  What I have learned from her is more powerful than decades of failure and pain and cruelty and disregard.  After everything and everything, Tara's kindness has tipped the scales forever and I am healed. 


So, Tara, in your honor, I am going to release all of my bitterness and jealousy towards all those physically competent people I've always resented.  I will not hold grudges against them in the future but will remember you, release them with a blessing, and go looking for a helpful teacher instead.  Like Jesus who touched the losers and rewrote their stories, you've touched me deeply and I find myself less impervious and much stronger for it.  I have so much more to remember than pain and failure now.  It has been, as you said, a good run.  I am more grateful than I can say.

To commemorate all this, I intend to walk 6 laps on my high school track for you and then 6 laps the opposite direction for myself. 

I sit here with a soggy shirt from all the tears running down my face.  I don't know how to end.

Oh, now I do.

When he preached on kindness, I thought of you, Tara.  You're my hero.

Hollow Men

I just remembered this poem.  It really impressed me in high school and I wanted to remember the last part especially.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                                Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.