PTSD dream

I can no longer take my PTSD medication for health reasons and therefore my disturbing dreams have returned.

Last night I dreamt that I was at work in my office and the new office girl brought me a box and she was visibly upset. She had just found the box outside and it had 4 small human babies in it, 2 or 3 of them still moving a little. The babies were really small, the box was roughly the size of a shoebox so the babies were like the size of a hand or so. I called the hospital and asked what to do and they said “nothing there is no point.” I put my hoody over the babies then I just sat at my desk and watched them twitch.

When I woke up I felt like shit; I had a headache and felt exhausted.

the villagers never understand

I had to write a short fairy tale about an event from my childhood for my child therapy class. My fairy tale is a mash up of two events.

Before They Turned Men To Stone

In a land far from here, surrounded by enormous lakes, a young gorgon, Sariphina, lived with her sisters in a sparse dwelling on the edge of a village. Sariphina was blue in the literal and metaphoric sense; her skin was a dull murky blue, her eyes were a dark, stormy, nearly black blue, her hair snakes were the shade of blue seen on recycling bins. There was a glow to Sariphina, as if she was wrapped in Christmas lights that should have been discarded years ago. Sariphina’s sisters, Kocuno and Raksha were green, in the figurative way. Kocuno was a wisp of a gorgon, her skin a light shade red that seemed to be backlit and hair snakes that looked more like soft braids than dangerous serpents. Raksha had vibrant violet skin with hair snakes that resembled elongated lilies. Sariphina was often caring for Kocuno and Raksha, usually to the detriment of her own growth, she missed many major events in the village that she desired to attend. 

       The sisters had parents, but avoided them as much as possible for their rage and cruelty was quick and without purpose. Their mother was self involved and hardly worthy of the time to describe. Their father was a descendant of Typhon; he was large, tall and brimming with rage. Their father roamed their dwelling at all hours of the day, stopping at times to shout at anyone in his field of view. 

Sariphina was growing concerned about their father’s unguided outbursts. Raksha and Kocuno avoided him and never made eye contact, they would weep when he shouted. One afternoon Raksha and Kocuno were playing with their dolls in the common area of the dwelling and their father wandered into the space. For a reason Sariphina could not grasp he started kicking the dolls out of Raksha and Kocuno’s hands, his voice so loud if there were words they could not be interpreted. Raksha and Kocuno froze in place. 

Sariphina whisked up Kocuno and grabbed Raksha by the hand, taking them into a side room. Raksha and Kocuno were weeping and confused. Sariphina instructed them to barricade the door when she left, her voice steady but barely loud enough to be heard over the background of their father shouting. 

Sariphina waited in front of the door, she was afraid but she knew fear had no place in her. Their father was throwing items, a few of them landing near or hitting Sariphina. When their father approached the side room Sariphina looked directly at him and said one word. 

STOP

Tho noise had drawn the attention of the nearby villagers, they approached with torches. The gorgons father saw the villagers approach and fled. At the dwelling Sariphina had no words for the villagers, she slid to the ground and sat quietly. 

Sariphina was grateful for the help of the villagers but deeply disappointed in herself that she even required the assistance of others. Raksha and Kocuno soon forgot about their father as their troubles were just beginning with their mother. 

Faith

I've been reading about Christianity for school and it keeps bringing up deep feelings for me about how I lost my faith.

In high school I began regularly attending a local church. I didn't sync with all their views but overall it was a warm and loving environment that I was able to thrive in. Attending and participating in religion met a major need in my life for family and community. I doubt I would be as stable of a person now without it.

I diverged from my fellow Christians in the areas most liberals split from believers, human sexuality. There were other less pressing cleaves in my views from the churches but none that nagged as much as sexuality and the churches condemning views on it. As I got older I slowly drifted away from church and stopped attending entirely after my last ditch attempt joining a church while my husband at the time was deployed.

Years later the last bit of faith in a higher power vanished while working with a young girl that had been sexually abused by her mother's boyfriend. The young girl had serious behavior issues that impaired her ability to function in daily life, she couldn't make it through a meal without an incident. This girl liked me as much as she could like anyone and I was rather fond of her. I wanted the best for her and wished I could magically heal her. Over time she told me little bits of her life before treatment and I would tear up while she spoke. Her behavior escalated and she was too much of a danger to herself at her current placement. Some days I would go home and cry because I was so scared during my shift that she would seriously harm herself while she was seeking attention and love from staff.

That's when I shifted and firmly believed a higher power could not exist. There is no purpose to child abuse, no good or needed growth comes from sexual assault of children. Seeing a possible result of child sexual abuse and facing it day in and day out I lost any hope for a loving caring God that could intervene.

Tonight while I read about the healing prayer method of counseling I can only feel anger towards the God I don't believe in. I haven't thought about that girl in awhile and I hope she is alive and has love in her life. God doesn't save or heal or plan.

Make it your own

This school year I've been running therapeutic art classes for severely emotionally disturbed kids grades 1st-8th and some of the projects we've done need to be shared. Recently I had them work on destroying a map of the city and making it their own by adding stickers or drawings or just trimming roads or neighborhoods off the map. This was a fun and super cheap project because I pick up the tourist maps that are all over the city for free and anything involving destruction=fun.

My version of San Francisco creates serious traffic delays.

Skills kids work on while engaging with this activity are:

• self expression
• fine motor skills
• self direction
• spacial reasoning
• perception 
• memory skills

Supplies that help to have on hand in addition to a map:

• markers
• stickers
• glue
• glitter
• magazines
• string
• scissors

The beauty of love

I am so deeply in love at times that I feel like my body is swimming effortlessly in a clear blue lake and without warning I can be plucked from the water and thrown into quicksand feeling helpless and angry.

Sometimes I smile because I am reminded of one of the many things I love about another person or place. I smile as if there is a camera crew filming and the director will add a simple yet touching monologue over the shot. 

My love for some people has had me hunting down Stitch dolls, digging through clearance racks for cute tops, sitting for hours next to a hospital bed, moving across the country, finding a way to cover up an ugly tissue box with another box over that box, and crying in bed.

Love isn't always happy or exciting, at least for me. Sometimes love is hard and depressing and stressful. I want the people that I love to thrive in life but I can't force them to do so.

My love is my own. There are a few people that I have loved for decades and then there are those that come into my life and only stay a few years. Both types are special and meaningful. Regret is not something I can associate with love.

Love is in the moment. Love is beautiful when other people can see it and feel your adoration for another being in the air.

Everyone has written about love and they were all right no matter what they said(assuming it referred to healthy relationships). Maybe next week I won't feel the same way about love as I do today. My mood is stable but feelings they do as they please.

The beauty of love is that it cannot be understood. 

Cranial Flatulence

I've been waiting for inspiration to hit me like a ton of bricks or dildos and nothing.

So books that I've read recently that I think others should check out:

Yes Means Yes! -Sex positive look at how we approach rape and human sexuality

The Edge of the Bed -Autobiography type of book about sexual coming of age into a sex positive world

Bitch! In Praise of Difficult Women -How society's bias of women impacts our ability to view women as equal agents

Clearly I am still in my non-fiction phase, maybe I'll grow out of it. Seems unlikely but I have read a few good fiction books in the last year they just haven't been enough to convert me. This is a new level of snobby, people tell me about books they like and suggest I read it but I reply, "oh, I don't read fiction." I might as well say, "oh, I don't drink tap water" or "whoa, I don't use paper napkins" or even "Don't bring that non-Apple smart phone filth near me!"

Anyway, I'm going to post another semi-brilliant entry as soon as it finds its way into my head space. Until then I'll be catching up my Days Of Our Lives(I'm an EJAMI).

Indentured Servitude at its finest

Part of 'Muerica's great history includes colonization and general slave labor conditions.  Most people, outside of the south, learn about slavery and treating people like an object and how wrong this is. Not often covered is the indentured servants from Europe before kidnapping Africans became a solution to the labor demand. Poor people with few skills and even less family would pay for passage to the New World by signing up for 7 years of hard labor when they reached land. Seems like a fair deal when the options in your home country are dim at best. The future in America sounded pretty nice and they couldn't see across the ocean at their future so people went for it.

Sweet, a fresh shipment of human capitol mine for the taking!

Sometimes the indentured servants would work their asses off for seven years and become a free person. More likely they would be physically abused, malnourished and fined for more years of service.   The rules could and did change at any time and the servant couldn't do a fucking thing about it. They were basically property, replaceable property at that. Life in the New World was not what they thought it would be like and the promise of a better future was simply a lie. Mail was strictly controlled so servants in the colonies couldn't write back to the few people they knew in Europe about the life they have found themselves in.

This is remarkably similar to the American college dream. We as a society tell young people to go to a good university, study hard, take out a few loans if needed because after you graduate life is going to be better. With a degree you can find a career, not just a job, that will use your skills and make you feel satisfied and important, you'll easily be able to pay off your loans with your high paying salaried position. College is worth the debt, we even tell ourselves that student loans are 'good debt'.

For $2,394 a semester you can call this home! Just take out a loan to cover this  necessary expense. 

Then students graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in debt and they realize finding a career that is fulfilling and rewarding and can cover basic needs in life is not possible. Graduates end up with loan repayments larger than a mortgage and a job that leaves them feeling drained and hopeless when they finally crawl into bed at night. Loans were not a good idea after all and there's no way out, graduates become trapped.

Don't make any sudden movements, like trying for a dream job, you need the security of a steady paycheck, bro.

Noam Chomsky, basically the most badass nerd I know of, explains this in even a darker way:

"Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can’t afford the time to think. Tuition fee increases are a “disciplinary technique,” and by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the “disciplinarian culture.” This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy."

Every year tuition at most US schools is rising, rising far beyond inflation. There's a problem though, education isn't just a luxury; an educated society is vital for society to function. Yet we have created indebted servants again. There's a better future here, I swear, just take out 20k in loans for a few years and then you'll see. Then we look around and see graduates struggling and suffocating and our young people continue to go to college and gain debt because we just believe so highly in our own person. "I'm not like everybody else, I'll be fine after graduation" is in the head's of so very many college students.

Different varieties of Ramen will keep you sane since Kraft is not within your budget as a college graduate. 

People aren't unique and precious, college students today believe they are but they'll find out soon enough. We need a better structure for our people. We need lower tuition costs, lower loan rates and employers that see the value in educated employees and pay them accordingly.