Post Traumatic Dreams

I wish I had the words tonight for the ghosts of my past.
Mostly, I just have pain.
And volumes to say to the people on whose deaf ears I need to say it all to the most.

It's the most frustrating thing in the world when you are happy and you still have these...moments.
Moments where you second guess yourself because of a few sociopathic encounters.

I can't feel close to people the way I used to.
If anything, I'd rather not be close to anyone.

My head is being blasted from the inside out with confusing feelings.
Tonight's not the night for it.
But no night ever is.

Fuck you, John.
Fuck you, Lily.

How dare your memories make me regret being a human.


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Transition to Stasis

It's hard to explain exactly what it means.

I mean, it's just a word.  One simple little word.

Rehired.
Reclaimed.
Good enough to come back.
Rewarded for being what was needed.

For me...reawakened.
For me...renewed.
For me...reminded...that good enough isn't a package of ingredients with things I lack.

And yet, I know that a pittance one year contract won't define my redemption.  Deep down, I still know that at a moment's notice, anything can happen, the clocks can turn back, and I can be cast aside again.  Even in a new place, a new home, with new people.

I'm wary, but at peace.

Maybe it's something about that afternoon when two other colleagues in my department took me out to lunch on the last day before our vacation, and lunch lasted from high noon to bar closing time.  Maybe it's something about standing on the edge of a cliff listening to live music and daring to sing along.  Maybe it's something about a little city you've known all your life to be "no big thing" until you walked all up in its insides.  Maybe it's the boss who heard my story and gave me a chance anyway.  Or maybe it's the retired gentleman whose seat I now replace who held my hand warmly in November and said, gently, "It's just a feeling I get with you- you're going to be just fine here- and happy- for as long as you  want to be."

Maybe there's hope.

My roots are not ready, but my heart is.
We'll see, Claudia.  Wait and see.

Dear John Doe:

John, Johnny, Jimbo. Jigga-whatever-you-have-become, whatever you are, whomever you'll be. Dear man of many stories, dear creature who longed to be a father, dear defrocked career-man, dear thinker of things to help others unthink, dear dead ex-compatriot of compassion, dear soul long forgotten, dear damaged son, dear lonely one, I write this aloud to you.

Dear Jeff, Jeffrey, JFB, Jiffy Lube, Jesus-For-Short, Jesus-You're-Not, and Jeez-What-the-Hell-Did-I-Get-Myself-Into. Dear wounded one, dear suffering spiritual soldier, dear sultry sexually sinister lover, dear creeper undercover, dear freaky cultic front runner, I sign my name as a last farewell to you.

You who both have lingered in my thoughts for years. You who have been the ink for a thousand tears stained to paper...I write this now, many years later, a few minutes wiser, a few scars less of a hater, to put words of absolution to my lips. I mean after all this time I believe your rips at my soul...were not all full of evil intention. I believe your hearts were not always hell bent on aggression, I believe the time is now for a full confession and

My.
Confession.
Is.
Forgiveness.

I forgive, because I cannot live with anything less.
I forgive your cuts, your lies, your denegrated mess.

I don't know why it had to happen today, with these words, on this blog, in this way, but all I know is that they, those, them, who would wish otherwise will turn their eyes away and it would never matter what I had to say, no matter how loud I said it. Just like no matter how many times I walked away from your foundations I regretted it, even if it was the best thing for me. I have finally emerged from the roiling sea of pain, and the only thing that keeps my boat from pitching is thinking I need to hold on. So that I do t forget that the dreams I had came from a noisy throng of extreme black-and-white songs that screamed for change. Now I know I can toss and throw away the items I gave you in exchange...the heart, the soul, the body ripped raw, are renewed and reborn, it's taken some time to heal, to get warm...but I have.

And so today in the name of everything I once stood for, I let go of the loyalties I used to make good for, and I embrace the change of the winds in my sails and I set you free. I let go of who I need you to be.

So you monster, you coward, you psycho-sociomaniac, you rapist, you fiend, I send it all back with a ribbon wrapped round the emotion that brought you. I have yelled, I have screamed, I have cursed, cried, and fought you, and discovered In all of this that no one has won. And I have no further desire to need to come undone. We are young, and our souls can change and morph and find peace.

And I need to find mine, and unbind the crease in my heart that believes that no one and nothing is good. And to do that, I must let go, and let go I should.

This is the last you will hear from me. This is the last of the past that will not set me free. This is the last dream you'll enjoy inside my head, this is the last nightmare you'll prance through my bed. I am finished. That part of my soul now lies dead and prepared to spring forth from the ashes anew. And it is my deepest wish that yours does the same too.

I hope you begin on a path of new truth, with idealism in your heart and a fountain of youth springing forth from the oceans of ideas you have. I hope you use your power with caution, humility, a laugh, and with all of the wisdom one can glean from a paradise lost in a dystopic scene.

Goodbye, J-men. Goodbye, John Does. The greatest and worst people I ever did know.


***

This letter-poem is written as an homage to a promise I have made to myself today, that I will no longer dwell on my past between my ex-cult-leader-lover and my past with an ex-therapist. I purposefully delete them from my mind with as much willpower as I can, and instead I carry with me the lessons I have learned from my experience. I no longer permit myself to hold ill will, pain, or space for feeling for/about these two people. I forgive them. I forgive myself. It is time to move on.

Thank you for reading.

***




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Regrets and Regression

*this entry will not make a lot of sense unless you know the tale*
*or have lived a similar one yourself*

I was a board member.

I knew damn well that I should have spoken up sooner.

The problem with having a sociopath for a friend is that, however twisted his facts may be, there ARE truths within them.

It's true that when we worked together, I bit my tongue a few times toward the end. He was so PASSIONATE about everything...the kind of passionate where you don't want to get in the way or you might get run over. You just listen. You rationalize. You tell yourself the parts that make sense. And you try to ignore the parts that don't, treat it like a handicap for a brilliant mind or something.

I shouldn't call him a sociopath. That's not fair. It might be true, but it's not my call to make. That alone could be the reason I feel sick inside. What a name caller.

Sometimes I wonder if not being able to reach him in the critical days was his way of setting me up to fail him. Or maybe it was my way. My fault, just as he says it. My "hurtful" words. I know I said some- many. I've gone back and read them. Maybe it was me.

I hardly care. But the guilt will drive you mad. Some days I wake up from a nightmare and all I want to do is stand in a confessional with every person I've ever hurt, no matter in what aspect, and pleaded for their forgiveness, and apologized, over and over and over. I could have stopped the topple. I could have saved the Center. I didn't. I sat back and watched it all melt down, watched its director melt down. I resigned. I walked away, just like I have in the past. I have never once gone "down with the ship". When the Corps leader asked me to die, I said no and I left. When the director of the Center told me to deal with it or resign, I quit that too. I'm a coward. I would believe that.

And then I read that one email I saved from the rubble. The one I put in a box away from the pissing match that said, "You've been very courageous and professional." Held onto it for dear life. From a stranger who barely knew me, those words meant more to me then and now than a thousand "I love you"s from a man who couldn't be further removed from their meaning.

What's amazing to me is that I don't miss him. Somehow, in my mind, I've learned that "him", the person, never existed. But I miss the validation. And the closeness. And the realism. I never thought you could fake those things. But you can. And lots do.

And well...I have become comfortably numb, I suppose. But you miss the human piece of it all, and it hurts sometimes.
And there's the guilt.
Because the only actions you can be responsible for are your own.
I get mad when people don't assume their responsibilities.
I'm sorry.

For whatever it's worth, for whoever you are, were, or will be, I'm sorry.
I'd give anything to have the superpower of the inability to hurt someone.
Because I understand what it's like to hurt for something. And real or imagined, everyone...EVERYONE...understands pain.


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Sunglasses and Shame

These are the days your annoyingly cautious self warns you about. The days when you can be alone for hours at a time with that all-too-familiar person...yourself...and the wheels in the sky get to turning.

I don't know if its depression or a craving for the chaos that is decidedly absent from my life, but something in my head clicked when I got up this morning.

I had been dreaming about the Corps.
I had been dreaming that, in a twisted reunion of sorts, the leader and my ex-therapist had gotten together in a think tank and hidden their identities until my arrival at this dingy basement-place that looked like an unfurnished version of my parents' house. Demanding to know what I had been up to. Didn't I know the End Days were coming? And where in fuck were my sunglasses?

Sunglasses. That was the word. The cryptogram. I woke up with images of creepy people in sunglasses all day long.

Sunglasses were often worn by the inner circle of the Corps. There was good reason for it. Often, members of the group had to cope with some kind of trauma...real, recent real, imagined, partially imagined...of course, who knows what was and what wasn't...and it was important that no one interrupted anyone else's suffering progress. The idea was that you had to suffer through to become stronger. You could talk about it, sure, but you had to be careful to discuss it in terms of I/me and not use names or images of others. That was gossip. That detracted from the intimacy of the conversation you were having with a fellow member.

Say, for example, you had an abusive boyfriend before entering the group. You could discuss the pain you felt, the reactions you had, the general history. But you couldn't mention the abuser's name. Couldn't speak the names of the friends who helped intervene, or hurt you along the way. The only person you were permitted to talk about was you, and maybe the person directly in front of you with whom you were carrying on the conversation with. There were a few reasons for this. First, it drew you more intimately toward the member you spoke with- they were forced to limit themselves to only talking on the deepest of personal levels. Second, it heightened your empathic awareness...when someone speaks on such an intimate level, it becomes far easier to place yourself in the shoes of their suffering and offer comfort. Third, it forced everyone to come to terms with the rawness of their own personal lives and how things came to be where they were now.

But when the conversation was over, and your face was swollen from the agony of "lifting the burden", you put your sunglasses on and acted as if nothing happened. Normal people wouldn't understand. "Why are you crying?" Was really such a superficial question to the untrained eye. No one truly wanted the answer to the question, not long enough to stick around and solve it, or mitigate it, or even rationalize it. Your true kin were the people that would listen, with no judgment, and integrate your suffering into their pursuance of the path of Truth.

When I think back to my sunglasses days, I remember only a handful of times I ever practiced the doctrine. I was pretty good at ironing out the crinkles in my face from pain; I often told myself it was a divine gift that I could keep the secrets shared within the circle I belonged to. But there were days where I needed them. Like the day my leader confided in me his experience of being molested.

It was late afternoon. It was after school. We were just high school kids, barely driving age at this point. And he had been wearing his sunglasses for two weeks straight. I mean straight- unless the teacher took his sunglasses away from him, that's what you would see in class. I understood. When you suffered, you didn't want anyone else's eyes looking into yours. You were preserving the sanctity of your soul. People would stare weirdly, and I would think, "You just don't understand; if you took just a minute to ask, you'd see how beautiful the whole thing is." At least I liked to believe I thought that. But when people asked me, I would shrug, embarrassed, and walk away, caving to peer pressure and removing my glasses.

He sat me down, in a corner far from most building administration. We liked to be alone where we felt we could talk freely, and after school provided a great service in that. He held my hands as he slowly removed his glasses. He looked tired- like he hadn't slept in days. I pleaded with him to talk to me, to release some of the pain. He looked at me with his heavy, serious eyes, and said with great measure,

"If I open up to you about this, you will suffer too. What I am about to tell you will hurt you because of the love you feel for me. Please understand that I don't want to hurt you. But you will feel a lot of things, things I may not be able to help you with. I don't know how strong I can be for you. And telling anyone breaks our intimacy. You understand the burden you place on yourself?"

I nodded, swallowing hard. It was true that I loved him a great deal, would give anything for him. Now more than ever, I needed to be there for him.

He began to tell me of the molestations that took place in his home, while we had been romantically involved. He gave little detail, because with each suggestion of an act, he would grimace as if he were about to be sick. I, in turn, would hold him, rock him, rub his back and hold his hair in case he were sick. Inside, I burned crimson. Inside, I was being shredded apart. He was right. I was hurting for him.

I remember demanding names. I remember screaming all the sensible sentences in the world- "Wont you let me call someone for you? Why didn't you tell me then? Why won't you tell me who it is?!" He would laugh quietly to himself, pat my hand gently, and tell me that if I knew who it was, he feared I would kill the person. And while it was true that if I knew who it was, malicious thoughts would come to mind, I doubted very sincerely that I could ever kill someone. Still, he shook his head.

In the midst of all this, when he finally finished talking, he leaned in and kissed me, deeply. I still remember that kiss. It stung- it physically hurt to feel his lips on mine, after hearing about all he had been through, and how he had waited so long to tell me...that I might have helped him, might have stopped it, had I ever known. I felt worlds away. I felt like the enemy. And then he spoke.

"Claudia, I want to thank you. For helping me. Your beauty is in the way you suffer for others, like a great sacrificial angel. Oh, darling, don't cry. Will you always cry so deeply when I kiss you, even after the beauty we share together?"

I felt like my body was filled with guilt and anger and sickness. I felt horrible for dumping him years earlier. I felt awful for doubting his pain, his mood swings. I felt like part of the monster in the story. I continued to cry. He hugged me, tightly, nuzzling my shoulder.

"It's all right, I'm better already. It's all right. Seeing you like this helps me to know that love still exists. You are beautiful and I shall always love you too. I know it hurts. Thank you for helping me."

I wore my sunglasses for three days after that.

It would later be discovered that, in all the pain and beauty of intimate conversation we had that day, my very words on those days would be used against me. Would I be willing to suffer the ultimate of injustices to truly understand? And would it matter? And would I go to the limit and carry the burden beneath my own sunglasses?

The glasses never did go back on after that week, but I cherished the need for them. The pain of real intimacy, of truth, of the window in the eyes that lead to the bleeding soul beneath. Those same glasses would stare me in the face and ask me if I was afraid to die in later years.

And those tinted shutters that hid more than I ever imagined I'd see.
Sunglasses.


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The Cult that Quit Culting for...Gaming?

I need to talk about it.

Slowly, casually, with measured words at first.
Then build it up into a motherfucking whipped frenzy of furious flurries of phrases that don't even make sense anymore.

I'm feeling things. I don't like feeling things. I like thinking things. I like tuning out to the sounds of a beautiful mind.

Feeling means fear. Fear is to be avoided.

But I'm angry.
And I need to talk about it.

It's a stupid reason to be angry. It's even a stupid thing to be upset about. But I'm angry anyway. And upset anyway. And I need to talk about it.

And there's no one to listen who will HEAR me.
So I'm here. Because one way or another, I. Need. To. Talk.

Because when your former cult leader disbands your cult and uses the name to create a goddamned gaming site...apparently that's what you do.

Years of my life WASTED in a group that decided that the fantasy realm was the safest place for them. Years of my life running from a death threat under this groups name, and his nefarious fake Christ leader.

I don't even know how to feel, really. I'm just shaking, or vibrating. I'm hot in my face and cold in my limbs. I'm sensitive and irritated by the little sounds around me. I'm remembering the guy that talked to my mother months ago, asking about me all creepy-like. Reading the on-screen image that he's the leader of this gaming site. In the same name as my old cult. That my old cult leader is now second in command to this guy. He's a moderator. A general. But not THE moderator, not THE general. Sensibly, I'm happy he's demoted, deflated. Sensibly, i actually hope hes just a casual gamer now. Insensibly, I'm absolutely baffled how a narcissist could stoop to being second in command.

And most Insensibly, I'm blown away that a gaming website would retain the same name and claim so much innocence to its operations. This group boasted about surviving the eventual End of Days...and its leaders are really going to pretend it's all been part of some kind of game forum?!

I feel that powerful wave of rage and doubt again, just like in the old days. I'm doubting that this website could be just what it says it is...I feel like it hides behind its guise and anyone who knew the history of V.C. Would snap this door wide open. I'm raging because if that's truly the case, people can get hurt, lead in, drawn to it under false pretenses and then manipulated until they leave the group.

And yet...what if I'M the crazy one this time?

Maybe they're not the same people. Maybe there are two people out there with the same name, the same age, and the same 1997 founding date of V.C. that they claim to have. This website started in 2012. Maybe it's all coincidence. Maybe I'm even wrong about what I believed I was a part of...

Maybe I should stop thinking about it. It's not harming me anymore, so what should I care anyway?

A goddamn gaming website. All this bullshit talk about God and the Truth and Open Honesty. And you take that name, however profane, and use it to hide behind in some fucking gaming community, mocking what little good I could have held it up to. Now you sit and drink Mountain Dew and wait for a bunch of zombies to click your little screen, either so you can pump them full of your fucked up riddles or pepper them with your game comtrollers. Either way, it's bullshit.

I'll tell you what. My experiences weren't a game. And they sure as hell weren't just some RPG shit that you talk about. I hope for your sake that you're being goddamn sincere on your site and you're not running some fucked up truth harem behind some World of Whatever goggles trying to sex your way into someone's brain. I HOPE you're actually BEING mindless. It would be a welcome change.

I'd still feel better if you didn't refer to yourselves as an army, though.

Bah. What do I care? If its not hurting me...
I'd talk about it if I knew how.


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Judas, Judgements, and Juvenile Religious Education

My best friend and I used to fight over who got to be Judas in our sleepover re-creations of Jesus Christ Superstar.

You may find it strange, but a couple of 7 year olds with a video camera and a shiny LP of the London Cast recording from the 1970s was all we needed when Good Friday came rolling around.

I've mentioned before that I was raised Catholic. And my mother did a wonderful job with that- from knowing the stories to answering the questions and only ladling in the guilt when necessary. Sure, she skipped the masturbation chapters in "It's Perfectly Normal" when I hit puberty, and maybe it wasn't entirely accurate that giving a boy a hug could get me pregnant, but she was just protecting my well being. And one of the ways she taught me the church rules was through song and story.

I saw Ted Neeley (the actor portraying Jesus in JCS) live on stage at the tender age of 8. Amidst a flock of die hard Christians and die harder music theater buffs, my mother and I squealed with joy that afternoon when we saw him onstage at the local symphony hall. The story always left me with questions, and Mom always dutifully answered as best she could. It was our best bonding time. That's why I suppose it's never been a surprise that I hold a fondness for the Catholic Holy Week.

There's Holy Thursday, with its last supper and the reading of script while 12 members of the church get their feet washed (a symbolic portrayal of the apostles), and Good Friday, the day Jesus dies and the church becomes barren and empty, with barely even the sound of chanting, and Vigil Saturday where everyone gathers in hope and music and prayer into the wee hours of the night, and then Easter Sunday, when all the usual folk come out of hiding and don their bests for the big celebration at church. As a musician, Easter Sunday becomes a special heralding, a call to duty and the chance to sing gracefulness to The Lord. Gigs on Easter Sunday have always been treated with reverence in my family and I too, find peace in performing on those days. I've seen the insides of hundreds of churches this way. It's special, heartwarming.

But I digress. It was those moments I had as a child that lead me to my reverence of Holy Week, and while I completely goofed this week by eating chicken salad this morning (no meat on Fridays), I still try to choose appropriately for the high holidays.

I have morphed as a Catholic, even as a faithful person. I spent 5 or so years in a pseudo-pagan cult; I spent a few years thereafter practicing solitary Wicca, and a few years practicing nothing at all. Though I married in the Catholic Church, I am still hesitant to state that I am Catholic...I do not really represent the modern viewpoints of today's Catholic Church. I relish a woman's right to choose when to become a mother. I don't believe that responsible use of birth control will damn you to hell. I even support abortion in horrifically extreme cases of abuse or rape. Once, I wondered what my mother- my dutiful Catholic mother, would say to me if she knew all these things about me. I did a brave thing- I asked her.

"Claudia," she said, in the calmest voice I have ever heard, "no church should der provide more than guidelines, really. I raised you as a Catholic because your father and I believe in raising children to be faithful, mindful people of God. I had to get you from Baptism to Confirmation and see to it that you understand why the values I teach you are important. After that, your religion, your faith, is your path to walk and I can't walk it for you. You will have your own personal experiences with God. It's up to you what to do with them."

I was stunned. With all the years gone by, here stood my mother, the dutiful Catholic, telling me to forge my own spiritual path.

"Why didn't you say this after my confirmation, or when I was 21 and having my spiritual crisis, or any of those things?" I asked, a little frustrated in this new approach.

"Because everyone's relationship with God is personal. Influencing it is unfair. You are an adult, whether I like it or not, and the best I can hope for is that you have a good relationship with God. That I've taught you to have a good relationship, and that you won't be easily swayed into pain or harm or malice."

Shame suddenly filled my face, but she was kind and aware, and added, "And that you know that even the best relationships have rocky moments and painful experiences. What matters is the connection."

Mom does not regularly attend church as she used to. She doesn't go to Holy Week masses any more, and she doesn't even force the family to go to Mass on Sundays. But I know she prays. And I know that every Good Friday, I can expect her to watch Jesus Christ Superstar on her TV as a reminder of the faith she was raised in, the faith she raised me in. I know she still carries God with her every day, praying and following in her own way. Because it IS personal.

My best friend and I are no more than Facebook acquaintances today, but we can still remember our Judas vs. Jesus rock opera battles and laugh. And my mother and I can smile over our sympathy for Judas in his plight to protect Jesus from sounding too much like a cult leader. It is immaterial to anyone else, but for us, it is special.

And for me, it is redeeming. That after so many years of questionable religious experiences, I can still find enough common ground in the simple things to declare that I know that divine must exist. It is enough. The old makes way for the new, and each year, while I may not worship the death of Jesus, I find my sins washed away in the subtle experiences of those old traditions around me.

Catholic, or whatever I may be, I am freed from my chains, and it is a Good Friday, indeed.


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Forgiveness, Survival, and Enigmas

"Kent was working in my building this week."

Mom spoke quietly, but with weight, as we sat at her dining room table exchanging notes for a class. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck raise, my hackles aligning for battle, my heart beginning to thump lousy in my chest. I did the only thing I could think of. I deflected.

"I didn't realize mind warriors could actually hold real world jobs," I chided nonchalantly, trying to shake off the cold that was filling my gullet.

Kent was a dear friend and neighbor for much of my childhood life. We attended school together, shared a mutual group of acquaintances, even protected each other in a manner of respects. In our early teens, he wrote me a lengthy, pained letter about why he had wanted to end his life, and for a few days, I suspect he survived on our letter exchange alone as I pleaded with him not to give up. Kent was a kind and complex creature for much of my childhood and he always seemed to understand me, at times better than I understood myself. We also shared a mutual best friend...and lover...the leader of V.C. The cult we both belonged to.

Kent, being soft spoken and sweet, fit into the V.C. dynamic pretty well. He was one of perhaps 3 or 4 total men in the cult, and one of our leader's inner circle, like me. His role seemed to be that of an enigma, in that he was part of the group, but no one fully understood why- or to what extent- his involvement was, except to occasionally pontificate on issues at hand. He and I had been involved in V.C. since the beginning, really. After all, Kent had been one of the first to experience a level of initiation with our leader.

And of course, when I say initiation, what I mean is sexual awakening.

Kent had, at one point or another, served a key role in what our leader and my then boyfriend had called a "period of experimentation". I often wondered if perhaps Kent's suicidal outburst to me had stemmed from a deeper, more painful emotional current that came from his being intimate with this man, although he never confessed any romantic feelings for him, and only ever confessed to having a "mild crush" on me.

Kent, however, for whatever reason, had sworn alliance so strongly to our leader that he quickly became his right hand man. I never really understood what that meant, since Kent was never much involved in our meditations or training. For a while, he was bait for one of the newer girls in our group...but not willingly. The girl sought him, felt an attraction, and pursued...but in the end, Kent was uninterested. Shortly thereafter, I experienced my meditation assault by her and the leader. I never told Kent, and to this day, I'm unsure what Kent knows of it. What I do know is that Kent was always well aware of my own feelings about anything that happened in V.C. In retrospect, I suspect it is altogether possible that Kent had become a trained informant in the later years of V.C.

Mom fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat at my blatant statement before she put down her pen and looked up at me.

"He asked a lot of questions about you. It was really unsettling. I just want you to know that I didn't share anything with him."

You have to understand, dear reader, that in this context, those statements from my mother meant the world to me in that moment. When our leader turned to threatening my life in 2007, my mother was the last phone call I made that evening. I was terrified to breathe so much as a word to my family about my involvement with V.C.- indeed, I had kept it a secret for most my entire involvement, and I had kept it well. To tell her at 3 o'clock one April morning that someone she only knew as an "ex" was explaining his plot to end my life was...well, there aren't words for it. She had brushed me off, reassuring me that college kids say stupid things when under the influence, and that was probably what had been going on. I remember tearfully begging her to believe me- "You don't understand, Mom, this is more real than I can possibly even tell you. I'm not overreacting- I KNOW he's not drunk. Mom, PLEASE. I'm so scared. I don't know what to do."

In the end, a long and arduous, unsuccessful attempt at filing a restraining order began the following day. I still remember my poor father driving me back and forth between the college town I resided in and the town from which the threat was issued- each department bouncing me back to the other, stating that there was dubious credibility for the threat because it was issued online, and more nonsense. It was as if no one would understand or even listen- but my father did. In one particular drive, he had calmly asked me, "Suppose you tell me exactly what has lead up to all of this that has you more afraid than you would usually be. This sounds like more than just a case of a bad ex boyfriend." I remember breaking down. I remember telling him, in small, translucent chunks, that there was a "spiritual" aspect to these threats- and that it wouldn't be likely for him to act alone. I felt sick and crazy. Every word I spoke, I was damning my spiritual path that I had somehow managed to stumble this far upon with V.C. Dad, however, in his kind and gentle dad way, had squeezed my shoulder gently and said, "It sounds like you're dealing with a crazy person. I know how much that probably hurts to hear right now, but you have to know that it's time to really cut this guy off for good. Mom and I have been getting the creeps from you mentioning him for years. I'm really not trying to sway you, but if this is what it takes to get him out of your life, I can't say we are disappointed. He was a lousy boyfriend to you- I think anyway. You tell me what you'd like to do- and, well, put it to you this way- if the bastard is stupid enough to come near you, I'll kill him myself. All right?"

With no police office willing to put the paperwork through because the threat was issued "online" (yes folks, in 2007, there were still police officers who didn't put any stock in the shit you say in cyberspace), I returned home angry and frightened- truly frightened. One night, while sleeping in my parents house, I heard gunfire in our backyard- just 3 days after the threat had been issued. I leapt from the couch and locked myself in the basement, huddled in a survivor position on the stairwell until my father came back from scouting out the backyard with the dogs and my mother on the phone with police to investigate the disturbance. I didn't move for a few hours, despite repeated coaxing from my parents that it was all okay- some kids we didn't know had been playing paintball past curfew was all. I didn't sleep that night.

But back to Kent. Kent's unique role in all of this mess was to "check in" periodically just to chat, as if he were removed from the situation, even from the group. Kent often appeared when I was feeling distraught after a training or meditation, though he never showed up after the assault I had endured in 2004. In fact, Kent had appeared to be uninvolved for a while until a few weeks after the threat when he called to "just say hi". I remember trusting him- I actually remember that conversation being the last one I ever had with him. He had asked me about the usual chit-chat type things, as if we were old friends again, the neighbors who used to walk to each others' houses and play around in the pool together. He was so warm and kind, the sweet boy I remembered who had tearfully and angrily told me all the things in his life that had made him want to wrap his neck in a noose, and wishing that he could think of anything but that one thought. He was gentle, a listener, someone who could vilify your emotions in a matter of seconds because he had been there. And I had confessed that I had still been involved in V.C., but that I wouldn't be any longer. I made a huge mistake. I told him, vaguely, what had happened.

He had paused on the phone when he heard about the death threat before quietly saying, "Do you really suppose he meant it? I mean, I totally get how shaken you are, but he can be really intense sometimes when it's time to learn a lesson. Are you sure you didn't misinterpret the message?"

Suddenly, I wasn't sure. He had a good point. Our leader was indeed unusually intense at times. And that evening of the threat, I had even received an email with the words, "I'm not going to kill you. Idiot. Thank you for proving how worthless you truly are." Plus, a voicemail, two weeks after the incident, that had said "I'm sorry that I frightened you." Maybe Kent was right. Maybe I had been overreacting.

This mindfuck of a phone call prompted my old survival instincts, and I decided to finish my conversation with Kent and not talk to any of them any more. I didnt think that this would spur more check up phone calls...but they did. And rsther than be sucked in a second time, i finally heeded the warning bells I had been hearing in my head, that it was too odd for Kent to be checking in with me without an ulterior motive. It was the right choice. In the next two years, I would receive a handful of phone calls from our leader and a couple of my old group friends, but I would become stronger each time, resisting sharing any information. It was clear to me now. Kent had been planted to determine my whereabouts. But he'd never get any further than, "Sorry, but I'm very busy right now. Talk to you later." In 2009, I delivered the final blow. I received one last phone call- from the leader himself- declaring "I miss you." It was enough. In that moment, as I held the phone in my hands backstage before a major performance, I lowered my voice and evened my breath, carefully measuring every word.

"I am finished with you and all of your people. It is time for you to move on. And if you ever, ever call this number or my new boyfriends number again, you will have more than the police to deal with. Do I make myself clear? Get lost and stay lost, because this is no threat. It is a promise."

I never heard from or about any of them again.


Until today.
Mom twisted her rings on her fingers uncomfortably. We were silent for a little while before I spoke up again.

"Mom?" I asked quietly. I was afraid of her reaction to continuing the conversation. During my time with V.C., the barriers I had thrown between her and I were nearly impenetrable. At times, it appeared as if I had divorced my own mother from my life. Mom had spied on me early on in my involvement with the leader and with V.C. She had even read my diary aloud at the dinner table once, a sin that took me nearly ten years to forgive her for. Now, we were on the mend. This was dangerous, treacherous territory. She looked up from her test booklet, eyes filled with the same warmth and hint of fear we seemed to carry for each other from those years.

"Did you know? Did Dad ever tell you the whole story? About him and the group...and J?"
"He told me enough. I will never share anything with that...boy. I promise. I'm not the only one in the building that senses he's fishing for something...someone. It's easy to see him as just polite and quiet if you dont know. I'm sorry I even confirmed for him that you had recently been married. I'm sorry, sweetie. I've asked my coworkers not to discuss you in any detail with him."

My eyes filled with hot tears. It needed no explanation- all the years of lies, deceit, and pain, and Mom knew the story, and she understood.

"I'm sorry I lied to you so much," I sputtered, unable to say much more.
"I understand why, and it doesn't matter any more. Okay? I'm keeping my eye on him. You will be okay."

And I believe her.
I believe that I am wiser. Stronger. Less afraid. More prepared to defend and protect myself and those that I love. Less guilty. More loved.

And forgiven.
Forgiven.
The Excalibur of spiritual abuse.
The juice that makes me stronger, more aware.
And more allied with those that truly love me.

I will be okay.
I am already better than I once was.

Like the core I build in my abdomen during martial arts class, I am stronger every day. And that strength can only grow.

I have begun to transcend survival.
Today, I embrace the story and accept it as it is, as part of me.
Today, I embrace the ability to THRIVE.



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The B Word

It is perhaps one of the earliest fears I attained...and the longest in my life history, save for spiders and tornadoes and rabid animals. It's a four letter word that makes my stomach do more than somersaults. It's an uncomfortable topic of discussion.

Baby.

Before I continue, let me assure you, dear reader, that I am not pregnant.

But I think, at my tender age, this fear might be one I need to revisit. The fear of having a baby. Of motherhood. Of any sort of maternal moment or connection. That's striking, odd even. Kindergarten and elementary students throw themselves at me regularly, loudly proclaiming "I wish you were my mom!" And while this is high praise from a six or seven year old, in my mind I find myself thinking, "I am glad I'm not!" The thought of having a child of that age whom I could potentially fail to be a great parent to is terrifying...too terrifying to even begin to understand or rationalize.

I suppose if I were seeing a therapist, he'd ask me where I think these feelings come from, and I'd ramble off a bunch of reasonable suggestions. I tormented my mother in my teenage years. My parents helped me pay for college. I wanted for very little in my life. That's hard to compete with, when you have an excellent upbringing with few blips in the road. I only seem to have just begun making mistakes. My first few failures in life didn't occur until I was out of the nest and out of mommy and daddy's care. How in hell would I care for a little one, then?

And let's not forget the other factors at hand. I'm a husky woman, and husky women have terrible times with pregnancy- my mother told me so. She says I will be miserable and a constant risk to an unborn child with my obesity. She also frequently tells me that having a child is the wrong decision for my life- my father reaffirms this. There is no discussion of grandchildren in the family house. My parents have affirmatively stated that they are not interested in becoming grandparents. Any time a discussion heads even an inch toward children, my parents remind me that raising a dog is a lovely alternative.

Pregnancy is something to be feared, and something that can happen at any moment through any form of sexual contact. Children are nothing but growing burdens. Labor can result in an audience watching you soil yourself in a birthing room.

So clearly, you would think my mind is made up.
Well, it was, until a couple weeks ago.

You see, in order to improve some of my other health conditions, I removed myself from prescription birth control. No one tells you, of course, that most/all birth controls also tone down your hormones, libido, and other such things, so when I started having regular, non-drug-induced periods, things got a little wacky. I suddenly became a horny teenager again. I was on predictable roller coasters of emotion. And something else clicked off in my body, too.

I felt my biological clock make its first tick.

I don't know how you really explain it. One afternoon I was walking through the mall and a woman was pushing her adorable infant, who looked up at me with big smiley eyes and I just...melted. I like kids, mind you- even love them at times- but this was very different. This was a big swell in my chest, a little flutter in my stomach, and a genuine reaction of "Oh...I want one!" This from the girl raised to understand that sex is dirty, babies are leeches, and pregnancy is scarier than tarantulas in your duvet.

Naturally, I desperately shrugged it off as a day I might have forgotten to take my meds.

But then I spent a day with my best friend and her 3 week old daughter. And I held this tiny thing as it stretched, smiled, cooed, and snuggled into my chest to sleep. I watched in amazement as my friend told me she was glad that baby was so comfortable with me. The little one slept soundly in my arms for an hour before waking abruptly and planting a strong open-mouthed kiss on my clothed bosom. And rather than be horrified by this breast contact, I just laughed, repositioned her, and handed her back to her mother.

I wasn't breast fed as a child, and my mother confesses that she finds it horrifying, so you would think that I'd be horrified too. And I have been. For many years. But when I held this little one, there was that inescapable feeling again, that flutter about having a child. I've been trying to stuff it ever since.

What's happening to me? I was only just starting to get used to being married!


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The Catholic Guilt

For all intents and purposes, it can be said that I left the Church at the age of seventeen. I had begun to confirm it in my mind by sixteen, a mere few days after my confirmation into the faith.

The whole story of what I have come to believe now, may never be complete, because even as I type this today, God is a being I have little grasp of understanding. The human condition, perhaps. What I remember now is even hazy, but I will try.

I was a model Catholic. I am not sure what made me so, but from my very early years, I loved church, loved Mass, admired and even coveted the role of the priest, simply because he could be so close to God. I strived each day to be as close, even if I did not pray daily. I offered up my music as a holy communion to The Lord, a reciprocation of the gratitude I felt for the gift I had been blessed with. My spirit soared in all that I did.

During the challenging teenaged years which lead to my confirmation, a priest appeared in our ministry who would solidify in my mind the true meaning of spirituality. His name was Father D, and his story would change my life...perhaps not then, but certainly now.

Father D was young for a priest, all things considered. He was attractive and intelligent, had a stunning voice and a heartwarming approach to people, but was so dedicated to the masterful craft of Mass that it seemed he could hypnotize a flock if he so chose to. But Father D was most decidedly human, and in love with humanity. He wore it in plain sight upon his face.

When the Church first met the Father, I never expected the story he told. A PhD of science, of astronomy, turned priest from a single experience. A calling. A hunch. One minute he is staring directly into the face of the heavens and the next into the face of God, perhaps. But he said it wasn't like that, wasn't so grandiose. It was simple. Man, science, faith- all of these are intertwined, interrelated. One could know and learn all he could and still be one of Gods most faithful. One could seek knowledge and still be one of Gods chosen. It was beautiful. It was like nothing any other priest had said before. And it reached me. I began to spend more time in church and more time honing my skills and gifts.

And I sought out the Fathers guidance. I studied books on Creationism for the creation vs evolution debate in our biology class. I remember seeking him out for study materials- I had been assigned the creation side of debate and I hated losing. I had also been designated team spokesperson, and engaged in a battle of wits with the school genius. Father was very amused at my gumption, but reminded me that there was truth in both sides, and that the key to winning the argument was to expose that there can be no argument without all the facts...that the very proof of God would be necessary to complete the story, and no mortal has yet provided that proof. "Why do you believe, then?" I had asked him. "What do you believe?" I don't remember his words but I remember the feeling when he spoke: peace. The mind and the heart could indeed work in tandem. Creation and evolution could both be correct. Man is not the carrier of all answers, after all. It is the mysteries of life that are most sacred- but that doesn't mean we should not explore them, question them, find what is true to us. I left my debate not needing an answer or a winner. Acknowledging fairness in each side was enough.

When I was chosen for vocation discipleship, it was among the highest honors one could receive in the church. Here, I had not even attended Catholic school, and now, at the crux of confirmation, I was being blessed by the Diocese, recognized as a servant of God before man. I took it very seriously. When the nuns started sending invitations to me for membership, I was flattered. My mother was horrified. I felt a calling. I was certain of it.

Still, I had my doubts. Catechismic classes weren't answering questions any longer...they were planting seeds of doubt. It began with a discussion inside an enormous mansion that our teacher called his home. Eight of us in class, and seven of us, boys, including our teacher, who was a dedicated parent in church. Teenage boys only want to discuss one thing. You know. So we addressed the loopholes of sin. And one afternoon the question fell upon us...is masturbation a sin?

This seems like a ridiculous thing to spend two and a half hours discussing, but for a group of 16 year olds, this was important stuff. And yet, the more we addressed it, the worse I felt. Masturbation, according to the church, is a sin, and a very grave one. It removes you from God because it hooks you to pleasure when sex should only be for procreation and union with your future spouse. In essence, each time you masturbate, you are being unfaithful to your future husband or wife, and adultery is a cardinal sin.

I don't think I have to tell you that this didn't sit well with any of the boys, either. But no gray area was offered, and at one point we had all resigned ourselves to seek out Father D after class and find out for certain if an orgasm every now and again would truly ruin our relationship with God and/or a boy/girlfriend. None of us dared ask him, though I certainly considered it. I think we all knew that if the answer was what our CCD teacher was telling us, we didn't want to hear it. As one of our classmates, Kevin, calmly put it, "Well, either we are all going to hell, or some of us are and the rest of us are going deeper because we are lying to ourselves about it. And Claudia will end up in the deepest pit because she's a woman." (Yes, ladies, the clitoris is simply a doorbell that you ring before baby juice is inserted by your husband. Try telling that to a 16 year old girl today.)

Still, no one was going to convince me to confess to the carnality explorations I had done in my bedroom. Why ask for forgiveness for something I was truly not sorry for? And why COULDN'T a little pleasure connect me to God, if approached with enough humility for the grand design of the human body? What was so wrong with the idea? I dismissed the debate from my mind and swore off carnal pleasure for a while. Maybe I'd figure it out later on in life. Meanwhile, it wasn't exactly a necessity. I wasn't even interested in sex, to be honest.

So when I reached confirmation, I felt relatively pure. I made other appropriate confessions and dutifully committed myself to my patron, Saint Cecelia. Meanwhile, I frequently discussed and debated ideas with my classmates and friends, along with an ex boyfriend who had his own attachment to the divine.

My ex had been my best friend for as long as I could remember, and my first kiss. He had been raised Catholic too, though he no longer practiced. He was more fascinated in what the rest of the world believed- whether it was Tao, Buddhism, Wicca, or other persuasions of faith. Still, it was clear to me that his connection to God was strong, and that he recognized the presence of God in all things, all faiths. We began to study these things together. We grew and learned, debated, and learned and grew some more.

To be honest, I'm not sure when it snapped, but suddenly, church as an institution didn't make sense any more. Somewhere around my confirmation, the biggest allegations of rape by priests were coming forward. There were rapists within our own diocese, even. But I wasn't fazed much- none of these guys had ever been in our church, so I had no reason to turn away from the faith.

Still, something was eating at me. Maybe it was that other debate about false idols that I had been struggling with. I was excited about my commitment to St. Cecelia but remember being told that I should not become idolatrous and put her above my commitment to God. Just what did that mean anyway? Was she not a follower?

One afternoon, I decided to try a "guided meditation" with my ex and a girl friend of mine. I didn't see much harm in the idea- meditation was much like prayer- so I was excited to have a spiritual experience with the two of them. I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach when they arrived after school, came into my empty house and sat with me on the couch. I shrugged it off as butterflies- they never really went away during interactions with my ex, but I learned to ignore them. I should have listened to my gut. I should have done anything but what I did.

I'd like to tell you that what happened next was an hour of meditation, but that wasn't what happened. And I'd like to tell you that I resisted valiantly, but that wasn't what happened either. I'd even like to tell you that saying no to people you trust works every time- but it didn't. All I remember thinking was, "You have to preserve your virginity. No matter what happens, you must preserve your virginity, or your soul is dead." I was clever. I was lucky. And I was ashamed.

The word "assault" is both misleading and loaded with controversy. To be assaulted insinuates something of a violent nature, something harmful. But no one walks away with a bruise necessarily in a case of sexual assault. And you can't call it rape if it isn't penetration, so that's not an accurate word either. And it can't be either of those things if your mouth said no but your body said something else. After all, I invited them over. We hugged each other. What's a step or two beyond that? Permissible, right?

No one- no school or church- teaches you that it is possible to be in a situation where your declaration of "no" can be manipulated. I said no. I meant no. No stopped nothing. By the time I said no, it was too late- by the time I realized that the hands rubbing my back to soothe me were also undoing my bra, I was trapped. There were four hands on my body, and all I could do was will my limbs and nerves to shut down to make it end.

After they left, I spent the afternoon vomiting. I felt sick, dirty, but not because of them- because of me. Because I had tarnished a relationship with God. It didn't matter what the ulterior motives of others were- I should have known better than to trust. I should have seen this progression of events coming. I should have known that no 17 year old calls a meditation session. Ignorance was not an excuse. Though I had preserved my virgin self, on the inside I was a whore, because I let it happen. I let it happen and God saw through all weakness. Otherwise He would have intervened.

I continued exploring alternate spiritual paths after this. I couldn't go back to church- in my heart, I wasn't entirely worthy. Truth was, I was convinced that my ex was making some strong point or example about spirituality and that I would have to stay the course to see what he meant. In time, there were more strange experiments and experiences, and then dreams and prophecies. By the time I knew where I was and what I had gotten into, I was ensnared by a cult leader, one who manipulated women into handing over their v-cards for a chance at enlightenment...and I had escaped the deflowering.

But I had also believed in him, learned a lot from him, even come to justify his prophecies. From the afternoon of meditation, three and a half years passed before I decided he was a fraud and that perhaps our meditation experience wasn't my fault. The sudden ability to demand that one take responsibility for ones own actions was freeing, and confusing, and damning all over again. And then the clincher- his vision that he was to be the next Christ. It was enough. I snapped.

When I read it all back to myself, I get angry at how stupid I was to believe that had a realm of possibility. Maybe I was just Stockholm syndromed. Maybe it was something else. But for the next three years of my life, there was no God...because if there was, I was pretty sure I wanted nothing to do with him. If there was, he supported rapists and manipulation, mind control and death threats, and if hell kept that away from you, I was glad to be headed there.

And yet it's now been five years since I left his grasp, and I've since married, consummated, therapized through what I can now recognize as a brief sexual trauma. But God is still removed from me. The sun is a bit less bright. The skies are a bit less blue. And no religion or ritual fits any more, and yet I want it to now more than ever. I hold God blameless, but I fear my soul may never be repaired. It is permanently unworthy of the holy love I once received from Him, because I turned my back in the Church and explored the spirit with s man who was truly not of God. But how was I to know. How many requests for forgiveness does it take to make one feel whole again? And will I ever? Could I perhaps turn back time by asking forgiveness in the church, from the priest who taught me? It wasn't his fault I left. What's to be done now? Who rehabilitates the soul? And must I acknowledge that other spiritual leaders have lead me astray since the experience with my ex?

I never should have left the Church. It's been nothing but cults since I left. Imagine that.


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The Upgrade

Today, my hard earned paycheck went to the purchase of an iPad.

I have decided that it needs a real keyboard.


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Blueberries and Cyanide- A Rant.

Some days, I think you worse than my almost rape.
Some days, I find I can forgive a boy with an over active imagination and sex drive- over a man with a penchant for fucking the mind without a rubber.

There's no question that you planted a seed. Metaphorically speaking. Everyone would expect you to. You were a therapist, and I took the risk of blurring the boundary. Daring to call you a friend. Daring to trust you outside the safe zone where a payment is a promise that you won't be hurt.

Or is it? Just how many people have you hurt behind your mask? And gotten paid to do it?

Dual relationships of any kind are dangerous, but yours was a special kind of sick. You took the lack of daddy issues in a young woman and perverted them. You made me feel like loving my own father was a crime. My father, a man who never so much as blinked violence at me, became a temporary monster...all because you couldn't handle your relationship with your own.

After all the lies that have come out of your mouth, I don't care any more. I don't believe you ever were a victim. But I believe you make false ones everywhere. I believe you turn healthy people away from important relationships to make them codependent upon you, and that's how you get your fix. You say your daddy fucked you? Even if that is true, take a good goddamn hard look at yourself. Whether you penetrate with a penis or a twisted mind, you're no better. You are no better. The rapist lives on in your genes and you feed him every day with your narcissistic lies.

No. You're far worse than my would-be rapist.
Because unlike him, you won't grow out of your sick ways. You've fertilized them for nearly sixty years. You'll just rationalize it all away.

You penetrate the minds and soul wombs of those already raped empty, and you fill them with hope and paranoia and a world of paradox they will never escape. You shatter trust like the hymens of prepubescent girls. And you don't care. You won't answer to it. You're too much of a coward, too much of a sociopath, too much of a monster, to ever know the word redemption.

You couldn't even show your face at a fucking hearing.
I hate you. I hate that I ever trusted you with anything. I hate that I'll always mistrust myself because your bullshit only reaffirms that I get myself into these situations.

You owe me so many apologies. I'll never hear a single one.
There is no justification for your mind games.
No reason to plant false memories.
No fucking point to shredding another's sanity with your manipulative banter.
You belong in jail.
Not for wielding a dick or a knife- for wielding pure evil.
Maybe someday you'll finally end up there. Where all the evil goes.
For the kind of mental abuse no one ever talks about.
 You are the monster you claim you fear.
Too bad you're such a lousy actor when it comes to looking fearful about it.
Who knows how many people you've fed that line to?
Just to get a paycheck and a narcissistic fix.
Yes, it's healers like you that make me believe in lobotomies.
Fortunately for me, I knew better than to swallow your cyanide laced "blueberries".
But I can still hurt from the offer.

Rebel Without A Cause

So I've found myself on the other side of my intended profession, blacklisted by a former employer with nothing better to do than to smear me.  Lots of options lie ahead...lots of thinking...lots of ways to deal and cope and whatnot.  But, of course, you know me.  I'm never in the present sort of mindset.  I'm always looking five years ahead or five years behind, either to recover or discover.  I really should stop that.  (I'll let you all in on the secret when I figure out how.)

Yet, tonight my mind is in a very unique place.  A place it doesn't care to go too often.  It reaches out into the spiritual ethos and asks itself what it believes in, what it holds its dreams in.  And it asks:

Where are you now, Claudia?  Who are you now, Claudia?  And what will you do with that identity?

I'm no stranger to shifts in identity- I've met quite a few chameleons in my day.  But for myself?  Much like priding myself on fighting for my virginity (literally), I have also always prided myself on fighting for my identity.  I haven't changed much for other people.  I haven't wavered in my wants or desires or felt I needed to give anything up.  But now, I'm holding on to something so painful, it hurts to touch.  I lived out my childhood dream when I went to college.  I wanted to be a big shot, knew where I wanted to be, how I wanted to get there, do it all.  Then I did it.  And somehow, unfortunately, I ran smack into a wall of abuse...abuse that brought my dream crashing down from the sky.

I suppose it isn't unlike other similar moments in my life- I had dreamt of being spiritually enlightened, and then figured out I was in a cult.  I like to think I realized that dream, but I'm noticing the patterns are ending in pain...really traumatic pain.  If you achieve your dream, it shouldn't destroy you.  Perhaps my dreams have been unrealistic...or something in their attainment has been.

I often wonder about my fellow cult survivors, if they go through this sort of thought process.  At first when all this happened with my career, I thought God was punishing me- not for leaving the group, but for walking away from spirituality altogether.  This was his way of saying, "Fine, then I'll take something else away from you."  It certainly explained why I had this deadly fear that something would happen to my husband before I could be with him as his wife- and why after I lost that job, I packed up everything and moved an entire region away from where I was- just so I could be by his side.

The funny thing is, I never saw that as a romantic thing.  I saw it as running away.  As soon as I landed on his front doorstep, I started the search again, determined to get back to that "career".  I was so driven, so insanely driven to rise above the failure, it was as if it became another crusade, another spiritual quest, upon which I could not give up.  I lost sleep.  I had trouble eating.  I cried a lot.  My husband knew what had happened and while he was soothing and supportive, struggled with my need to succeed, my need to be cared for and loved for what I do and not who I am.

What if the problem was, all along, that I equated who I am with what I do?

What if the problem...is...that I equate who I am with what I do?

I can't remember the last time I played my instrument because I enjoyed it.  I can't remember the last time I taught someone something because I simply wanted to share knowledge.  Fulfillment only seems to come when I've reached the pinnacle of success, achieved the perfect job. 

I wonder...if it's possible...could I perhaps...attain fulfillment outside of a career?

Everything in my body tells me no way...I'd be nuts to think anything is more important than employment and a career.  And yet...thinking that certain employment options are the only way to be fulfilled is a really unhealthy thought process.  When I lost my job, it was as if my whole world went up in flames.  I spent months in bed hoping I'd wake up dead.  (That's a horrifying thing for a fiancee to face, but my husband did a splendid job helping me out of that hole.)  I truly thought my entire life was over.  It's not.  In fact, I have been careerless for a while now.  I've gotten married.  I've found things I enjoy.  It's not overwhelmingly uplifting or some kind of super psyched-up high, but you know, maybe I've had enough spiritual fulfillment for one lifetime.  Maybe I just need to embrace what is rather than weep for what isn't.

I often feel that me on the inside that hungers for another cause...kinda like a justice league member who never made the cut just itching to get out and save the world.  I hate that little bugger sometimes, but I have to laugh when I think about it now.  What exactly would he fight for?  I haven't got a sustaining career or much faith in humanity.  Just what is he gonna crusade for now?  He's just a rebel without a cause.

Maybe that'll give him some time to settle in and have a cup of tea for a change.  Maybe he could get used to not having a cause or a crusade or a whatever.  Maybe he could learn to come out to renaissance faires with my husband and I and learn to be not such a rabid part of me.  Maybe if someone let him know that he didn't have to keep his super-cape on all the time, he'd feel like he could hang it up once in a while.

Maybe if I let myself not worry about rescuing or even being rescued, that little justice-leaguer could start to learn all those things.

Maybe I could adopt a new slogan.  Something like this:
I am on the other side of the fence now.
I am the rebel.
Fuck the cause.

But that's just not me. 

Maybe I'm neither.
But that doesn't mean I'm nothing.
Maybe just nothing special.

Shit.  Maybe Mom was right- the world actually doesn't revolve around me.
Maybe I was right too- the world can use a brain like mine...in more than one way.

I don't know.  I'll give it some time.
But for now, I'm hanging up my fix-it belt and my super-cape.

Salt in the Wound

I can't sleep.  I'm too angry. 

Too disgusted with the human race tonight.  Too infuriated by political agendas, legal loopholes, and people who dodge the responsibility to be decent fucking human beings.  Too much.  It is too much tonight.

It's a night where I'm glad I sit alone in my bedroom and have nothing better to do then write in this stupid blog. 

Injustice makes me insanely angry.  I believe in unfaltering fairness- something that I know doesn't exist in this world.  But I believe in it all the same.  I try to practice it daily.  I own up and take responsibility when I fail or neglect to be fair.  So it would make sense, I think, to expect that of others.  That whole golden rule thing comes into play.

But life is not fair.  And neither are the people in it.

You know how I know this?  Because over a year ago, I worked in a town where I was chased out of my job.  I got reprimanded almost daily.  I was punished for being ill at work.  People called my home and harrassed me, leaving voice messages and ringing me in at all hours of the night.  Support groups in place for my position suddenly dropped their funding and pointed their fingers at me.  People began making up accounts where I had said something or done something inappropriate, and anyone who defended me suddenly became silent.  The lawyer I was appointed was batting for the other team because I was young enough to not need protection, or rather, not require the kind of protection I needed.

I experienced workplace abuse in the worst possible way- the kind where they can hide it in legal documents, claim hearsay, and state that everything "was documented".  Nothing was ever questioned.  I was never supported or protected.  I was burned at the stake.

And now, almost a year and a month later...I find out that this same place...has been defaming me to future employers.  And there's nothing I can do about it, because "good faith" practice dictates that they have the right to speak what they believe is the truth.

And it's bullshit.

I applied to over 70 jobs in the last 6 months.  I had at least 6 interviews.  I received a lot of "2nd place" phone calls.  And in my last interview, I found out why.  I had been charged with "unprofessional conduct" by my previous place of employment.  And only one person remains in that locale.  Only one that would even know my name well enough to speak ill of it.  And it was the man who was hell-bent on destroying me.  Either I would quit or I would be fired.  And he knew I had to stay to collect unemployment.  So he browbeat me until I collapsed- and then, when I did, he found a loophole in the contract that gave him grounds enough that a lawyer wouldn't push it too far- and fired me.

But I was supposed to have a neutral recommendation. 

Society dictates that if you tell a prospective employer not to contact a previous employer, that sends a red flag and shuts down any possibility of being employed anyhow.  Naturally I didn't want to ruin my chances.  So I trusted that the settlement that was agreed to by my lawyer and that town would be honored.

What a fucking moron I was.

My lawyer- surprise, surprise- is suddenly unreachable.  The people who are her closest contacts are some of the people who I later found out, destroyed me.  Half the district's evildoers have higher positions now.  And the monster?  Still gloating.  Apparently to everyone in the state.  So that's it.

Cornered doesn't begin to describe it.  Angry doesn't graze the surface of it.  Betrayal is so deep that you could drop a penny into the pit and never hear it hit bottom. 

And unjust.  Oh, GOD, the injustice. 

The central abuser is a pillar of society now.  Surrounded by his damned minions and his pen-and-paper accusations.  All I wanted to do was move on.  I thought if I let them dismiss me, it would finally be over.  I thought that if I left town and never spoke of it again, I'd be all right.  I'd find work again.

But people are evil.  And they like to chase others.  And watch them crumble.

And all I can do is hope and pray that someone does the same thing to them.
Only with ten times the ferocity.

This is where the human mind finds the word revenge appealing.  When something or someone acts in such a way that it destroys your way of life, instinct kicks in- fight back.  Unfortunately, fighting back has repercussions, and if you're a good citizen, well...you figure out pretty quick that fighting back will only hurt you again.  But some people ignore that.  I wish I could be one of those people.  But I'm not.  I like being a good citizen too much.

But this is the last smackdown from "the system" that I can take.  And I don't know how, or with what means, but I will work and live and thrive outside of large public corporate structures if it kills me.  I will trust no one and no thing, and no system and no place, and no belief and no "mindset", and if anyone or anything demands that of me, I will run, as fast as I can, in the opposite direction.  (I might make an exception for my husband.)

Rest in peace, trust.  Rest in peace, respect.  Rest in pieces.  I'll miss you.  I'll miss the faith I had in the judicial system, in the system of checks and balances within a workspace...I'll miss feeling like I could finally have some normalcy in my life.

Because as long as I live, I will never go back to working in that part of the public sector.  Ever.  Again.
I'd like to keep my soul while it's still battered and breathing.
If it is, anyway...


Motherfuckers.

Anniversaries, August, and the Cult

I dislike the term "anniversary".  So many people in my life have taken that word and turned it into a boon, a burden, etc.  So when I think of happy things, I don't use the word "anniversary".  I use something else.

But August is full of anniversaries- for me...for my family...for my husband...
More importantly, however, August...is a turning point in my wheel of the year.  A particularly sparkly spoke, if you will.  It isn't just because my birthday lands in it.  It's because everything seems to land in it.  It's like my own personal Chinese new year.  While the rest of the world wraps up its dog days of summer, I'm wracking my brain wondering how things will be different this year from the next.

I'm nearing my thirties.  That happens in August.  I've been alive and on this planet for more than a quarter of a century.  1/4 of a very healthy man's life.  (Possibly half of mine.  Who knows?)

My mother's mother was also born in August.  She's no longer with us, but I still remember, just the same.

The first and second of August were days of religious observance for me from about 2005-2008, respectively.  I celebrated the pagan holiday Lammas.  I often treated this as my new year and gathered tasty treats and bid farewell to summer.  I loved sending summer off with a bang.  I always welcomed fall, and Lammas gave me the opportunity to run to it head-on, colliding into its brisk arms in a crunchy hug of falling leaves and frosty cider.  I couldn't tell you why I don't still celebrate it.  Well...I suppose I could, but I'm not sure if it would be the right answer.  I miss it- but I'm not about to pick back up and reinvent my holiday traditions.  I blocked a lot of them- most of them- after 2007.  In my last year of celebrating Lammas, I forgot- entirely- how I celebrated in the past.  I instead spaced out for 2 hours and forgot what I was doing.  I also got candle wax all over my dorm floor.  I don't think you can call that celebration, really.

But I did do one thing that was bloody brilliant that August.  That very last Lammas celebration, I offered up a prayer- the very last request I made as a confirmed pagan. 

I asked God for my soulmate.

It wasn't anything dramatic.  I didn't chant or scrawl things into candles...well, I did, but I did most of that for me, to symbolize my commitment to the change I was inviting into my life.  I got up at dawn on a day on my vacation by the beach and I walked 2 miles up the cliffs and down the rocks to a little alcove where no one but you can see and feel and touch and taste the beach.  I gathered stones on my way down to the sand.  I gathered my little black handbag that had poetry about what I envisioned in my soulmate- and what I would be open to.  Some rose quartz and rose petals accompanied me in that bag, I think.  I sat in the sand, circled myself in the stones, and waited for the sun to rise over the water.  I was quiet, pensive...and very afraid. 

Let's back up a bit.  I mention I was afraid.  This is because at this particular point in my life, God- to me- was dangerous.  He/she was more unknown to me than ever.  God had put me in harm's way, or let me walk in harm's way, or something.  God, as confident as I was in his existence and his ability to make everything happen for a GOOD reason, was not making it very clear that I was in his good graces.  To be fair, it really wasn't God's fault.  See, I had placed my trust in a human- a group of humans, in fact- who felt in touch with God- and who also, in their zealousness, had placed a threat on my life.

I belonged to a spiritual group we'll simply call the Corps.  Outside of its backyard existence, it wasn't likely anyone knew who we were or what we believed- I doubt most of us knew ourselves.  But the Corps was homegrown, made from a group of teenagers who dared to ask "why" after most religious organizations had thrown these grand coming of age parties for us that we hardly understood.  We all had different backgrounds coming in- I fell into the group somehow because I was dating the leader.  Who knew what a shitstorm he could spin.

The short of the story is that the Corps went fom a spiritual think tank to a fully functional cult.  Our group met regularly to mentally and physically "train" for upcoming spiritual battles.  We also practiced a moderate form of paganism- some of us in traditional form, some of us in New Age form, some of us in its own eclecticity.  I was still very attached to my Roman Catholic upbringing.  Paganism was a hard transition for me- but mysticism in the Bible helped me better transition and plugged the holes that confirmation had brought upon me.  I was a good Pagan.  I was even a great Pagan.  And while I didn't really advertise that I was with Vode or practiced what bordered on Wicca, I knew it was at least a little visible to folks.  I didn't much mind.  I figured if I didn't shove it in anyone's face, it was no big deal.

But he wanted me to.  The leader of the Corps, an ex that I now pined after in my late teens, wanted to see me take the organization further.  It was no good if we couldn't mobilize, he said.  And I was the perfect one to mobilize- of the entire group, I was the only one to attend college- far enough away that I could no longer make Corps meetings.  I'd have to find another way to contribute.  I guess it couldn't hurt to share my experiences with others- so I did.  Within months of the beginning of my sophomore year in college, I had initiated 3 new people into the Corps and become a leader of a sort of hiving off of it.

I didn't like feeling like I was associated with the Corps.  I really desperately wanted to take some time to explore my individual spirituality.  Things were starting to get weird.  The higher ups, namely our leader, were having "visions"...visions that would turn into prophecies, seemingly overnight.  Visions I would question- and then have nightmares and no longer question them.  Instead of spending my nights up studying for school, I studied the Bible.  I scoured religious texts for similes.  I pawed at my Tarot cards and prayed to anyone and anything that would listen.  And weird shit would happen.  Stuff I just couldn't materialize as coincidental.  Hallucinations of portals in my bedroom ceiling.  Dreams of angels.  And a sick foreboding feeling about the end of the world.

I didn't really pick up on the false doctrines my leader was implanting in me.  I suppose I really couldn't have around that time- in addition to being a member of the Corps and attending regular meetings, I was also dealing with the pseudo relationship I had with the Corps's leader.  When I began in the group, we had been together- then broke up.  My mother thought he was dangerous, so I ended it.  (She could not have been more right.)  We met, often in secret, to discuss thoughts and viewpoints, for a few years.  Toward the end of high school, my leader became more persuasive in his speeches to our group- and more predatory toward me.  His questions would spike in sexuality, to the point where a meditation with him one on one over the phone would end in some powerful phone sex.  I suspected he had decided to take me back, and welcomed his advances at first...until I noticed that his advances had nothing to do with love.  More and more, he insisted that his advances were to help me break my barrier of sexual repression, to release my truest self, and etc.  He said one afternoon that if it came down to it, he would "take one for the team" and force himself upon me if it came to that.

Rape wasn't in my vocabulary then.  Rape was a word used to identify other women who were too weak-willed to stand up to the men that assaulted them.

How ashamed I was when it finally dawned on me, many years later, that one afternoon before my high school graduation was the day my leader felt he was destined to rape me.

And how glad I was that, despite 45 minutes of sexual assault under the guise of "guided meditation", I had somehow managed to escape being penetrated.  It was my proudest moment.

But at 20, now having spent about 5 years in the Corps (memory is fuzzy), I had all but shut this out.  I didn't even remember it.  I didn't even remember that it was the reason that the August of my high school graduation, I broke up with my now husband, for the first time, because I was convinced that I had asked to be touched and stimulated by 2 Corps members that fateful afternoon...and that meant I had been unfaithful to my boyfriend.  You cannot imagine what it is like to feel pleasure and wish that you could kill every nerve in your body, to get it to stop responding, to make it whisper or scream "NO", to keep saying "no" over again and think "no one will ever take me seriously"...

But as far as I was concerned, the sophomore-in-college me never experienced any of that- no, that was a spiritual enlightenment, a special initiation into my true calling.  A calling to be a divine witness...to what, I wasn't sure.  That year, I would find out.  And I wouldn't like it.

Paranoia seemed to be the drug of choice in the Corps.  If I didn't have a circle and talk to my leader about it, he'd get upset and want to know what the fuck I was doing.  He showed up to a circle of mine once- and met my initiates.  When he began to hit on one of them, I wanted to scream.  I could have reached right out and strangled him for petting her shoulder in circle that night.  I could have scratched his eyes out with my own nails- I couldn't understand my rage- I rationalized it- I rationalized it away, that I had picked up on some negative force, some old misplaced jealousy, and I let them be alone with each other.  I knew better.  God, I knew better.  But I never saw it coming.  And when she came to me the next morning and asked me if I knew where the nearest pharmacy was, I wanted every bone in my body to disintegrate- and for the LIFE of me, I could not understand why taking her to a planned parenthood clinic in the ghetto of our city was making me so physically ill.  I couldn't understand.  I had blocked any thought of harm.

The blocks came off when I started to hear him discuss the End Days.  I was in a sort of sick twister of religious jumblings and storytelling...trying to find proofs for every word that came from our leader's mouth.  And I was getting sick, too.  One afternoon, after a particularly challenging day of poring through some books on Wicca and contrasting them with my Bible and another religious script, I flipped the TV on to the History Channel.  There was a documentary there about Jonestown and its massive murder tragedy.  I had never even heard of Jonestown before then, but suddenly I felt immense pain.  The more I watched, the more my nerves began to sizzle.  I shook with rage when I heard Jim Jones' voice as he rallied his people...I shook with fear when I heard him ceremoniously call them to the vats of poison.  At the end of the documentary, I was violently ill, and at a complete loss to explain it.  I must have cried for hours.  I woke up the next morning with my eyes sealed shut from the swelling from the tears.  I got up and wrote music that day...I called the piece "Lullaby for the Human Race".  And I called my leader and told him of my experience.

And he called it an epiphany.

I didn't know what that meant.  I wasn't sure I wanted to know.  I had a sick feeling in my stomach when he said it, and proclaimed how proud he was of my tremendous breakthrough, and how wonderful things would all be very soon.  I didn't feel wonderful.  He buffered me with cries of how wonderfully compassionate my heart was and how well suited I was to be called to such a great mystery.  I thought he was on crack.  I questioned his health frequently after that.  He would smile and patronize me that I could rationalize myself out of such an immense task.

What was the task?  Oh, well, wouldn't you know...I was actually an incarnation, he said, of the seventh angel in Revelations.  After all the others blew down the world in the End Times, I would be the one to sound the call of rebirth, the song of forgiveness to the human race.

I didn't like the sound of this, but I had learned not to question my leader by now.  Maybe it was metaphorical, after all- he couldn't possibly be this serious about such a thing.  I decided to bring it up in jest one afternoon and test the metaphoric usage.  I had been so misguided.  I joked about the end of the world and my supposed role, and, while still laughing, asked him what his big important role would be.

"Oh haven't you figured that out, sweetie?  I am the beginning of the end.  I am the Christ."

Something absolutely snapped inside me when he spat those words out.  Suddenly, he was a peon.  Suddenly, he was nothing to be feared- he was a charlatan, a sick son of a bitch playing sick mind games with people, and damn it, I was going to tell him so.  This joke, this game had gone on far enough.  I never saw myself as much of a "Jesus Christ" cheerleader, but in that moment at that point in time, it was my saving grace, the switch that finally flipped for me to state, loudly enough,

"No.  You're not.  You, my friend, are fucking crazy, and I'm done with all of this."

And of course, I let him rationalize.  I let him talk.  I let him give me reasons WHY this had to be so.  But I couldn't listen any more.  And as all of my years of learning tumbled down around me, I hissed at his blasphemy, raged at his nonchalance.  How DARE he compare himself to such a high power?  How DARE he?  Who was HE to talk of such things?!  I could hardly stop myself from speaking.  I was furious beyond a state I even understood.  And as he listened to my rant, he began to speak quieter and quieter, until finally his words were just letters jumbled together on my computer screen.

"Wow.  Well then.  I guess I'm just going to have to kill you."

I remember that I laughed at first.  Laughed right out loud.  Told him he was sick and a whole bunch of other things.  And then the texts came.  Line by line.  Details on how he knew where I lived.  Details I never gave him.  Details of the kind of weapon he'd use.  How he would do it.  How I could prepare myself to die with dignity.  How he understood why I couldn't bring myself to believe in the truth, and that I would be forgiven for it, but I could not stand in the way of the great plan.  He quoted my zipcode.  He mentioned sharpening his knife.  He cautioned me not to lock my door and to stop pleading for my pathetic life.  And signed off.

I. Panicked.

Within minutes, I was on the phone to anyone who would listen, who wouldn't judge me, and who wouldn't ask questions.  I wasn't about to tell someone I was in some sort of religious cult and now the leader was after me because I thought he was cracked and wanted out- I just didn't have the frame of mind to go through that.  My best friend told me to call the police.  I called them.  They came.  They took one look at the conversation on my computer screen, told me I "could have doctored it" if I "had an axe to grind against an old boyfriend or something", laughed me off, and said to stop talking to drunk guys at night.  My roommate didn't even take me seriously.  I didn't sleep that night.  I didn't think I ever would again.  For the next two weeks, I slept in the basement of different college buildings so that I could be behind locked doors where guards would be watching 24/7.

I'm not going to kill you.  Idiot.  Thank you for showing me how pathetic and completely worthless you really are.

You'd think that would be the end of it.  But he chased me even after that.  I got a year of peace and then another call to arms.  "You threatened my life," I said angrily, "you don't get a second chance.  You or your fucking group."  But he would still call.  He'd dig.  By now, I had moved to a new location.  And I had dumped any trace of practicing paganism or any other religion.  As far as I was concerned, if I so much as sent a prayer up, the Corps doppler would catch me and shoot me down.  I couldn't.  I was paralyzed with fear around anything spiritual.  I stayed that way for quite a while.

Until an August about 4 years ago, when I finally summoned the strength to say, in one of his last prying phone calls, "If you call this number again, I will call the cops.  They will find you and they will arrest you.  And if I were you, I'd be more afraid of my threat...because it's not a threat.  It's a promise.  Leave me alone."

I don't have to tell you, I'm sure, that I didn't have to make the phone call.  I doubt it would have done me any good.  I couldn't even get a restraining order out of the written death threat I had received that night.  I no longer trust law enforcement to protect me- any more than I trust ANYONE to protect me, other than myself.

So he disappeared.  And I went and spoke to God at dawn on a cool breezy beach that August.  And I told him I was ready to be free.  And that, if and when I was ready, I would love to meet my REAL soulmate.  That there was no hurry- but that if I had managed to find it within myself to walk away from this cult leader, I probably had a good idea of who I was- if not externally.

And my high school squeeze, just like that, walked back into my life.  And dated me long distance for years.  And finally married me, just last month, almost exactly a month ago today.  And I wouldn't change a thing about it- or him.

He knows that August is hard for me.  It's hard on him, too.  Anniversaries are not pleasant for him- his brother died over 10 years ago this month.  And yet he can still appreciate how I still feel stabbed in the chest by the Corps and its leader, how I feel scraped empty and I always question what the "truth" really is...until it leaves me spaced out and crying on the couch.  And he can appreciate that the pain of a similar betrayal that happened last August with a therapist is just as real, just as awful.

But that is a story for another time.

Lammas has come and gone.  I've not celebrated it.  But I do celebrate August, with all my heart and soul, however internal it may be. 

Because every August, I learn a little bit more about who I truly am.  And how truly strong I can be.

Father Figure

Heat fills up my face and torso.  The screen blips and the machines start beeping to alert the masses.  My pulse just spiked from 90 to 120 and it refuses to drop.  And my spine feels like it's going to throw up.  That's probably the strangest sensation out of all the symptoms- feeling like your spine just became human, grew a stomach and an esophagus, and just ate a live squid.  My arms tingle and I feel a squeeze on my forearm from my husband.  "Hey, are you okay?"

I'm having a minor anxiety attack- and by sheer coincidence, I happen to be in an emergency room, hooked up to a machine that takes my vitals.  I'm here for a routine examination while trapped between insurances and doctor changes, but someone pushed the magic button in my brain, somehow...and I just short-circuited my personal machine.  It's all I can do to keep myself from throwing up.  And the doctor walks in to my screen of biological nonsense bleeping and blipping and asks me if my pulse is normally this high, making skeptical notes on her chart.

"It's...I have panic disorder.  And I'm not a big fan of hospitals," I mutter sheepishly.  She walks over and holds one of my hands, which is both soothing and awkward, and tells me to think of fluffy puppies.  I get what she's trying to do.  I tell my brain and my vomit-spine and my subconscious shame to shut down immediately.  I don't think of puppies because trying to think of a singular something is like surfing the internet for the definition to a word- you get sidetracked, end up playing a game, chatting on Facebook, and researching our dream vacation all in the same space, and that word is nonexistent the second you flip the power button.  No.  I prefer to pull the plug when I'm losing control.  I find a point on the wall where the paint meets the cement and force myself into believing that I'm sleeping.  My muscles unclench, my breathing deepens, and my vision blurs.  I haven't always been this good at shutting off my body, but I can temporarily stall the engine to give it a systemic reset.  I can feel the waves of panic just slightly above my head- they will come back the second I realize I'm not actually sleeping, but I might be slightly better at coping with the waves now that I have a subconscious surfboard.  My pulse dips and the beeping stops.  I make a joke at 90 miles per word that I must have died for a second there, and my pulse spikes and then stabilizes at an uncomfortable 106.  The doctor smiles and pats my hand, and tells the nurse to mark it at 106 and note that unfamiliar environments can be unpleasant for folks with anxiety.  I'm filled with gratitude, and my pulse spikes and then drops again.


Most of the time, when anxiety hits, I go through it and try not to let it resurface.  But today I'm consumed with the why.  Triggers, for me, are usually pretty obvious.  The night before an interview, I'm always violently ill.  Documentaries about cults send me into a cleaning frenzy or a writing storm, accompanied by the shakes and a side of asthma.  And a grab of the wrists apparently causes an immediate retraction into the fetal position with the words, "Don't," repeated ad nauseum for about 10 minutes.  So I know my triggers, most of the time.  Sometimes smaller things set me off- changes in routine, travel that lasts over an hour, you know.  But today's trigger is so miniscule that I almost miss it.  I almost don't understand it.  So, of course, I have to analyze the fuck out of it.

The image of a therapist with sunglasses on his face...and he looks so...fucked...up...like something I've seen before in the movies...like......

I violently shake my head.  No.  Playing into paranoid images in my brain is NOT going to halt the oncoming train of anxiety.  That's what I'm supposed to be doing- halting it.  I turn it off for a while.

At half past bedtime o'clock, it's back, and this time, there's no chatter in the house to stop it from coming.  I turn on the television.  I plug into the computer.  I start cleaning.  And researching.  And writing.

Shit.  Wrong idea.  Here it fucking comes. 

This isn't a dream.  It's a memory.  It's a memory distorted by the encyclopedia that bangs around in my brain- but it is a flesh-and-blood memory.  And it's not one that I wanted to revisit...at all.  Still, it's not going to go away, so I force myself to stay in the present moment and recall accurately, without fantasizing a different ending or more dramatic flair to the images.  It's real, it happened, I'm not alone...and no matter how stupid it sounds, it's legitimately frightening to me, which is enough.

I break away from the noise of the TV, the glow of the computer screen, and the snoring of my husband, and go back.



"Sweetie, you're just stuck in a fascist, witch-hunt of a community that needs someone young and innocent to blame.  You're their virgin sacrifice.  You can choose not to be."
"Look, that's not the point, Joey.  I KNOW they're being assholes, okay?!  But I have to feed myself and live under a roof and have a place to sleep, you know?  I don't GET a fucking choice in the matter.  It's play along or ACTUALLY be killed.  I just have to wait until they fire me.  There's no other way out- I've got to be able to take care of myself when they do.  I can't risk losing unemployment."
"Fine.  Whatever you say, Claudia.  You always know best."
"Oh come on, please don't pull that shit at this hour.  You know I hate that."
"I'm sorry.  I'm really not trying to start shit with you, honey.  I meant it as a compliment.  You DO really know what's best for you, or you wouldn't be as strong as you are right now."
"I'm not strong.  It's 11 at night and I'm sobbing on the phone to my ex-therapist because the thought of waking up tomorrow scares the fuck out of me."
"You're sobbing on the phone to your friend who loves you and cares about you.  You're surviving.  And doing it damn well, given the circumstances."
"That too...I guess.  God, I wish there was something you could do- ANYONE could do- to make this easier."
"Me too, babe......yikes.  Sorry.  Pet names are really inappropriate, that one in particular.  Crossed a line there, I'm really sorry."
"Oh relax, like I'm going to yell at you for calling me 'babe'.  My own father calls me that.  It doesn't really bother me- if it did, you'd know."
"Okay."
"So...how about we talk about this project you're working on, or whatever.  You've been off the scene for a while in your current crusade, haven't you?"
"Yeah.  I just haven't been feeling well.  This call isn't about me, though, it's about you."
"Suppose I decide not to make it about me for the next fifteen minutes- that cool with you?  I just need to not be in my own head."
"I'll do what I can."
"Thanks."

There's a long blip in my memory as I start to remember that this was a phone conversation- a fragment of it- from last May, with an individual I had trusted very much.  Someone I never should have trusted at all.  Anyhow, the memory is back, like a skip on a videocassette, and I'm back listening to the conversation in my head as I stare out at the lights on the street through my window.  This part of my memory sends chills down my spine, and as I try to tell myself that it isn't real, that I must be overexaggerating, and anything else I can, my body gives me a sharp jolt of nervous energy that makes me feel pins and needles over every inch of my body.  It's as if my brain suddenly went, "I'm sorry, Claudia, but you don't get to minimize this one."  I'm back on that couch alone in my old house...at 3 am...laughing about something on the phone...and then...

"I've always felt and thought of you as like a daughter to me."
"That's flattering, Joey.  Thanks."
"I mean it.  I never got to have children.  I guess they weren't in the stars for me, or whatever.  But if I had a daughter, I bet...I hope...she'd be a lot like you."
"That's really touching, Joey.  I like having a sort of second father figure in my life, too.  You're a very dear friend."
"I wish I could just take you under my wing and get you AWAY from all that crap up there.  You know we have a spare bedroom at my house."
"Yeah...it's okay.  I appreciate the sentiment, but I've got family and stuff."
"Family that makes you feel like shit and like it's your fault for the way this company is abusing you......sorry.  I just don't get people who blame their child for things not working out to perfection."
"It's not their fault, Joey, come on.  They're as mad at that company as I am- they just...don't think that I'm blameless.  And I'm probably not."
"Bullshit!  What did you EVER do to deserve the treatment you're getting?!  The issue here has nothing to do with you being inadequate, it has to do with a pencil dick being in charge of your paycheck who's too goddamn insecure to take a look in the fucking mirror!!  I mean, someone oughta take a shotgun to the man's face and give him a wake-up call to the way he's treating you!"
"Heh, maybe.  That seems a bit extreme, though, don't you think?  Whatever.  It's just a job, right?"
"Yeah.  You're right.  I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to get all scary on you.  I just feel so bad- I really wish someone would go in there and defend your honor.  Or that YOU at least would."
"I am.  I'm just doing it passively.  They can eat shit as far as I'm concerned- I'll collect my paycheck one way or another.  It's just that another way to do that is to let them run me out so I can collect the money while not having to show up for work any more.  I'll do my healing then.  I promise."
"Okay, daughter of mine.  But you better take care of yourself, understand?  Don't make me do that trippy therapist thing."
"You ARE a therapist- that's what you do, ya moron.  But I gotcha.  I'll be okay.  I feel better talking to you.  Look, it's getting late- you're old and cranky and you should be in bed.  And if I want any shot at making it to work on time tomorrow, I need to get some sleep too.  Sheesh.  This was supposed to be a brainstorming session for your project, wasn't it?  I was supposed to be that lovely friend that helped put your ideas on paper?  What a lame-o I am, huh?"
"Stop that.  Don't make me come up there, missy.  You know that's not a real threat, right?"
"Haha, yeah, I know, Joey.  I know.  I'm sorry if I kept you up late."
"You didn't.  I'm up at this hour all the time anyway.  Can't really sleep.  Besides, you let me talk about what I needed to talk about too.  Nobody's hurt here.  Just sleep deprived."
"Right.  Well, that needs to be remedied.  So I'm gonna say goodnight, okay?"
"Okay, kiddo.  Listen...I love you.  I will never abandon you."
"I......yeah, you too.  Now go get some sleep, you old bastard, will ya?  Night."

The images faded, but the weird feeling in my gut from that strange night had returned.  Slowly, I let the image of myself standing up and hanging up the phone fade.  I watched my year-younger self start to shake, violently, talk out loud to myself that "that's not weird, is it?  Friends say that to each other, right?" and send myself into a spasmodic episode of dry heaves, in between, shoveling out the words- "But it IS weird.  It IS weird.  Father figure?!  The fuck?!  'Daughter of mine?'  I mean it's sweet and it's touching, but god, I am not COMFORTABLE with hearing this shit.  I gotta call this friendship off before it gets too weird.  Or I gotta distance myself.  Or something.  Jesus.  I can't handle this much transference.  I must be blowing it out of proportion- I mean for gods sake, all we do is talk on the phone, that's innocent enough.  Where's my phone?  I gotta talk to my fiancee.  Fuck.  It's 4 o'clock in the morning.  Oh god..."

My husband, well before he became my husband, knew...though he had his doubts...what was going on.  After I talked to him about that night, he asked me, carefully, if I knew how I was going to handle future interactions.  I told him I planned on just not calling the man any more.  If he wanted to talk, he could call me.  Normal people do that.  So the calls would come in, and in, and in.  In fact, the more I pulled away, the more that things...seemed to go wrong with Joey.  People would leave him, shit would get destroyed...it was like a hurricane of hell had descended on his simple life- and on top of that, clients were harrassing him.  Pity drove our conversations upward from fifteen minutes to three hours...again...this time, dominated by his tales of woe.  I felt sorry for him.  I wanted to help.  At one point, I thought of sending him a moneygram- just to help pay the grocery bill.  But by now, I was living under my now-husband's roof.  And he saw what was going on.  And he didn't like it.

My husband is not one to raise his voice.  He's not one to even raise his suspicions.  He keeps his thoughts to himself.  So when I got off the phone with Joey that afternoon and began to share the conversation with him, he quietly turned and asked me a question.

"Claudia?  Do you ever think that...I don't know...that's an awful lot of misfortune to happen in such a short period of time, to just one man?"

I bristled and became defensive.  "What, you think he's lying to me?  YOU, the expert on how much tragedy can befall another human being in their hour of need?!"  My husband raised his hands in defense, slowly...calmly.

"I just think that he's putting a lot of pressure on you to help him with his burdens.  Emotionally, I mean.  I know he doesn't expect anything of you physically and all that...but you care about people, and for people, very strongly.  I just don't want to see that compassion taken advantage of.  And I am afraid that's what he might be doing.  I hope I'm just overreacting."

My face softened as I realized what he had meant, and we cuddled for a long while after that and talked about some of the things that had happened while I was going through my job stress.  My husband had been deployed for a good chunk of that time, and Joey had been someone I could go to when I couldn't talk to my husband.  Joey was safe.  He didn't have an ulterior motive or sexual interest, he was just Joey.  But, in talking with my husband about all these conversations, I began to realize that Joey might have been anything but safe.

His suspicions were proven right just a few short months later, when Joey severed all contact with me after I unearthed some suspicious activities he had made on a project we had worked on together.  When I confronted him on them, he cried abuse and took off...changed his name, his profession, and his living locale, erasing everyone's hard work and writing each project member off so viciously that you would never know these had been long term friends he was working with.  I wasn't as hurt as I expected I'd be when he finally wrote me off as well...but newly afraid that I could be duped again, by someone equally as charismatic as Joey.  I developed a sense of injustice, and I started to embrace the uncomfortable feelings- my "red flags"- that I had gotten while talking with this man.  I got in touch with other "former friends".  I read- and listened- to patterns...patterns so identical, it was as if each person had been telling my story, without my even telling it.  Right down to the words Joey used in conversation.  I felt like throwing up.  A month after shit rained down on the project, I collapsed, feeling like I had just run through the rainforest in Guyana to get away from a vat of Kool-Aid.

A therapist with sunglasses on his face, all fucked up...shit, that was it.  The paranoid picture in my head.  I always thought Joey looked creepily like Jim Jones.  Why was that always an afterthought when I listened to him speak?  That image...that...thought...

I guess I know what triggered the attack now.  Just a paranoid picture in my head.  But a picture is worth a thousand words.  And more than a thousand went into this entry, I guess.  And of course Joey's not Jim Jones.  That's totally psychotic.  But it's interesting that my brain made a connection like that.  And it certainly isn't something I can just...ignore, either.  Joey got caught red-handed being a hypocrite and a monster- and when an intervention was staged in the presence of friends, he beat them up emotionally and fled like a rabid animal.  Maybe they do share some similarities.

Maybe I should also stop watching cult documentaries.

At least I have an explanation for the panic attack, anyway.  There's always a trigger.  I just never know which one my brain is going to pull.

God, I let him call me "daughter"....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_9hfHvQSNo