Mother's Night: Remembering Gramma

late 1930's Gram, kids, cousins

The first night of Yule is Mother's Night, a time to celebrate our female Ancestors who gave us life, nurtured us, and passed down their wisdom and Gifts. My father's mother was a woman most worthy of honor. She raised her children during the depression on farmsteads in rural ND often with limited water supplies while her husband traveled the state working. Dad would always say that Gramma (who was about 4' 8") could pick up a grown man, turn him upside down, and drop him on his head...I suspect he may have witnessed and/or experienced this.She suffered incredible hardships as a child (I'll save that story for another day), and yet she was the most loving person I encountered during my first couple of decades on this planet.

I lost Gramma to esophogeal cancer in 1982 when I was 10. Her funeral was held on April 1st; I couldn't believe she was gone, and kept waiting for someone to say "April Fools!" and end the nightmare. Her sister Helen who I hadn't seen in years was at the funeral and looked just like Gramma, so when I saw her I thought it must really be some sort of horrible joke. But it was no joke, no elaborate hoax. My beloved grandmother who had showed me the unconditional love that was the Light in my Darkness, had passed to the afterlife.

I usually got to stay with Gramma during the Christmas school break, but that winter she was in the hospital. I asked my mother when I could go see her, but she told me that I could see her when she was "stronger and could sit up in bed." Funny how clearly I remember that lie.

Whenever I visited my grandmother the first thing she would do is send me out to the garage to get a pail of her butterscotch or chocolate chip cookies out of the deep-freeze to snack on while I was there. I would dip into the pail before the cookies were completely thawed...perhaps that is why I am so fond of frozen sweets to this day. Along with cookies she would make Nestle's Quick cocoa with canned Carnation milk. And never did I hear from her about getting "fat" if I ate too many sweets, nor was I told to suck in my gut so I didn't look fat; I was just loved, and accepted, and never once shamed.

I've been blessed to have a few things that belonged to my grandmother; the narrow bladed antique kitchen knife that she popped through the top of the Carnation cans to open them (even though she had a perfectly good can opener in her drawer), her hand mixer, and her recipe box including her cookie recipe. For years I didn't try to make her cookies because of some weird idea of it being sacrilegious, but a couple years ago I hunted through the box and found the recipe, and using her hand mixer (and a few modifications since I'm allergic to egg and wheat) made a batch of her cookies. Since then, it has become my Yule tradition to make a batch of her cookies to honor her memory and her love, and for awhile I have my Gramma next to me, her Light in my own heart. In the Pagan tradition I follow we speak of the Well, the Water's below that hold the Wisdom of our Ancestors. Perhaps the the Well is fed by the tears we shed for our beloved ancestors, if so, it has been well fed by grief.

But as I nibble my pile of cookies I remember my grandmother, and the love she blanketed me in. I remember her strength, her patience, and her gentleness. And I honor her for the gift of the healing of my Heart that I carry with me always.

Glad Yule! May your Kindreds bless you, guide you with their wisdom, and surround you with love!

PS: For those of you who know me, you probably know my love of cookies. My love of cookies isn't just a love of the perfect combination of chewy and crunchy, salty and sweet; it's about the Love that was baked into those cookies. Cookies are Love and Comfort.

Navigating Medication

I've been blessed (ha!) by the mental health fairy. I suffer (I use that word with intent) from dysthymia which is a low grade form of depression that is very hard to treat with medication of therapy. I also suffer from episodes of major depression. I don't know if it's the semi-recent head injury or just aging, but the bouts of major depression have getting more frequent, longer, and more severe. And to make all of this more fun I suffer from PTSD as well. On the positive side I escaped BPD and mania, unlike some of my family members, so there was that blessing from the mental health fairy.

Over the years I've had a shit-load of therapy which has definitely saved my life. I've tried various "natural" remedies, "alternative" therapies, as well as attempts with Western medications. I was kinda done trying medications as the attempts in the past have come with some wicked side effects, some of which are still with me (memory loss, manic episodes), so I'm just not in a big hurry to fuck with my brain in that way. But this last bout of depression really kicked my ass...like I have said several times since starting to come out of it, "I can't survive another round like that." So, here I am desperate enough to try again. I believe I'm on my third medication trial this time around and I've lasted more that my usual 2-5 days before the side-effects get too severe, so there's that.

Tonight I start on the higher dose and I'm feeling pretty apprehensive. Although I've been tolerating this new med much better than everything else I've tried over the years, it does make me super tired, and little dopey/out of it, and emotionally kinda apathetic (until I have one of my frustration flip-outs), and the last 2 nights I've started the insomnia portion of the side effects. It's possible that I will acclimate after I've been on the meds for awhile, and it's also possible that I will get completely fucked up...and that scares me. I'm scared of the "increased thoughts of suicide", I'm scared about the "feeling confused" (and what if it doesn't go away?), I'm scared about the "diminished coordination" (and what if that doesn't go away? My hands ARE my money makers, and I'm already experiencing this one). Is the cure worse than the disease?

And right now I'm in the dysthymia groove, not the major depression, so the meds even when/if I acclimate aren't likely to do that much for me, and if I continue to have even low grade cognitive or emotional side-effects I'll function a helluva lot better without them. But will they prevent or lessen a bout of major depressions? Would it be better to hold off on the meds and wait until I hit another cycle of major depression? Hell if I know. First things first: see if I tolerate the higher dose of this shit, and hope that any side-effects are short lived.

Even though financially it's been a burden, I've been fortunate I haven't been working much during this little experiment because I couldn't function in my normal job with the side-effects I've gotten to dance with so far, and there's days it was lucky I didn't have to drive anywhere because I don't think I could have safely. Which is really kinda scary when you think about all the people who are driving around with a belly full of medications. Anyway, I'm tired...tired from the side-effects, tired from not sleeping well, tired of trying this shit and not having the magical remedy, tired of navigating life through the lens of Dysthymia/Depression/PTSD/TBI. I heard someone say that running the dryer with the lint trap full of lint was like trying to jog with a snorkel mask on. That's a really great metaphor for how day to day life feels for me. I don't have any hope that the medications will ever take the mask off, but maybe they will keep me from drowning the next time I get pulled into the deep.

Victim vs Survivor: My 2 cents (which won't buy you jack today)

Several years back the term "survivor" in regards to assaults of varying types came to replace "victim" as a way of saying "I'm no longer a victim/I AM more than a victim", or "I'm more than what the attacker did to me." It's really a great sentiment, and a great way of reclaiming our power. And I also think it's okay to use the word victim (stay with me!). During the heyday of support groups we were admonished for offering someone a tissue when they were crying because we were telling them that we were uncomfortable with their tears and they needed to stop crying (for our comfort). Let me just take a second to say to a certain degree I think that's bullshit...c'mon, y'all know if you've got snot dripping down your face you want your posse to hand you a snot rag, not so you can stop crying but so you can wipe away the 6" snot-string hanging off your face while you ugly cry to your hearts content. We can hand someone a tissue and tell them to get it all out, OR to get over it. Just like our offered tissue can be the white flag to say "I'm uncomfortable with tears, please stop, I need for you to be okay cuz I don't know how to make it okay," correcting people to always refer to themselves as survivors rather than victim when they are emotionally/mentally/spiritually bleeding out could be construed as saying the same thing as that tissue. Are we telling the victim/survivor, "okay, I'm uncomfortable with your pain/your trauma/your experience; I need you to be okay now because I don't know how to hold space/don't know how to make it okay/am uncomfortable with your pain/am uncomfortable with this topic/etc"?

If there were such a thing as a specific threshold over which we cross from victimhood to survivorhood, what the hell would that threshold be? When the assault ends? (And what if it's a repeated assault- in the in-between-assault times is that person expected to wear the mantle of "survivor" or are they still a victim)?  Is it when we are finally "safe", ah but that's the tricky part about trauma...do we ever really feel safe? For anyone I've talked to or read about who has gone through a sexual assault court case they have always spoken of being "re-victimized" by the process, so is it after the court case is over that we get to strap on our badge that says "SURVIVOR" (If we are lucky enough to see our perp be convicted...which may or may not result in jail)? Is is when we can see that type of jacket, or that color of hair, or smell that smell without having a panic attack? Who gets to define what the magic threshold is? Is it really a set place, or a moving target?

I vote that it is a moving target because healing isn't linear. Healing isn't a one-time deal. There is no singular threshold. There is no steady progress. It's ups and downs/3 steps forward 2 steps back. It's going in circles, and it's moments of being mired. It's thinking you're all good and then a smell, or a news story, or a mention of a name, or an anniversary knocks you on your ass and you are back in that moment of terror and horror, the present faded into nothingness. The journey of healing is messy, and ugly, and wonderful, and magical, and often unpredictable...and always personal. There's no "getting over it," it is as much a part of us as our birth date, or how baby hippo videos make us laugh, but we learn to live with the memories and ramifications of the assault(s), we learn to live with this altered-self. We learn to live. The person we have become creates its strict routines and boundaries that keep the worst of the flashbacks and triggers from popping up during the mundane, day to day things that are a part of living as normal as possible...our rituals give us a little control over some of the upsets that can knock us off balance or embarrass us at work. As we grow and heal those upsets hopefully become fewer, less intense, more manageable through our modifications...until they're not. And sometimes the things that once would completely destroy us are defused from hours and hours of therapy/reflection/self-care/self-soothing/creating safety.

Moral of the story; if someone uses the word "victim" to refer to themselves it isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it isn't necessarily helpful to correct them. Yes, sometimes it can be helpful to help someone re-frame their narrative in order to remind them that they did indeed SURVIVE. And if someone never wants to hear the word "victim" associated with them, then fuck yeah, nix that word! It's up to the individual what they want to call themselves, how they want to reclaim their power, and to determine where they are in their journey. If you take a look below either word is appropriate.  When looking at the definition of survive/survivor: "to remain alive after the death of", although it infers literal death of another, in the case of trauma, the survivor survives, continues to live on in spite of the death of a part of themselves...and there is always a death of some aspect of our old selves after a trauma (sense of safety, connection to our body, love of a certain activity or place, etc). We indeed survive, but we were also victims, and those two things can exist together.  And maybe if we give ourselves room to acknowledge that we have been been injured, and adversely affected; that it wasn't just those 5 minutes/months/years of The Event(s), but that we are affected for a lifetime, that we live with the aftermath of The Event(s) daily (even the days we manage not to think about it, because we are forever changed) we can give ourselves room to grieve, to heal, and to not shame ourselves when we are so not okay. And without shame, or guilt of thoughts of "I should be over it" we can allow ourselves to be in pain, devastated, lost, and torn to bits...and how much brighter the sun shines when compared to the moments of the darkness of our deepest sorrows.

Per our friend Merriam-Webster:

Definition of survive

intransitive verb

1: to remain alive or in existence : live on

2: to continue to function or prosper

transitive verb

1: to remain alive after the death ofhe is survived by his wife

2: to continue to exist or live aftersurvived the earthquake

3: to continue to function or prosper despite : WITHSTANDthey survived many hardships

Definition of victim

1: one that is acted on and usually adversely affected by a force or agentthe schools are victims of the social system: such as

a(1): one that is injured, destroyed, or sacrificed under any of various conditionsa victim of cancera victim of the auto crasha murder victim

(2): one that is subjected to oppression, hardship, or mistreatment

If you would like to read about a journey of being broken down and building one's self back up check out Chanel Miller's memoir, Know My Name. http://www.chanel-miller.com/

Epilogue

There's a story I shall call November 16th which I have written in bits and pieces over the years. A few weeks ago I did some writing that connected some things, and brought some things to light that had previously been hidden in the shadows. I pulled the post because it was just too much...too raw, but it opened the door for me to look at the whole picture; to see the prologue and the epilogue, not just The Event. Today's telling is of the aftermath. The fears, the worries, the insecurities, the new narratives that ran rampant through my head. It's a story of losing my power, my volition, and eventually my will to live. And a story of having no more resources to deal with a storage unit full of hurts.

                                                                         ***
First, a little prologue:

Prior to Nov 16 I had been my dad's caretaker following his cirrhosis diagnosis. No family support, no close friends to share my burden with. (Even if I had had friends in my life, I had learned from my family at a very young age not to talk about what was going on, for example when my mother learned that my teacher had sent me to see the school counselor her response was "Don't say anything about your dad's drinking or the social workers will take you away." Getting the notice of my mother in general was giving her an opportunity to shame me, so talking about shit just wasn't in my tool box.) In September, just days after my 20th birthday my father died. With his death was the loss of many things...my ties to the ranch I had grown up on and had thought as a child I would never leave, a sense of family; the one living relative I had who shared my surname, all the things that I wanted to learn from him, and the home/safe haven I shared with him. All gone.

Then came November 16, 1991, The Event. Pounding on my apartment door woke me in the darkness of predawn, and shot me into a heart-racing panic; the only reason anyone would be pounding on my door this early is if my mom's boyfriend had finally shot her and the police were at my door to tell me she was dead. I raced to the door in my night gown trying to shake off the sleep haze. I peered through the peep-hole wishing I could afford a damn robe before opening the door. Jeff. The guy I'd met at my new security guard gig who showed up in my life at random times, always drunk, but at this hour surely he was sober?

I opened the door relieved that it wasn't the police, and annoyed that he had woken me from my sleep, ashamed I didn't own a robe, and wondering why he had showed up in wee hours of the morning.

***
Epilogue

A few years back my mother had spoken the line, "Oh honey, we're just not meant to have good things in our lives." Although I hadn't explicitly heard the line during The Event, it was certainly a belief I had even if I couldn't state as succinctly as my mother had during that conversation. I had allowed myself a little bit of hope in my early college years that maybe if I did the right things life could be something other than shit. Challenge after challenge came along, and I trudged on thinking things would get better. When November 16th happened I gave up hope that life would ever be anything but shitty...I was just not meant to have good things in my life. 

Since becoming an adult up until November 16, 1991 I had believed I was finally big enough and strong enough to protect myself. I believed I was no longer weak and vulnerable. I had a strong narrative about myself as a bad-ass, strong woman, but that morning that narrative was shattered. What was I then? Weak, and vulnerable. Useless. A useless body, a useless voice, a useless will. I was useless, and in my darkest moments my life was pointless, and I was also pointless.

Then there were the months of absolute terror that I might be pregnant, and the absolute resolve to kill blow my brains out if I was pregnant. The terror that lasted for years that I might have contracted AIDS (back then what we talked about was AIDS, not HIV). And AIDS was still a death sentence back then, and tests weren't readily available. Every cold, every flu, every weird skin thing that showed up I was sure was a sign that I had AIDS and was going to die from it. I wasn't finally convinced I was in the clear until years later was I was finally able to get a test.

And lets not forget about shame. The shame that it happened. The shame of losing my closely guarded virginity...the later shame of the lesbian community that values the "righteous" lesbian. The shame of not fighting "hard enough" whatever the fuck that means. The shame of well-meaning people assuring me without knowing my story that their's was far worse so I didn't have to be ashamed which furthered the narrative of "well, it wasn't that bad"...and if it wasn't really that bad I'm just weak/wrong/stupid for not being okay?

Like my dad's death 2 months prior, I tried to put the experience of November 16th, and whatever unidentified emotions in to a box and bury them. In late December that same year when my roommates were once again away, and as the snow blanketed the city on a quiet, peaceful night, I took my dad's .357 revolver out of my gun cabinet and crawled under the table. Sobbing, drowning in the pain of countless wounds to mind and spirit, and blinded by hopelessness and isolation I put the loaded gun to my temple. The fleeting thought, "What if tomorrow is better," bumped me out of my tunnel vision just enough to get me to put the gun away. If you would have asked me then why I was so engulfed in sorrow I would not have stated November 16th as one of the reasons; but as I look back with clearer vision I can see that it was the proverbial "straw that broke that camels back." Hell, I believed that crying at my dad's viewing and funeral meant I was supposed to be done grieving and should have been over it. There were so many things I thought I should be over, and that fact that I wasn't just created another layer of shame, one more wet blanket to carry around on top of everything else. And if I still wasn't over any of this shit, then surely there was no escape; I would never be over it.

I hid in self imposed isolation through the worst of the darkness. My roommate would have supported me through some of this shit had I let her, but I didn't know how or was too terrified of the vulnerability of sharing my burden. I didn't get into therapy until a couple years later, and still this event didn't get talked about until years later. I'm only now, 28 years later talking about carrying the terror of having contracted AIDS.

I always try to end on some high note, some positive take-away. I have no Polly-Anna platitude today. Sometimes shit sucks, and it's really hard, and it just needs to be acknowledged as such.

breaking cycles

(This is a post from 2 years ago that I never published...I'm being brave and doing it now)

I have someone in my life who very dearly clings to her identity as a victim. Pain is so deeply ingrained into her identity, that she can't envision herself without it. I've seen her make decisions over the years, even when she has been presented with the tools and opportunities to make more 'positive' decisions, that perpetuated her further pain and victimization.

As a child she was abused, she was in foster care, she never had a chance to learn the skills of living. Yes, she could cook, clean, hold a job (from a very young age). But she never learned about self esteem, valuing herself, setting boundaries. She continued to perpetuate the cycle of abuse she had grown up in through her choice in men. And this is the gift she passed on to her children. The gift of pain.

I know all of her children to some degree. Some I have a relationship with, some I don't. But it wasn't until recently that I made the connection between all of their...personality quirks, and their childhood experiences. And some of them have tried to break the cycle, and some don't even realize that they are in a cycle, or that there is anything wrong in their little world of chaos.

Today I went to a friend's graduation from IMPACT. It was intense watching some of the class struggle to find their voice, or stay in the moment, or stand their ground...to get out of the "freeze" cycle. And it was powerful to see all of these people cheered on and supported by their classmates as they bravely faced their fears in front of a room full of onlookers. All of these people decided that they were going to break a cycle. And that is pretty awesome.

I look at my own life...and I knew from a very early age that I needed to do things different from my parents. Yet, not everyone in the same situation sees that there is a problem and it needs to be changed. What is the difference? Why do some of us see that alcoholism and violence is a problem, and some just see all of that as normal? And why do some of us make the choice to break those patterns, and others willfully continue those patterns? I'm not saying change is hard even when you recognize it needs to be made, because it is not. It is hard AF, yet people do it every day all over the world. Some have a vast array of physical, mental, and emotional resources while others have none.

Be brave, be bold. Be terrified and brave. Be unsure and be brave. Be brave and unsure. Just keep breaking those patterns that don't serve you. Break those patterns so the next generation doesn't have to.

Walking with Skadi

As I read of the Goddess of Winter, Skadi, I am transported to my childhood. Sharp memories of the crisp, unforgiving winters of North Dakota. So many nights of walking the last few miles home at my father's side, leaving the truck stuck in a snow filled ditch. The still, silence of the snow insulated landscape, the only sound the crunching of our cowboy boots on the frozen,crusty snow and slush, and the occasional yip of coyotes in the distance. Boots stiff from the frigid ground, toes tingling, burning, and achy from the unrelenting cold. The dark night canopy was cloudless most nights, and dotted with bright, shining stars to help guide us home over the rough terrain.  Each hill a little closer to home, but as I got colder and more tired I lost count of the hills and my resolve to keep up with my dad's long strides waning. Just one more hill, and I will see the car-pass above our house. No, surely this is the last hill...no... And yet I kept walking, boot heels carving our path home, and eventually we would make it to the last hill. At the sight of your light pole set in the middle of the corral my hope, and my resolve would be restored.

How many nights did we make this journey on foot because dad was too drunk to be behind the wheel? Yet how many times were we saved from injury because of that same snow that chilled the air, and my limbs also slowed our skids, slides, careens, and veers off the gravel road and into the ditch? And each time we made it home safely, below freezing temperatures and no street lights to guide us home, with no more than a severe chill, and a good helping of frost nip. Was it luck, or was there someone watching out for us? Did the Spirits of the Land take pity on us, or a liking to us? Was the Great Huntress of the North  protecting me, and walking by my side? Maybe, maybe not. According to Merriam Webster, Faith is "firm belief in something for which there is no proof." I certainly have to "proof" of divine intervention, but I certainly have a body of experience that says there are many times my life could have easily have been forfeit, yet here I am nearing half a century on this planet. As physically miserable as those treks home were, and as terrified as I was of the creatures of the night that might get us, the beauty of the Winter Night was never lost on me. Perhaps that beauty is part of what helped me to carry on.

If you would like to learn more about Skadi here's a lovely, quick read: http://www.lulu.com/shop/laura-snow-fuller/lady-of-the-mountain-hall-a-skadi-devotional/paperback/product-24314740.html