Angela B. Chrysler's Blog, page 11

Happiness: Finding Direction

With my new life, my new growth, my new me I was able to embrace the world around me. I think back often to the day I stepped out of the other worlds that were in my head. I felt I had awakened. I had. I left my room and noticed my children had all grown three or four inches. When did they get so tall? How long was I away? I walked down stairs seeing sunlight for the first time. I saw my plants. They were all dried and dead. When did I ignore my plants? I never ignore my plants. How long was I gone that they would die in my absence?

This is exactly how my new life felt. I heard a dog…just heard a dog and nothing more. No trauma. No startled reaction. No war. I breathed deep the clean air. The war was truly over. I could see, hear, and feel everything around me as if for the first time.

My mind was clearing up. My heart and chest were free of burden. It was time to turn to my next phase. Healing the physical.

Remember what I said. “Be honest with yourself.” By the gods, this was so hard.

“I hate my body. I want to rip my breasts off my chest. There are days…ever since I was fifteen…I’ve felt this thing on my skin. It makes me just want to scrub my skin off. I wrap myself in layers of clothes and blankets, and curl up in the corner. There, I wait for it to pass. Some times it lasts for days. I feel like I’m standing naked before everyone. I just hate it and I don’t know what it is.”

“That is shame. The shame of your predators on your skin. You’re bearing their shame for them. Put it where it belongs. Back on them.” This was the advice of a dear friend of mine.

“That is a form of self-mutilation. No different than a cutter feels. Tell me, how do you feel about your body?”

“I hate it!” I screamed this. “It’s because of its weakness that I hurt at all. It’s because it was beautiful that it was pursued and beaten and raped. It was because it was weak that I couldn’t stop it. I loathe my body! Detest it. I want nothing to do with it!”

“Your body was a victim. It was hurt right along with you.”

I burst into tears.

“Your body was just as hurt, just as abused, just as traumatized…and you punish it for the pain others caused your mind and your body.”

I had. I did. And all at once, I understood.

The ballet, the swords…nothing shred apart the body more than ballet. Oh, I danced. Did I dance. I danced to punish my body. I danced to make it stronger. I dance to rip it apart. “You’re weak!” I often thought. “Kick higher! Stretch farther! It hurts? Too bad! You’re weak! Kick higher! Stretch farther! It hurts? Good! Now higher!”

I turned my attention to my body and, for once, I listened. Since I was born I had suffered multiple rapes, torture, a dislocated thumb, sprained ankles, a broken femur, sciatic nerve and piriformis syndrome. I fell down the stairs crushing my tailbone, smashed my finger, and broken my toes multiple times. I ripped out my own hangnails, dug out my own toes…denied myself medicine, doctors, and hospitals. “Endure it! I screamed at my body.” I never once went to a doctor.

Not once.

This September, I picked up the phone. I finally called my doctor. I haven’t had a papsmear in ten years. I was placed in physical therapy for my hip. I retired from ballet. I still remember the day I looked at my husband and said, “I want to do something for my body. I want to give it a present. I want…I want to be nice to it like…I want to make up for what I did to it.”

Mindfulness.

I started becoming aware of the physical. When you are dissociated and steeped in trauma, all senses are dulled and muted. It’s almost impossible to hear what your body says. You aren’t in the right state of mind to even hear its cries let alone address the problems. So the problem persists, and your health is what suffers the most.

I took my body to the doctors. I listened to it. Began cleaning up my feet, soaking my callouses, and painting my nails. I picked up Yoga. Stared physical therapy and started looking into diets. Oh. Did this change my life.

During physical therapy, my therapist—who was also a nutritionist, fitness coach, and dietician—explained the sugar diet and how it replaces, discourages, significantly reduces your body’s ability to produce serotonin. Serotonin is the happy hormone. It is also found in sugar. Patients diagnosed with depression, bipolar, and problems with mood, are notorious in having a lack of Serotonin or an inability to produce Serotonin. In fact, most mood stabilizers have serotonin in it and/or are designed to work with the little bit of serotonin your body produces. We crave serotonin. We seek it. We need it. And where do you find it the most if your body doesn’t produce it? Candy! Carbs. Soda. Candy! Candy is highly addictive. More so than heroine and cocaine. If you had a choice between shoving a needle in your arm or eating a sweet for an instant high, which would you try and which would you most likely repeat?

You eat sugar, you get that high, you crash. You drink more soda, eat more candy, get that high, and crash. You eat more candy, eat a candy bar, drink a soda, and do everything you can to sustain that high. It’s fast. It’s convenient. It’s instant gratification. It tastes great! You crave it. Need it. Want it. Suddenly you’re dependent and you don’t even know it.

Now…inside, your body is getting what it needs from the outside—candy—which encourages it to not produce serotonin. With a constant sugar intake, your body stops producing serotonin. Depression increases. You gain weight. You crave carbs and more sugar. Your body is now completely dependent upon the sugar. What’s worse, many of us can’t even identify sugars in most foods.

My therapist recommend a book to me—this book—and I read it. One thought came to mind. If I stop providing my body with sugar, naturally, my body will begin to produce the serotonin? You mean…I can end my depression? Stop taking medication? I can be happy naturally?

I think back to when I started eating candy. I was fifteen. Right after my first rape. I started stopping in at the candy store. Every Thursday, I would walk into the penny candy store with $10.00. I then would walk out with 1,000 pieces of candy…and it would be gone by next Thursday. A year later, my doctor diagnosed me with chronic depression.

Severe stress and trauma significantly reduce and/or halt serotonin production. Depression is the result. That craving kicks in and we supplement, we medicate with candy. The trauma, stress goes untreated…unaddressed. Depression continues and/or worsens. You know what else has sugar in it? Alcohol.

One thought came to mind. If I stop providing my body with sugar, naturally, my body will begin to produce the serotonin. If I stop eating all sugar, I can get my serotonin back. I could actually come off my meds. I decided right then to do the one thing the book told me not to do. I went cold turkey.

You want to talk about the addictive qualities in sugar!? I entered detox. For four days, I suffered from nausea, cold like symptoms, shakes, migraines, mood swings, aggression, sweats, chills, pain, loss of appetite.

On day one, I laid in bed, unable to move. I literally felt my body throw its tantrum. Oh, I fed it. And it snubbed its nose at the eggs and chicken I fed it. It detested the black coffee and oatmeal with blueberries. I shoved it down anyway, but it wouldn’t process the protein. It was only interested in sugar.

On day two, I felt my body switch on. It started using the protein. It was still unhappy, pouting…It was slow to start, but it was starting the switch.

On day three, the withdrawal symptoms subsided. I picked up a coffee and tasted it…oh gods did I taste it! I tried chicken and could taste the subtle flavors missed all this time. I ate a whole lemon like an orange. I had no idea how sweet they were. I suddenly could taste the sweet in red pepper. The earthy tone in a mushroom. I dropped ten pounds, literally within ten days! My mind cleared. I could focus. I had energy. The transformation was and is still astounding! I could taste the citrus notes in celery. I now eat mussels, clams, and hummus. OMG, do I love hummus.

“Don’t think of exercise as a work out or exercise. Think of it as “me time.”

And it is! I look forward to it! Yoga. Mediation. Tai Chi twice a week. A new sugar reduced diet. Next, my thoughts turned to sleep.

 

Happiness: Mental Cleansing

If ever there was a day that I felt changed, it was the day I walked into therapy and smiled. Just smiled. I had nothing new to talk about. Nothing new to report. I talked about my new life. My new me. So many possibilities were opened up. I wondered often, “I’m through the dark tunnel. Do I still need a therapist?” Yes. She no longer held me up on my feet. Now she showed me the paths I could take.

Those who experience trauma learn to live under its influence and fear. You learn to base every emotion, every decision, every choice first by consulting that trauma. You develop mental programming and mantras that nurture that trauma. This becomes your lifestyle. You breathe, eat, and live this trauma until you are nothing but a slave to its shadow and you can’t find you anymore. This is where prejudice is born. This is where hatred is born. This is where judgement is born. And this…dearest reader…this is where our own enslavement begins. Living in this kind of a mind is very much an enslavement.

Going back to step #1: Accept you are wrong is also applied to this stage. All conclusions are based on a series of premise. Proper conclusions rely on two things: correct execution of logic and reasoning, and correct premise. Many people draw correct conclusions using false premise. Your premise just might be wrong. Accept it. Once you do that, you rid yourself of a closed mind. You rid yourself of prejudice, hate, and judgement. You open your mind to curiosity and a willfulness to learn and reshape your mind. This requires only one thing: vulnerability. And yes, you will feel very vulnerable. Every bit of your past has taught you that A is B when it’s really A. Why should you believe any different? Because your situation was traumatic. Abnormal. Not the norm. This is the very definition of trauma. If it were normal you wouldn’t be traumatized, now would you? But you are hurt, because it is abnormal…making your conclusions only based on the trauma and your experience…your unusual rare, horrible, experience. Accept your conclusions are wrong and acknowledge the vulnerability that comes with treading new territory. Trust your new environment. Trust yourself to recognize the danger this time. Trust the strength and wisdom within yourself, and trust that you have the strength and the courage to never allow yourself to be hurt again.

“I will not let you hurt me.” Let this become your new mantra as it is mine.

Once you accept that trust and embrace it, only then can you bypass that vulnerability and embrace an open mind.

Relearn the world around you. Experience it again for the first time. Relearn your likes, your dislikes. Return to your youth—to the moment when you were first traumatized and regrow yourself from that point with a new path. Go forth with the mind of a child.

My first trauma happened when I was five. My next trauma happened when I was eight, and the next, when I was fifteen. Again when I was 21. With my mental cleansing, I returned to five and continued my life where it left off at that moment. I cried like a child in my husband’s arms. I sought the warm comfort of my daddy. I cried in my mother’s arms. I relived my adolescence and began painting my nails and wearing colors again. I started exploring with perfumes and lotions. I did what every fifteen year old should do, and I did what I didn’t do then. I felt myself grow up the right way this time. I went on dates with my husband and began watching chick flicks.

I stopped training my mind for war. I stopped preparing my body for battle. I was changing ever so quickly. Almost too quickly. Yes, it was scary. Yes, there was many a day where I didn’t know who I was anymore. Did I like cats? Did I love Ireland? Did I love gardens and music and art? Did I love the opera? Did I ever love Raven? I just didn’t know anymore.

There was one day I walked into my therapist’s room and I said, “I just don’t know who I am anymore. The pain is gone. The scars are healing, but who am I? I don’t even know if I love Ireland anymore!”

She asked me, “Tell me about Ireland. What did you love about it?”

I glowed and grinned so wide. “The green and the sea. The cliffs of Moher…If ever there is still magic in this world, it is in Ireland. Och! There is this one picture I have of Moher… Many pictures show you looking down the west banks of Ireland, but you’re facing South, so it looks like The Cliffs of Moher are to the east of Ireland. But they’re not. This one picture I have shows the view as if you are facing North. So beautiful.”

My therapist smiled. “Angela. You love Ireland. It doesn’t matter why. You just do and that is all that matters.”

I love cats and rain and music. I love reading and writing and gardens. Through our loves we define who we are. And just like that, I found me buried beneath all that trauma. But my journey still wasn’t over.

 

Happiness: Confronting the Darkness

If Step #1 to happiness is committing to totally honesty with yourself, then step #2 would have to be confronting the darkness. Unearthing all the pain, the hurt, the past you’ve ever survived. And you have survived. Pain, suffering, and trauma isn’t just something you experience. It’s what you survived. By default, this makes you strong. You are strong, no matter how weak you feel. But it’s more than just confronting your pain and suffering. It’s identifying it. It’s accepting it. It’s calling it out for what it is. Looking back at the way others treated you and calling it what it is: abuse. It doesn’t matter if they deny it, and many will. It only matters that you recognize what abuse and trauma look like. Much like happiness, we don’t know what that looks like either.

Stop trying to measure your hurt and abuse. It doesn’t matter if the hurt is small or large. If the act was intended or accidental. It doesn’t matter if the act was minute or vast. It only matters what you feel. Either it hurt, or it didn’t. That’s all that matters. And only you can decide when something hurt.

Dissociation is self-induced psychopathy—the subconscious path to close and end all emotion as a means to cope and survive a trauma. But what happens if you are incapable of switching the emotions back on?

When I was the most dissociated, I viewed emotions as evil. Painful reminders of my traumas. Emotions were useless…or so I thought.

Emotions are to the mind and psyche, what pain is to the body. They only ever are signals to the brain to communicate and identify healthy from damaging. Nothing more. Nothing less. Shutting off your emotions…desensitization…is the act of shutting off the emotions. Shutting off emotions is like shutting down your pain signals to your brain. What happens if you can’t feel pain? Most people who are desensitized can’t feel the damage they are doing to their minds…to their psyche.

Confronting the darkness is the act of turning those emotions back on. Feel those emotions. Let them do, what they are supposed to do. Remember, being honest with yourself is harder than awakening these emotions.

I remember the show House. In one episode, a building falls on this woman’s leg. She’s a runner. House refuses to amputate, and his decision kills her. When the building fell on her leg, it cut off all nerve signals to the brain. She felt nothing. When they lifted that building off of her, her nerves woke up. The signals flowed to her brain with the toxins and killed her. This is why those who experience severe mental pain need a therapist. Because without the therapist, when you remove that building from your leg…when you unearth and awaken those emotions, suicide is very probable. The therapist holds your hand, quite literally, and lets you lean on them while you regain your ability to walk.

The emotions must awaken. You must embrace them. You must let them run their course. You can’t rush emotions. You can’t suppress them, deny them, or ignore them. Guess what, trauma hurts. And that’s okay. It does hurt when you feel mum and/or dad don’t love you. It does hurt when a basic need isn’t met. Loneliness hurts. Failure hurts. Bullying, name calling, verbal abuse hurts. It’s supposed to. It isn’t healthy. That hurt is your emotions communicating to your mind, “Hey! This is a negative stimuli! Get away!” Now…what happens if you shut off those emotions?

Awaken them. Embrace them. Welcome them and cry. Oh, do cry. Let the hurt flow. You’ve earned that hurt. You’ve earned a right to cry and scream. You’re allowed. You’re human. Embrace that. Be angry. Someone hurt you! You should scream and cry. And oh, you will cry and you will hurt, then you will find old hurts you have forgotten. You’ll awaken and unearth those too, and you’ll cry all over again. You’ll accept that hurt and let it wash over you and pass. You won’t be able to confront those who inflicted this hurt. And that’s okay. They don’t need to know what they did to you. You need to know what they did to you.

One day, there will be no more hurt to unearth, confront, or endure. One day, you can look up from all this and smile. This is therapy. You will slip back now and then to denial…that is the honesty I talked about in step #1. Be honest. Accept you’re wrong. Accept you’re strong. Accept that you feel vulnerable. You feel vulnerable, but you are strong. You’ve already survived this. Now, it’s time to endure it. And endure it, you will. Confront the Darkness for the sun shines on the other side.

Happiness

“To be nobody but yourself in a world that is doing its best, night and day, to make you into everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.” E.E. Cummings

I have to ask, why do we keep choosing to fight this battle?

Breathe in. And out. And smile.

It’s Monday. I’m not watching The Walking Dead today…probably never again. I’m just…*sigh* I’m tired of the violence. I’m just tired.

Let me instead tell you something about me previous readers know nothing about. I adore Time magazine. I need to clarify this first by saying I detest magazines. I feel like I’m buying a book of ads. On occasion I find a 500 word article smashed in the corner of all the ads. Every month however, I don’t hesitate to drop $14.00 on Time: Special Edition. This August, I bought their edition of “The Science of Happiness.” It was interesting to say the least, and, looking back, it was the prelude to their next edition: “Mindfulness: The New Science of Health and Happiness.”

Many of you know my past. I don’t wish to discuss it again. In short, I’ve seen 30 years of severe prolonged trauma and have experienced well over seven different extreme types. My therapist was astounded that I hadn’t turned to heroine or meth. Most people who have seen a fraction of what I have seen would have…most people. Most people see only one or two of what I’ve experienced. 18 months of critical therapy has truly landed me in an unusual place in my life. I call myself “retired.” I’m 36…and I’m “retired.” Not in the classic sense with no work and social security. In a mental sense. I am retired from stress. I am retired from violence. I am retired from shock factor and fear. I am retired from desensitization.

Most people raise an eyebrow at this, uncertain what exactly it all means. It is foreign to most. Certainly.

In the Mindfulness issue of Time, I read about a couple apps that truly hit me. Some of the words they said…After living the life I’ve lived, a lot of what they were saying hit close to home. They were “selling” a concept. The very concept I was craving, needing, wanting, in search of: Calm. The writers of Time recommended an app. “Calm.” It was September, and I down loaded this program. Overnight, it changed me. The things the narrator said…the concepts she explained…I nearly ran to this program every night. I started listening to it in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening. I took what I learned and embedded it into my daily life. In just two weeks, it had become a part of my life that I look forward to.

The app comes with programs, “Seven days of calm,” where it introduces you and teaches you how to meditate. Beyond “Seven days of calm,” this app comes with an optional $12.00 monthly subscription that I don’t hesitate to pay every month. It is worth it. The monthly subscription opens the app to a Daily Calm, Mediation for children, 21 days of Calm, and calm programs focused on calming anxiety, managing stress, increasing focus, increasing happiness, gratitude, self-esteem, forgiveness (of yourself),  deep sleep (my favorite), deep sleep relax, deep concentration, emergency calm, meditation to listen to while commuting, and unguided meditation. Astounding app.

Today’s subject, was “removing the masks we wear.” Fitting for Halloween. I have lived, my whole life, with a smile on my face while the voices in my head screamed, unheard by everyone but me. Those screams alone was enough to throw me into insanity. So this is me…I guess…pulling off my mask and breathing deep and easy just a little bit more than I did yesterday. I love looking back. I love seeing just how far I’ve come when progress has been made. And progress has indeed been made.

I am reminded of a Frasier episode I saw once…Okay, so it was the ONLY Frasier episode I saw. And the one everyone should see.

“Are you happy?”

This question is asked to Frasier in a coffee shop, and the whole episode is spent with Frasier sending back a mocha or latte until the waitress “gets it right.” His father persists, “Are you happy?” No matter how often he is asked this question, Frasier won’t answer. They are interrupted, or Frasier evades. He explores the question unsure of the answer himself. At last, his father stands and leaves the coffee shop without an answer to his question. The waitress returns with Frasier’s mocha/latte finally made just the way he likes it. “There,” she says. “Are you happy?”

Frasier smiles.

“Yes. Yes I am.”

Happiness. I am reminded of the Pursuit of Happiness. “How did Thomas Jefferson know that we can only ever pursue happiness? That we may never actually obtain it. How did he know this? That happiness is something many can only desire and attempt to achieve? The thought that we could actually die never knowing happiness.”

Happiness. Looking back on my traumas…I’ve earned my happiness. Now…if only I knew how to get it. I am writing today to announce to you, to the world…but mostly to myself…I am there. I have found it. I have achieved it. I am happy. It was easier to get than I thought…once I knew the answers. The answers aren’t obvious until you know the answers. The problem is many don’t know the answer.

My journey didn’t begin in September when I downloaded the “Calm” app. It didn’t start in August when I bought Time magazine, “The Science of Happiness.” Perhaps it started April 2015 when I looked at my husband and said, “I need a doctor” moments before he drove me to the emergency room. No. My journey began with Broken. When my husband asked a single question, “Is this what you want?” I couldn’t answer without really asking, “What do I want?” and knowing the answer.

What do you want? Do you know? I didn’t either. What I wanted, I believed I couldn’t have. What I wanted, I was certain was fictitious. What I wanted was simple: I wanted to be happy. I wanted happiness. Not just a little bit. I wanted it every waking day of my life.

“Do you even know what happiness looks like?” This was asked by my therapist and a dear friend of mine. In short, I didn’t. I knew it was something I had heard of. I knew the rare occasion when I did smile and laugh. Looking back I know now, that isn’t happiness. Happiness is when that smile and laugh extends deep down to your core. And when you open and laugh, when you smile, you feel no grief, hate, or remorse in that core. It is virtually stress free. There is no worry or anxiety. There is only pure, clean happiness. This, dear reader, this is peace. Unhappiness is very much like the sea during a storm. Stress is that storm. The clouds may clear, the sun may shine, but the winds will still blow cold and harsh, and the sea will still toss and turn despite the occasional warmth of the sun. Happiness is a still sea. When you can look out upon the horizon and see only clear skies and a gentle sea. Being in a state of happiness does not mean stress and anxiety won’t happen. It does mean that it will feel more like a gentle wave on the ocean instead of a roller coaster or being dropped down an elevator shaft. Stress will come and go, and you’ll ride those waves in strides without worry, care or concern for the future because you know, you truly know, that you will be okay in the end. That you are okay now. And you are.

So how did I get here? Well…First, I stopped lying to myself. The first and most important change was committing to being wholly, totally and completely honest with myself no matter what. I accepted that I was wrong. I accepted that I was vulnerable. I accepted that I was strong. My transformation started here. Don’t get me wrong. Not one bit of this is easy. Every bit of this was hard. And I will be honest, of everything I did, this was the hardest part: accepting that I was wrong, vulnerable, and strong. This is where happiness begins.

Doctor Who? Doctor Who!: Half Way Through

Six re-generations down! Six to go!

 

They’re called Zarbi not Zorgs.

 

 

The Doctor Who Marco Polo Reconstruction

 

Just found this little treasure! I can go back and watch the Highlander! Jamie is the scotsman who not only followed the Doctor from this arc on to Patrick’s regeneration into Jon Pertwee, but he also returns for The Five Doctors and the Two Doctors! Jamie is one of the Doctor’s most adored companions from the Classic Era.

Here is a complete play list of all deleted episodes from the 2nd Doctor.

 

The War Games

One of my favorite arcs. Entertaining. Phenomenal. Captivating. Exciting. “Run!”



050 Kriegsspiele Teil 01/10 by Time-Traveler

 

Watch Doctor Who from Start to Finish!

 

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Deadened to The Walking Dead

Today is Wednesday. For me, that means I slow down for the day and avoid all work. It seems weird to most that I would take a full day off every Wednesday, but it recently occurred to me, we don’t call it “Hump day” for nothing. I took the push out of hump day. The moment I decided this, I smiled and went, “Yeah!” I only regret that many others can’t do the same.

I live in New York and was born and raised with a New York City work ethic. 80 hours a week? No problem! Let me just fill my coffee pot here…and…I’m good! But I wasn’t. Like so many, I was using the work to escape problems, an unhappy home, unpleasant memories. New Yorkers learned a long time ago how wonderful it is to use work as an escape. What’s worse, I love the work! So do many of my Northern brethren. I adore the work! I adore the reward! That feel good adrenaline that stays with you, och! Addicted to it! For many of us here, it sticks with you long and hard that you just can’t wait to jump back in and work your life away to get another taste of that adrenaline flow. Addiction? Oh, hell yes!

When I reshaped my life style, the last thing I thought about was my work load. So what if I published six books a year, wrote 90,000 words in two weeks, built, organized, and managed the Brain to Books CyCon, while parenting three children under the age of 13, maintaining a household, tending to more than ten gardens, and managing my writing career? I could do it! Couldn’t I?

This wasn’t the only place where I had stretched my senses thin only to numb myself to the consequences when they set in. Colds, flues, mood, misery, exhaustion, slush brain, fogged thoughts, significant short term memory loss…I was fine. The same rang true for my tolerance to gore, blood, and violence. I was bored with the gore in the Underworld films. Zombies, flesh, blood, gore, eh. None of it mattered to me.

I walked into therapy May 2015. The first thing my therapist did was pull me off the war movies. All of New England heard that blood-curdling scream as she ripped Platoon and Full Metal Jacket from my hands. “I need those!” I barely escaped with The Walking Dead hugged to my chest. It’s been a long 18 months. Within six months, I found I didn’t want to watch the war movies any more (I still watched The Walking Dead). I sought out more romantic comedies, more comedies, more science fiction. I found a happy TV place in Classic Doctor Who and nestled there comfortably 10 January 2016. I’ve been there ever since and am still there. I step away now and then to watch Jeff Dunham, Iron Man, Star Trek, and X-Man.

My work load was next. It was something a very dear friend of mine said to me most recently.

“How old is your oldest?” she asked.

“13.”

“And would you be okay with her handling your work load?”

“Hell, no—Oh.”

“Then why are you? What would you be comfortable with her doing?”

“Writing. The CyCon. Maybe one other project.”

“There you go.”

I nodded. The next day I cancelled twenty projects and two anthologies I had committed to. I forced myself to slow the fuck down.

This September I started meditation. Classic breathing mediation. Mediation is the undoing of trauma and I had a lot to undo.  I took up Yoga and fell in love with it on day one. Every morning since then, I start my coffee, do 30 minutes of yoga, meditate for 15, then eat breakfast. I went to the doctor’s. My first appointment since 2006. She conducted a full physical and through x-ray and physical therapy we learned that I had piriformis syndrome (a shredded hip muscle).

A single line runs through my head multiple times every day: “To accept what we’ve done, who we were. To make up for it. And to commit to never doing it again.” The Walking Dead: Here’s Not Here. I took up Tai Chi.

“Slow down,” I repeat every day. Slow down. I still struggle racing through breakfast so I can get to work. Not work, I tell myself. Today is Wednesday. You read. You write. You blog. Nothing else. It’s so hard.

Last night, I returned to The Walking Dead. All my therapy flooded back within the first 30 seconds.

“Every time you turn on the TV, you trust a producer and director with what your mind will hear and see. Clearly, they aren’t to be trusted, yet we keep turning that TV on and handing our fate to them. For the next 45 minutes they will determine what viewers see and hear. And we let them.” She said this to me in therapy months ago when Neegan first graced the scene. I spent the summer wondering, “Will I return to The Walking Dead this October?”

I didn’t buy the full season. I did buy one episode. Last night, I watched that one episode.

“Every time you turn on the TV, you trust a producer and director with what your mind will hear and see. Clearly, they aren’t to be trusted.”

 

***SPOILER ALERT***

 

I started up The Walking Dead. One minute in, I looked away, leaving the sound on. It wasn’t enough. My heightened sense is sound. I muted the TV. I couldn’t handle the graphics. I looked away. I had expected the gore to be over. I had never thought they would show everything…everything. I walked in not trusting and boy, did it pay off. But I grew impatient, annoyed, irritated. When did The Walking Dead stop being about the story and start being about the shock factor? Enough already! I wanted to scream. I spent most of the 45 minutes looking away. Too numb to feel—I felt my dissociation kick back in full gear—blood and gore. I went into shock and entered trance—I felt my PTSD switch back on. I paused the TV and walked away. Stop watching or keep going? Why was I watching? Was there enjoyment? Was I content? Clearly not. Then why was I watching? Because I wanted to see Rick and Daryl and Glen make it through. I wanted to see Michonne and Carl, Abraham and Maggie survive this. Why was I watching? Was it worth it? They’re fictional characters. Not real people. Why did I feel obligated to sacrifice my very real emotions for a cast of fictional people? What irks me more than ever, the actors themselves don’t experience the same impact as viewers! Their experience was constantly interrupted with bloopers, jokes, forgetting their lines, cuts, scene set up…they never once had the time or the soundtrack to sink their emotions into the story. The role, yes. Not the story.

The horde of zombies surrounding the RV came and went. “When did the zombies stop being the antagonist? Why did they have to “one-up” themselves? Rick returned to the group and I thought it was over. If only. I listened to my instincts when Neegan wrapped his belt around Carl’s arm and drew that damn line. I recognized that music tuned to our heartbeats—it’s a musical trick musicians use. Our heartbeats will match a set rhythm. If you increase the rhythm, your heartbeat will follow. I muted the TV. I looked away. I took back my control and refused to follow their flood of anxiety they attempted to evoke in me as Neegan told Rick to chop off his son’s arm.

When Neegan stopped Rick and pulled back his troops, only then would the emotion thaw. All that shock and fear slowly dissipated and I felt the emotions settle. I sobbed with Maggie as she tried to collect Glen’s remains. I hate Maggie. I always have…until now.

 

***END SPOILER ALERT***

 

The show ended. Sure. The credits rolled, but there I was sitting in a pool of my own emotions. The director and producer are gone. But my emotions are clearly intact. My PTSD is going wild. I have never in my life had an issue with blood, violence, and gore…until now. I collected myself and sat next to my husband on the bed as we began Doctor Who. 1986 Sylvester McCoy…the 7th Doctor. I see their guns and I flinch. I settle down and try to watch the Doctor. It’s 1986 television, but I can feel myself flinching at every gun being fired. Every sound…every explosion…every Dalek. At one point my husband looks at me and asks, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why?” I say.

“You’re crying.”

I hadn’t noticed. My face is soaked. As I wiped the tears away, more just fell. It was an hour later and here I was flinching and jumping at 1980’s violence. I wanted to turn it off and watch…I couldn’t even tell you what I could watch. 12 Angry Men came to mind. Princess Bride. I struggled finding a movie with zero violence.

Another line from The Walking Dead runs through my mind, “We aren’t meant to kill. Vets! Vets come back from war with PTSD. If we were meant to kill, they would not have PTSD.”

We are not violent creatures. You have to have some serious mental issues to become violent. You have to be raised and exposed to violence and alter our primary psyche to tolerate violence. Cut all violence out of your TV viewing for six months. See what happens when you return. Dare to desensitize yourself. The problems you have in six months are the same you have now…the only difference is you can’t see it at the moment.

I don’t know if I will return to The Walking Dead. My interest in self-preservation and positive mental health now exceeds my tolerance for violence and my curiosity and concern for the characters in the show. I finally value my own sanity far more than a collection of fictional characters. This time, they’ve gone too far.

As I slow down this Wednesday, I am filled with a lot of questions. I’m not sure what my new tolerance levels are. I’m not sure just where my new and old interests lie. And what am I going to do with more than sixty war movies I can’t watch?

Maybe I’ll read a book.

 

Goodbye, Doctor (Colin Baker)

 

Goodbye, Doctor (Peter Davison)

After Tom Baker, the time with Peter Davison just flew by.

 

Featured Guest: Amie Irene Winters

Only those who possess wild eyes, an impulsive heart, and a wandering spirit hunt for the Theater of Secrets—and once they witness the darkest of magic, they don’t return.

It promises to change your life forever—but is the mysterious Theater of Secrets legend or something more? Tasked to answer that very question, Daisy Darling sets out to uncover the truth and is thrown headlong into a life where inexplicably strange and dark things happen nightly. A life of deception and uncertainty. A life in the spotlight as the theater’s ringleader.

As Daisy assumes her new role, she not only discovers a surprising connection between herself and the previous ringleader, but also the haunting truth behind the theater’s limitless power. Determined to expose the theater and foil its wicked plan, Daisy must first embrace her heritage before she can defeat the dark forces at play.

The Nightmare Birds:

Print Length: 248 pages
Publication Date: August 2, 2016

The Nightmare Birds Excerpt:

 “Daisy,” he said deeply, instantly calling me to attention. “I don’t make guarantees often because I’m a man of my word, but I can guarantee you one thing from this moment forward. Do you wish to know what it is?”

I nodded, hanging on his every word.

“What you’re about to experience will be the most electrifying and the most terrifying thing to ever happen to you.”

Looking down, I took a deep, surrendering breath, trying to come to terms with the fate I had so willingly accepted.

Just as he started to move away from me, he turned, his hair whipping around him from an unexplained wind. “Are you scared, Daisy?” he asked.

I looked up, clenching the dress to my chest. “Yes,” I whispered honestly.

“Good.” Mr. Black smirked. “It’s better that way.”

Read Chapter #1

 

Buy The Nightmare Birds

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About the Author:

Connect:

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AMIE IRENE WINTERS grew up in California but now makes her home in western Pennsylvania. Along the way she earned degrees in Anthropology, Religious Studies, and Environmental Studies, got married, and worked a variety of unique jobs, including park ranger. She is the award-winning author of the Strange Luck Series.

When not writing, she can be found hiking with her dog, baking desserts, or breaking a sweat in kickboxing class. Visit amieirenewinters.com to learn more about Amie and her books.

 

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