Tag Archives: Anxiety

Oct13

If you support Donald Trump, we can’t be friends.

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I could’ve never imagined in a million years that my PTSD could be triggered by a presidential election, especially at a time when I was finally healing and moving forward.

I’ve held back on saying this for a long time, but if you support Donald Trump, we can’t be friends. There are a lot of people I love defending him, but I can’t be friends with someone who’s consideration for my well-being I find myself questioning.

TRIGGER WARNING

When Donald Trump announced that he planned to run for POTUS last year, I thought it was a joke. I was shocked when he actually began campaigning. I was shocked when he started hosting rallies. I was shocked when he actually won in the primaries as the Republican candidate for presidency. I was shocked, and ashamed, by my fellow Americans who so obviously spend very little time trying to actually understand politics.

But that’s not the problem.

Most of all, I’m hurt. I can be shocked by the things he says about women, Hispanics, African Americans, Muslims, etc., but I didn’t really feel it until I felt personally targeted, and people I loved were defending him.

Right now, as I write this, I’m fighting the urge to crawl under my desk and hide because I am afraid. See, amid Trump’s latest scandals and obvious disregard for women’s autonomy, I’ve been spiraling into — I’m not sure how to describe — a hole of some sort.

After years of flashbacks, they finally stopped. After years of panicking when someone looked at me a certain way, I was feeling less afraid. I finally began speaking out about my experiences (and struggles with my mental health) without fear of backlash.

Now, I’m having nightmares every night that replay through my head day in and day out. I haven’t been able to make my hands stop shaking. I feel nauseous, I can’t focus, and my heart palpitations are making it hard to breathe properly.

It is really difficult to explain PTSD to someone who has never experienced something so traumatic that it alters your thoughts and perception of everyone and everything around you. But if I can, I would like to try to help at least a few people see why Trump’s words, actions, and his loyal defenders are personally hurting women, and especially survivors of sexual assault.

I’m sure I can’t possibly find every terrible thing he’s said or done, but I will try to find the ones that prove my point.

Back in 2004, Trump told the Daily News: “All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me – consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.” This is exactly where rape culture starts, with men assuming that all women want them, and therefore anything that they could do to those women is completely excusable. Sometimes smiling, or politely laughing at someone’s terrible joke, is assumed to be flirting just because the interaction occurred between a woman and a man. When an assault occurs, victims are often asked if they were flirting with the perpetrator before hand, and while a woman will often say she was just trying to be nice, a man will call it flirting, and say, “She asked for it.”

On March 7, 2006 Trump said in an ABC News interview, that “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” He later said it was a joke, and if those words were said by any other human being that showed an ounce of decency, I might be inclined to believe him. But, this is Donald Trump we’re talking about, and if you make enough sexist or disgusting “jokes”, it’s pretty clear that you’re not actually joking. Its been estimated that anywhere between 40-70% of women and 10-20% of men have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, and that doesn’t even begin to account for the harassment that takes place in school, at a restaurant, on the street, or any time a woman is visible to men. These “jokes” are not between two willing participants in a conversation of sexual nature, but instead are forced on a person that has the disadvantage of being vulnerable in some way, whether that be in status, age, size, etc. Not only is a “joke” inappropriate and demeaning, but Trump just sexualized his own daughter in a way that even the media was disgusted by. Incest isn’t funny, and viewing your daughter in a sexual manner isn’t funny. Sometimes I wonder if that is how the person who molested me as a child thought. I wonder if they ever said something of the same nature out loud, and claimed it was a joke. If your brain is working right, the thought shouldn’t even enter your mind. I wonder how fucked up Ivanka is.

On March 3, 2013 a contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice” knelt to the ground and begged to become the next project manager, to which he responded, “It must be a pretty picture. You dropping to your knee.” Here you have a woman trying to establish her place in what is typically considered “a man’s world”, asking for a chance to prove herself that she probably wouldn’t have even been given as a woman. He couldn’t respond to her list of accomplishments, her experience, or her leadership skills, but instead made an oral sex joke. Not only is this sexual harassment that creates a hostile work environment (look it up, a “joke” falls under hostile environment), but Trump has been known to take advantage of women who are desperate to prove themselves. To add to that, millions of women every day are forced to perform sexual acts in order to “earn” their place in the world.

On May 7, 2013, Trump blamed sexual assault on the fact that women and men are near each other. He tweeted, “26,000 unreported sexual assaults in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?” This one really blew my fuse. I expect, that when women and men are working together, that they should be treated with equal respect and afforded the same dignity. I expect that their male counterparts would be held accountable for their actions. I expect that more people would talk about the right and wrong ways to treat somebody. A woman should not “expect” to be assaulted because she is working and living with or close to men. I certainly did not “expect” to be raped when I was 15 just because there was a guy in the room with me. I did not “expect” to be assaulted a few months later by someone twice my age just because I was drinking. I did not “expect” he would begin stalking me, and a few weeks later find me going for a walk around my neighborhood. I did not “expect” that he would force me into his vehicle to “finish what we started”. But guess what?! Because so many people have the same mentality as Donald Trump, I never reported any of it! The last thing I needed was for someone to confirm my own self-blame by saying that it WAS my fault. That I shouldn’t have talked about sex if I didn’t want it, and I shouldn’t have been drinking when there were men around, or that I shouldn’t walk around outside by myself. When my rapist “finished” with me, he told me it was my fault, and that I shouldn’t have “made [him] think about it”. I believed him, because I had not yet been taught about assault, abuse, or consent, and as far as I could tell, it was normal. In other words, I did not report any of these incidents because men like Donald Trump, and many of the people defending him, believe that what happened to me is what should be expected to happen to any female.

And, last but not least, on October 7 2016, video footage emerged of Trump claiming in 2005 that he could “grab [them] by the pussy”, and that he could get away with it because he was famous. Again, we are looking at a man in a position of power taking advantage of women who have less. He actually said many revolting things regarding his beliefs about the treatment of women, but the actual suggestion and practically the admission to sexually assaulting women without the least bit of remorse, puts him right up there with the serial rapists we’re so quick to condemn, in my book. Donald Trump may think that his comments are an exception for him, because he’s famous, but every day men take advantage of women who only want to be successful, and this doesn’t just apply to adults. When I was in eighth grade, my social studies teacher would rearrange the seating every day and put all of the girls wearing skirts right in front of his own seat. We caught onto the pattern – and his gazes – fast, but were too afraid to say anything. He would also move around the room during tests, and at each girl he would stop, place his hand on her back, and whisper the answers to whatever question she was on into her ear. Uncomfortable doesn’t even begin to describe it. I remember freezing in fear more than once, and unable to even respond to him. However, nobody said anything outside of their immediate peer group, because they didn’t want to face any repercussions if nobody believed them.

Trump posted an “apology” video shortly after this footage was leaked, in which he spent more time devaluing the words he spoke than actually apologizing for them. Never once did he say he apologized to women, never once did he apologize for his behavior, and never once did he condemn sexual assault. Instead, after the “I’m not like that” and “I’ve changed since then,” the video quickly turned into “at least I’m not as bad as THAT guy”, in reference to Bill Clinton’s affairs. The apology that never was actually sounds pretty familiar to me too. A few months after the relationship I had with the man who took advantage of my vulnerability ended, he asked me to stop talking to his friends about things that had gone on in our relationship. I was at a point where I was starting to realize that what I experienced was a form of abuse, and I started talking about it. He deflected by claiming that there were more important things to worry about (reminiscent of Trump’s statement that the leaked tapes were a distraction from “real” issues), and that I should focus my energy on being positive and moving forward, much like he and Trump have certainly moved forward from the things they’ve done. A year later, he tried to say he was sorry for the way he treated me, but never actually apologized for the rape, which he would never admit that it was, anyway. Thanks! NOT.

In every incident I have described here, I was only a child. My youngest experience was at four years old, and my most traumatic experiences occurred when I was 15. Most of these acts were committed by men twice my age or more, with the exception of the rape, which was committed by somebody I had been dating. I never asked for any of it, and at the time I hadn’t thought much about having to protect myself from men. At the time, although I had felt uncomfortable as a result of men being flat out fucking creeps, I was not afraid.

I know now that none of these actions were my fault, and to hear a man of the same mentality  as those perpetrators (the men who took advantage of me) so boisterously avoid responsibility for is own actions, and further yet BRAG about the terrible things he has done to women, only reinforces that I need to keep talking about it.

It was only in the last five months or so that I stopped having flashbacks of these experiences every time I tried to be intimate with somebody, no matter how much I loved or trusted them. It was only in the last year or so that I stopped having constant nightmares about being attacked. It was only in the last FEW months that I stopped being paranoid if I was walking outside by myself. Trump, and the people defending him, are chipping away at the strength I worked so hard to rebuild, and I find myself regressing to an emotional state that I forgot was so terrifying. Today I’m shaky, panicky, and the nightmares I’ve had the last two nights have been replaying in my head non-stop.

From my personal point of view, defending or agreeing with any of Trump’s rhetoric means that you don’t care about me. And don’t forget: my story is not unique. I can almost guarantee that there is at least one woman in your life that has experienced a sexual assault of some kind. I honestly thought I was alone until I started talking about it, and I then realized that what happened to me is happening all around me, all the time.

I don’t share these stories, or my personal feelings about Trump, for pity. Instead, I share them because I know millions of women are in the same spiral that I am, as sexual assault becomes even more normalized and almost celebrated by the people we love, and who’s love for us we now must question. Trump has said a lot of terrible things, but this, I can’t let slide.

National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673

Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network: https://centers.rainn.org/

Aug21

Sometimes I Wish My Dad Was Dead

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I know what you’re thinking. Just hear me out.

Sometimes I wish my dad was dead. Not in the teen-angsty “I hate my life/I hate my parents/Nobody understands me” way. More so, in the way that I think he, and many others, might be better for it.

I know, I’m a terrible person. I feel terrible for thinking it. That’s why I need to talk about it.

There are a lot of kids out there that can probably relate to our story, and need to know that it’s okay to feel this way sometimes. I say “our” story because it is about me and my dad, not just one or the other.

Now, we have to take this back a bit.

My dad is a Vietnam Veteran. Went to war at 19, believing he was doing the right thing for our country and the people in it. Not long after arriving on the other side of the world, however, did he realize the amount of BS that soldiers were fed when going into this foreign country. This could be a whole blog post in itself, but the main purpose for explaining my dad’s military service is to introduce the fact that he was exposed to Agent Orange.

Agent Orange was a chemical defoliant used to kill plant life in the jungle-like country side to take away the Viet Cong’s advantage of constant cover and camouflage. Over 19 million gallons were dumped over the country. Troops used the empty barrels to shower and store food in. Since they were told it was perfectly safe for humans, they walked right through sprayed areas without a single thought about protecting their skin, eyes, or lungs. They drank from and bathed in bomb craters filled with the stuff. It took a long time, but Veterans are finally being heard in their cries of injustice, as Agent Orange has had devastating effects on all of those exposed. You can do more research on this yourself, but it’s absolutely appalling the way that the government continues to deny any wrong-doing and claims very little responsibility. Again, I could go on and on about this forever.

One effect of exposure to Agent Orange is the development of Type II Diabetes. I’m sure many people think, “Hey, I know tons of people with Diabetes, and they’re fine.” Well, it’s not quite the same. This secondary type of “Type II” is much more debilitating. Along with the Diabetes, my dad suffers from a chronic skin rash that pretty much every person who served in Vietnam came home with, and he contracted Hepatitis C while in Vietnam. The same needles were used to give everybody their inoculations (picture a human assembly line with several nurses injecting each soldier that stepped in front of them), he was wounded in combat and received blood transfusions, had his wisdom teeth removed, and as an interrogator was frequently exposed to wounded “enemy” soldiers. Veteran’s Affairs claims his records were “lost in a fire” (which they’ve told pretty much every Vet that has requested service records….really, look it up.) so he couldn’t get service connection for it.

Many many years later, I was born. Oops. My dad was 42 then, and just recently diagnosed with liver failure (a lovely side-effect of Diabetes and Hepatitis). He was still in the early stages so he wasn’t in dire straits yet. When I was 11 he was hospitalized for the first of many many times, as his liver REALLY started sucking and he was getting moved up the transplant list. This was a total shock to a kid that had no idea anything was even wrong. When I was 13 we were on vacation together and he was hospitalized once again, this time for a few weeks. When he woke up from the coma he was put in, he had forgotten the last 7 years. He forgot his brother’s death and didn’t recognize me, since he last remembered me being 5 years old. He never fully recovered.

Fast forward through the years and there were numerous hospital stays and two different nursing homes, before finally finding our wonderful live-in nurse who we absolutely adored.

I forgot to mention that my mom was taking care of EVERYTHING for him, even though they were divorced, because she wanted me to have a father. You rock, mom.

I guess you could say that this is where I started developing a bit of a “complex” if that’s even the right word for it. From 6th grade on, every time the phone rang in my classroom, I thought my dad was dead. In the mean-time, while my dad still had some independence, he didn’t take care of himself and did things that negatively impacted his health. I couldn’t stand to be around him because I hardly had any memories of him before he was sick. All of this also caused all-out warfare in my family, between my dad’s two sons from a previous marriage and my mom, who they never liked. My mom is one of the greatest people on earth, so f*ck them. I was manipulated and let down a lot. That, again, could be a blog post in itself (lol but not really “laughing out loud” ’cause it sucks).

My dad received a healthy liver transplant shortly after my 16th birthday, and to say that I had never felt such joy in my life was an understatement. Everything was going to go back to normal. My dad could come back to coaching softball. I could actually start staying with him again because I wouldn’t have to call 911 when he went into shock in the middle of the night.  He could go back to work and send me to my dream college. I would be able to see my friends again that lived in his neighborhood. I even thought everything would be okay with my brothers, and they could teach me to play instruments and draw. The artsy stuff was really the only common interest we shared. I stopped into school during the day (my mom told me in the middle of the night she was going down to the hospital, since she was his Power of Attorney, and someone else would take me to the train station later). As I collected my work for the next few days, I told ALL of my teachers the awesome news and that I would be out for a few days while my dad was in recovery. It was quite literally the happiest day of my life.

When I got to the hospital I was surprised to see that my dad was wide awake, which was incredible because most transplant recipients are out for two or more days following the procedure. He was his old self again. He could understand what we were saying, he was quick to respond, his memory was 100%, he wasn’t slurring his speech, and he was even making his dumb dad jokes that only dads make. For those that don’t know, organ failure affects the mind quite severely. It was the first time I had seen my dad, my actual dad, in several years. I never slept so great as I did after leaving the hospital that night.

The next day, my mom looked at my dad’s incision and noticed that it was starting to look infected. He was also getting “foggy” again, talking slowly and having difficulty responding. Uh-oh. I tried not to let it put a damper on the experience we had the day before, but the fear started creeping in again. By the next day, his brain was back to it’s worst state. Nobody knows what happened, because liver recipients are usually back to them old selves relatively quickly. The way I explained it to myself was that the infection somehow attacked his brain, but I don’t have enough knowledge on the subject to even know if that’s a thing that can happen.

So, the dread was back. I went back to school, and while everyone excitedly asked me how he was, I was simply cordial and appreciative of their concern. I still worried every time the phone rang. His diabetes got worse. He never got his memory back. He couldn’t care for himself.

A few months later my brother took over for his care, and decided to let our live-in nurse go, and just have a visiting nurse from the local hospital come in to check on him during the day. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that an ambulance was called at least twice a week that summer. He went into insulin shock countless times and even suffered two heart attacks as a result. By the end of the summer he was in a nursing home, where he still resides today, nine years later.

I know that I’m supposed to be grateful that my dad received the transplant he needed in time. I’m supposed to be grateful that he’s still alive. I really am, grateful though, about how much I learned about the importance of organ donation. My dad’s isn’t the happiest story, and not exactly a transplant success story, since he was never able to regain his quality of life. The doctors consider him a success though, because he was expected to have five years with this liver, and it is just starting to fail now in year nine.

So, why do I sometimes wish my dad was dead?

For starters, I don’t really know who “my dad” is anymore. I visit him almost weekly in the nursing home, and we typically have the same short conversation every time, where he asks me the same questions about work, my mom, and talks about the visitors he had this week (whom actually came probably six months ago but he doesn’t remember anything day to day). I quit softball when I realized he wasn’t coming back to coach, and took it pretty hard when he couldn’t come to my graduation because he had a violent outburst while being picked up from the nursing home. I almost didn’t go. I know a lot of people don’t have dads that are able or willing to be there in these important moments, so many have difficulty understanding why I get so upset. See, my dad is alive. He’s supposed to be happy. But, he can’t be there for me. We’re in limbo. I feel stuck in a constant state of “my dad is dying,” which he is, but it is exhausting. It’s hard to “make the most” of the time I have with him when we can’t have a conversation, go out for a walk, or see a movie. I watch him wasting away, now with calves skinnier than my wrists and a protruding ribcage. He has no quality of life and he has no will to live. Not even for me, which sucks even more. I really do think that more could be done to improve his condition, but since I don’t have the means to care for him myself, I can’t make much of a difference. I feel an obligation to be present in his dismal life, since he doesn’t have much to look forward to and he depends on me for his constant supply of cigars and snacks. He’s my dad, so I feel like I owe it to him to try to care for him the way he would have taken care of me, if he was able. More than just the toll it takes on me, is the toll it took on my family. I will most likely never speak to my brothers again, since events that have unfolded in recent years made me realize that nothing positive could come from a relationship with them. I’m surprised my mom didn’t have a heart attack in all those years, while she managed his care and as a result almost lost her job, all while being verbally attacked and degraded by my brothers.

My longing for his passing though, is not completely selfish. I often think about the person who died to provide the organ my dad needed. This is not the way it’s supposed to go. The purpose of organ donation is to give another person a second chance at a happy, healthy, and fulfilling life, not just for them but for their loved ones as well. Somebody died, and beforehand thought, “Maybe my death can mean this little girl’s father can walk her down the aisle.” Okay, so maybe not that exact thought, but you get it. I didn’t get my dad back. He didn’t get a second chance at life. The pessimist in me can only think, “What a waste.” If my dad hadn’t made it to the date of his transplant (and I have no idea HOW he did), another person could have had that chance. Often for every one person that receives a transplant, two or three die waiting for the same organ. I should be grateful that my dad was “lucky”, but I think his chance could have been better used by someone else.

And now we’re back to limbo. I’ll never be able to have a meaningful conversation with him, but I will still go every weekend and tell him how old I am and where I live and what my job is. To him, it’s new every time.

Sometimes, I wish my dad was dead. Not because I hate him, but because I love him too much to watch this continue.

May10

Exercise sucks. And so does everything else.

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There’s something so unique about starting a fitness routine after missing your workouts for, well, ever. And by unique I mean absolutely miserable.

A couple of years ago I decided I really wanted to get healthy, and what inspired me the most was the “Tone It Up” Program. I started running every day and doing their assigned workouts early in the morning. I woke up at 4am every day and worked out, made myself a healthy breakfast, came home, and ran a few miles. I looked great, felt great, and I was so proud of what I had accomplished. After about 4 months of this, I hurt my shoulder and began a two year battle with Workman’s Comp, but that’s another story. As the injury progressed, I slowly lost the ability to do even basic exercise, and something as simple as walking would jar my shoulder too much.

Enter depression.

I had been on that natural runner’s high for quite some time and being basically immobilized was a total disruption to what my mind and body had thrived on. A year and a half later I was 50 pounds heavier, suicidal, and in a hole of self-loathing that I couldn’t even see my way out of.

I have battled my mental health my entire life, starting with “fits” of anxiety when I was a kid, to angry depression as a teen, and I cycled through eating disorders and various methods of self-harm. I would have these days where I would just cry and cry and I didn’t really know why, but I believed that I was at fault for everything that wasn’t quite right. My mom would try to comfort me through it, but when I couldn’t tell her what I was upset about, she got pretty frustrated. From the outside looking in, I imagine it would be extremely frustrating to see someone you love in so much pain for seemingly no reason at all. I get that. We went through this more and more often, and eventually I tried to isolate my emotions as much as possible, because I didn’t want to make her mad. So, I cried in my room when everyone was asleep. I cried in my car whenever I had a long drive. I cried at work while I was in a room, or my office, by myself.

Days like this usually started with a precursor of a couple of “off” days, where I just couldn’t get excited and I didn’t have the energy to feel anything. And then, suddenly, there would be a trigger of some sort, and the dam of my emotions broke down and basically spilled out everywhere, taking out every one and every thing in its path. One time the trigger was being told to watch how many tootsie rolls I ate. One time the trigger was being asked if I said something I wasn’t supposed to. Even though I hadn’t said anything, I automatically felt like I screwed everything up.

When I got healthy, not only physically but also mentally by giving myself something to be proud of, it seemed like the worst of those days were behind me. I was a fool to think that I could really “escape” it.

After losing a close childhood friend to suicide, I realized that I needed to seek out help because I was having the same thoughts she was. I felt an incredible load of self-loathing and honestly believed that everyone would be better off without me. When I started seeing my therapist, I’ll call her Julie, I was pretty convinced that she had no idea what she was in for. Julie had to tape two pieces of paper together to draw my family tree, because that ish is complicated. In the meantime, she had to take notes on the family tree of each person and how they had influenced my life in any number of ways. Then she taped some more paper together to create a timeline of all the crazy I’ve lived with in my short 23 years so far. Many of our sessions involved an incident, a family member, and their impact on my self-esteem.

Julie was the first person to address my childhood sexual abuse.

Julie was the first person to explain to me that so much of NOW is a result of THEN.

Christmas Eve of 2014, I wanted to die. I had an early dismissal from school the day before and went right to urgent care, because I had some stupid virus that made me want to bang my head against a wall because that might MAYBE help clear my sinuses up. And then I cried. I don’t think I even got out of my car. I went home and cried some more. I told my fiancé that I didn’t want to be alive anymore. The only reason I never acted on these thoughts was because I didn’t want to hurt the people I love, and my dog would think I left her. I probably cared more about my dog being sad than anything else, in all honesty.

Over a year later now, I am medicated and I am so happy to have found the right combination of medications that work for me. I had heard horror stories of what others have been through when trying to find the right meds. I had two surgeries since then for my stupid shoulder, and now I’m trying to get myself back into fitness and into a wedding dress. My appetite fluctuates between “hibernation” and “getting ready for hibernation,” but my biggest struggle is chronic fatigue. I went to the gym several times last week but haven’t been getting much sleep the last few days, so I’ve just been going home and laying down.

And then when I exercise I absolutely hate everything in that moment.

And then I’m sore.

And then I get cranky and eat some chocolate.

And then I cry because I’m so damn out of shape and I hate myself.

And my brain is still trying to figure out when it’s time to be happy, and when it’s time to be sad, and everything in between.

I brought my gym bag to work with me today, but I’m still here typing this post and “working late”. In about two and a half hours it will be time for me to go to bed so that I can get a full 8 hours of sleep and actually be awake and functioning tomorrow. And then I’ll do ALL THE EXERCISE. At least that’s what I tell myself every afternoon when I’m trying to get myself motivated to go to the gym.

Sigh.

So here’s to starting over.

Want to work together?