Time for a Nap

For the first time in my life, I took a nap. Yes, that’s right–the first time ever. As far back as I can remember, I have never napped. I would even go so far as to call myself nap-phobic. Napping was childish. Napping was silly. More honestly, I simply couldn’t do it though I’d tried. [...]

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What Survivors of Infant Trauma Need

People who’ve suffered trauma early in life often experience a difficult relationship with their bodies. We can feel like prisoners in our own skin. The pain was probably too much. Perhaps the way we were handled was traumatic. Maybe we were even forced into uncomfortable and restricting positions in order to undergo a surgery or [...]

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Waking Up

The best time to learn about how I really feel about myself and my life is when I first wake up. The other morning, I heard these words: It’s hard to be a Wendy. Immediately, I turned them around. It’s easy to be a Wendy. Then I heard another thought: It’s easy to love a Wendy.  How good [...]

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The Divine Self: Believing What Is

When I graduated from college, my cousin sent me a doll in the mail. Without knowing why, I immediately took the scissors and magic markers to it. I snipped off the white yarn hair and drew a recored of my abuses onto its body. My eyes are black tear drops, my jaw is aflame from [...]

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On my Head

Here are two drawings I made when I was coping with Post-traumatic stress in the mid 1970s. I chose them because they convey some of what I’m feeling these days. Lying in bed at night, awaiting sleep, I am discovering an old breath pattern in which I hold my head and face rigid, especially my jaw. [...]

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A Ceremony: Healing from Post-traumatic Stress

For those of us who’ve had a major trauma as babies and still suffer from post-traumatic stress (PTS) as adults, a ceremony may be in order–a ritual of some sort for the self that says, I am safe now and can live my body without fear. My body is a place of comfort. Each morning, [...]

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Fear Brain / Flower Brain

I was raised on fear: fear of falling, fear of drowning, fear of being snatched by a stranger luring me with candy. Fear of my father’s anger, fear of my mother’s rejection, fear of failing in school, fear of humiliation from classmates. Fear, fear, fear. Fear of being me–if I’m me, I won’t be loved; [...]

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I Have to Keep Pinching Myself

I don’t know for sure whether I was given anesthesia for my pyloric stenosis surgery at 26 days old. I don’t know for sure that I was, instead, given  a form of curare, a drug that paralyzed my muscles so I wouldn’t fight. My hospital records are gone, kaput. I just know that: –I wake [...]

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A Message from the Universe

You are loved by the universe, Sidra says. Sure, I was taking care of her, along with other marine lab techs at the University of Miami Graduate School in 1974, and she was captive and dependent. Yes, I fed her the noon meal daily, even on weeekends, so she grew to associate me with food. [...]

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Oral History – Untreated PTSD

Dentist’s chair, twelve years old, East Orange, New Jersey: Dr. Salada calls my mother into the room to see the caverns I’ve bitten out of the walls of my mouth. He peels my lower lip down to show her the gouges. I, too am shocked when he holds the mirror up so I can see. [...]

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