a final indictment

On Sunday Morning (CBS/TV) the lead story is about how Hitler's Germany didn't have a few killing sites we knew about such as Auschwitz etc. but a current count of 42,000 and growing. Jews, Poles, Russians, homosexuals, Gypsies and so widespread that it was inconceivable for ANY German not remain unaware or not participate in some manner. Daniel Goldenhagen wrote the first definitive book a decade ago about German complicity during the War but this new research both confirms what many naysayers wanted to brush away about Goldenhagen's research and adds to it. A complete encyclopedia is being published to finally document this period in history that remains and always will remain one to never forget. It remains incomparable to any other event in human history tho many like to hijack the word Holocaust, there was one and it was not so very long ago.

So where am I?

My apologies for neglecting my blog....I've been very busy finalizing my book of poetry. Editor asked me to consider changing title and being the weakling I am, I did so but not the title doesn't reflect in intention of the work, so I don't know if I can switch back, can't see why not as we're not in final manuscript stage, but we have a phone conference this coming Monday.

 I've also had the burden of again being certified for permanent disability....this requires talking to my doctors and making sure we're all on the same page with how sick I am, and they agree I should not be worrying about going back to work.

I started with a new therapist, a younger man of exceptional intelligence and he seems to respect and like working with me. I gave him permission to talk to former therapist, I have nothing to hide.

I've been reading, in fact couldn't put it down Galsworthy's The Forsythe Saga, tried Emily Bronte and couldn't get past the first chapter, switched over to George Elliot's The Mill on the Floss-this period of literature is very soothing and a luxury to read when I was too busy either studying or working. I don't care for contemporary fiction so this is like striking gold for me, its a nice change from all the psych books.

My big cat who went to the veterinarian seemed to have a paralysis in his hind legs. Vet couldn't detect anything, but the poor thing was frantic if his back or legs were touched by me or his little brother. So I grabbed him and did a thorough exam and it turned out he had matting on his back and by his tail. I very carefully cut off all the matts and once the pain subsided--matting is very painful for cats--he's been running around and able to jump again like a kitten. He's a grouchy ol man generally speaking but now he's a kittenish grouch, so he's back to normal.

Egypt birthing itself

It's amazing how Morsi misjudged his own people. Perhaps being on the political outside for so many decades as the Brotherhood was rendered by modern Egyptian leaders, he lost touch with the passion, humor and determination Egyptians uniquely are blessed with. An evening watching Egypt comedies with Adel Amin and others would have brought him up to date. Egyptians have been mocking and poking fun at their paternalistic dictators for decades.

After expelling Colonialism, Nasser represented himself as a Father of Egypt and its people. He hijacked, for lack of a better term, Um Kalthoum and the Egyptians anointed her the Mother of Egyptians. Songs of past glory, longing in love, success in piety, Life, Love and a constant urging to bear the burden with humor as better days will return, always just around the corner were believed and bought by generations of Egyptians. With government controlled media in all its forms, it was virtually impossible for Egyptians to know the truth of their circumstances...until computers and the Internet arrived. And that was decades before social media.

Internet provided forums to socialize with one another, with people in other countries using IM options, then on websites until the government realized how much activity was going on. Internet cafes sprung up with hours for men and women. What was forbidden in social society became a possibility via screen and keyboards. People could hook up, talk, argue about politics, fall in love, make plans.

Egyptians began to see a broader world and all the lies they were being told. Even though a lot of these matters were discussed in hushed conversations or strictly at home among trusted relatives, conversations were beginning. As Jews once discussed leaving Germany or Poland when the writing of Hitler was on the wall, Egyptians who could do so began dreaming of getting out, leaving the country for Europe, Netherlands and the U.S. Those who could maneuver the American Embassy-a bee hive of informers-safely applied for visas to visit relatives, go abroad for business, always with the proviso of returning, many not planning to return like a tiny flame that raged in their hearts. Others, almost exclusively men, looked for women anywhere seeking marriage, leading to a visa for them to depart.

I do not see this so-called coup a step back at all for Egypt. It is a spasm....like a baby who kicks and pulls up his tiny legs in pain when hunger eats at his unformed stomach-he needs to be held and fed. Egyptians are experiencing what Freedom means and their are exercising their rights. They voted in a man who appeared to have the least amount of ties with former colonial powers, whose party has medical clinics, feeding centers, schools for the poor...they voted for him with the belief that he would represent them and set them on a self sufficient path. Enough food and jobs for a start.

And there's a lot to do. Egypt's infrastructure is almost non existent. People have to pay for their own sewage lines or not have any. When you buy an apartment you get 4 walls and the quality of the cement may or may not mean the building will collapse within 5-10 years or stand a few years longer. The jokes about Egyptian traffic are not funny if you are trying to cross the road and the cars never stop, because they don't--you just launch out their, dodging cars as the 'traffic police' wave buses or important vehicles this way and that to pass them along amid all the civilian drivers. Museums with crumbling exhibits and hand lettered signage explaining what an item is you're peering at in disbelief. Smoking everywhere and anywhere  nonstop.

I hope Egypt continues to 'spasm' until they get it right and get the leaders they deserve. The young student who was obsessed with Egypt and was killed this past week likely understood and experienced the resilience and hope of a young revolution still in its throes and in no way finished. Egypt may not be a tourist trap at the moment, but it needs to handle its own storms without outside interference--it will survive and grow with patience and belief by its people that they themselves know what's best for Egypt.

Therapy, yet again

Last week I was having coffee with a friend when the cell rang and it was the new therapist recommended by my doctor. I'm not comfortable speaking on such  matters in public and asked him if I might call him back, and did so when I got home. This took place right before my session with current therapist.

I've not listed the various labels my current therapist has slapped on me, simply out of shame. My point here is that our working relationship took a nose dive since she returned from sick leave of 3 weeks when she complained I was the only "highly stressed" patient she has, everyone else just waited for her to return to see patients. Well la di da. All I did was leave  voice mail asking when she planned to return after almost no communication from her--she doesn't have a secretary or staff to communicate with patients and wasn't keeping in touch herself except once to call with a scratchy voice saying she wasn't yet ready to see patients in her 2nd week of being out. Everyone gets sick....I think the imbalance for me is she is the medical figure, I am patient and 3 weeks of no therapy was a bit long for me, especially when I just started on antipsychotic medication....there, now you know, its that bad, I was hallucinating and not smoking absinthe.

So since then she's been picking me apart very coldly with these labels explaining how I have expectations of people, dismiss people, self centric, basically I do things in survival mode (my term) all the time although she doesn't see it as survival mode anymore, it ws okay for a child or a young mother, at my age it's not allowed anymore. I do mean at times she grins at me almost sadistically to see whether she gets a rise out of me, any supportive or nurturing on her part has dissolved into a brick wall of anecdotes about her other patients to give me examples of how and why certain behaviors are or are not acceptable.

Okay, example--she mentioned one very educated man who would adamantly refuse to listen to any music other than classical. She once played something for him and he asked her to please stop the music it was almost painful for him to listen, it wasn't classical music. She explained that for this man, in order for him to feel superior he denigrated anything he didn't consider highbrow or intellectually above most people's taste. I don't do anything like that, give me Jimi Hendrix anytime as well as Medieval music although I'm not crazy about Mozart, I could listen to Chopin 24/7 but limit myself because his affect on me emotionally is too strong.

She hasn't explained where personal taste begins and bad behavior begins....I'm just exhibiting bad behavior since I didn't like the book she recommended and disagreed with her about who to vote for, for President last year. I don't want to bore you with further petty details but it feels like my disagreeing with her selections is a slap in her face, in fact she outright stated 2x that my comments insulted her by disrespecting her choices, so because of that she has withdrawn her more personal support and is being more formal in her approach.

My only concern about switching is whether the new therapist will be around for more than one year, he is being supervised by my doctor as a last year intern...maybe I'm being too cautious, but I do think the energy I'm wasting on trying to feel sane while dealing with this woman could be better utilized with someone supportive even short term.

Poem

The Children's Hour
It is an old and constant journey
unfolding behind closed eyes

Running to greet my father
every sunset

as his train rolls back again
through the clouds above Radomsk
boxcars of ghosts whisper
above pebbled rails

In Poland grey skies
defeated the sun
like wilted lemon
by his glass of tea that sits cold
time ceased, unclocked

behind closed eyes
our shuttered windows
sealed by the dust
we are in-
the Children's Hour

Come play, tell me if the haze is really outside
where dogs bray and smoke in perpetuity
rises in the distance?

Or is it only in my heart?
that pine trees populate the world
in which our family became kindling?
I never know
because the dead have names I never knew

Come visit
during Children's Hour
the Nocturnes play themselves
the trains no longer whistle but
listen between the whispers
my father says farewell...to whom?
We never said goodbye.

2013 (c)
Rachelle Singer

Poetry coming out

I am quite excited...seems being older has given me a kind of confidence I've never experienced before. In 2 days my latest poem is being published in a volume of literature and poetry, CRANNOG, in Galway, Ireland. I am putting the finishing touches on a small volume of selected poetry that I hope will be published and available this fall.  I kept myself in a physical situation at home where writing was virtually impossible as there was simply no surface space to put work and type. Since my kids hardly come round to visit I gave up and made the dining room table my desk and moved it into a different position so there's surface for manuscripts and laptop.

Therapy is getting more intense, I'm seeing therapist 2x a week because we were going nowhere fast with once a week. After giving me some new diagnostic insights she came up with, she said we've reached a fork where I'll have to decide whether to dig deeper or leave myself as I am; to dig will require courage according to her, to do nothing is a choice I can also make. Well, I went into therapy to see whether lifting lifelong depression is possible, so I don't see much of a choice...only fear of what I will uncover is holding me back. I also don't want to jeopardize the project I'm working on-in short, I want to finish the book before any more breakdowns if that's in store for me. My therapist is very supportive so I think if I'm on thin ice, we can work through it.


I briefly brought in a 3rd cat that I wanted to adopt. She so upset my boys I could only keep her 4 days before returning her to the shelter. My small fat cat threw up and still startles easy over unseen, unrecognized noises since she left. Turns out the young miss cat took at least one poop in a large flat box filled with tissue paper that the boys play in. She sat in their litter box like a hen on a clutch of eggs, but didn't use it, she ate their food despite having her own litter box and food dishes. She was so dominating she walked right into their space and chased them out, literally. Then she would walk back into my front room and rub and mew like a little angel. I realize its a cat, but I can't have the boys upset to that extent in our small place.

So keep me in your thoughts so I can finish my own book, all prayers and good energy is deeply appreciated. If you want to view the poem coming out in the next 2 days, I'll post it.

Funny thing, Sex

Being older now and having had a hysterectomy in my early 40s due to fibroids, my sexual drive has calmed down. It used to be a compulsive part of my life in a way I don't even see in my children's generation. My neighbor is extremely active sexually, I know because she talks about her interludes very frankly to me and her mother who seems to not blink at whatever this young woman says.

I've always been attracted to older men and still am....but the followup to the mental attraction just isn't there to back me up. I wonder about much older women who are having lovers decades younger than they are--a woman's body decays after menopause, body odors change, body shape and muscle mass changes and so I'm hard pressed to understand why any man would want an older woman if something else isn't on the menu. It may be different for some couples who have been together for many years and have grown older together, have bounded so deeply that droop and decay are secondary to making love.

Sex has always been a painful ordeal for me. I didn't have a mother who discussed sex and its escapades, she was busy with her own sexual trysts. She laughed when I got my first period and said she thought (at age 9), that my school mates would have filled me in, while I thought I was bleeding to death looking at my underwear drenched in red fluid.

But I still find there are men, always older, that have a certain quality that attracts me, a strength, self confidence and sexual way of looking right through you as if just by looking at you they know how they're going to make love. Men who don't need instruction guides, know when to be gentle, when to speak and what to say, men who gather you in and allow you to experience their flow and your own feelings without interrupting the entire episode by asking questions....is this good? is that good? And a man who is confident enough to be gentle. Almost all the men I've been with think that ramming a woman like a pile driver is the secret to creating an orgasm in a woman....just keep plowing away, bang bang  bang and surely the banging will create a magic reaction.

There's been times when I stare up at the ceiling and pray for it all to end. My second marriage was like that, all the time until finally I just pushed him off me in disgust. I had previously asked him to stop ramming himself or his hands into me but his training with online porn had taught him that women secretly love that rough painful form of sex. or maybe that was just his preference...to cause pain. A yelp or moan(from pain not pleasure) always got an excited reaction from him.

So now, I look at men with a different kind of hunger, more of a sadness and wonder how other women are able to quench their thirst with men, how some men look like such wonderful potential partners but I know there's nothing left inside me to respond as a woman. 

Working

I've been focused on finally putting together a volume of poetry, my first....could be my only:-) But I must do this as I left my children very early in their lives in order to write. While that might see frivolous or outrageous, I put myself through college while working full time and wrote. I critiqued feature film scripts, lived in basements, had my toes bitten by mice as well as my manuscripts chewed at by mice. And I managed to do it all while living with severe depression and other undiagnosed mental illnesses. So, in my own mind I owe the good Lord who allowed us all to survive my journey to produce something before I die.

That little intro is my excuse for not writing on my blog more recently.
My therapist opened a discussion about "leveling" and passive aggressive--we've only covered leveling and even that needs another session to clarify. I'm curious how many more layers of labels are going to be slapped on me before all my idiosyncrasies are covered/


I brought in a shelter cat that was in part a Maine Coon, 18 lbs of fluff and turned out to be very domineering. She sat in the Boys' litter  box like a chicken on a clutch, she jumped everywhere all 18 lbs of her, she ate their food but ignored her own and chased my smaller nervous cat into corners with bared teeth, ears pinned back, growling. While she was alone with me, she was a fluff ball of gentle shyness that liked being brushed and talked to. It was like Jekyll and Hyde, after 4 days of watching my Boys not eat and trying to find hiding places, I packed Missy up and a friend helped me return her to the shelter. She didn't mind my friends Yorkie yipping and yapping all over the room and licking her, but fellow cats did not meet with her approval. Absolutely no boundary lines, I dare say a very obnoxious cat...talk about passive aggressive.

Otto Kernberg quotes another doctor (Gunderson?) as defining passive aggressive as " a dog who licks your face while peeing on your shoe." Very unsettling to say the least.

decisions decisions

I've decided to remain with my current therapist rather than moving on. It's a peculiarity of mine to pack up and flee when things get irritating or stagnant. So two weeks after asking psychiatrist to find me a replacement, I've been going to sessions and discussing with her the exact issues that piss me off and asking her to do the same about me. It seems its been healthy for both of us, but since this is my therapy, not hers, that's good.

However, we have this symbiotic relationship that seems to float atop thin ice and my mood swings can bring out very insightful comments from therapist, like an in depth explanation of existential depression which is label tossed at me by psych. I take umbrage at the label because the parental abuse was so prolonged and extensive it formed the shell of a person I remain now, unable to attach to humans. Since I feel an attachment to current therapist, however warped it might be in psychiatric terms, it seems more productive to work through it than throw out everything and start again with no guarantee I will feel anything. I certainly cannot work with a young intern, even if he is supervised by the psych.

I mentally hunt and peck looking for holes to worm my way into a person's psyche and if successful, it can be dangerous. For me, usually not the other person. And when I think I'm understanding or empathizing with someone, its a short road to being critical or disgusted at another's vulnerabilities.

For example, my young neighbor upstairs introduced her mother to me, and said mother and I are around the same age, but similarities stop there. She's a holy roller, wants to win the lottery to change her life and moans about her work and lot in life. A hot mess as the t-shirt reads. She had no problem coming in my apt for 5-6 hours yakking about her life, belief in Lord keeping her together, etc etc and I listened because its one trait I have that is good with people...but I'm fried after 2 hours, even with my own children. At the fifth hour I'm ready to scream and by the 6th hour I will kill you if you don't get the heck out of my sight...she's a person oblivious to anything, except to ask, 'what are you thinking about' if you stop nodding in agreement or responding. In desperation I finally told her daughter I love having her stop by but can't handle 6 hour marathon visits. So she stopped coming altogether...some mother daughter talk that must have been.

So this past weekend I get a frantic call from the mother, she smells gas. She's hysterical about the new puppy breathing gas and it could die if she has to sleep there, in fact they both could die....she's gone from point A to point Z in a millisecond. Pilot lights go out all the time, especially here if you turn on the ceiling fan, and their ceiling fan is right in the kitchen near the stove. I told her on the phone, clear off any pots and lift up the stove top and see if both pilots lights are on. While holding phone and whimpering, she does that and lets me know only one light on one side is burning. I told her to just light the other one. Then she's terrified to 'play with the gas' because the stove may be broken and she and the dog may die. Meanwhile she's alone in her daughter's apartment babysitting the dog and she's been doing since her daughter got it 2 months ago. Either she gave up her apartment and is actually living upstairs caring for the dog or she commutes daily from a job 1 hour away to dog sit every evening. Since I was going up and down to the basement to wash clothes, I wasn't feeling too neighborly and told her to call the fire department or knock on her neighbor's door because husband is a chef and would know how to handle a stove. The neighbor gave her the afterhours emergency phone number of our landlord who sent a mechanic over about 3 hours later, somehow they survived the smell of gas in the meantime without my company to babysit them.

Her daughter, my actual neighbor, was in another state at a wedding and came home early. Can you feel the bile rising in your gut? Can you understand how manipulative this behavior is? Does it qualify as passive-aggressive? Within the space of 2 months, daughter bought a tiny pup her mother is now in charge of and a house; at a time in her life when everything is up in the air professionally and socially. The original idea for buying a house was to find a place for her mother to live with her, but the house she bought is too small and is like a starter home for a couple. So mom has excused herself from living there (insert violin music about here) not wanting to disturb any future relationships for her daughter. She discussed it with me, but I stopped saying anything after reminding her that the impetus for even looking for a house was to help her, so what was the point of getting a house that didn't make that happen?

I have no patience with irrationality, unless its my own, which always make sense to me.

Memorial days....

Every day is Memorial day for me. I am filled with nothing but memories that won't leave, that sit with me, sometimes won't shut up. Today is officially a day where Americans honor the dead who served in wars. But the inference is always wars 'over there' elsewhere. There are so many people who battle for a lifetime wars of physical and mental illness.

People who live in the streets with no homes, no families, broken lives and broken hearts. Soldiers of Life...the same people we sometimes flippantly refer to as the walking dead...people so tired and hungry they appear to be glazed over in a frost of the soul.

I've lived through wars since childhood. First watching my mother's face freeze as Cuba threatened to shoot missles at us. As the night skies were strobbed by long slender lights I watched, waiting for martians and bombs to come kills us, The weekly bomb drills where in school we ducked under our desksm squeezed our eyes closed and held our breaths until told it was all clear.

Watching the '67 War blow by blow on television when the media followed soldiers on the battlefield and reported live. A war where Israel took back Golan and the Rebbe said to keep going...the '73 War of Cyprus and Greece into which I flew on my way to kibbutz life in Israel. Sitting on a grassy knoll outside the airport at 19, I was oblivious to my own safety, my only thought of my father's death occurring months earlier and the necessity to carve a life out of nothing, penniless.

My father's parents came to America due to war in Europe. Russian Jews who settled in Baltimore, their personal battles continued to affect my father who married a non-Jewish woman, and they declared him dead. My father was a 'dead' man who spent his life trying to retain an identity stolen from him by a tradition that rendered his two daughters to live forever without his family. I inherited his desire to form a life as a Jew, so deep was the void and pain of his loss I immersed myself in the war zone known as Chabad after returning from Israel. I returned from Israel primarily because of being shocked at the secularism,-even in '73- of having married male kibbutzniks make passes while I drove a tractor, clubbed carp in the kitchen or picked olives, grapes and rimonim.

Vietnam seemed to infuse every aspect of high school while I was there, work, travel and social life. We were in the streets trying to turn everything that wasn't yet turned upside down, inside out or scrawled over with graffiti by followers of BPanthers, the Chicago 7 or Weathermen. Our soldiers came home to be spit on, scorned....I was already ensconced in a world without television, radio or newspapers. I prayed 3x a day for other things, mostly for clarity and a secure place in a confusing world...a religious husband so I could live the life that escaped my father's dreams, in life and death.

As the Middle East and all its surrounding countries conflagrates daily, it will be so until eternity as all parties claim righteously that land is theirs or was stolen from them. By the year 2025 (approx.) it is estimated that the last of the Greatest Generation will have passed on...the memories will dwindle slowly after them as many children of survivors will take another generation to forget if they haven't done so already. Those children who deliberately Away from the misery of their parents pain and chose to live a strictly secular life and those who were told nothing by parents who could not even speak of the horrors they survived.

It is early evening, unusally cold this time of year, May and its in the 50s...a man has been sorting through the dumpster outside my apartment window. He seems to be collecting anything he can reuse and its amazing what my neighbors consider 'garbage.' I've cooked two pieces of chicken, made cabbage salad and homemade biscuits, enough for two. I excuse myself now to fix whoever this warrior of life is, a hot dinner in hopes that for this one day, he has a happy memory.

For the moment...

I'm on hold with switching therapists as my psych has to arrange with his intern how to work with me. I'm not easy to work with:-) Maybe you figured that out already from reading my blog. Been told I think too much, ruminate too much, isolate way too much and am generally a misogynist with OCD, PTSD besides formal diagnoses. Opinionated, stubborn, terrified and often too smart for my own good...or everyone else's good because I have a low tolerance for BS and circuitous conversation leading nowhere, which is a primary reason for a change of therapists.

My current therapist doesn't take any notes or tape sessions. Her M.O. when something is critically important and usually dealing with attachment issues/the lack of attachment is to lean in and say very somberly, I am so very sorry you had to go through that, a phrase that runs off my back like water off a duck, in fact it rings so hollow its almost irritating to hear each time, its useless. it's also an opportunity for her to share her own similar stories or those of other nameless patients who went through situations and survived.
I haven't survived, I'm a shattered vessel of a human being trying to manage each day as it comes.

I watched mesmerized today as Dr. Phil interviewed the mother who walked away from her 2 children and husband for 11 years. One day was so overwhelmed with the idea of being divorced and left to raise her children, she abandoned everything with the clothes on her back and walked to a park, to sit crying until a group of homeless came to sit with her and ask if they could help. She became part of a group of people in Key Largo FL, lived with an alcoholic for almost a decade until she couldn't stand his drinking anymore, her father was an alcoholic, her mother didn't bond/attach with the children FOR GOD'S SAKES YOU COULD WRITE MY NAME IN PLACE OF HERS. And her worst sin was she lived a life without ever contacting her kids. She was reconstructing her life each time in each new relationship as if it was going to be good now...when the pressure got to much she left, over and over. FOR GOD'S SAKES YOU COULD WRITE MY NAME IN PLACE OF HERS.

Dr. Phil interviewed 2 psychiatrists and they both said ATTACHMENT issues were at the core, she never learned to deal with anxiety, depression or fear, she had no coping skills that normal parenting would have taught her. Here's where we differ, I also have attachment issues, severe ones that allowed me to step away from my children and both of us wept for all the years of separation but remained incapable of reaching out to close the breach. The difference is I had learned from my father, since I took care of him since toddlerhood, that work is honorable, being smart is a gift and you use what you have to talk your way in and out of anything and everything. So at times I feel like a powerful machine and at other times, sometimes simultaneously, I feel completely vulnerable and incapable of anything productive. This mix of terror and belief in myself has kept me afloat and yet held me back from doing what I might have accomplished as a writer.  I write now and think, who the hell cares, no one would listen there are so many other disconnected dysfunctional voices crying out in the dark.

I felt badly for her, to watch her sniveling in from of a camera, apologizing for something she couldn't explain. Because its almost impossible to explain to another human being, particularly one with children of their own, that you feel that anyone else could be a better parent than yourself, that you don't want the crud that you are to soil your beautiful kids and its better to just walk away to save them from you. Maybe Augusten Burroughs would get it....

New therapist coming

I met with my psychiatrist this morning and flat out told him, through tears, I need his help. We discussed the relationship I have with my current therapist and her divulging so much of her personal life, which has only made me very concerned for her and her frailties. When I saw her Tues, she said her other patients all did well during her 3+ week absence only I was highly stressed and remained the single highly stressed patient she has. I have also brought her gifts in moments of deep 'love' and concern to make her feel better. While I care deeply for her, my intuitive sense is that the relationship is skewed and off balance, its more about her than her guiding me forward. I was concerned that either narcissism or something else was making me biased about how we were working, wanting the focus on me more than me comforting her, but seeing the expression on my psychiatrists face made me realize my instincts are right.

He has recommended I begin working with his intern whom he will supervise. It will only be for about 1 year but at least it will begin a track of my being supervised by one of the best psychiatrists in the country. He knew immediately to adjust my diagnosis to a specific type of depression and while he is brilliant, he is impenetrable. I told him today that is why he is invaluable for me to work with, because no matter who I work with, male/female, I construct a transference relationship, a common part of my diagnosis. With him, I can care for him, but its a safe caring. He hears me, understands, asks pertinent questions, isn't afraid of my emotional storms and actually is capable of ironic humor something he is able to do because he trusts himself and respects my intelligence. I am truly lucky to have him on my side....and I hope he remains there.

So I will have to terminate with my current therapist, but first I will meet with this new one and we'll both decide if its a good fit. After the year is up, I have to trust something will be in place to continue work.

I was very anxious about this morning, thinking I would be referred back to my existing therapist or challenged on why I want to suddenly leave but there are too many balls that have been dropped and I realized how  much time I'm wasting, I am immensely relieved psych understood the importance of making a switch aside from  the emotional issues I brought into the session.

My craving

More than medication, more than chocolate, what I crave are a pair of strong male arms to hold me against his chest, to protect me and make me feel safe. A man who will not dismiss my fears but remind me that he is stronger and all the horror outside will not touch us, he will keep us safe. Someone who loves cats but helps me learn to love a human being, more than animals and learn to trust a person, something I cannot do now.

A man who is stronger than my paranoia and terror. A man whose chest is there at night so when I wake from a nightmare I can turn to a safe warm wall and he will not turn away.

Terrifying few days...

Dealing with mental illness remains a double edged sword. I was open and confided to my therapist that I felt her absence of 4 weeks due to illness felt like abandonment. I reminded her I had called my daughter and told daughter I had a premonition that her boyfriend may try to kill her on a trip they had planned. Subsequently I didn't hear from my daughter for 2 months and when she came on Mother's Day, she reminded me that I called her hysterical to break the news her boyfriend was a killer. I had no recollection, at all. As she repeated the incidence some details sounded familiar but I honestly had almost no recall at all. I do know that at the time I called her my primary concern was saving her life so it felt imperative that I tell her what I knew.

That was not an isolated incident...I had experiences at work where for example I confided in my VP that our crumbling new building should be blessed because despite repeated repairs to get clearance to open the building for occupancy, things kept breaking down. She laughed and told me the university community was too evolved to lean on prayer to solve problems.

Last night I dreamed my oldest son had committed suicide or was killed by a car...it was unclear in the dream other than he was gone.

The response from my therapist was to request permission to call my psych who only prescribes meds, and I agreed assuming that some medicine adjustment would be the answer. He didn't call me directly, the therapist called me to say, "go to the emergency room and tell them you need blood work to test your sodium levels, hormone levels." I mentioned that there were no written orders and no one would do such tests on someone walking in asking for them. She replied, "just tell them what you told me, that you had some hallucinations and your doctor wants these tests done." I smelled a rat, as we say.

I called a friend and explained the inexplicable and she warned me that if I walk in and say I've been having hallucinations that immediately the situation would turn into a psych hold and no one would hear anything else. Well of course she was right. Since the problem has more or less ended--there are no more faces peering out of my paisley design curtains--I wasn't ready to be held over for any amount of time. My sole comfort are my cats who need me.

I called my shrink directly and spoke to him; he had suggested the medical tests saying he felt it was a metabolic imbalance but if the symptoms have abated, we could leave the tests for now and I should come to see him at my appointment end of the week.

It seemed to me therapist was on thin ice trying to get me into the hospital as if I was too stupid to understand how the system works...just tell them what you told me, you're having hallucinations...yeah right and I have a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you.

Published

My poetry will be included in the 10th year anniversary edition of www.crannogmagazine.com CRANNOG Literary Magazine, published in Galway, Ireland. My work was selected from global submissions sent in from every continent....that's pretty nifty.

Publication date is June 28, 2013, it is a hard copy literary journal so if you're interested, go to the site and purchase a copy.

Kvelling:-)

Shrunk

Well, I'm not sure what's going on with my therapist. but ostensibly she caught a virus from another patient who thought they were non contagious and has since been in absentia, not seeing patients. Or not seeing me. Before we chalk this up to my usual paranoia, let me say a few things....

My therapist has divulged a lot of very personal matters to me including aspects of her own diagnosis, her neurological difficulties, she is partially deaf and lip reads, her husband is confined to a wheelchair and fell out of it a few months ago into a street that luckily had no traffic at that moment, and little updates about her pets. Before you pee from laughing, there literally is a severe shortage of able senior practitioners who are accepting patients. I cannot work with someone doing their residency, tried that, no good.There have been sessions when 1/2 the time is spent on me listening to family anecdotes.

But I digress...my diagnosis often has problems with severe transference even same gender and in this therapeutic relationship it has manifested in me having severe anxiety she might die or be too frail to care for me. She shared, with good intentions, to explain to me how similar our experiences have been (debatable) so she is well prepared to work with me.

Early on she recommended a layman's psych workbook that I found to be written for preschoolers and told her as much. It was weeks later that she told me how 'hurtful' my dismissal of her recommendation was. She suggested a novelist Barbara Pym whom I thoroughly enjoyed a number of her books, somehow in discussing the books either I used a term, old fashioned or staid, nothing obscene or really offensive and she subsequently will not recommend ANY reading material to do with the anxiety/depression problems keeping me locked up. I am not responding appropriately to her gestures of being helpful.
So I returned to reading Masterson and began to read Eric Maisel last month.

But even with reading I prefer being housebound and the term is apt, I am bound mentally to be at home as much as possible. Few things would drive me to go out-completely out of cigarettes and nicotine gum isn't cutting it; out of cat food. I've rescheduled Dr. appointments if anxiety is off the chart. Sometimes I go through periods of not speaking, other than occasionally to the cats, so that when I hear my own voice I almost don't recognize it. I hate small talk, this issue almost cost me professionally many times. Luckily I had someone above me who was empathetic, I told her I'll do almost anything, I'm not good with cocktail chatter one on one. "But you don't have problems speaking to me," she once told me and I responded, "You're a pleasure to speak with, you have a brain and don't BS around."

So I'm going into my 3rd week without a session, no word from therapist after she checked in at the height of my depression, which included mild psychosis and my psych had to increase the anti psychotic med...nothing, total silence. I see him in about 10 days and will ask him to recommend someone to take me on. I am not reaching out to my current therapist a 3rd time for a session.

Racing to the finish

I watched the PA runners race, waiting but not wanting another catastrophe to happen. It seems my naiveté knows no bounds. I kept thinking the brothers were simply swept away by impulsive passions to better their individual beliefs. It seems know they were egged on by a mother and had assistance by 'friends' who tried to destroy evidence and a wife who wanted to protect her husband. A mere boy who laughs when confronted with the bombings by friends who were watching on TV.

What can be in the mind of a boy his age, who has seen much good and evil of the world, who could not escape the facts surrounding those who attempted the same feats and were captured, only to spend their lives locked up forever. Bombs of opportunity, they were called. Made too quickly and ready to go, they had to be disbursed prior to July 4th, so Patriot's Day seemed like a good substitute. Is it the thinking of many youths that tomorrow never comes and if it does?...nothing can touch me, I am invincible.

Did his mother urge him to give up his life for Islam? She blames the U.S. for corrupting her children and yet they flourished here on government welfare programs deemed refugees, there was empathy and a helping hand as this country always tries to offer those new to these shores.

And I have to ask why I empathize with such broken wings as these two were...stray cats, fallen birds, people who seem down on their luck because of chance, happenstance, bad luck...even poor decisions whose consequences mar their current days, decisions they would never make if given a second chance. And yet prisons are filled with remorseful people, some of whom learn to change and some of whom grow firmer and more stubborn from the very grief they've caused others and themselves and now find there's no way out.

When I consider madness and my hand in it, I think of the straight track of self preservation I've remained on. No booze, drugs, stealing or falling behind and waiting for the government to care for me. I've lived a very hard life but a clean one. I've worked since age 14 and yet still cannot grant myself the peace of resting now in retirement.

People around me ask and wonder what in the world I can possible do all day...reading, baking, keeping house, shopping, resting from illnesses, these are minor escapes in a world that values most, what one does for a living. if you are doing no work, you are doing nothing. When I was a child and would walk to school I often wondered what went on in the street with adult I saw who didn't seem to be working. Were they bums? Alcoholics, some were. perhaps many had to leave to race before the finish. My father didn't leave until he was injured at age 74 by a push cart of dresses that ran over his ankle. Even then, he felt a failure because he wasn't supporting his wife and girls. he wept and worried what was to become of us, he knew the race wasn't over because his time was ending...he wanted us ready to run for ourselves once he was gone. Every time he tried to talk to me about this, my mother told me to go find something else to do and to leave him alone. I cannot tell you that I know my father can see what I've done with my life, that I made my living with writing, something he yearned to do albeit with a 3rd grade education. I cannot say he waits for me, because I don't know any of these things. Perhaps my 'race' ended earlier than others because it began so early...maybe I need to learn how to grant myself the grace of being allowed to finish early. 

PTSD

Surely in all the writing about myself I've mentioned PTSD, but it  became officially a diagnosis this past week. The Boston bombings that took place 2 weeks ago set me off...weeping and afraid to venture outdoors. But oddly the grief is not as much for those injured or who died, but for the boys who committed the acts, in particular the younger Dzhokar (sp?) who seems to me to have been groomed by his older brother.

My grief seems to revolve around the hopelessness of such young boys who think sacrificing their lives for a greater good, whether it involves terror or murder will leave a lasting mark that changes anything---that such acts today in any way forwards their cause whatever it was.

In this situation it seems too convenient to blame religious fundamentalism or fanaticism. I could be wrong, not being a expert on brainwashing, but unless there was more at work than the 6 month return to Dagestan and Russia, Tamerlan had too much going on with  expectant wife, governmental income, 2 parents, his own good looks and personal success--again I say these boys were not losers, like many others who self combust, their inner joy experienced as meaningfulness in a world that doesn't value moral or ethics to the same extent as capital success, were suffering a type of emptiness at their core selves.

Imagine, as so many American soldiers who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq, living in an environment where the most basic acts of faith inform everything done throughout one's day and then having to slaughter people who have done nothing except be in the way or try to defend themselves from rockets, bombs and machine guns. Yes, I know its not all so black and white....America has become expert in nuancing our wars of late to allow us to continue in combat mode where we define it as necessary. The highest rates of America soldiers taking their on lives has been after returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq. I wonder whether anyone is tracking military conversions to Islam as well?

I was prescribed an antidepressant to break the otherwise unstoppable cycle of grief, but found more effective was listening to hours of Chopin, the complete Nocturnes, some Waltzes, Etudes, Polonaises...these speak to my Self as if prescribed for my soul. I needed both to be honest, as I am in writing to you who take time to come by and read here. And I see from the audience those reading understand my passion for Chopin.

The level of grief I experience is so powerful it makes me physically ill, stomach cramps and other unmentionables, but I can't leave the apartment. Not only because of physical discomfort but mental terror of being caught in a maelstrom as on 9.11 when after seeing both buildings come down, the streams of people walking silently over the Brooklyn Bridge to get home. I couldn't do that and was put up with several other women by the College in the dorms for 4 days. Each women left at different stages, we were waiting for the electricity to be turned back on and once it was and the trains were back to runnings, I too left. But the echo of silence against the bluest of skies, the fluttering of sheaves of papers, billowing smoke and falling bodies somehow remains impressed no matter how I try to shake it all off. I would not survive a war...I've been through too many since childhood and have run out of adrenaline to flee or fight, I remain a casualty in waiting, one to be counted.

 

Landing gear found

Ground Zero, the memories of being there, watching people jump, the silence and yes a 2nd plane did hit, I WITNESSED it as did thousands of others after the 1st one hit at 8:45. I hope they raze both buildings surrounding that 18" alleyway and remove every bit of desecrated remains, planes or human. Fuck all your PC acquiescence, budgets and molly coddling fork tongued muslims, blaming the CIA and conspiracy theories, finish the job of finding and burying the dead properly.

Mothers of Sons

In some strange way, the words Mrs. Tsarnaev..."America took my sons from me" resonates deeply for me even as I live and mother my children here. I may be translating her words incorrectly, but what I hear is a grieving mother who lost her two boys to a culture of promiscuity, greed and violence.

In America we are imbued with gratitude for the great freedoms granted us, yet many people get lost in a whirlwind of PGV living and thinking that all they accumulate in property, money and partners defines who they are. Rarely do the responsibilities that jointly come with such freedom are held in equal balance. When one's moral compass is so defined, reality and a sense of being meaningful in such a world becomes subject to daily winds that buffet personal fortunes for better or worse.

Neither boy was a "loser" as suggested by their uncle who rushed to judgment in front of media microphones, quick to defend the Chechnyan people and perhaps his own family.  Both boys were hungering in search for their moral compass, the younger following his older brother, clearly his mentor.

I see my own children struggling as young adults with the realities of being adults in a world solely defined by Capitalism and scrambling to keep up so they can say "I too Am, I too count for something, I accomplished Something" and setting aside the religious life they born into. Unless one is supported by a community, enclosed and protected as a group in beliefs, being religious is no more than an inconvenience, often an embarrassment or an excuse to do less than those around who have no ties to bind them from living the PGV life.

I marvel at the talking heads asking the same idiotic questions that are politically correct, not wanting to besmirch Islam or Muslims in any wholesale manner. At the same time Muslims en masse remain quiet, either in silent acquiescence with the actions taken by the brothers or in fear of whatever position they take. If Muslim culture remains as it is in this modern world, a force advocating the rise of the Caliphate, destroying the infidels defined as most everyone not of their particular sect of Islam, then Islam must be defined as a manner of warfare and we are doomed to remain in constant watch of threats. The irony for me, is that the desire of Islam to rise and thrive is little different from the holiest of infidels for Muslims, the Jewish people. While Islam claims to be the fastest growing religion in the world, its membership consists not of devout believers but women coerced into conversion upon marriage, children being kidnapped outside their homelands to enforce their religious adherence and of the disenfranchised. It is too often the convert and the newly awaked re-vert who most want to show their devoutness to Islam that are willing to spend their lives blowing up others and themselves.

Tamerlan and Dzhokar were both disenfranchised. Disenfranchised like many young people in the world today who may choose drugs, suicide and self harm to leave their legacy on a world that seems deaf and senseless to their needs and pain. While I obviously do not advocate terrorism in any form, I feel for their mother, she knew their pain as only a mother can.

Sometimes, often for months as you have seen from my lack of posting, the pain of life is so profound I cannot even write. its enough to sit as my thoughts spin internally, rendering me as if paralyzed. Beyond depression, beyond other diagnoses that follow me together with other ghosts, I remain on alert constantly to fend off attacks...mental attacks that bring on acute anxiety and fear of both people and places outside my small apartment.

I've created a safe space for myself where I can see and touch almost everything within reach as I move within two rooms. The local news is filled with horror stories daily and only this past week the cars parked in back of my house were vandalized, windows smashed, police called and my apartment looks right out on this yard. The cats used to run around during the summer, but no more.

my older cat had a small stroke and his hind legs are so weak he cannot jump, is disinterested in anything requiring jumping because he's slipped and fallen a number of times. I bought him steps so he can climb into his bed...no, even though it might make sense for him to sleep on the ground he's a neurotic as I am and prefers a higher plane for resting.

My mental withdrawal seems to correspond to the increasing intensity of therapy. Whereas earlier years I justified my leaving crown heights to return to college to support my kids, my kids are now all adults and whatever justification I may have had back then is now null and void because they are suffering from not having  mother. As my own mother was absent emotionally and present physically, I was absent physically and until a decade ago, unavailable for emotional support. My youngest son is currently visiting and we spoke for the first time on the impact on him about my leaving.

he said he had been afraid for many years to discuss the subject with me because of not wanting to hurt me, but he felt like he never had a mother...period. No one liked the second wife former husband married and she was gone after 7 years of being unable to deal with the same man I tried to, so the kid experienced immense instability, abandonment, a father who was alternately abusive verbally, physically and mentally....sexually is something that has never been cleared up.

So the lifelong grief of my parents is now replayed as I come to understand what my own children are going through, but if nothing else they have bonded so tightly they are comfortable and loving with one another leaving me to remain to outsider except on rare occasions.

Erev Pesach

Erev Pesach...I'm totally unprepared, completely chametzdich. But this yontif is always special because in this time my Father assumed a quiet dignity that his family tried to take from him for marrying my mother. My Father became a "JEW" again, renewed himself through cooking.

We would walk together down the block from our West End Avenue apartment to the fish mongers. I cannot recall the man's name but his shop was 3 steps up. We walked in and my father always dealt with the owner who wore a black rubber apron and towered over a long wooden plank covered with blood and fish muck. We were always greeted warmly, his mallet raised high and a big smile. He knew why we had come.   My father selected his whitefish and pike after looking over the glistening fish laid out over crisp cold ice.

Father made his order...20 lbs of chopped fish, leave the bones and heads in a separate bag and grind onions into the fish. Since it was a big job including a number of fish, it would be delivered later. When the knock came at our back door where deliveries were made, father placed the bag into the freezer. A heavy plastic bag filled with sweet smelling fish and onions, it took up most of the freezer. Freezer compartments in the 1950s and 60s were usually small boxes inside the fridgerator with a small plastic door.

While the fish began to chill to near freezing, father prepared 2 very large stock pots with water, the fish bones and onion skins and slice onions. They took along time to reach boiling so I watched him putter around the kitchen absorbed in his work in total silence.
He brought out a wood bowl that was only used for making gefilte fish. It seemed like the largest bowl in the world. He had a hand chopper which he would use after removing the plastic bag of fish from the freezer. And he began his magic....

The fish was emptied into the bowl, he chopped at the icy crystallized fish, adding one egg after another until at least were worked into the fish. He added sugar, a lot of salt and even more black pepper and then washed his hands. I would bring a small bowl of cold water so he could begin his work. He used a serving spoon to scoop large quenelle shaped balls into his wet hands and pat them from palm to palm before slipping them into the simmering water scented by leaves of onion skins. He stuffed the heads last and laid them gently on top. We had so much fish cooking the entire 7th floor smell of the richness of the broth. He would tell me, never use carp, they eat all the garbage in the ocean. He also never used fillers like matzah meal. He didn't have to because he learned from his mother that freezing the fish and cooking it in slushy state kept it snowy white, flecked with pepper and pristinely sweet.

Sometimes I would go into the frigerator and just grab a fist full of fish, a single ball would fill my hand, and nibble at it slowly.
The broth from cooking was jellied from all the bones and heads. The eyeballs would turn opaque and bounce around at the bottom of the pots my mother was expected to clean and she always came in afterwards and complained how her stove was awash with sticky fish stock, onion skins that splashed over and that fish smell that brought flies buzzing at the kitchen screen.

He would hand me $20 and tell me "give this to your mother for cleaning up." And then he sat, curiously content and silent in the late afternoon sun streaming onto the blue pile rug in the living room. His pesach was complete. We would likely have guests of my mother sister who also married a Jewish man, a milliner that worked in my father's building in the Garment District. He would try to explain to everyone at the table all the items on the seder plate, but all these were secondary, mainly because in the privacy of his thoughts for a brief few hours my father had gone home, cooking with people I would never meet or know.

The Walls

Watched Mr. Obama look 'casual' with his jacket slung over his should as he disembarked from his jet in Israel, I'm reminded of the admonition that one should always hold the snake by its head, for it will always attempt to land a lethal bite.

Israel is now viewed by outside media as a country the size of New Jersey (small) with all borders aligning Arab countries having fences...actually a fence is lacking in the magnitude of these structures-high, cemented, razor wired, thermo sensored--shutting out and keeping in.

Why shit, I'm done the same thing in my own apt!!! It's a bitch out there and I've created a safe haven in 2.5 rooms, albeit I lack razor wire and other sophisticated technology so keep out the tunnel rats. For Jews, that's what its come down to, Us vs The World. I know this, have known this since my divorce in '05.
Having married an Egyptian translator (of my own writing) and extended all the generous benefits this country offers to residents of american citizens, I put up with 3 years of being smacked, punched, told what to do, being asked to hand over my paycheck, received unannounced office visits while working, was taken on his 2 hr translation jobs after coming home from my own 9 hour job and commute...you get the idea.

When a person is dying for water or has lived too long in abject misery, even an opportunity to change their life can be so overwhelming they wind up sabotaging themselves. Or I could blame it on his youth or my being older (no it wasn't a sex thing--I actually thought since I wanted to marry to avoid dying alone, I would accept his proposal) or I could blame the internet since he discovered the unfettered manner one could play online and then make play time/real time by meeting up with the women he talked to all night while I tried most futilie to sleep as the screen flickered...but I accept it was all my fault for being stupid and needy. The point here was...no matter all the money spent to make his residency happen, his flights, my trips, the fees, his living expenses in america, all were for naught when I finally and belated filed for divorce...he compared me to the Jewish woman who poisoned his Prophet, he refused to eat anything further I cooked and called me a filthy Jew. For the record, I shower daily.

I'm intellectualling arguing within about how long american Jews can watch and live from afar as life in Israel become more precarious for our families, friends and those who laid down their lives previously to prevent another Holocaust...because it seems the clock is ticking once again.

Thoughts on writing

How we measure the worth of language or the worth of the writer seems to be whether a person acquires the acknowledgement and recognition of peers. That recognition coming in the form of being published, winning awards. I think back to my own teachers, award winning poets who were nurtured by older award winning poets, who had their poetry published in volumes of their own and in collections, taught in respected universities and it is as if they never existed...so far and long ago are their voices.

If my Google upgrade upsets you

I upgraded my Google status which links everyone I know to my blog--if you do not want to be connected, please dont blast me with angry comments, just delete me or block anything from me. I appreciate your understanding, there actually are folks that did ask for this upgrade because following my blog had been a problem due to an older formatt I was using. Thank you

Tabula Rasa

My brain is a slate where everything is blank when I need my wits about me the most. What part of the brain tells you one thing when that little internal voice is saying the opposite? Its like a double front of enemies doing sabotage. Too oblique?
I see a doctor in one complex and getting to her office each time is extremely difficult. In the 2 years I've been seeing her, although I've made mention of the difficulty climbing a very steep hill 2 blocks long with a cane, no one has ever mentioned a short cut.

It is cold and raining since last night. We expected snow and then icy rain, making the streets slippery. I cannot afford a fall on ice. With one hip replacement and other joints that dislocate very easily, I decided to cancel my appointment this morning. But asking for a reschedule meant at least 6 weeks-so I decided to make the trip since doctor is trying to get my sugar levels down. This doctor equates sugar levels with bad eating/discipline and is threatening insulin. I do not want insulin. I was using a wonderful medication that is now prohibitively expensive, but I purchased a batch after raiding my pension for the money and my sugar wass down to a near normal level.

What DOES make my sugar rise is stress. Its as if I've lost all means of coping with stress. Stress raises my sugar, brings on fatigue, chills and finally a total collapse which should set in, shortly-all the signs began last Fri.

So I call for a taxi, to avoid the HILL in the icy rain and tell the driver the address. But it was the wrong address, my doctor was in another building. I've made this mistake 3x now, but this morning it cost me $13 in taxi money, made me 30 minutes late because it took an hour for the taxi to arrive, although I gave myself an extra hour even if it meant sitting and waiting in her office and so I arrived too late to be seen. It was like de j'a vu all over again--how many times can one idiot make the same mistake? Obviously at least 3x.

I had laid out all my paperwork she wanted to see, had everything with me--I know me well enough to over prepare and leave early. How my brain could outstmart me with such surety to take me to the wrong building and miss this appt, I dont know. Maybe I just didnt want to be there and blew it subconsciously? A woman took me aside to give me clear directions on how to avoid the HILL problem in the future. So simple and yet PA is so closeted that outsiders like me are presumed to know everything and if not, well too bad. Maybe if I had yelled I'm a Steelers fan or wore Steeler's fan gear I would have had better help earlier.

Even better and perhaps more interesting is my taxi driver wanted to discuss the end of the world---it started out with a brief comment on global warming and he asked me what were my thoughts regarding the signs about The End Times. Held captive in the back of the taxi, I received a private gospel lesson from this man from Old/New/ Testaments, the Book of Solomon, Tehillim and trying to be nice I didn't want to throw the door open mid sentence as he rattled on while we were parked in front of the WRONG building.

Years ago I would have exploded, slammed something, smashed or broken something or pounded my head in a frustrated rage, I can't muster that anymore-I'm convinced of my own either stupidity or intentional desire to self sabotage, its such a deep sense of being defeated. I used to get confused even coming out of a subway station in NYC, sometimes walking half a block in the wrong direction until I realized a wrong turn was made-no sense of direction whatsoever.

And each incident like this makes me realize that when The End of the World does arrive, or all those guns and ammo that is being bought up for some unnamed war inside the US by its own citizens, that I'm a goner. Just close the windows and wait to die, me and the cats. Now writing this makes me understand why I am so fearful being outside, alone outside and the feeling of safety in being inside my tiny apartment. Man cave? Ha. Kitty cave plus one.

Around Town...

Currently dealing with a recurring series of symptoms, the most debilitating being a fatigue that is so overwhelming I had 2 days of dishes in the sink, the rugs need vaccuuming and all I crave is to sleep. Its not depression 'sleep' its a literal inability to remain awake. So I did bits of this and that (forced myelf to wash dishes by leaning on the sink for support) and laid down as needed, which was to the delight of both cats who prefer me to hang out with them in the bedroom.

This is a really tiny apartment but with Mr. B unable to jump now, he comes in whining his meows wanting me in his space, either next to his bed patting him gently or he sleeps under my bed. Since its Irish Day in a town that is oblivious of its Jews, I expected a day of relative silence.

But no....around 2pm, neighbor's mother called and asked me to join her for coffee at the cafe where her daughter works on weekends. She likes to pull me along on excursions like this or ask me to call her daughter instead of doing it herself. I've  always refuses since its her passive aggressive manipulation of her daughter, but since it was only coffee, I accepted, planning to keep the evening short.

She got lost and in making a wrong turn we drove through a neighborhood that was clearly a once thriving Jewish community. In the few blocks we drove through there were at least 3 large synagogues; one had been repurposed into a Charter School, another was boarded up, a third was a shul style building, more modest without stained glass or high buttresses and structures, also closed with a For Sale sign. Many of the houses on these blocks were also boarded up, dilapidated and the few residents that were walking around were clearly, clearly not Jewish. So....I wondered had they all fled to the Jewish enclave where I was told to move into when I first thought of coming to PA? Had that generation died out and their children moved elsewhere? What of the edict that a synagogue may not be sold for non Jewish purposes?

Then I thought, who are you to wonder on such things, when lighting Friday night candles eludes you?  But there was a sense of long lost history that came in a rush of images that were not mine, but of crowds that seemed familiar and familial.

The woman who was driving had been telling me her pastor had prayed and did a laying of hands on her bad leg along with his wife and another couple, to give her 'healing'. I really do feel she wants to get me to come over to her way of living or thinking, but it isn't happening ever.  She said after 2 weeks she finally was pain free after sleeping after the laying on of hands, and felt because of her faith she had been granted a miracle. She is never direct in her statements, but always makes note of my physical state and then launches into her faith based born again religion...it was disorienting because my visceral reaction was to the repurposed lives of buildings that once were the center of simchas and sorrows. She talked right past my comment on what I was seeing. I had to refocus and come back into the car, with whom I sat and understand that such matters are of no consequence to non Jews.

I read earlier today that Cossacks are being trained in Russia. The photo showed them in Cossack attire learning to use whips. The government is training a police force of Cossacks to enforce rules in communities that get out of hand or challenge the government.
I am watching all the signs...the signs obvious as this and more subtle...the buying up of  guns and ammo all over the US. Obama suddenly announcing it'll be at least another 12 months before Iran has a nuclear bomb-notably this announcement comes days before he travels to see Netanyahu in Israel.
China hacks us at will, wants to buy a controlling share of the GM building and supposedly Social Security etc will be nationalized as well as private pensions to pay for the Treasury Bills that China no longer buys to bolster our economy--even Americans haven't been buying Treasury bills, so that  income has dried up for the government.  Stating these facts to my children is a waste of  breath, they live as if Life is to be taken one week/day at a time, the future is too dark to even engage with...or maybe mother is too dark to engage with.

Thinking, it may be sooner than later, that aliyah might be the only exit to stay alive or be willing to die by the sword.

Life revises all

The subject line of my blog should be revised to reflect the current state of religious affairs....former chassidische maydle is now a year older, not much wiser and after a nervous breakdown from the complicated grief study, entered long term therapy with a female LCSW who uses various psychodynamic techniques, meaning we work hard but there's more feedback from her than the usual grunts and uh huh....

She doesn't tape or take notes, it is amazing that she remembers the cesspool of information I've been providing as we sort out my relationship with my mother--or lack thereof. And the more we work, the more 'visitations' I get from my mother in dreams. The last person in the world or nether world I want contact with, particularly due to her aversion to clothes, keeps showing up.

I've gone from a tentative, sketchy form of practicing Judaism to almost none at all. Its been months since I've bentched licht or prayed. Its not like I disbelieve what Chabad taught me, however the amount of guilt/grief/sadness attached to practicing without a network of support/shul/friends seemed like living in a vacuum. But then even living in Crown Heights felt the same for me, an outsider looking in on a world that I wanted to be a genuine part of, not a charity case as my family turned out to be for the Rebbe.

There were many months in this past year when hours of weeping, uncontrolled weeping overwhelmed me. All I needed was to see someone in distress, in person or television, and the faucets began to run. In a final desperate move to get myself under control, someething even tehillim couldn't do, I arranged to meet with a top PA psychiatrist. He has me on an antipsychotic at bedtime.  I probably needed this med for years. 

Medical issues continue to keep me limited in outside activities-I remain only capable of spacing housework, grocery shopping, doctor visits, caring for the cats, interaction with my children before I'm hit with severe fatigue, chills, feverishness. This level of fatigue is so powerful, I can't even stomach food, I just wait to crawl into bed at night to rest. Reading is a task and I love to read.

I have a neighbor upstairs whose mother decided to befriend me...woe is me. She popped in last week, "You have a visitor!" and then sat on my couch for 5 FIVE hours, talking about her 2 ex husbands, her version of christianity (its a patchwork quilt of gobbeldy gook)
Even when I left the room to feed the cats, she was still talking. I remain silent and then get cross examined about what I'm thinking since I try not to feed into her psycho babbling--I finally told her I can't take hours of such conversation or interaction, its completely draining for me. Like talking to a wall. I've tried constructive feedback and no feedback, she just needs to talk and uses me as a receptacle. Next time I'm not expecting anyone, I simply wont answer a knock on my door, period.

Mr. B's teeth continue to deteriorate, he also appears to have arthrtis now in his hind quarters. He gets one baby aspirin when he's clearly in distress and I bought steps for him to reach his bed where he spends much of his time or looking out the window. I want to buy another set of steps to place near my bed so he can come up like he once did, during the night to cuddle.

Little B is a fat sweetie pie, who loves to be sung to--he falls asleep at the sound of my voice singing him 2-3 songs he recognizes as his music. He continues to eat oatgrass that I grow to settle his tummy and help his bowels.

I'm currently finishing Mrs. Dora Saint (aka Miss Read) entire genre of books, only books I haven't read are her christmas tales. The small countryside community is similar to the stetel mentality of crown heights minus the vitriol, where people look out for one another and in the end, things work out. There's no child abuse, molestation and the rare lush or miscreant is a public exception, not the rule. Another time...another era my children will never know the peace that once existed.