My Haudenosunee Dream Catcher

Dream Catcher

I am not of Indigenous or Native descent. I am a descended from white European colonizers, mainly from the British Isles and Western Europe who settled in what we now label as Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina. I do try to listen and learn from my Indigenous friends, colleagues, and trusted sources. I’ve tried to […]

Mental Health Check-In

Today, my therapist and I did a symptom review where we ‘sorted’ my current and very recent symptoms into three categories: Anxiety, Depression, and Hypomania. Then we looked at the intersection of these symptoms, this sorting, with my trauma symptoms. I was struggling to distinguish between Anxiety and Hypomania, so she literally created a divide […]

The Easter My Dad Went Fishing Without Us

Easter brings to mind a lot of bullet point memories In 1983, things were bleak financially. I was 12 years old and in 7th grade. So, of course, my Dad decided to join my cousins on a spring fishing trip to the Outer Banks over Easter. They weren’t high end, but it was still money […]

Hypomania and King Cake

Things did get better over the weekend. But the hypomania is still lingering. You know that day when you are recovering from the flu or a bad cold and you think “hey maybe I could get through work” so you don’t blow another sick day? But you really need to take that sick day to […]

No Crib For a Bed

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don’t really care for music, do you? I’ve always known that my family moved to West Mifflin when I was a preschooler so while I can lay claim to that corner of the blue collar world as […]

Processing Trauma of Childhood Hunger

Last week, my therapist and I picked up with EMDR to process more trauma. We intentionally defined a period of my childhood that was brutal, 1979-1983, or the years of 4th to 8th grade. Historically, EMDR has been quite helpful with my lesser traumas and anxiety. The hard stuff hasn’t cooperated and we’ve respected that. […]

Fazing my therapist

My childhood sucked. I knew it then, I know it now. I’ve been working with my current therapist for over four years. She specializes in trauma processing and we’ve spoken at length about some of the atrocities in my life. But with all of her experience, it is hard to faze her. Until this week. […]

NaBloPoMo: The Poor Souls In Purgatory

November is National Blog Post Month – the goal is to write a blog post each day of the month. This used to be a big thing with prompts, logos, incentives, etc. Now it is just a solitary pursuit. Today is November 1, 2022. Known to many of us as All Saints Day (a Holy […]

That Year My Parents Forgot About Halloween

Distorted Halloween

I’m pretty sure it was fourth grade so that would mark it as 1979. My younger brother and I came home from school to a locked up house and no sign of our parents. That was not unusual. We didn’t have a key, so we used our array of tricks to gain access to the […]

My World Mental Health Day in 2022

World Mental Health Day

CN: childhood sexual violence, trauma This World Mental Health Day, I’m thinking ahead 12 days to my birthday (Oct 22.) I have a complicated relationship with my birthday because of the trauma I experienced during my childhood along with the neglect and abuse. There’s a lot of reasons – the inconsistent celebrations, the shame and […]