stillwalkn

My nieces: Dominique, my goddaughter and Barbara’s daughter; Rose, my brother Matt’s youngest; Angela, my brother Matt’s oldest; and Allyson, Vinny’s daughter. With my own daughter, Erin that makes five girls in that generation. I think of them as the leading edge.

The nephews are: Salvatore, Barbara’s son; Bernard, Matt’s son, Leo and Lorenzo, my brother Steve’s sons. That’s it for the boys. I think of them as the leading edge too.

In the newest generation, Erin has a son, Atreyu who is my heart. Dominique has a son, Michael. Rosie has two daughters and one son; Ally has Marcus. Angela has Todd.

Mornings are the best part of day right now. I wake clear. My head is above water. The Sun is up. The air smells amazing with all the trees in bloom. The yard is full of birds. My old metal tubes are chiming in the breeze.

In the background I am aware of a full-body ache. It’s a pain turned down to its lowest setting. It’s there, but my mind has room to take in the beautiful Spring morning. I feel expansive and free as a child. I drink it in…because I am not a child. I’m an old lady and I know my moments of joy are going to be precious for a while. I drink it in, like a drowning person drinks air, deeply deeply.

Then someone speaks. My chest tightens, the muscles in my arms tighten. I’m getting ready to fight. The child is screaming, crying. Given my recent physical acting out with Richard, I have chosen and I’m prepared every minute to manage my behavior. I am first and foremost responsible for my own behavioral output.

I should say I clearly see there is a murderous rage attached to this pain. Which makes me dangerous. So far only to my best friend and life partner. He has said he will not strike me and I believe him. However, his permission or willingness to tolerate it doesn’t ameliorate my responsibility to manage it.

It’s there. No denying it. I lash out like a cornered animal. Gives you some idea of how much it hurt.

So I’ll start where I am. My actions first.

That’s how it is for me today. And I am wearing a big green Aventurine ring (see photo), which is like taking an Ativan. You put it on and immediately you calm down. A drug less drug, I tell you true.

My crystalline defenses are fully deployed. Forgot my Rose Oil.

It’s just what’s happening. I’m trying not to do anything to interfere. Over and over again I see a metal rod reaching from the top of my head down to my feet, like my spine kind of, but not physical. Like a note played without the damper pedal, wide open to vibrate all the way through all the pain behind the PTSD.

I stopped crying in defiance when I was 7. I stopped speaking and having an expressed opinion in 4th grade. I didn’t start talking again until I was 23. I stopped closing my eyes, stopped sleeping in the dark when I was an early teen. I had an emotional breakdown at 14, which permanently damaged my memory. When I was 15. I had a force field. It appeared when I was about halfway down the block to our house on Hemlock St.

Every day it would stop me in my tracks. I was so embarrassed, afraid somebody would see. Afraid I was going crazy. I fought my way through and went home for another installment of Pop in the afternoon and Matt at night. Another night of waiting up with a shotgun to prevent Pop from coming home and killing us all, one of his often-repeated threats.

We stayed up. To this day and almost 65 years old, and I am still staying up.

I always dreamed the world would be a safer place without my father in it. I was right, it is safer than it was WITH him in it. But it’s not really safe. This is one of the main things I want to heal: insomnia.

So this is playing out like a massive arpeggio, the biggest chord you can imagine hearing. It booms in the bass, it screams in the treble, and in between my stomach feels queasy. I remember feeling sick. I remember how it felt to be so afraid as a tiny tot, so abandoned as a little girl with Polio, so disgusted as a teenager, so angry as a college student being raped.

But I gotta say remembering it all at once is a bit much. I’m just hanging on. Trying to remember this was my choice my own idea. It’s a Psychic Detox.

I was appalled to learn that Whitworth University has slated former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice as Presidential Leadership speaker on October 16.

Rice has been accused of War Crimes for her admitted role in the use of torture by U.S. Troops in Iraq. This by itself should be sufficient deterrent to bringing Rice (an accused war criminal) to speak to our young people, presumably in the status of “role model.”

Financial backers (read advertisers) display an utter lack of discernment which, while not surprising is nonetheless offensive.

What are they thinking? Role models ought at least not be accused of responsibility for the illegal use of torture.

Personally I think those who decided to invite Rice need to thoroughly review that decision in light of the seriousness of the allegations against her.

Rice’s selection was a mistake. Not to reevaluate and correct that mistake now would be what my grandson calls an Epic Fail.

Sincerely,

Roseanne Lasater
1717 S. Evergreen Rd.
Spokane Valley, WA 99037
509-990-6636

This PTSD work is pretty difficult. Emotionally as well as physically I’m exhausted. But not just exhausted: beat up. Yes, my head hurts like I have an injury. Like Tre said about his migraines, “It’s like if you fall down on the concrete and you hit your head. It hurts like that.” My head feels like I hit it on concrete. Bruised. Throbbing.

That’s just my head. The rest of me is getting beat up too.

But I have reason to be optimistic. Truly. Because the very first tiny EMDR exercise, to set my safe place more firmly, well I really liked the centered, balanced, easy way it left me feeling.

Anyway, I can’t go back.

When I was in 8th grade at St. Malachy’s RC School in Brooklyn, I was in the final round of my academic rivalry with Kathleen Schroeder. And she took the test to be admitted to Hunter College High School. So of course I HAD TO take it too.

I couldn’t believe how easy the admission test was. I got in.

It was an honor I guessed. But I had no idea what Hunter was. But since i got accepted, I thought I might oughta go. I was 12.

Kathleen didn’t get in.

When the nuns got word, I became a special concern. They admonished me: Hunter is a school where they teach “Evolution.”

“Don’t listen to that” I was warned.

As it happened, I never went to church again. It was a big relief, and I did listen. So much for warnings.

Hunter College H.S. Was at that time called “a laboratory school for gifted girls.” Every morning I rode the subway from East New York, the ass-end of Brooklyn to 68th St. & Lexington Ave. in Manhattan. An hour and 15 minutes each way.

Let’s not talk about what happens to 13 year old girls on the subway. The main thing was to ignore and avoid getting semen on your clothes. Enough said.

We girls from Parochial school were at a big disadvantage. Most of the other girls had been in Hunter since Kindergarten, and those who hadn’t came in the 7th grade from Jeshiva, where small fortunes had been spent on their educations. I was on Academic Probation in a flash. From the smartest girl to the dummy group in an instant. It was demoralizing.

But after struggling for 4 years, I went to college and it was so much easier than my high school, I graduated Summa Cum Laude with Departmental Honors.

High school wasn’t fun. College was a blast.

Somehow I must have learned something. And once you’re a Hunter Girl, you are always a Hunter Girl.

Thank you Irving Kizner and Jane Greenspan our class counselors. And thank you Bernie Miller who refused to let me drop out when I was having a breakdown in 10th grade.

He insisted I belonged at Hunter. He got me counseling instead. Within a few months I was off probation and once again on track.

The abuses at home from my father and my brother continued. I lived through it.

So in a way Hunter gave more than a pass to college. It saved my life.

Hemlock St., Brooklyn