Friday, November 22, 2013
Illusions and the Pursuit of Power
There are always good reasons people seek power and control, but very few acceptable reasons in normal events. I've worked with some strange coworkers who were consumed by this--not many, but those who were, were unusual people in a negative sense. This morning a statement about this phenom occurred to me in my groggy awakening: My back is so sore from you clawing your way over me to a higher position. I imagined fresh wounds: scrapes, pain, infection in my flesh.
Of course, some were decidely sociopathic, but I'd say more were that horrible combination of narcissistic and compulsive. Strangely, I prefer the sociopaths. They are at least conscious. The unconscious clawwers are the worst for me.
The Russians are Coming
On social media today people are asking about the day JFK was assassinated--what was happening in your life if you were alive. I was in the 3rd grade and on the playground of my school. I remember the teacher up on a little hill calling us all in and with urgency, that we had to hurry. On the way up to her another child said the president was shot. They sent us home to be with our families. I worried about my dad. Did that mean he was in danger, too?
Friday, November 15, 2013
911 and the After World
I was working in a state mental hospital that morning and when I arrived my coworkers were already following the story. Our patients had been, too, and many of them were already very fragile. They were quite distressed. I ran their debriefing and when we were done, we found that the 2nd tower was down. I don't remember much of what happened next and after all these years the few things that stand out are those memories, going to a conference in Hilton Head where some clinical first responders came in from NYC and discovering some time later that children thought the recurring images of the towers were different buildings all over the world. They thought the world was coming down one building at a time. For me, that was the most powerful impression: believing that suddenly the world was collapsing.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
The Familiarity of Kidnap
I once had such a very profound and indelible image of a young woman who had been missing for sometime in a northern state, perhaps Minnesota?? that I called the local sheriff to report what I was "seeing". The guy who answered the phone there at the sheriff's office was genuinely polite and said "Well, tell me what you have. We don't have anything."
I told him I saw a young woman, adolescent, in lingerie she had been made to wear, now abandoned at the bottom of a quarry-like place. I saw her freezing to death and unable to climb out. I thought she was dying from exposure and starvation.
I also saw the land above her. It was an open stretch of rolling hills. There was a large metal building on a rise, like a warehouse... and this building overlooked a highway. There was nothing else around. It seemed like maybe large vehicles or farm machinery was kept there in the building. The highway was very busy--like an interstate.
The man at the sheriff's office said he couldn't think of a place like that, but they would work on it. He thanked me.
He asked if I'd done this before and I said I had had images--some that had panned out and some that never did.
I watched the news for some time and never saw anything more about her.
I had been working for sometime with a mentor to find balance in these sorts of experiences and I wrote to her to tell her about the images I had seen and the degree of upset I was having about this. She gave me some exercises of protection to work with and said "There, that should take care of your kidnapped woman"
I would say that this was early in the 2000's although I am not very good with chronological time, but I believe that I have been working consciously with 'my kidnapped woman' rather consistently since then. Previously, it was very unconscious. In 2013 I continue to actively and proactively pursue the work.
I am now reading Room by Emma Donoghue. It is a novel told through a 5 year old boy's eyes who was born to a woman who had been kidnapped and held in an 11 by 11 soundproofed shed for 7 years. While I had been kidnapped for only an afternoon as a child, I have slowly realized that one can be captive without knowing it, of course, and that my own sense of the world was akin to the one Jack developed in his mother's captivity.
Friday, June 14, 2013
A Kidnapped Child, Woman.
Garridos' neighbours reveal 'Creepy Phil's' drug-fuelled orgies with the hillbillies
By Andrew Malone
UPDATED:19:28 EST, 30 August 2009
Certainly, Walnut Avenue is a grubby, primitive and predominantly white area. Many of the homes are little more than wooden shacks with children playing in the dirt outside.
'Creepy Phil': Garrido had wild parties in his garden
Drug and alcohol addiction are widespread; back yards are littered with cars and fridges. Astonishingly, the area is home to 144 rapists and paedophiles.
'People here live off the grid,' says one local police source. 'That means they use drugs, don't pay taxes and never pay their bills. They live as they want to - and pay no attention to anyone else. And everyone who lives here is very happy with that arrangement.'
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Friday, May 31, 2013
In the year I graduated high school...
Warhol's Mao paintings were banned in Chinese exhibitions.

The Valley Curtain. 1972. Colorado. The Christos.


Wednesday, May 29, 2013
And Then There Was
wikipedia says that the year of my birth, 1954, was "a common year" that began on a Friday "on the Gregorian calendar".
It gives the following as significant events that year:
Marilyn Monroe married Joe Dimaggio and the first nuclear submarine, The Nautilus, was launched that year.
President Eisenhower warned that we should not become involved in Vietnam and mass use of polio vaccine for children was done for the first time.
A hydrogen bomb test was done in the Pacific on Bikini Atoll and the first color TV set was made by RCA and sold for $1000 per 12 inch screen.
Bill Haley released Rock Around the Clock and it is said that rock n roll was born that year at least in its popular craze form of screaming mobs of teens.
Richard Nixon is vice president and Joe McCarthy worries that the US Army is a little soft when it comes to Communism.
The Unification Church is founded and Roger Bannister breaks the 4 minute mile.
Brown v. Board rules that school segregation is unconstitutional and "under God" is added to the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Himalayan K2 summit is reached and Sports Illustrated is born.
Lord of the Flies is published and Miss American is aired via TV for the first time.
Texas Instruments makes the first commercial transistor radio and Godzilla premieres.
The first Hyatt opens and the Iwo Jima Memorial is dedicated.
The first Burger King opens and the first electric drip coffee maker is invented.
My My My Generation
I start the day wanting to add another entry here, but I am tired of the violence. I'm thinking about how my life has been peppered with it, both personal and impersonal--including having been maced in my high school hallway when students--teens, mind you--were somehow en masse deemed dangerous. What began as a high school prank: everyone leave the building and then return promptly, was somehow suddenly "a riot". What could be the result of students doing such a thing?
Ironically, a coach/teacher--not very good at either--had passed around a cup in which he'd sprayed mace so that everyone could experience it not long before the macing in the hallway. We thought it an interesting exercise and painful although now I am not sure it was a wise decision on his part, of course, and somehow it was 'trending' and topical. I wonder now if that was his own private efforts at some crowd control and was he the 'macer'?
It wouldn't surprise me even though I can't remember much about him...his name, his subject...but I do remember his presence and how I do not have much of a visual of him probably because you would avoid eye contact with such a presence if you could anyway.
He seemed piggish. Or does to me now. Interested in being top dog as they say and interested in some notoriety among his younger charges...not the popularity of a young 'peer-like' and cool teacher, but as someone not to be messed with--more power-interested and I suppose powerless in his sad life.
Much older now, I am convinced his was a sad life. It is a feeling really more than any other kind of information. A bad feeling.
The fatigue I feel is not surprising as I think about this blog this morning. I am of the generation that watched soldiers in combat every night on the news. Body counts were daily news items like weather and sports. The images I have are soldiers in green with WWII like helmets and rifles hunched over and advancing toward something. Lots of gunfire and smoke.
This was well before my own peers would even consider the draft as something personal, but I do suppose that we expected war was a daily event. Perhaps because we were just past puberty and had entered the immortal realm of adolescence, we didn't worry about ourselves yet.
So I am tired of violence. An ironic statement. I would imagine that very few of us would not tire of violence, but I am of the generation that marked its coming of age with large and violent events. I would think that it is not much different for other generations, but I wonder how much say, of the WWII generation had these kinds of images? The soldiers surely, but as I recall, not many shared too much of that in my daily life although I was the generation to inherit those warriors' distress through dad and uncles and all their friends.
As I contemplated another blog entry this morning I found myself with so many choices I ground to a halt of fatigue. Jonestown? Heaven's Gate? Manson? Richard Speck? Kent State? Vietnam?
Those were the highlights, of course. I began to look around for more pleasant impersonal events. Those are harder yet I am sure no less interesting and if I begin to shift my vision, no less few.
But it is a difficult shift.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Railroad Killer and the World Gone Silent

.The suspect, authorities said, had been in touch with relatives in Lexington "within the last few days." Crime Library Angel Maturino Resendiz: The Railroad Killer BY Joseph Geringer "Terror Near Tracks One of the more romantic elements of American folklore has been the crisscrossing rail system of this country — steel rails carrying Americans to new territories across desert and mountain, through wheat fields and over great rivers. Carl Sandburg has flavored the mighty steam engine in elegant prose and Arlo Guthrie has made the roundhouse a sturdy emblem of America's commerce. But, even the most colorful dreams have their dark sides. For nearly two years, a killer literally followed Wheatfield America's railroad tracks to slay unsuspecting victims before disappearing back into the pre-lit dawn. His modus operandi was always the same — he struck near the rail lines he illegally rode, then stowed away on the next freight train to come his way. Always ahead of the law. Angel Maturino Resendiz, 39 years old, was apprehended early this month (July, 1999) after eluding state police for two years and slipping through a two-month FBI net until, after nine alleged murders, he was finally traced and captured by a determined Texas Ranger. Known, for apparent reasons, as "The Railroad Killer," Angel Resendiz (who was known throughout much of the manhunt by the alias Rafael Resendez-Ramirez) has been called "a man with a grudge," "confused," hostile" and "angry" by the police, the news media and psychiatrists. He is an illegal immigrant from Mexico who crossed the international border at will. Most of his crimes took place in central Texas, but he is suspected of having killed as far north as Kentucky and Illinois." http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/resendez/track_1.html "HUNTSVILLE - Angel Maturino Resendiz, the serial killer who claimed he was half-man, half-angel and could not be killed, was executed here Tuesday for the December 1998 murder of West University Place physician Claudia Benton. Maturino Resendiz, 46, who killed as many as 14 people as he criss-crossed the nation by rail and in the process came to be known as the "railroad killer," was the 13th person to be executed in Texas this year. As execution witnesses — members of his family and those of four of his victims — filled the tiny chambers set aside for them, the killer nodded toward them and apologized for his crimes. "I want to ask if it is in your heart to forgive me," Maturino Resendiz said in a quiet voice. "You don't have to. I know I allowed the devil to rule my life. I just ask you to forgive me and ask the Lord to forgive me for allowing the devil to deceive me. "I thank God for having patience with me. I don't deserve to cause you pain. You did not deserve this. I deserve what I am getting." Before drawing his final breath, the killer, who claimed to be Jewish, prayed in Hebrew and Spanish. George Benton, husband of the doctor who was repeatedly stabbed and bludgeoned in the family's home, lashed out at the killer, the Mexican government, which had supported his appeals, and opponents of the death penalty." 'Railroad killer' offers apology at execution Maturino Resendiz asks for forgiveness: 'I deserve what I am getting' By Allan Turner | June 28, 2006 http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Railroad-killer-offers-apology-at-execution-1891401.php
Friday, May 24, 2013
Eileen and Andrea Yates


Eileen Starbranch
Andrea Yates
"A psychiatrist, who treated Andrea Yates in 1999 after she attempted suicide twice following the birth of her fourth child, testified in her murder trial this week that she warned Yates not to have another child because it might prompt another psychotic episode. Dr. Eileen Starbranch told jurors that Yates suffered from postpartum psychosis and was out of touch with reality.
Compatriot Fatigue
I have had a revelation about my work. The periods in which I've experienced Compassion Fatigue have been many and some were quite intense. There were times I drank too much, became so anxious I could not drive or sleep, became impulsive to the point of angry outbursts and cried easily.
Those were the most severe.
These episodes were, in retrospect, episodes of PTSD. I had an awareness of that during them, but the full scope of the disorder was not evident to me until later. Mine has been more of a complex PTSD that I've had to manage since my childhood. As I've progressed in my career--always interested in the most complicated cases and high risk populations--it has, of course, compounded. Since I insisted upon having a personal life as well as a career, there was more trauma to be had naturally.
What I have found is that PTSD is a given in my personal life and Secondary PTSD is a given in my chosen field. There is nothing adverse about choosing a career that will traumatize you, although that sounds ridiculous. It is simple, however, if you are a person that needs intense experiences in order to feel something. In another field that may be a less frightening piece of information because it would be couched in less clinical terms such as "adrenalin junkie". I don't want to jump off a mountain in a wing suit so I talk to people in the psychological abyss. I am a psychological adrenalin junkie.
This is not very different from being a first responder in an immediate disaster or catastrophe. We consider those heroic acts and we are grateful for people who do them. I would not dare claim heroism, but I do understand the motivation of first responders. For some wonderful and perhaps dark reasons, they have the emotional and psychological abilities to go head first into gore. I have the same abilities in psychological gore.
The need for compatriot support in adrenalin careers is crucial. I'll delve into that a little later, but it occurs to me now--almost at the end of my career--that the majority of my own Secondary PTSD experiences in my work have been built upon the failings of my colleagues and supervisory/administrative staff to tend to me adequately when I was falling. I don't mean to blame them, but hope to point out some inherent problems across systems that employ high risk responders.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
'Angel' is Not Always a Term of Endearment
It's very frustrating to have worked with some clients that I can't talk about. I could add to the folklore about a couple of notable folk. The frustration I feel is more the writer in me wanting to go on ad nauseum about them because they were enormously interesting people that I grew to like a great deal.
I spent most of my evening tonight--the first of a long holiday weekend--researching such a man that I knew in the 90s. He was paroled to my treatment program from another state and it seems now many years later, he has continued his life's work that sent him to federal prison in the first place. He's a fugitive as I write this and if caught will 'serve' more than one life sentence. Apparently, he's been a successful fugitive for some time now.
What I most remember about him was his presence--a large man, very grounded, rooted really, into the earth. He was very still, but comfortably so and not dangerous to anyone there in the least. Actually he was very approachable and I'd often sit with him in the smoking area to smoke and chat.
We found common ground quickly. He enjoyed the 'spirituality' talks I'd give as part of the program and we'd discuss metaphysics, gemstone healing, sweat lodges and the like. He told me I was an angel and said he meant the ethereal one, not the endearment.
I was a companion in the pipeline back to his family, his business and his life after a decade or so in prison. He always talked to me at a 90 degree angle, looking off into the distance, but speaking very quietly and staying quite engaged.
The rest of the people in the program kept their distance, but acknowledged him politely in passing. I was the only staff person who liked him. Others were angry about his arrogance although I didn't see it. I think his solitude seemed arrogant to them as did his business--an organized and large affair of some fame and notoriety. His calm annoyed and angered my colleagues. They interpreted that as arrogant, too. Whenever he interacted with anyone he was always polite, consistently, and seemed authentically present and kind.
He was, as it turned out, exceedingly wealthy from his illegal activities and known among his business associates as a good and trustworthy man. I'm certain that he had been very violent in his business although violence was not his business. He seemed to be a man who would use violence to protect the boundaries he had established and his boundaries were well fortified around a kingdom of treasure and the family he had made from similarly minded associates. He came from a very closed society whose non-criminal members were equally as fierce and demanding of their carved out lives. Within that culture he was not aberrant, but he was a kingpin, well-loved and talented.
I find myself, as I always did, wishing him well.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Metaphysics, An Internal Humvee, the Abducted Freed and the Wilderness of an Intrapsychic Alaska

Freeing the Prisoners of the Planet



Friday, May 10, 2013
Penecostal Pedophiles and Women in Chains


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