PTSD

Ask Me

~ heroin heroine ~ 1 Comment

“Sometime when the river is ice ask me about the mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thoughts, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made.”

William Stafford wrote these lines. I found his slim book of poetry on a local library shelf. I had not heard of him, and wasn’t particularly looking for another man’s musings on the state of the world. In fairness I don’t know what I am looking for these days. But I opened the book up to the opening stanza of “Ask Me.” And I promptly felt assaulted by my own shortcomings.

Is the life i have led mine? Have I allowed it to be written by the circumstances I have encountered rather than the ones I have sought? Yes. How does one realistically go about firing the ghost writer if the ghost writer is your life’s circumstances?

The mistakes I have made…do I consider them? Not often.
Do I still make them? Repeatedly. Then why have I been so slow to address them? What if the mistakes are not the main problem, only ineffective stabs at solutions?

The friends who help – what difference have they made? And before asking that should I not ask myself, ‘have I fully allowed them?’

And of those who have hurt – did I forgive them too quickly? Or did I willfully forget rather than forgive? Was this the easier path? How much does it matter?

There is community. But paramount there is self. Looking at our collectivity can be a balm but rarely does it provide an individualized answer. Unless that answer is letting go with a passivity that destroys the still unacknowledged self. That, to this old self, doesn’t feel right.

What of the wonders outside of self? I can envision Stafford’s icy river disguising the current below. Stafford confidently states “What the river says, that is what I say.” Well what does the river say? Stafford explains “…the comings and goings from miles away that hold the stillness.”

It sounds so encouragingly whole – the river contains what has come before and what will come after. But the stillness, this ice, is it not nature’s attempt to stop forward movement? I realize it is a metaphor: a seasonal pause standing in for a human recess. But isn’t the ice also a disguiser, a preventer and a cold reminder of unchangeable currents?

No need to “Ask Me.” It has literally and figuratively all been said before.

Fires and Such.

~ heroin heroine ~ 2 Comments

Lately I have more time for solitude.
I’m not sure my mind and limbs are equipped for the change.
A good portion of my adult life they have been primed to put out fires.
My children, for the most part, have been the fire starters. Home grown arsonists. For over a decade they have been relentless in their attempts to burn their lives to the ground. And I have been primed to put a stop to that sh$t.

Honestly, someone should have made me a Smokey the Bear outfit by now.

Did you know Smokey the Bear was real? He was a three-month old black bear cub when he became a victim of the Capitan Gap Fire of New Mexico. His hind legs and paws were badly burned before he was able to retreat to the safety of a tall tree.

I am not saying I am damaged. I am not saying I have to be rescued.
But like Smokey, I am a little singed. And like Smokey, I have had a good perch from which to survey the surrounding damage.

And boy is addiction an effective fire starter.

I learned that addiction fuels most crime while sitting ringside at various Massachusetts district courts. At Quincy District Court, Worcester Court and Stoughton Court I noted that nearly all those being prosecuted for civil or criminal crimes had been under the influence of some sort of drug. Crimes like brutal fist fights, petty theft, grand theft, car crashes, spousal abuse, destruction of personal property, breaking and entering, prostitution and drug dealing.

It was an exhaustive, circular list. But each story had a name and a face. There was the elderly woman in crocheted clothing who used her cane to hobble up to the judge: how can she be in trouble when she couldn’t remember hitting that telephone pole while drinking? There was the young man pleading for a reduction in monthly court fees – he was doing well in probation but barely able to make ends meet after weekly sober home payments. There was the teenage girl in raggedy clothing trying not to cry over shoplifting. There was the middle-aged man explaining that he would never hit his girlfriend. But cameras had caught him doing just that outside of the local bar. So many people, so many problems. Victims of a disease perpetrating crimes making even more victims.

So what is the point of this post besides relaying misery?

Well from my vantage point I have learned about the existence of diversion programs. Diversion programs replace criminal incarceration with a series of tailored alternatives: usually drug testing, community support and service, and restitution (restorative justice) for damages. If one fails to follow through they return to traditional sentencing (a crime is a crime and accountability is necessary). But diversion programs work well – especially with juveniles. A 2023 study by the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate (in collaboration with DYS) showed a 69% positive closure rate. The Boston Bar Association (2018, v62 #4) showed a recidivism rate of just 16% and a 98% participation satisfaction rate as measured by offenders and victims. (Even victims!).

Unfortunately our family has experience with incarceration – without having committed a crime. Since my teen daughter could not stay sober she was deemed unsafe (which was accurate) and required lock-down supervision. Since no treatment beds were available at addiction centers she was remanded to Framingham State Prison. For five straight days guards laughed as she detoxed. Her days were then spent separated from the general population (explained as a safety measure) leaving her unable to exercise or move around the shared grounds including the library and eating areas. She was unable to reliably use the phone to make necessary calls for next steps (for example lining up a sober home upon her release). There were no AA meetings or therapy of any kind. She spent a month behind these bars. It’s worth noting that Framingham bills the state $160k per inmate, per year. If there’s a crime being committed it’s being committed by the institution.

Where does that leave us? With a burning field! But let’s be realistic: the field was always going to burn. It’s part of nature’s life cycle. And humans are always going to do the wrong thing – that too is human nature. But previously scorched fields can brim with new life. Diseased and damaged wood is fertile ground for new green shoots. Compost after all is made from decay – but to get the mixture right it needs a little tending. Those old promo posters of Smokey didn’t show this internal dilemma. After scrambling down from that tree he had a decision to make: stick around or flee to higher ground. His vantage point* must have taught him something. Because he donned that crisp new ranger outfit.

His catch words? “Care” and “prevention” and “personal intervention.”

*if you have difficulty envisioning the problem: visit your local court – it’s open to the general public. Take a seat and make a day of it. You can’t unsee the cyclical misery.

Blue Puzzle Pieces.

~ heroin heroine ~ 5 Comments

I was watching a pretty horrible rom-com movie the other night that had one redeeming moment. It was when the female told her heartbroken friend that he was ‘broken apart like a puzzle and needed to search for the blue pieces.’

Now this seemed like pretty bad advice. Putting together a puzzle involves seeking and creating distinct subject matter piles: the farm house, the feathers, the tractor. The blue ‘filler’ pieces, like the sky and the ocean, are chosen last.  (Why would you eschew the obvious for the nebulous?)  Clearly the puzzle comment was a metaphor; but was she actually advising her friend to find himself by looking outside himself?

I thought of my daughter. In recovery she has found success looking outside herself for stability. She has learned that arranging and re-arranging, ruminating and re-assessing the pieces of self is not always productive. Turning her attention to something bigger, something out there – like the sky – can be the best anchor there is.  It becomes an intangible you can neither wrangle with nor second guess.  You can rest in its remote vastness.

She often sends me pictures of the mountains she climbs. And the rivers she runs beside. And I download these photos to my iPhone. I look at them occasionally – they have become my blue pieces.  I feel this is both wrong, and right.

We spend a lot of time as mature adults concentrating on the subject matter of our lives; paying for and tidying the concrete spaces we have built. When we find time to consider the blue pieces – how often do we notice if they are truly our own?

 

“PTSD” – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

~ heroin heroine ~ 2 Comments

This is when I am supposed to reference Webster’s dictionary. I can picture the bulleted item list that has been carefully compiled by doctors and psychiatrists, and craftily winnowed down by editors.

Yet words are bound to fail. PTSD creates a feeling that can not be contained by bullets or paragraphs. If forced to use words they would be: “sense of dread.”

A sense of dread accompanied by unwelcome imagery. Imagery that is not imaginary. Dread that is not unjustified.

The ring of the phone makes me ill. Physically ill.
A knock on the door? Visions of a police officer.
An envelope without a return address?  Bad news.
My daughter not texting for a few days? Relapse.
Sad song on the radio? Message of doom.
Bitter snow? Frostbitten child.
Cheap motels off the highway? Sadness, loneliness, death.

My list could be longer. But it hurts to write it. If I suffer from PTSD, how badly must my daughter suffer? I have seen the results of her use, but have not lived through the experience of it.

“Conquer your fears” is written everywhere nowadays – from business journals to self help magazines. But the kind of fear they often refer to is that of financial risk. (Or a lifestyle change: try that new vegan diet! get a new partner! make a career switch!) I am talking about a different kind of fear. A primal fear. The fear of losing your stormy green eyed child to something so unpredictable, so misunderstood, so maddeningly unacceptable. I have written my daughter’s obituary in my head. I have actually looked in my closet to see if I have an acceptable black dress. These were my attempts to conquer my fear. My attempts to claim and manage the unacceptable.

Nelson Mandela says that “courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” That the “brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

I am not there yet. But my daughter is. She is putting one step in front of the other…. steady and straight. Even with those swirling thoughts that must exist in her head. If I had to provide a picture of bravery for Webster’s dictionary it would be of my stubborn green eyed child making her way across a tight rope.

And I am waiting on the other side.