Continue reading]]> Yay, it’s Friday! So many good things passed through my Tweet stream I had to choose carefully — and none of them involve an April Fools’ joke. (Really.) There’s amazing, funny, weird, and gorgeous, though! Enjoy!
 

@pourmecoffee “Honey, please don’t be mad but I bought something online.”

@wisdomalacarte “At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.” ~ Jean Houston

@SarahEOlsono2009 “One Man Disney Movie” Nick Pitera: Disney Medley Music Video (YouTube)
[SEO: This is fabulous, funny, and well worth the time to watch it completely!]

@Quotes4Writers “I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.” ~ Francoise Sagan

@everywheretrip My 10 Favorite Buildings in the World

@Tamavista “A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience.” ~ Doug Larson

@Quotes4Writers “This writing business. Pencils and whatnot. Overrated, if you ask me.” ~ Winnie the Pooh

@goodthingz Pics ~ Dutch Tulip Fields (overhead shots…beautiful)
[SEO: I love tulips!]

@2morrowknight 100 Online Tools to Teach Yourself Any Instrument For Free
[SEO: Besides various instruments, this collection includes sections for voice, and teaching music to children.]

@Quotes4Writers “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” (Proverb)

@goodthingz Pop-Up Restaurant Will Sit Atop Famous Buildings and Mountains
[SEO: I don’t know why, but this strikes me as an ideal location for an April Fools’ prank. :)]

Continue reading]]> Best Tweets for Trauma Survivors is a weekly Friday feature. My selections are entirely subjective, and I know it will never be possible to include every great resource tweeted. But I can try! I’ve personally read all tweeted links, and believe them to be of great value.

Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for content found on any other website. Stay safe, and don’t follow links if you believe you might be triggered by them. Also, I will not be re-checking links from older Best Tweets posts, and if the site’s archived URL is different from the one I’ve provided here, you may need to do a search on their site.

NEW and REALLY COOL: You can now “like” this post, and “share” it everywhere with the touch of a button or two at the end of the linked tweets! Feel free to do any or all of that! (And thanks.)

Photo Credit: Hubby Dan!

@CarePathways “Simply put, the beauty of fall
can be savored but not saved.”

Six Provocative Standalone Tweets To Ponder

@PsychDigest “The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own wonderful lesson.” ~ Marden

@CarePathways “People spend their lives struggling, trying to be someplace that they’re not. They never get to arrive.”

@karenkmmonroy “Forcing a transition, forcing ‘something’ to happen, takes you out of alignment with flow. So does the resistance of same.”

@LillyAnn “The more I ask, the less I understand; the harder I seek, the less I find. Slow down — let go.”

@zebraspolkadots “In creating change from the inside out I had to stop focusing only on what I was doing and connect it to what I was thinking and feeling.”

@InspirationDay “The end of wisdom is to dream high enough not to lose the dream in the seeking of it.” ~ William Faulkner

Linked Tweets

The colder, shorter days and coming holiday season are not always a joyous or easy time of year for trauma survivors. If you need help, find it. Line up resources now, and know how to contact them when you most need them. My special thanks to @unsuicide for tweeting suicide prevention resources on Twitter.

Suicide Prevention Resources

@unsuicide Suicidal? Read this first
[SEO: Compassionate and honest, this speaks to you directly about wanting the pain to end, and how to think about it in ways which don’t include you having to die. It does not judge you for your feelings, it encourages you to understand why you feel them. If you understand the why, you can see better solutions. “While we are together here for the next five minutes, I have five simple, practical things I would like to share with you. I won’t argue with you about whether you should kill yourself. But I assume that if you are thinking about it, you feel pretty bad. … Being unsure about dying is okay and normal. The fact that you are still alive at this minute means you are still a little bit unsure. It means that even while you want to die, at the same time some part of you still wants to live. So let’s hang on to that, and keep going for a few more minutes.” Includes hotlines to call to talk with someone, and a list of related articles and resources on Metanoia’s site.]

@unsuicide Hello, Cruel World by @katebornstein — ebook helps you stay alive (PDF)
[SEO: Four pages, a mini-version of her book of the same title, she speaks as you might wish a friend would when you are contemplating ending your life. “You’re better off alive, no matter how messed up you think you might be right now. And you’re better off alive no matter how mean someone is being to you. You are simply better off alive than dead—no matter who or what you are, no matter who or what you love, and no matter what you do. Just don’t be mean. Being mean never works. Never. So that’s the only rule I can think of that’s worth following in life: don’t be mean. Yes, you can be mean to yourself if that’s what’s going to keep you alive. I’m sorry if that’s happening to you. But keep in mind that there are alternatives that hurt a lot less, and I hope you find one soon.” Includes exercises.

@unsuicide Need to talk? International list of people who listen and care, 24/7
[SEO: The International Association for Suicide Prevention’s website is a wealth of help and resources if you are suicidal. If you are not suicidal, bookmark this site so you can point anyone you meet online to resources in their area, worldwide.]

Therapy Issues

@NAMIMass Do I really need help? When mental health problems occur, recognizing them is the first step to recovery
[SEO: A great overview of the stereotypes regarding seeking therapy (that it’s only for people with severe disorders, or that it’s not needed until a bigger problem develops). The key for most people is determining whether the problem is impairing good functioning. “It is good to be worried about cars on the road, so you are more careful when you walk across; but when you are so worried that you cannot cross the road at all, it has impaired your functioning.” Article includes a list of common symptoms, and how to find a therapist. See also the next article below.]

@PTSDdotOrg Choosing an Anxiety or Trauma Therapist (via Treating Anxiety blog)
[SEO: “Focus on the human part. It’s a relationship. Yes, a business partnership but anxiety and/or trauma therapy also introduces you to novel concepts like calm. Not to mention brave new worlds. Brave new worlds which offer a great deal, but you have to be comfortable opening your mouth first.”]

@ssanquist 9 Rules for Surviving Therapy (via Beyond Blue)
[SEO: If you wonder if your therapy is going anywhere, or if the problem is you or your therapist, this list explores reasons why it could be either of you or both. Really good therapy requires really good communication, especially on the therapist’s part, because you may not know enough about your issues to communicate them completely yet. Ask for clarification if you need it. Be assertive, but not aggressive. Assume the therapist is in your corner unless and until proven otherwise. And check out these 9 rules for surviving therapy: you — and your therapist — may be viewing your therapy process with inaccurate assumptions.]

@FaithLotus Alternative Healing: Expressive Therapy
[SEO: This is excellent. Faith explains the difference between “art therapy” (which usually involves a prompt by the therapist) and “expressive therapy” (which may or may not utilize “art” to express it, and does not necessarily use a prompt, meaning, it can be purely spontaneous). “In a nutshell, she said that it is an outlet a person can use to express feelings and emotions. This can be done with painting, sculpting, drawing, etc., but it doesn’t even have to be art-related. Expressive therapy can be done through drama, writing, or any other way that you find to express yourself.”]

The Rest of the Best

@fromtracie The October Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse is up!
[SEO: A look at child abuse by various bloggers under the categories of Advocacy and Awareness, Aftermath, Healing and Therapy, Poetry, and Survivor Stories.]

@zebraspolkadots Deeper Than Skin Deep (via Overcoming Sexual Abuse)
[SEO: “This got me thinking about the different things that affect my outward body and things that have affected my soul—those things that I have tried to fix with a band-aid or with coping medication such as alcohol and drugs. It eased the pain for a while only to have it return again. This way of thinking made sense to me because there were many mixed messages that were fed into my soul as a child that I battled with for most of my life. It was those messages and false beliefs that I had to tackle during my healing. I had to go deeper than the sexual abuse, find the mixed messages, connect them with the emotions that were attached to them, and replace them with truth. Once I was able to put the healing truth in my soul, I was able to overcome them.”]

@psychcentral 4 Steps to Getting Unstuck
[SEO: “In order to get unstuck we need to understand that there are perceptions, judgments and opinions that occur so quickly beneath our awareness that we get stuck before we even notice any thoughts arise. Your mind judges exercise as “bad” before the conscious excuse comes up. Your partner was “wrong” milliseconds after he opened his mouth.”]

@patriciasinglet Hearing Negative Self Talk? (via Emerging from Broken blog)
[SEO: “I became aware years ago of the negative self talk that went on in my head. I tried all sorts of ways to deal with it or combat it. I heard all kinds of cute sayings and instructions such as ‘tell the committee to shut up, the meeting is over’ and tell them to ‘stop renting space in my head’. … Maybe I thought it made sense to ignore the voices because like many of us I grew up with my needs being ignored, so it was familiar and comfortable to ignore them myself. I don’t think I ever saw those nagging critical voices as expressing a need but maybe they were after all. Maybe I thought it made sense to ignore them because I didn’t have any other solutions about what to do about negative self talk.”]

@ssanquist The Health Benefits of Tears
[SEO: This article propounds that crying is good for you, physically and emotionally, and discusses some of the science behind tears and their direct connection to stress relief. “Emotional tears have special health benefits. Biochemist and “tear expert” Dr. William Frey at the Ramsey Medical Center in Minneapolis discovered that reflex tears are 98% water, whereas emotional tears also contain stress hormones which get excreted from the body through crying. After studying the composition of tears, Dr. Frey found that emotional tears shed these hormones and other toxins which accumulate during stress. Additional studies also suggest that crying stimulates the production of endorphins, our body’s natural pain killer and “feel-good” hormones.”]

@natasha_tracy Holding Onto Hope in Bipolar Disorder (via Breaking Bipolar blog)
[SEO: Achingly honest — and applies to anyone struggling with complex mental disorders. The author differentiates between the hope that anyone trying new treatments must have in order to keep trying vs her personal agony of hope when treatment after treatment does not work. While she knows they didn’t work for her, she still offers to hold hope for you if you have none, because they might well work for you. “There are probably people holding onto your hope right now without you even knowing about it. People like doctors, therapists, friends, family, and yes, even me. I’m hanging onto a piece of your hope too. I’m keeping it safe. I can see it there even when you can’t. It doesn’t matter than I don’t know you. I know your despair. I know your pain. And I know there is hope. I know that as long as you are breathing, there is hope. Really. Truly.”]

@patriciasinglet Forgiving Your Body (via Blooming Lotus blog)
[SEO: This is a concept I struggle with daily. Still. “Throughout my years of healing, I have learned that I actually have a relationship with my body, and I have not always been kind. In many ways, I have been my own body’s abuser, from banging its head into pillows to overstuffing it with food that it did not need. I have hated my body for having orgasms during sex, and I have hated my body for not having orgasms during sex. I have taken a lot of my anger out on my body even though my body did nothing to deserve it.”]

@PalCheck How helping others helps you (via @DrKathleenYoung)
[SEO: “If you lug your elderly neighbor’s groceries up her steps, clearly it’s good for her. But did you know that it’s likely good for you too? Research indicates that those who consistently help other people experience less depression, greater calm, fewer pains and better health. They may even live longer.” Research, hints on helping, and ways to volunteer.]

Continue reading]]> 09/30/09 ETA: If I gave the slightest impression that my focus here is derived from anything other than concern for Mackenzie Phillips’ well-being, please read my follow up statement in the comments.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For over 30 years, Mackenzie Phillips’ life has been a train wreck, punctuated every couple of years by drug arrests, rehab stints, and public confessions. She told the story of her father shooting her up with drugs at age ten a long time ago. I kept thinking, why does she do this? What motivates her to go public with things that don’t shed especially pleasant light on herself or family members? What is not being heard that she keeps struggling to convey? I always hoped — and still do — that she would find a terrific therapist, because the need is strikingly evident.

So she did the “Oprah exclusive” interview yesterday to publicize the release of her book, High On Arrival. The bombshell was that, at age 19, she and her father got stoned to the point of passing out the night before she was due to marry, and she awoke to find her father having sex with her. She claims that they maintained a ten year “consensual” sexual relationship thereafter, and she only ended it after she became pregnant, did not know who the father was, and aborted the baby.

I understand the need for cleansing and closure. I understand the need to confess to that which brings you tremendous shame and guilt. And maybe pleasure. But let’s call it what it was. John Phillips was a druggy who inflicted his habit and lifestyle upon his young daughter. Addictive personalities are manipulative to the max. She stated she was starved for his attention, and wanted to please him. By age 19, she’d become his reflection — another druggy with poor boundaries and little impulse control — great legacy, Dad.

But I don’t believe that even at age 19, waking up in a drug-induced stupor to find your father having sex with you is a picture of “consent”. It’s a picture of rape. Period. And as far as it being “consensual” for the next ten years — ever hear of the Stockholm Syndrome?

Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response sometimes seen in abducted hostages, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger or risk in which they have been placed. The syndrome is named after the Norrmalmstorg robbery of Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm, in which the bank robbers held bank employees hostage from August 23 to August 28, 1973. In this case, the victims became emotionally attached to their captors, and even defended them after they were freed from their six-day ordeal.

What else can you call how she speaks about her father now? He’s dead, and she’s still trying to make his role in her life seem not horrific. She implores us to not hate him, and states her categorical forgiveness. I hope that’s some comfort to her, but from my own experience, saying you forgive someone who harmed you irretrievably doesn’t make everything okay unless and until you truly face what actually happened. “Consensual” is the kind of rationalization people tell themselves because the reality is too damaging. And the need for love — any kind of love — is too great.

She has a year of sobriety now. That’s amazing, all things considered. I hope she is strong enough to withstand the onslaught of millions of judgmental people, most of whom have never been within a mile of her shoes, let alone worn them.

I hope she can find some peace.

Continue reading]]> While I can congratulate Toni Collette for winning Best Actress in a Comedy Series for United States of Tara, that’s about all I can do. I don’t get Showtime, so I’ve never seen it.

I’d like to see it. People with Dissociative Identity Disorder can be very funny. We certainly get ourselves into predicaments most people never dream about. Like, arriving at a party in a dress we’d never be caught dead in, but … there we were. (Kind of explains some of the dresses that ended up at the Emmys.) Like, faking our way through conversations with people who know incredible details about us. (Just like the Emmys!) (Not talkin’ ’bout you, Toni!)

So Toni! Have Diablo Cody’s people call my people, ‘k? We have a million ideas.

Continue reading]]> The US Open Tennis Women’s Championship last night was definitely a Storybook Ending. It was a hard-fought match, without any histrionics or anybody cursing or breaking anything. Both Kim and Danish No. 9 seed Caroline Wozniacki played their hearts out. I believe it’s good for the sport to occasionally not have the Williams sisters play each other in the final of every Grand Slam. It’s just too boring and predictable.

As for Serena, I wonder if she is capable of seeing the irony in the T-shirt she was wearing earlier last week, which said, “You can’t have a dynasty without the nasty!”

Indeed.

Continue reading]]> I mean, for me, personally. When I was a kid, I always welcomed the start of school as a marker for new adventures, new (non-life threatening) challenges, and new hope. I created ways to become increasingly lost in my studies, as a means of not dealing with my particular hell-for-a-childhood reality. Starting school was a legitimate avenue of escape after surviving some especially treacherous summers.

I am once again on the precipice of exploring myself in very public places. The Internet has changed dramatically in the last five years, both in scope and function. When I began The Survivors Forum on CompuServe 10+ years ago, it was pretty much the only game in town for a person with little computer expertize to set up a forum online. And it came with all manner of strings and compromises. (Not to mention, no real control over its fate: AOL, sadly, pulled the plug on The Survivors Forum around 2000.)

If I were looking to go that route again, wow! The difference is stunning. Now anyone can set up their own “social network” at places like Ning. And it’s free!

What I am more focused on this time around is developing my writing, which is where it all began as a child. I want to participate fully in the online experience, but leave time and head room to finish all the writing projects that have bounced around in my head for 10 years. It’s a fine line. I write better in an environment where I can bounce ideas off of people, but I also get majorly distracted in that environment.

I’ve got a lot of technical process to catch up on. (Like learning how to use ACT! software; getting in the swing of Facebook and Twitter, all that stuff, on top of writing daily.) But the “start of school” has once again excited me, this time for all the right reasons.

As with just about everything in me now, I am searching for a balance.