simple but amazing experiences healing dogs from past trauma

Cookie recently had a fear reaction, and we're working on desensitization. I thought I would share our experience with changing fearful behaviour. 

Diego

Not long after we adopted Diego, we learned he had an extreme fear reaction to anything involving his ears. Neither Allan nor I can remember exactly how we learned this, whether he growled at the vet during an exam, or something else. But I distinctly remember that, when he saw a Q-tip in my hand, Diego showed his teeth for a split-second -- then instantly looked sorry and guilty. Poor guy!

The vet could see that Diego had a very severe ear infection. Not wanting to traumatize him further or cause him pain, she suggested general anesthesia, a full-on ear cleaning, then a program to desensitize him to ear-touching. 

Diego was highly food-motivated, so it was not difficult to re-program him.

First we associated the Q-tip or cotton ball with the treat -- so that he earned a treat just for seeing the Q-tip, then for smelling it on his own, then we would touch his ear very lightly, and so on. Then we moved on to very light touches to his ear, gradually increasing the interaction, using plenty of rewards and lots of happy talk and affection the whole time.

We did this over the course of a week, and it went brilliantly. Diego never had the fear-aggression reaction again, and for the rest of his life, he enjoyed being rubbed or scratched behind his ears.

Could this be why such a sweet-tempered and well-trained dog ended up in a shelter? Perhaps he growled, showed his teeth, or even snapped at someone who was trying to look into his painful ears.

Cookie

It's fortunate we had this experience with Diego, so we knew what to do for Cookie.

Cookie is extremely frightened of the monthly anti-flea and tick prevention we're using. I didn't understand it until I held the vial to my face: it smells like rubbing alcohol. 

Cookie did live in a house where there was drinking, drugs, and violence, so it's not surprising that she has a negative association with the smell of alcohol.

When we used the treatment last month, Cookie was wary, but she allowed us to put it on her. After, she rolled around and acted strange -- and I later realized she was trying to run away from the smell or rub it off.

This month her reaction was much stronger. As I started unwrapping the vials, she jumped away. When I moved towards her, she showed her teeth for a split-second, and frantically moved away. So sad!

Because of our experience with Diego, I knew what to do. We put the stuff on Kai, then I held the empty vial in one hand, and put a treat in my other hand. I held my hands out, palm up, a few inches apart. 

Cookie would dart in, take the treat, and dart away. After doing that a few times, I put the empty vial and the treat in the same hand. 

She did the same thing, quickly grabbing the treat and jumping away. We did that four or five times, then stopped. That's enough for one session. 

The next day, I did the same thing -- not advancing, just repeating the same level of interaction. Cookie took the treat with relaxed body language and looked at me, asking for another.

That's where we are now. I plan to do this for a few more days before trying again to use the treatment on her.

It's important to go really slowly, never forcing the dog into contact with the stimulus that's eliciting the fear reaction. Gradually, you create a new, positive association. Hopefully Cookie will soon know the smell of rubbing alcohol means a treat is coming.

Buster

Of course, not all trauma and fear-aggression will respond to desensitization. Buster, our beautiful broken pitbull, needed medication, and special training, and still could never be safely off-leash outside. But we did use a similar idea on a regular basis.

Our lives in those days depended on having a dogwalker visit twice a day, two days each week. This meant that every once in a while, we had to introduce Buster to a new person. 

The behaviourist we worked with gave us a plan. 

It took four sessions. Buster would be on-leash and wearing his "gentle leader" -- which made him feel safe. As long as he was on-leash and a stranger didn't enter his (literal) comfort zone, Buster was fine.

The first time New Person entered our apartment, we would scatter yummy, "high value" treats on the floor. New Person would come in, sit down, hang out, talk, say Buster's name many times in the happy-lovey voice. All the while, we would continue to scatter treats on the floor and Buster would go around gobbling them up. 

Session two, we would do the same, but we would place the treats near New Person's feet -- so Buster had to be near New Person while eating the treats. New Person would sit on the couch, talking to Buster in the happy voice, saying his name often, but not trying to touch him or even putting their hand out.

Session three, New Person would offer Buster the treat, open hand, palm up, doing all the happy talk, saying Buster's name a lot. Buster would accept the treat from the person's hand, and we could see his body language was relaxed. There was no further touching, but Buster was willingly touching NP's hand every time he accepted the treat.

At session four, Buster would be relaxed and friendly. All his fear would be gone. He would spontaneously come to New Person asking for attention. New Person could put on the gentle leader, touch Buster's head. Buster would rub his head into NP's leg -- and that was it.

Once Buster gave his trust, it was total and irrevocable. But we had to do this every time, and there was no rushing it or skipping a step.

Except for one remarkable experience that we'll never forget.

Our dogwalker and his partner were coming over for dinner. We had not met Partner before, so Buster was on-leash with the gentle leader, lying down next to Allan's chair.

During dinner, Buster went under the table, and put his head on Partner's shoes. Partner reached down and stroked Buster's head, and Buster snuggled closer. Somehow, Buster understood that Partner was part of Dogwalker, and he would be safe.

is my body keeping score? personal insights (plus brain dump) after reading the book by bessel van der kolk

When I wrote my beyond-rave review of The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk, I purposely omitted some personal reaction and connections I had to the book. Here they are.

Moving forward with my own healing

On the list of physical issues that can result from trauma, fibromyalgia is one of the most common -- along with depression, anxiety, stomach issues, and chronic fatigue. I've long ignored the connection between my past experiences and fibromyalgia, but now I feel ready to take it on.

After resisting this for years, I want to try EMDR, for its potential to reduce my fibromyalgia symptoms.

When I made this decision, I thought it might be futile, as I assumed I wouldn't be able to find a practitioner. To my surprise, there are many, not far away! Not in our town or region, but in the closest more populous area. That's about three hours away, but doable.

(Funny how a three-hour drive now seems like no big deal! It helps that it's a beautiful drive through the woods, with mountain views -- not three hours on the 401 or I-95.)

Right now we are all on COVID-19 lock-down, but when the pandemic is over, I am going to contact some EMDR practitioners.

Below is a timeline of how my thoughts on this evolved. Please feel free to skip to the next section, called "The inevitable and useless thought".

EMDR and PTSD

For many years, I've considered myself done -- done with therapy, done with support groups, done with therapeutic activities like Model Mugging and public speaking. Done with dealing with the aftermath of being raped. Also done with resolving any childhood trauma, the result of growing up with a mentally ill, abusive parent. I've done a ton of work around this, and then drew a line under it.

The thought of venturing again into this territory -- sexual assault trauma -- just made me angry. Enough already! It was so long ago. How can it possibly still be affecting me?! I determined I was fully healed, and that was that.

And it probably could be that, for the rest of my life. But maybe I could do better. Maybe I could feel better.

In 2014, I went to France with my mother, and had a rare insight that led me to a huge revelation: PTSD is forever. It is a permanent condition. With work, you can learn how to manage it. But there is no post-PTSD. I believed I was no longer experiencing it -- but that was because I usually don't remember my night terrors. (Posts on this: here and here.)

In 2015, I saw a therapist for anxiety. I already had medication, and my doctor suggested using my employer's EAP to get some cognitive-behaviour therapy. I met a wonderful therapist, and had a few grueling (not CBT) sessions.

This therapist told me there is a strong link between trauma and fibromyalgia, and she suggested I try EMDR. That was the first time I heard of it. I wrote about this on my fibromyalgia blog: here.

In 2016, I read The Evil Hours, a social and cultural history of PTSD (review here). It's an excellent book, and made a big impression on me.

The author is dismissive, even contemptuous, towards EMDR. Whether or not that attitude is justified, I dropped the idea. The thought of doing any further work around trauma angered me. This book gave me permission, so to speak, to not go there.

In 2017, we visited our family in Oregon. (This is when the idea of moving west was born!) (And these are some of the people I would soon be visiting if we weren't under COVID-19 lock-down.) One of my nephews is a therapist, and a psychology professor. I asked him about EMDR. Turns out he is a qualified practitioner. He had some encouraging things to say that, in my mind, brought it back to the realm of the possible.

Also in 2017, we had two family weddings, plus another in 2018 -- which means more opportunities to see my nieces and nephews. At one of these, we were hanging out with a different nephew, who is a holistic medicine practitioner -- acupuncture and craniosacral work. He recommended The Body Keeps the Score.

In late 2018, we relocated from a sprawling suburb in southern Ontario to a remote region of Vancouver Island.

In 2020, I read the book.

Throughout, van der Kolk lists various physical conditions that are related to trauma -- and fibromyalgia always tops the list. (Other conditions are depression, anxiety, and fatigue.) There it was in black and white.

This must have come at just the right time, because all of a sudden, my resistance to the idea was gone. I'm ready to explore another path to healing.

Some other things I've written about my own PTSD:

the tyranny of the subconscious

my subconscious is an annoying bitch

i need a canada for my subconscious

The inevitable and useless thought

The Body Keeps the Score is full of brief references to many horrific forms of abuse. Compared to these, my own experience seems very small.

When I was part of a community of sexual assault and domestic violence survivors*, I frequently thought, What happened to me is nothing compared to what happened to them. I minimized my own trauma relative to someone else's. It's pretty common to do this.

I felt this again while reading The Body Keeps the Score, and you may experience the same feeling. But here's what I've learned.

Maybe what this person endured is objectively worse than what happened to you. Maybe it wasn't. But true or not, it's irrelevant.

Nothing is to be gained from these comparisons. No one is helped by them. No pain is alleviated. And many opportunities may be lost.

Here's the thing. Just as the trauma was not your choice, your brain and your body's reactions to it were not choices. Our brains' reaction to trauma is wholly involuntary.

You did not choose to have night terrors or panic attacks or hypervigilance, or any of the many physical responses to trauma. Your body responded automatically, from a deep, primitive part of the brain, the part that is programmed for your survival.

How you choose to deal with trauma, given enough support and resources, is a choice. But becoming traumatized and the subsequent changes in your brain are not a choice.

It doesn't matter if someone else thinks your experience isn't awful enough to give you PTSD.

Actually, it doesn't even matter if you think it is!

Those are judgments, and the deep, emotional brain is not subject to judgments. It just is.

At some point, I made a decision to let go of the comparisons and the judgment. I can look back to an event decades ago, through the distance of time and all the protective barriers of my rational mind, and think, That shouldn't still be bothering me. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but come on, it's been nearly 40 years. Enough already!

But that's my conscious mind speaking, separated from the trauma by time, language, culture, and all the layers of my rational self. When the trauma speaks, that's when I wake up screaming.

In order to heal -- in order to give ourselves the space in which the possibility of healing exists -- we must release ourselves from these judgments. Because even when they are true, they're irrelevant.

Think the thought. Feel the feeling. Put it aside. Carry on.

Brain dump

-- I'm always a proponent of using medication like SSRIs to treat anxiety and depression, and always encourage people to at least try meds. Despite the fact that the drugs enrich the disgustingly corrupt pharmaceutical industry, I have seen meds save relationships, and save lives. The Body Keeps the Score taught me about the limits of medications. I understood that these medications may be over-prescribed, but I didn't understand either the extent or the dangers of this, as I do now.

-- Similarly, I'm always a proponent of talk therapy. When I used to do public speaking about my recovery from sexual assault, I always credited talk therapy as a way to release the poison. The Body Keeps the Score taught me about the limits of talk therapy to effect PTSD and other trauma reactions. Trauma -- especially the sustained traumas of child abuse and neglect -- occurs in a place in the brain where there is no language, a place before language. Survivors of childhood trauma often cannot process talk therapy, because they cannot access their memories in words.

Trauma often blocks memory. When it is remembered, it is recalled in disconnected bits and pieces. Adults who experience trauma can use language to weave together a narrative about their trauma, but that story is a reflection trauma -- not the trauma itself.

I might not be explaining this well. Van der Kolk touches on this again and again, with both the clinical observations and the neuroscience to back it up.

-- Some of the studies that are used to test various neuroscience theories are fascinating. Here's one small example.

Alexander McFarlane is studying how exposure to combat changes previously normal brains. The Australian Department of Defence asked his research group to measure the effects of deployment to combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan on mental and biological functioning, including brain-wave patterns. In the initial phase McFarlane and his colleagues measured the qEEG in 179 combat troops four months prior to and four months after each successive deployment to the Middle East.

They found that the total number of months in combat over a three-year period was associated with a progressive decrease in alpha power at the back of the brain. This area, which monitors the state of the body and regulates such elementary processes as sleep and hunger, ordinarily has the highest level of alpha waves of any region in the brain, particularly when people close their eyes.

As we have seen, alpha is associated with relaxation. The decrease in alpha power in these soldiers represents a state of persistent agitation. At the same time the brain waves at the front of the brain, which normally have high levels of beta, show a progressive slowing with each deployment. The soldiers gradually develop frontal-lobe activity that resembles that of children with ADHD, which interferes with their executive functioning and capacity of focused attention.

The net effect is that arousal, which is supposed to provide us with the energy needed to engage in day-to-day tasks, no longer helps these soldiers to focus on ordinary tasks. It simply makes them agitated and restless. At this stage of McFarlane's study, it is too early to know if any of these soldiers will develop PTSD, and only time will tell to what degree these brains will readjust to the pace of civilian life.

-- One of healing pathways van der Kolk writes about is the use of therapeutic theatre. One project he mentions is "Theatre of War", which uses the tragedies of Ancient Greece to help give language and healing to PTSD sufferers. This reminded me that I once had a strong interest in the history of theatre, now long forgotten in the annals of Things That I Used to Know.

Further info on Theatre of War:

How Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Help Veterans Deal with PTSD, written by a veteran who initially dismissed the idea of this as total bullshit (vice.com)

Theatre of War: Sophocles' Message for American Veterans (The New Yorker)

On YouTube: 36 minutes, more than an hour -- and incredible, five minutes with the creator of the program here.

-- Reading about neurofeedback was super interesting. In this process, a person learns to control the functioning of different areas of their brain! The results of the studies are quite amazing. It's been especially useful treating ADD and ADHD. It is generally not covered by insurance, and so, rarely used.

-------
* When I did training with a rape-crisis centre, and later, with this sexual violence intervention program, I met many survivors and listened to their stories. Many of them had been victims of child sexual assault -- incest. This is much more common than most people realize. And it is seldom a one-time event. It's often something endured repeatedly for years. Child sexual abuse is a root cause of much substance abuse, self-harm, eating disorders, high-risk sexual behaviour, suicide attempts, inability to maintain relationships, and untold mental illness.

what i'm reading: the body keeps the score by bessel van der kolk

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma is famous among trauma survivors and the professionals who treat them. I can say without hyperbole or exaggeration that it's one of the most fascinating and meaningful books I've ever read.

The Body Keeps the Score is divided into two parts.

The first part of the book examines the brain's and body's physical response to trauma. There are essentially two kinds of trauma: the sustained, multiple traumas of childhood abuse and neglect, and adult trauma from a specific event. Many people, of course, survive multiple traumas, as both children and adults.

For me, this part of the book was absolutely revelatory. Bessel van der Kolk explains the neuroscience of trauma -- and the many scientific studies and clinical observations that have led to this understanding -- in clear, plain language, using lots of analogies and examples. I am not a fast reader, and I struggle with poor concentration from fibromyalgia, but I tore through the first part of this book.

I already knew that trauma changes the brain, but my knowledge was general and a bit vague. For example, I knew that people a traumatic event can produce permanent changes in the body's so-called fight-or-flight response. With PTSD, our bodies can be in a state of permanent emergency. The Body Keeps the Score expanded and refined my knowledge of this tremendously, especially the connection between that perceived state of emergency and physical issues -- gastrointenstinal issues, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, and other issues.

The second part of the book introduces readers to "paths to recovery" -- various types of therapies and therapeutic activities that have proven to be effective with trauma survivors, some remarkably so. For each modality, van der Kolk gives you real-life examples, the results of studies, and the neuroscience behind the results -- why the activity helps, how it works on the brain. Many of the therapies are unconventional and surprising but the documented results are unmistakable.

These paths to recovery include EMDR (which I've written about a bit on my fibromyalgia blog), psychomotor therapy, neuro-feedback, yoga-based therapy, and trauma-informed theatre workshops, and group singing, among others.

This is not advice that, for example, exercise or yoga makes you feel better. That may or may not be true, but van der Kolk writes about therapeutic yoga taught by instructors with a deep understanding of trauma and PTSD.

There is a lot of science in this book, but if you're not generally a science reader, don't let that stop you. The author is amazingly skilled at weaving together his own clinical observations and case histories with the neuroscience. His voice is warm and friendly, and his writing is highly readable.

The profound disappointment: the rejection of the Developmental Trauma diagnosis

The Body Keeps the Score is also a bitter, severe, profoundly discouraging -- and, it seems, entirely justified -- critique of the psychiatric establishment. Van der Kolk is a medical doctor, a psychiatrist, and he's not opposed to the use of medication to treat mental illness. But he demonstrates the tendency of his profession to over-prescribe medications as an expedient and profitable approach, with results generally no better than a short-term band-aid.

I was especially struck by a laundry-list of diagnoses that are doled out to children, while the root cause -- abuse -- is overlooked. Hyperactivity/Attention Deficit Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and several others are treated as causes rather than effects -- secondary conditions stemming from trauma.

One of van der Kolk's greatest disappointments has been the psychiatric establishment's refusal to include a diagnosis of Development Trauma Disorder in the hallowed DSM. (I assume readers know what the DSM is, and something about its troubling history.) Because children's brains are still developing, trauma has an extreme and long-term influence on their ability to cope with the world around them. Developmental trauma, as van der Kolk convincingly demonstrates, occurs when a child's brain does not develop properly, as a result of sustained childhood trauma.

[There is something about van der Kolk's quest for this official diagnosis here, here, and here. One of van der Kolk's proposals can be seen here.)

The absence of this diagnosis is catastrophic, as funding, research, treatment, and insurance coverage largely depends on DSM definitions. Van der Kolk and his more enlightened colleagues have continued their work despite the DSM exclusion, training other colleagues and opening trauma centres (mental health facilities with programs informed by the understanding of Development Trauma) wherever possible.

But in The Body Keeps the Score, van der Kolk makes clear that without the DSM diagnosis, this work -- always an uphill battle -- will be severely restricted.

The social determinants of trauma, and mental health

The book ends with an impassioned plea about the social determinants of trauma.

Poverty breeds trauma and trauma breeds poverty. People who were abused and neglected during childhood grow up with little or no emotional resiliency. They can't finish school, can't get and keep decent employment. They are in unstable and violent relationships, they drink and drug heavily, they are compulsively drawn to dangerous situations, they are incarcerated. If they have children they are likely to continue the cycle of neglect and/or abuse.  (I have read only one other book that draws a link between child sexual abuse and poverty, David K Shipler's The Working Poor.)

From the epilogue [all emphasis mine].

...We know not only how to treat trauma but also, increasingly, how to prevent it.

And yet, after attending another wake for a teenager who was killed in a drive-by shooting in the Blue Hill Avenue section of Boston or after reading about the latest school budget cuts in impoverished cities and towns, I find myself close to despair. In many ways we seem to be regressing, with measures like the callous congressional elimination of food stamps for kids whose parents are unemployed or in jail; with the stubborn opposition to universal health care in some quarters; with psychiatry's obtuse refusal to make connection between psychic suffering and social conditions; with the refusal to prohibit the sale or possession of weapons whose only purpose is to kill larger numbers of human beings; and with our tolerance for incarcerating a huge segment of our population, wasting their lives as well as our resources.

Discussions of PTSD still tend to focus on recently returned soldiers, victims of terrorist bombings, or survivors of terrible accidents. But trauma remains a much larger public health issue, arguably the greatest threat to our national well-being. Since 2001 far more Americans have died at the hands of their partners or other family members than in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. American women are twice as likely to suffer domestic violence as breast cancer. . . .

When I give presentations on trauma and trauma treatment, participants sometimes ask me to leave out the politics and confine myself to talking about neuroscience and therapy. I wish I could separate trauma from politics, but as long as we continue to live in denial and treat only trauma while ignoring its origins, we are bound to fail. In today's world your zip code, even more than your genetic code, determines whether you will lead a safe and healthy life. People's income, family structure, housing , employment, and educational opportunities affect not only their risk of developing traumatic stress abut also their access to effective help to address it. . . .

People who feel safe and meaningfully connected with others have little reason to squander their lives doing drugs or staring numbly at television; they don't feel compelled to stuff themselves with carbohydrates or assault their fellow human beings. However, if nothing they do seems to make a difference, they feel trapped and become susceptible to the lure of pills, gang leaders, extremist religions, or violent political movements -- anybody and anything that promises relief. As the ACE study has shown, child abuse and neglect is the single most preventable cause of mental illness, the single most common cause of drug and alcohol abuse, and a significant contributor to leading causes of death such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, and suicide.

In the "paths to recovery" section, van der Kolk writes about a successful therapeutic theatre program with high school students in Boston. It reminded me of how much I used to love working with teens in a nontraditional learning environment. And when his team tried to introduce this to the public schools they were met with a "wall of bureaucratic resistance" -- and that is familiar to me, too.

Van der Kolk's voice is warm, compassionate, and engaging. I love how he sees his patients as his greatest teachers. Although he has multiple degrees and designations, and his work is grounded in hard science, he believes he has learned the most through clinical observation.

Although the stories of child abuse and neglect are horrifying, a shining thread of optimism runs through the book. Using many of the creative therapies that van der Kolk writes about, people who have endured the most extreme childhoods have found peace, and learned how to live their lives with love and joy.

Excerpt

Read an excerpt here.

Blurbs

I've never included blurbs in a book review before, but some of the dozens of raves about this book help explain it better than I can.

In this inspirational work which seamlessly weaves keen clinical observation, neuroscience, historical analysis, the arts, and personal narrative, Dr. van der Kolk has created an authoritative guide to the effects of trauma and pathways to recovery. The book is full of wisdom, humanity, compassion, and scientific insight, gleaned from a lifetime of clinical service, research, and scholarship in the field of traumatic stress. A must-read for mental health and other health care professionals, trauma survivors, their loved ones, and those who seek clinical, social or political solutions to the cycle of trauma and violence in our society.

 -- Rachel Yehuda, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and neuroscience; director of the traumatic stress studies division at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York

Every once in a while, a book comes along that fundamentally changes the way we look at the world. Bessel van der Kolk has written such a book. The arc of van der Kolk's sory is vast and comprehensive, but he is such a skillful storyteller that he keeps us riveted to the page. I could not put this book down. It is, simply put, a great work.

 -- Stephen Cope, founder and director, Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living, author of Yoga and the Quest for the True Self

Dr. van der Kolk's masterpiece combines the boundless curiosity of the scientist, the erudition of the scholar, and the passion of the truth teller.

 -- Judith Herman, MD, clinical professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, author of Trauma and Recovery

This is a masterpiece of powerful understanding and brave heartedness, one of the most intelligent and helpful works on trauma I have ever read. Dr. van der Kolk offers a brilliant synthesis of clinical case, neuroscience, powerful tools, and caring humanity, offering a whole new level of healing for the traumas carried by so many.

-- Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart

The Body Keeps the Score is masterful in bringing together science and humanism to clearly explain how trauma affects the whole person. Bessel van der Kolk brings deep understanding to the pain and chaos of the trauma experience. The treatment approaches he recommends heal the body and the mind, restoring hope, and the possibility of joy. One reads this book with profound gratitude for its wisdom.

 -- Alicia Lieberman, Ph.D. professor of medical psychology UCSF, director of the Child Trauma Research Project, San Francisco General Hospital; author of the The Emotional Life of the Toddler

Personal insights

I was going to include a section in this post with some personal insights and connections that this book raised for me, but I've decided to write those in a separate post.

the ptsd story i promised you

A few posts ago, I mentioned having a PTSD episode, and being open about it, in a group setting. That post seems to have resonated with a lot of people. In that same spirit, I'm sharing this.

* * * *

I attended a week-long labour education event, part of the CLC's Winter School. Many different courses take place at the same time, each five days long; you're with the same people all week. My group was seven people from my own local, plus three other locals from our union, about 20 people in total. Our classroom was a very supportive environment, full of compassion and support, plus a lot of humour and fun.

Three days in, we finished our morning check-in, and the facilitator said: We're going to try something new. Find a partner, and one of you will be blindfolded.

That's all I heard. At the word blindfold, my head started roaring.

I thought, I'll just wait til she's finished, then I'll say something to the facilitator privately. But as the facilitator continues speaking, I'm going deeper -- my heart is racing, and it's getting harder to breathe. I felt myself beginning to disassociate. I've never had a PTSD meltdown in public, and let me tell you, it was scary. I felt like my body was trying to disappear.

I forced myself to raise my hand, and that action helped bring me back a little bit. It was really hard to speak. I managed to choke out, um, something to be aware of, for people with PTSD, a blindfold may be triggering -- or something like that, I'm not sure what I actually said.

The facilitator said, blindfolds will be optional -- but by then three hands had flown up. Someone said, I can't be blindfolded. Someone else said, I am hard of hearing, and I need to see the speaker's mouth in order to hear. Other people started murmuring about not wanting to be blindolded.

At that, the facilitator put down the bandanas that were going to be used as blindfolds, and said, You know what, this was just an idea, but it's obviously not a good one. So we'll leave that part out.

She was talking about the rest of the exercise, but the adrenaline was already zooming through my body. It doesn't settle down that quickly. I got up and stood apart from the group for a bit, trying to catch my breath, but I couldn't. So I quietly left the classroom.

A few seconds later, a woman (who had been my partner for some class activities) followed me out of the room. She stood beside me, and placed her hand gently on my back, and offered me a tissue. I hadn't realized I was crying. She listened to my words and my crying, sometimes nodding a bit, without saying a word. She didn't ask questions, didn't try to hug me. She also didn't act shocked or distressed herself. She just stood with me.

Her quiet support was soothing. It helped bring me back.

I went back to class. No one said anything to me. Everything resumed.

Accept and acknowledge

The next day, we started class with our morning check-in, and I decided I would address what happened. I said, "Yesterday was a very challenging day for me. Having my PTSD triggered in front of people was very hard. I'm usually open about most things in my life, wanting to smash stigmas and help other people feel less alone -- except about this. So that was really hard for me, but I'm glad I did it."

Another class rule was the shout-out to to a classmate, which would earn that person a raffle ticket. So I said, "I want to thank my team for taking care of me last night, and giving me space, and my team now includes M. Her quiet presence helped me so much yesterday, and I'm very grateful."

As I said in my earlier post, I didn't feel guilty or ashamed or like I had burdened anyone with my emotions. I was very grateful for M's kindness and strength, but I didn't feel indebted to her.

At first I thought, I've given enough to others that I'm allowed to accept some in return. Then I thought no, that's wrong, let's not measure our compassion or our worth.

If it's all right -- more than all right, it's good -- for someone to accept my help, then I can accept help, too. It's like I finally understand that I'm worthy of receiving help, by virtue of being human.

and let others do for you: interdependence, and the strength to be vulnerable

"I find it really difficult to ask for help."

I've heard many people say this. I don't know if I ever said this myself, but as a teen and then young adult, I definitely tried never to ask for help, and seldom would allow myself to accept any. When I needed help of any kind -- physical, financial, emotional -- I would feel uncomfortable and deeply indebted, for relatively small actions.

In New York City, where, like millions of New Yorkers, I didn't own a car, if someone gave me a ride home, I would thank them profusely. Years later, living in Mississauga, I offered people rides home all the time, and realized it was not that big a deal. The same goes for being asked to stay for dinner, or being offered a cup of tea or a glass of wine in someone's home. A simple act of friendship or kindness, especially from someone I didn't know very well, seemed like Such A Big Deal.

This is certainly one area where our world makes it more difficult for men. Asking for help is weak, and weakness is for pussies, and men must constantly prove that they are not pussies -- that they are not female. After all, isn't that what all the jokes about men not asking for directions are about?

But people of all genders have issues with this. We want to appear strong and independent. We want to think we are self-sufficient.

Perhaps the biggest and most self-destructive example of this is the shame people feel about accepting social assistance, including using a community food bank. The idea of being needy, of being a recipient of help rather than a donor, is so deeply shaming for so many people, including those who support the idea of social welfare.

* * * *

By my observations, most people want to help others. Finding a wonderful gift for someone you care about, and seeing their face light up with appreciation, or being able to make someone's day easier with a simple errand or help carrying something -- even sharing an umbrella with someone who's getting soaked on a sidewalk -- these things make us happy. It's why we volunteer. Why we advocate for others. It's why we love stories about people buying coffee for strangers, why we rush to donate to disaster relief. We want to help.

How many of us realize that on the flipside of that desire to give, there is an obligation to accept? To allow others to express that human impulse. To give in return that gift of your face lighting up, or the knowledge that you made their day easier.

I now believe that we give by giving and we give by accepting.

I actually think that thought in someone else's words -- Bob Dylan's, from the song "Forever Young": May you always do for others and let others do for you.

"And let others do for you." I've thought a lot about those lyrics. I've wondered, why would Dylan include that in his benediction? (Let's assume in this case it wasn't solely because they fit the meter or completed a rhyme!)

I think Dylan understood that we are mutually dependent on each other -- and that we should be, that it's a preferred state of being. That by knowing how to both give and receive, we are more fully human.

* * * *

I first started thinking about this when I was writing about disability issues. I regularly interviewed people who used wheelchairs, and occasionally other adaptive aids. Most were very independent and valued that independence highly. But here are some comments that stayed with me.

Early on in my foray into this field, a man who was blind and also used a wheelchair said to me, "We place a high premium on independence in our society. I don't find that healthy -- for anyone." (He was a pretty independent guy, too.)

Two, I did a story on recreation options for quadriplegics. A lot of the folks I spoke with had become quads from accidents while ski racing, rock-climbing, motorcycle racing, and other outdoor-adventure activities. Now they were the same thrill-seeking adrenaline junkies, but paralyzed. One of my interviews was with a super-active guy who was a quad, and who continued to scuba, skydive, and whatever else. He said, "People are so funny about this. I say, I scuba dive, and they ask, Do you need any adaptive equipment for that? And I'm like, I'm human, and I'm under water, so, yeah."

Three, on several occasions I interviewed a woman named Brooke Ellison. Ellison is an incredibly smart woman, very engaged with the world, and also a deeply compassionate person. She's a high-level quad, meaning she has very little body functioning, and without modern medical technology, she would not have survived her accident. She graduated with high honours from Harvard University by attending with her mother.

Brooke talked about interdependence. She said that because she was physically dependent on people for all her basic needs, she felt very strongly about giving back. She echoed the visually impaired man I mentioned above, by saying that the whole concept of independence was overrated or maybe misplaced -- that society's premium on independence is somewhat of a facade, because we are all interdependent on each other.

These comments lodged in my mind. Adaptive equipment? I wear glasses. Custom orthotics. Prescription meds. When you think about it, a warm winter coat and gloves are adapative equipment for us humans. Seen that way, how many of us live without any adaptations?

Who among us is not interdependent? I depend on my partner for little things, like opening jars and reaching high cabinets, and really big things... like love, acceptance, and emotional support. I depend on my family and my friends, and I hope they depend on me.

* * * *

I'm going to throw in one more story, or at least the punchline of a story. This happened in the early 90s. I had a bad experience at work, and was dressed-down by a boss at a very vulnerable time -- and I burst into tears. (Still the only time I've cried in front of a boss or supervisor.) As soon as I did, this man's attitude immediately changed. The whole power dynamic of the room changed. We ended up talking more as equals, and the meeting ended on better terms. But I was so embarrassed, and angry at myself. I felt humiliated that I had showed such weakness, that he was able to bring me so low, and I let him see that.

After the fact, I debriefed with co-worker. She surprised me with a completely different take on the incident: "He was coming at you from an inhumane place. You had a human response, and he in turn responded in a human way. You gave him a gift. You helped him recover his compassion."

This made a huge impression on me. (That woman, who I worked with only briefly, then never saw again, had a great impact on me. Who knows who we've helped with a kind word at the right time, in a way we might not even be aware of.)

Which brings us back to Dylan's wish for us: May you always do for others and let others do for you.

These experiences, taken together as something more than the sum of the parts, have caused a change in my attitude towards asking for help. I help people, sometimes deliberately, sometimes perhaps unknowingly. And people help me in much the same way -- and that's the way it should be. They're not necessarily the same people -- and it doesn't matter, because we're all interdependent.

* * * *

This essay has been sitting in drafts for many weeks, and during that time, I had an unusual experience. So if you're still reading, please indulge me in one more story.

Not long ago, totally unexpectedly and in a room full of people, I heard something that triggered my PTSD. This is so unusual for me that I think it might be a first: my PTSD happens in private, in the middle of the night.

Rather than derail this post, I'll save the details of the experience for another post. For now, suffice to say that a stranger showed me great kindness and compassion, and I was able to accept it -- and it felt like a triumph. So much so that I was able to name my fear out loud to others, which was very difficult to do. And as often with the difficult bits, it felt really powerful. I was able to tell other people -- in person, not in writing -- that I had a PTSD episode, and thank them for their help.

And I didn't feel guilty or ashamed or like I had burdened anyone or like I was weak or... anything. And although I was very grateful for the kindness and strength of this woman, I didn't feel embarrassed or indebted.

Then a funny thing happened: people praised my strength. Someone said "You had the strength to be vulnerable."

It's easier to pretend to be strong than it is to be honest. It's easier to run from the feelings -- to lash out, or to drink or drug over them, or to grit our teeth and ride it out -- than it is to stop and allow yourself to feel the feelings, and then be honest about what you experienced.

I'm not a superhero. I've run from feelings, I've lashed out, I've tried to obliterate them, I've done plenty of teeth-gritting. Every human has done this. But a few times, when it felt safe, I've exposed my feelings -- and this was very good.

When I was a child, I was fortunate to visit many wonderful National Parks with my parents. If there was a tour or talk being given by a park ranger, we always went. My father always asked questions. I remember being embarrassed by this: I thought it made him appear ignorant. But my father explained that asking questions is a sign of intelligence -- that when you ask questions, you're thinking, you're making connections, you're being smart. I soon observed that this was true, and I never again felt embarrassed to ask a question.

This is a similar dynamic, a seeming paradox. We associate vulnerability with weakness, but really, to allow oneself to be vulnerable, to be emotionally honest, requires inner strength.

A human gave me the gift of compassion and support, with no questions asked and nothing expected in return. And maybe... maybe I gave a gift that day, too.

i need a canada for my subconscious: the kavanaugh hearings and we go on

I avoided the Kavanaugh hearings as long as I could.

I used to take a special interest whenever survivors go public. I'd read everything I could, write letters to newspapers, speak out on social media. Send a note of support to the woman. Find the sisterhood, share the pain. This hurt, but it helped, too. I think most people who have publicly shared private pain will attest to that: it hurts and it helps.

I'm unwilling to do so any longer, or at least I'm unwilling to do it right now. I avoided all of it. I put my head in the sand. But it found me anyway, as my entire Facebook feed filled with news stories, personal essays, memes, and outrage. I could have avoided Facebook, but that felt like punishing myself.

I saved them all. I planned to do one long wmtc post with all the reaction. I found the time, but not the will. I started having PTSD symptoms again. Or I should say, I started remembering them, because apparently I have them a lot but I'm not aware of it.

Really, it all comes down to this: I am so so so so so totally sick of trauma playing out in my life. I can't stand it anymore. I just cannot stand it.

But of course I will stand it. I have to. Millions of people put up with much worse. I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I'm just fed up. And there's nothing for it. I was fed up with the US and I moved to Canada. There's no moving to Canada for my subconscious.

* * * *

the tyranny of the subconscious

my subconscious is an annoying bitch

in which i admit ptsd is forever

on poppies, veterans, trolls, and doxing

First of all, I do not apologize.

I have nothing to apologize for. No one should apologize for having an unpopular opinion, or an opinion that the majority finds offensive.

Second, I said nothing disrespectful to veterans. My utter lack of respect -- my undying contempt -- is for rulers whose policies send humans into unnecessary armed conflict. Those rulers pay lip-service to "supporting" troops, while their policies ensure more humans will suffer from the effects of war.

If you're joining us in progress, here's what you missed. 

Before the election, I took all my personal social media offline. We knew that the opposition would dedicate vast resources to digging up or fabricating anything they could use against NDP candidates. For some reason, no one directed me to remove wmtc links from the Wayback Machine (i.e., internet archives). This proved to be a grave error.

A right-wing political hack who masquerades as a journalist received excerpts from some old wmtc posts from a troll source. I know this because Hack forwarded Troll's email to me, with the identifiers scrubbed.

Hack did what hacks do, and trolls did what trolls do. Hack kept this going for way longer than any of us expected, dedicating three columns to me, and mentioning my name in several other columns. Eventually it was reported on by more mainstream media.

The right-wing attack machine moved from candidate to candidate, digging up tiny bits of online fodder, distorting and quoting out of context, in a ludicrous attempt to portray the NDP as a hotbed of wacko radicalism.

Doug Ford and his party waged the worst kind of campaign possible: they obfuscated facts, and relied on lies, sloganeering, and mudslinging.

Andrea Horwath and our party were consistently positive, focused, truthful, and precise.

That the majority of voters in Ontario chose the former over the latter is profoundly disturbing.

Doxing

I thought I knew what it was like to be attacked by trolls, from early wmtc days. I was wrong. The trolls who attacked this blog were annoying gnats who could be easily batted away. The troll attack orchestrated by Hack & Co. was a whirling swarm of angry hornets, the size of a midwest twister.

Their weapons were the most vulgar kind of personal insults, and graphic threats of violence.

I have pretty thick skin and don't tend to take things personally. My union sisters and brothers often describe me as "fearless". But this was a form of violence, and it shook me.

I'm lucky that it didn't affect my outlook, my opinions, or my self-esteem. That's down to the amazing support I had -- from the party, from my union, from friends, and from strangers who agreed with my views and reached out to me. Because of this support, I was shielded from most of the invective. I saw only a small portion of it, yet that was enough to shake me. I felt that my personal safety was threatened. That's not easy to do to me.

It's difficult -- nay, impossible -- for me to understand this kind of behaviour. The whitehot anger, the fervor so easily ignited -- the immediate willingness to attack, the assumed entitlement to say anything to anyone, hiding behind the anonymity of the internet. The seeming inability to respectfully disagree. It is truly beyond my understanding.

What I think about poppies, militarism, and veterans

I wrote the now-infamous post about the poppy symbols at a time when Prime Minister Stephen Harper was flogging the war machine in Afghanistan. I have a deeply held opposition to war, and I wanted Canada out of Afghanistan.

I also link the symbolic poppy to the general militarism that infects our society -- where "support the troops" is code for "support the war". Militarism takes many forms, including recruiting in schools, honouring military members at sporting events, using weapons as entertainment, such as air shows, and for me, the ubiquitous poppy symbol.

Naturally I understand that the majority does not view the poppy symbol this way. Hundreds tried to enlighten me, as if somehow the view of the vast majority hadn't reached my ears. But guess what? I disagree.

I have never written or said anything that disparages veterans. On the contrary, the pages of this blog are replete with disgust for the governments that disrespect veterans by slashing funding for their health and rehabilitation. My "11.11" category is about peace. If wanting peace disrespects veterans, we are living in an Orwellian nightmare.

What supporting veterans should look like

I have no doubt that for some people the poppy is a potent symbol, and that they believe wearing this symbol shows respect and reverence for veterans. I have never suggested that other people shouldn't wear poppies. I simply choose not to wear one. (I don't refuse to wear one, as the memes said. I choose not to.)

To me, if we truly want to support veterans and military servicemembers, we must do two things.

One, create and fully fund a robust array of supports for people who have suffered from war, to support their physical and mental well-being. Our society does not do that.

And two, stop making war. Stop creating veterans. Search for ways to resolve conflicts that do not involve killing people. And never use war as a means to profit.

Until these things are done, you can cover yourself in poppies, and your "support" and "respect" will be as false as the plastic flowers you revere.

A final word about respect

I don't disrespect veterans. But I don't automatically respect someone because they are a veteran.

Many people contribute to our society through their work or their passions. Others harm our society with selfishness, greed, violence, and unkindness. When people are kind and generous, when they act with compassion and integrity, I respect them. When they do the opposite, I do not. This is as true for veterans as it is for teachers, social workers, nurses, or politicians.

People who hurl crude insults at strangers because they cannot abide a difference of opinion, but who claim to love freedom and respect veterans, are ignorant wretches. I don't respect them. I pity them.

thoughts on the latest u.s. gun massacre

As part of my continuing efforts to post here rather than -- or at least in addition to -- Facebook, here are some thoughts on the latest horrific massacre in the US, the country music festival in Las Vegas.

First, the inevitability of recurrence. When hearing about mass shootings in the United States, the worst part -- the most tragic, the most outrageous part -- is the certainty of knowing that nothing will change. That it will happen again, and again, and again.

A solution is known, of course. We won't end the culture of violence that permeates the US, but we can end access to large numbers of deadly weapons. The fact that the vice grip of a deadly special interest group outweighs the basic human rights of life and safety speaks volumes about the US political system. The congressmembers and senators who are bought and paid for by the NRA can never wash the blood off their hands.

Second, the true body count. Allan and I were talking about what it might have been like to be there. I admit I don't usually do this. I usually think about these massacres on a social and political level, somewhat removed from true empathy. But thinking a lot about the survivors, I know that every one of them will have PTSD. Many of them may never recover a fully healthy mental state.

Given the cost of mental health resources, the lack or absence of public mental health support, the survivors may or may not find help for this condition.

However high the final number of dead and wounded, the true numbers will never be known.

what i'm reading: the evil hours, a biography of post-traumatic stress disorder

The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is an outstanding book -- meticulously researched, but written in a compelling, accessible style, and with great humanity and compassion.

Author David J. Morris unearths the social and cultural history of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the fourth most common psychiatric disorder in the US. He surveys the potential treatments. He explores the role of social justice in our understanding of PTSD.

But above all, Morris confronts the meaning of trauma, in society and in his own life. Morris was a U.S. Marine stationed in Iraq. After narrowly escaping death, he returned home questioning everything he thought he knew -- and eventually having to face the reality of his own trauma. Morris' dual role as both researcher and subject give this book a unique power as history, social science, and personal essay.

People have known for centuries, for millennia, that traumatic events produce after-effects, but different cultures in different eras have explained those effects in different ways. The modern history of trauma is linked to the carnage of 20th Century war. And our current understanding of PTSD owes everything to the Vietnam War, and the experience of returning veterans who publicly opposed the war.

In this way, the history of PTSD encompasses a history of 1960s and 1970s peace activism, especially of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a group that began a sea-change in the culture of the United States. As a student of peace, I found this part fascinating.

Taking this even further, Morris links PTSD and social justice. Powerless and marginalized people are more likely to be traumatized by one or more of the four principal causes of PTSD: war, genocide, torture, rape. Taking a social and cultural perspective forces us to confront a world that causes these traumas. In this view, PTSD is not so much an illness as a moral condition brought on by the worst of human society.

The United States Veterans Administration (VA) sees it quite differently. To the VA, PTSD is strictly a medical condition. And this matters greatly, because research about PTSD is almost entirely funded and controlled by the VA. Explaining trauma as purely medical or biological doesn't address the causes at all. In fact, it does the opposite -- it normalizes PTSD as a natural consequence of unavoidable circumstances.

As for treatment, Morris surveys what's out there and finds most of it useless. VA hospitals and insurance companies prefer therapies that can be "manualized" -- made uniform, with a certain number of treatments and little or no emotional engagement from the therapist. Statistically, these types of therapies appear to be useful -- until one learns that the numbers don't include all the patients who drop out! Talk about cooking the books: everyone for whom the treatment isn't working or, in many cases, is actually worsening their symptoms, is simply ignored.

Morris himself feels that therapeutic talks with an empathetic person with some training goes further than neuroscience can. "What they [the VA] seem to want instead," Morris writes, "is mass-produced, scalable, scripted therapies that make for compelling PowerPoint slides."

Readers of this blog may know that I have PTSD. Much of The Evil Hours brought a shock of recognition -- the feeling that someone else is expressing your own thoughts, saying exactly what you've been thinking all along. Morris perfectly articulates how trauma plays out in one's life, the depths of change it brings about.

Morris writes: "We are born in debt, owing the world a death. This is the shadow that darkens every cradle. Trauma is what happens when you catch a surprise glimpse of that darkness.”

In the immediate aftermath of my own trauma, while trying to write about my experience, this is exactly the image I fixated on. We are, all of us, dancing on the edge of a great precipice, usually unaware of how terrifyingly close we are to that edge. Then something happens, and we understand it, not in some theoretical way, but immediately and profoundly, perhaps in a way humans are not equipped to understand. We talk about "the fragility of life" but we don't know what that is -- until we do. Then we spend a lifetime trying to live with the knowledge.

"One of the paradoxes of trauma," writes Morris, "is that it happens in a moment, but it can consume a lifetime. The choice of how much time it is permitted to consume is usually in the hands of the survivor."

The Evil Hours may be very useful for people who are figuring out how to stop PTSD from consuming any more of their lives. It is certainly a must-read for anyone interested in the effects of trauma on the human mind.

u.s. iraq war resisters: the struggle continues

Still war resisters. Still in Canada. Still fighting to stay.

So far, the change in government hasn't helped the Iraq War resisters who remain here, nor the ones who were forced out of Canada who would like to return. The Trudeau government could do this so easily. And yet.

The CBC Radio show "DNTO" recently did an excellent segment about the US Iraq War resisters and the fight - still going on - to let them stay in Canada.

When American soldier Joshua Key fled to Canada in 2005, he never imagined that ten years later he would still be fighting a war — against the U.S. army, against post-traumatic stress disorder, and against the Canadian government.

Key is one of an estimated 15 Iraq war veterans who are fighting to remain in Canada.

The resisters left home to avoid being sent back to a war they didn't believe in. Today, they fear they'll be sent to prison if they're deported.

On this week's DNTO, you'll meet modern war resisters. Each of their stories is unique, but they all have one thing in common: they wish to stay in Canada. Should they be allowed to?

Some segments:

Meet the war resisters desperate to stay in Canada.

Who's helping the war resisters?

The Brockway family: fighting PTSD and searching for home.

A photo essay about Josh Key.

The show is really worth hearing, and you know how I feel about radio. You can listen to the full episode here.

dogs, apartments, and anxiety: in which diego returns to school

As I mentioned (almost a month ago now), our pack of four is moving to a new den. We're going to stop renting houses, as we have done for the past ten years, and move back to apartment life. Although I've adjusted to the idea, I'm no happier about it. I'm heartsick that we'll no longer have the private oasis of a backyard.

We've found a great apartment: three bedrooms, two bathrooms, well-maintained building, lots of green space outside, dog-friendly building (it's the law in Ontario, but not always followed or enforced), good location for both driving and transit. Honestly, had I seen this apartment when I lived in New York, I would have considered it luxury. Now it just makes me sad.

But there's another factor involved in this move, a big, drooling, barking factor named Diego.

Drooly Boy

In our old house, before the flood, we were working with Diego on better on-leash behaviour, especially his reactions to other dogs. Off-leash at the dog park, Diego is playful and well socialized; on the leash, a barking, pulling maniac.

This is a common issue. We were working with a trainer when the flood upended our lives. We ended up moving, and we never resumed training. This meant I stopped walking Diego, except when the four of us walk together, and Allan can take the big boy while I walk Tala. I couldn't manage him at all.

As soon as we realized we were moving to an apartment, in a building full of dogs, I knew we needed to re-boot Diego's education.

The amazing trainer we had been working with has moved out of the area, but we are working with her by email, phone, and video. We've got a fridge full of Rollover, something this trainer turned us on to: a training treat that is nutritionally balanced, and can substitute for your dog's regular food. We're using a complicated harness-Gentle Leader-collar combination that gives me maximum control, and produces a calming effect on the dog. And we're working daily in our neighbourhood.

Buster posing with some antiquated technology

Diego has already made a lot of progress. It's hard for me to imagine him walking calmly past another dog we might encounter in the lobby, or not going nuts if the elevator door opens and a dog appears, but every walk is a training opportunity, and we'll just keep at it.

And there will be plenty of opportunity! We'll have to walk Tala and Diego separately for the foreseeable future, and we're on the 19th floor of a 20-story building.

But wait, there's more. There's yet another factor at play: my own anxiety. Many years ago in New York, we had a very bad experience with Buster, our pit-mix rescue who had severe fear-aggression to other dogs. This resulted in many things, including a four-day hospital stay for Allan, a famous animal behaviourist donating time to us, and a pitbull on Prozac.

And it resulted in one more thing. Walking Buster became a source of great fear and anxiety for me... which is how I learned more about post-traumatic stress syndrome. Apparently once a person has experienced a state of extreme emergency, their neural pathways are permanently changed. The threshold to trigger the fight-or-flight response is much lower. So I'd wake up in a state of anxiety, just before I had to walk the dogs. Buster and I both needed medication to go on walks! (If only he could have understood rationally. Buster was a dog of extreme obedience - a soldier who lived to follow orders. If he could have controlled himself to please us, he would have done so in a heartbeat.)

Whoever thought she'd be the calm one!

And here we are, 15 years later. It's a different dog, who is not an emotionally damaged abuse survivor, but a part of my brain doesn't know that. Dogs, of course, sense your anxiety and react to it. If their person is fearful, there must be something to be fearful and vigilant about. So Diego has to calm down for me, and I have to calm down for him.

u.s. war resister corey glass speaks out from europe

Corey Glass, war resister from Canada by way of Indiana, speaks out from his travels in Europe in the current issue of NOW.

I'm not going to bother to tell you that the Iraq War was wrong or quote the UN handbook on refugees, Geneva Conventions, Nuremberg principles or trials.

Nor am I going to try to convince anyone that soldiers should have the right to say no, that prosecution for a belief is persecution, or that recruiters lie. There's no reason to talk about that, or about how Canada didn't take part in the Iraq War. Or why Canadian troops are in Iraq now.

Everyone knows what happened and can find information on all that online. I'm fine with my choices. I have to deal with the repercussions of them every day.

I didn't take the easy road to do what I believe was right. And I don't really feel I need to convince anyone otherwise.

I will talk about what has happened to me since I quit the U.S. Army, went to Canada to escape the war and, after eight years trying to build a life there, was told I had to leave. . . .

Eventually I would run out of savings and favours. I started to understand how easy it is for war vets to become homeless, remembering the vets holding signs to that effect from my younger days in Manhattan. Would this be me? Would a government change in Canada allow me to come home? What if Shepherd wins asylum? Could Germany be a home someday? All these questions made me anxious, so I ordered a shot of Jameson.

What would happen if I just went back to the States? Maybe they would take it easy on me? They didn't on Chelsea Manning - 25 years for whistle-blowing. I'd be 57 when I get out. For quitting a job? Fuck that! More angst. Another shot.

I remembered losing friends back in the U.S. because of my choice to resist going back to war in Iraq.

A childhood friend who I had joined the service with - he hated me for leaving - called me out of the blue that night. We spoke for about an hour. He apologized for being angry with me. He was out of the military now and said I'd done the right thing. He wished he'd left, too.

He's an alcoholic now, and said the VA was not giving him support for his PTSD. After three tours, he was all messed up with nightmares. His wife was leaving him, and he was about to lose his job, the sixth in the last year. He wanted to die and wished he had in Iraq. He cried hard into the phone and said he was sorry. . . .

Read it here.

kevin vickers, nathan cirillo, and canada's response to recent acts of violence

I've been thinking a lot about Kevin Vickers. By now the world knows Vickers' name: he is the sergeant-at-arms of the Parliament of Canada, and his quick thinking and courage undoubtedly saved lives. Vickers shot killed Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who had already killed one person and appeared intent on killing others.

Vickers is a hero. But my thoughts of him are filled not with adulation, but with sorrow. Imagine going to work one day, a day like any other, and by the time the day is done, you have taken a human life. You have killed a man at close range. What could that be like? It would not be surprising if Vickers will grapple with flashbacks, night terrors, or other forms of PTSD. Despite Vickers' courage and his new celebrity, I'd bet that few of us would want to stand in his shoes.

I've also been thinking of Nathan Cirillo, because it's impossible not to. Although I consume very little mainstream media, a short dip into my Facebook feed is enough: the dog Cirillo left behind, the outpouring of public grief, the obligatory "Highway of Heroes" photos.

Cirillo was a victim, and he did nothing to deserve such a fate. I feel for those who knew and loved him. But what makes Cirillo a hero? Guarding a war memorial surely is not an act of heroism. Is simply putting on a uniform a heroic act? Cirillo's death was senseless and tragic, but it was not heroic.

Of course, hero is a word that's lost all meaning, joining ironic, obviously, and traumatized on the ever-growing list of words that are used so carelessly and so often as to lose all meaning. Hero just might claim pride of place at the very top of that list. But the hero-worship of anyone in uniform is part of the creeping militarization of our society.

I've also been thinking about violence, and how we choose to respond to violence. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the US government constantly invoked fear in order to advance its agenda: war on people who had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, repression of domestic dissent, spying on US citizens.

That response also included the widespread use of torture, and a concentration camp that, more than a decade later, still exists. Even if one believes, despite all facts and evidence, that the people of Iraq and Afghanistan were somehow responsible for the 9/11 attacks, the US's response was something like killing a mosquito with a hand grenade. By now it should be clear that the US government had its own agenda, and 9/11 provided the excuse.

Norway, on the other hand, chose a different path: it answered hate with love. After 77 people were massacred on Utøya island, the Norwegian government affirmed the open nature of Norwegian society and pursued charges against the perpetrator within the boundaries of Norwegian law.

These are the originals for the memorials which, from the 22 July anniversary, will be sent out to more than 50 counties across Norway, to commemorate the 77 people massacred by Anders Breivik, the far-right extremist who goes on trial this week.

On each of them, words have been carved from a poem by the Norwegian writer Laes Saabye Christensen that was recited at the memorial concert for the victims. This poem, with its message of peace, followed the tone set by prime minister Jens Stoltenberg in his address at the memorial service in Oslo cathedral two days after the tragedy.

"We are still shocked by what has happened, but we will never give up our values," Stoltenberg said. "Our response is more democracy, more openness, and more humanity." Norway, he suggested, would not seek vengeance as America had done after the 9/11 attacks." We will answer hatred with love," he said.

"It's a clear case where a politician strikes a chord," said Frank Aarebrot, a professor of politics at the University of Bergen. "The prime minister struck almost a Churchillian note in that speech. People were jubilant."

Norway has granted every legal right to Breivik, despite hearing in gruesome detail of how he coldly executed 56 of his victims with shots to the head, after attacking a Labour party youth camp on the island of Utøya, near Oslo.

Canada has a choice.

On one side stands fear, suspicion, bigotry, and repression, a society where people are feared and attacked because of their appearance and surnames, where people are afraid to exercise their right to criticize the government. On that side, too, stands war: the death and destruction of innocent people, citizens turned into shells of themselves because of what they've witnessed and what they've been asked to do.

On the other side stands democracy, freedom of expression, pluralism, inclusion, human rights, and peace.

What kind of country do we want Canada to be?

Do we want the Harper Government to decide that for us?

"just because it's broken, doesn't mean it's not beautiful": ashlea brockway and brokenart mosaics

The Brockway family, 2013

I want to tell you about an exciting venture: an opportunity to help make art more accessible for all, to help a low-income woman start her own business, and to help the family of an Iraq War resister, all at the same time. I hope you'll read about BrokenArt Mosaics and share Ashlea Brockway's crowd-funding page.

Wmtc readers may remember my posts about the Brockway family. Jeremy Brockway is an Iraq War veteran with severe depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Denied medical leave and unable to return to combat, Jeremy and his family came to Canada. Wmtc and Joy of Sox helped raise funds for the Brockways to adopt a service dog. I've written about the Brockways several times: here, here, and here, among other posts.

You already know my feelings about war resisters and people who struggle with mental illness. But in my zeal to share those stories, I may have shortchanged the real hero of the Brockway story, the head of the family, Ashlea Brockway.

I admire Ashlea Brockway tremendously. Ashlea is raising three young children on her own, and also caring for her disabled husband, who cannot work, and who can help with the kids only in a very limited way. She is a patient, loving, meticulous mother. More than anything, though, Ashlea is a woman of action.

BrokenArt Mosaic magnet

Wherever she directs her energies, Ashlea is focused on others. I've never heard Ashlea speak about her husband's situation without raising awareness of the broader issue, the shameful way veterans are treated after military service. When she accessed the services of a local food bank, she became first a volunteer, and then an outspoken advocate for both the families who use social services and the workers who provide the services. Now Ashlea is using her own creative talents to make art and creativity more accessible for all.

Ashlea is starting her own art-focused business, called BrokenArt Mosaics. She recently told the Port Welland Tribune:

“Even though my life is not how I wanted it to be, it's still beautiful.”

That concept is mirrored in her mosaics, she says.

“Broken things most people throw away, but you can pick up the pieces and make something beautiful.”

Brockway first realized she had a passion for mosaics in high school and has since used the art form as a means of stress relief.

“It's therapeutic,” she says, calling it a challenge to try and find pieces that fit together harmoniously.

Grab a kit, make some art

It's a relaxing experience she wants to share with the community.

It's an activity people of all ages, with all levels of crafting experience, can take on, she says.

Brockway's focus is on ensuring her kits are accessible to people of all income levels.

“It's about making art accessible. Art is often out of the price range of everyday people.”

She not only sells kits but also plans to eventually host mosaic-making workshops.

Her long-term goal is to have a storefront to call her own.

Ashlea's BrokenArt mosaics are very reminiscent of Gaudi's trencadis mosaics that I fell in love with last year in Barcelona. Gaudi used shards of broken, discarded tiles, "upcycling" trash into art well ahead of the trend. Ashlea's art is all about searching the scrap heap to find the beauty within.

You can help fund Ashlea's venture through her GoFundMe campaign, and you can visit the BrokenArt Mosaic Facebook page. Whether or not you donate, I hope you will check out the site, and share it with your own network.

giverny, plus tablet and ptsd updates

Keyboard

I love my Nexus 7. I hate the Minisuit keyboard, although the problem might be Bluetooth.

To blog, I need a keyboard, and I need to use Blogger via the website, as the Android app is too limited. (That seems silly, since Blogger is a Google product.) Using Blogger online with the onscreen keyboard is very inconvenient. I can't select, can't easily make links, and can barely see where I'm typing. 

I've adjusted to the tiny Minisuit keyboard. I dislike typing with two fingers, but I can do it. But I will never adjust to the cursor suddenly moving into a different paragraph, or characters not appearing onscreen for two minutes, then appearing all at once. 

What to do?

PTSD

This afternoon my mother confessed that the reason she didn't sleep last night is because she was worried about the strange noises I was making in my sleep. She won't say what she thought was happening (superstition) but I think she was worried that I was having a heart attack or some other medical emergency. Strangely, she never thought to wake me or to seek help. 

I told her the noises she heard were the sounds of PTSD. My mother and I never talk about my issues. I learned early on that she runs away from them (as she does from anything painful or scary), and since I found her denial painful in itself, I didn't talk about stuff, which suited her fine. So it was a bit strange to talk about my PTSD and night terrors, now, with my Mom. But we did, a bit. I feel really bad that she was worried and that I disturbed her sleep!

And now back to our show

So Connie and I both had crappy nights, for reasons known and unknown. I think she is getting anxious as the end of the trip nears.

The bright side of insomnia is that it was no problem getting out very early. By 6:30 a.m., we were in a cab bound for Gare St. Lazare; we had a coffee at the station, and took the 7:20 train for Vernon. I arranged our tickets in advance, but no one ever asked to see them!

In Vernon, only 40 minutes from Paris, we caught another cab to Giverny. We expected to stow our bags and settle in later, but some guests had cancelled their booking, so our room was ready despite the early hour. 

Les Jardins d'Helene is a beautiful B&B, a lovely mix of traditional and contemporary. In order to get a room with two beds, I booked a family suite both here in Giverny and tomorrow outside Rouen. Our suite door opens on a long hallway. At one end, there is a bedroom with a double bed (Connie's), and at the other, a room with two single beds for me. In the middle is the bath and toilette. It's so spacious, and the same price as our Paris room. 

Our host brought us coffee and we hung out in a funky sitting area while guests from the previous night had breakfast. (What we really need is breakfast-and-bed, rather than the usual order.) The sitting room has a vintage radio and record player, a collection of vintage cameras and light meters, and a collection of photography books, books about jazz, and jazz LPs. My room, meant for kids, has a huge selection of Asterix, Tintin, and Gaston graphic novels.

Connie and I set off down Rue Claude Monet, the main drag, such as it is, of Giverny. The road is narrow and rutted, and lined with stone walls and stone houses, many of which are B&Bs. Flowers are in bloom everywhere, often spilling over the stone walls. Rue Claude Monet is flat, but both above and below it are steep hills.

We bought tickets for the Monet house and gardens, then, still without breakfast, waited for a cafe to open. When it did, they weren't serving breakfast, which seems strange at 10 a.m. They were willing to serve us anything cold on the menu, so we had salads with egg and cheese in them. It was our first mediocre and overpriced meal of the trip. Which is pretty good, considering how much we've been eating!

After our funky breakfast, we went back to the Monet house. We are super lucky to be here on a Monday. Until this year, the house and gardens were closed Mondays, and the tour groups have not made the adjustment - that is, Monday is the only day without enormous crowds of day-trippers from Paris. I have heard that the crowds can be so thick that you can barely move! The moderate numbers of people there today were enough for me.

The gardens themselves are beautiful, but I guess I am just not that interested in gardens. I have heard such raves about this place; many people told me it is a must-see. Meh. Not that I'm sorry we came, but I was pretty underwhelmed. There are lots and lots and lots of flowers, in a huge array of colours and varieties, and the lily ponds where all those famous paintings were created. Monet's house is filled with his furniture and photographs, and his studio is filled with copies of his paintings.  I do enjoy taking close-up photos, so I took a lot of photos of flowers. The most important thing is that my mom loved it. This was her second or possibly third time here, and she very much wanted to visit again. So it's all good.

We had little sandwiches for lunch, and talked about why Connie had trouble sleeping. On the walk back to the B&B, we made a dinner reservation, which our host said was important. Then we got caught in a huge downpour. We had umbrellas this time but it hardly mattered. The rain and wind were torrential. I spotted some kind of shelter - like a bus shelter built by Theodoric of York - and we waited it out there. A few minutes later, the sun was shining. The whole trip, the weather has alternated between gorgeous and miserable.

Now we are relaxing in the B&B, writing and gabbing.

Photos of Giverny and Monet's gardens are here.