I feel your pain Arfie, I've been in therapy for about twenty years and so far there is no cure. In all honesty, I don't think there is a cure. I think we can get to a point where we make peace with it but we are never "cured" of it.

Well, frankly, Arfie, as far as cures go:

Damifino.

Not even three years in therapy and I'm ready to fall down and scream. Will I never ever get to a point where I can join/rejoin the "human race" I seem to have lost? WHy can't the pains of *then* stay the he** outta *Now*? Why does Now have to have pain at all? Didn't I do my time in purgatory and pay off the karma and all that stuff? *ARGH*

Epilepsy and me, okay, we can cohabitate. I am still trying to figure out how to cohabitate with PTSD and the memories that evoked the bigger part of it, let alone the medical trauma that unleashed the childhood stuff....

"Lord, lay me down and lift this burden from me" is where I'm at this fine T-giving morn. Don't ask me to define where I want to lie down or what burden I want lifted. Just the vibe today in Leo's den.

"Damifino?"
Is that what we get when we cross a Damsel in Distress with a Rhinoceros?

I find my ruminations rutting on one of the most bewildering of the Peer Support topics in my personal therapy experience: Gratitude for the Hard Knocks.

Just rutting. . . Still not ready for a bite of that turd pie. Or am I? Don wanna. . .

Well, I am here now, after years of therapy. working hard, yaddah, yaddah....and whamo...one pervert and I feel like I never had any therapy at all.....flashbacks,mindmovies ppfftt. I am older, much more aware, and sometimes I wish for la la land, unawareland, Pleasantville the movie, where everything is Always good, no problems, no memories, just cheesy smiles hiding empty hollow hearts of unfeeling. I realize I do not conform, I am better alone. except for babies and animals. Arfie. I am trying to get "beyond it" ...whatever that is...for me it is not getting over it, but somehow taking the pain out of the memory and I don't even know if that is possible...says the cheese who isolates in place...God keeps knocking on my door with problems as if to say..."I know you're in there...what are you gonna do about this?"Insert issue that gets my dander up so I have to come out and respond. I might have had too much coffee this morning....hmmm!!! The only thing I have noticed lately is that I care less about what people think of me...it is uncomfortable (not here at this site, I mean where I live)...maybe that is something, yet why does it feel like regression?

Don't know the technical of psychiatric officials, but in my mind, my therapy is in "maintenance phase." No pros, no meds. Just me, my peer support network and the "therapy toolbox" I accumulated over the decades. I still have most of the symptoms, but I can manage most of them with regular maintenance. my toolbox includes a supply of heavy duty tools for the extra-ordinary events.

On my good days, I can believe that is plenty.

Dunno, Arfie, but I had a hat with that on it and it seemed to sum up a particular year of my life. The dam, if, I, no? Yeah.

I can't quite be grateful for the Hard Knocks. They hurt!!!

Nor can I spout philosophically about the great lessons I learned because of them. I may have larned a lot, but I prefer gentler teachers.

That said... I can be grateful to be here, to be alive, to be as sane as I am (a relative term) and able to participate in ruminations...

In the animated film the Croods, a character tells a story of a girl who went to the edge of the cliff because it meant she could see more, hear more, smell more, feel more.... And she saw a light, reached for it.... "And she flew".... I think that's what I'm hoping to get to.

Yea, that gratitude for the hard knocks philosophy is still a tough turd for me to swallow. Sounds too much like the philosophies that all too often justify emotional and physical abuse.

I find my thoughts wandering down talks of, "Spiritual Maintenance." Like maybe my therapy toolbox is the best "Spiritual Maintenance" plan for a kiddie whorehouse survivor like myself?

It is kinda logical to me that the spirit needs regular care and nourishment every bit as much as the body. I could do worse than my therapy program?

Still ruminating. . .