I am so, so tired… life just keeps getting harder, not easier
Category Archives: The Hero’s Journey
Cimmorene remembers: Sacrifice (…the father becomes the son.)
From REBLOG: …the father becomes the son. (more thoughts) August 14, 2015:
About a week ago, Cimmorene remembered where she was during my father’s near-death experience, and the weight of the sacrifice that I made to encourage my father to resume his life, so mine could begin.
Anyone who thinks the term “soulmate” is the stuff of cheesy Hollywood romantic fairytales and is nothing but fluff and shiny optimism, I must tell you, dear readers– in my experience, it’s a lie.
It’s true that Cimmorene and I remember a life together before mortality. We remember bonds that have been forged and reforged many times. But for all the light, wonderment, and immense awe, there is sorrow, darkness, and pain. There is anticipation of regret even before the blood, sweat, and tears began.
As usual, she remembered something I did not. She said that for that small moment, it was like I wasn’t there anymore. After much reflection, I remembered that I didn’t want to leave her side, but I had to. I had to. Much planning, work, and preparations were at risk.
It was a shock when I saw him. He was wandering around aimlessly, obviously not in his body. He was NOT supposed to be here.
“What are you doing here? You need to go back, and be my father, just as we planned!”
“I’m tired. I hurt. I don’t want to go back to a broken body.”
“But you need to go back! We agreed!”
If he died, I would have to start all over again. Everything we had planned on would have to be redone. My life would have a completely different foundation.
It was obvious that I was not going to persuade him by plans of the future. I would have to appeal to his here and now.
“What about your family now? Won’t they miss you?”
I didn’t know the ties of mortality yet. But even his present family ties didn’t seem to be enough. I needed something more.
“I… I will carry a part of that pain for you.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes… yes, I do.”
Cimmorene said we took time to ratify it with Father. I was reminded that it was a heavy sacrifice; that I might regret this decision. I said I was sure. I was told that my choice was right.
And so my father chose to live. We helped him back into his body and said our goodbyes for the moment being. Some time after he departed from us, then, Cimmy said, then, I wept.
I have only begun to realize the full weight of the pain, the suffering. But I know that chose this. I did it… because I had to. No matter how much I have been tempted to regret this, I know that I had to. But now, the empathy is visceral. So many days we compare notes on pain. It’s not exactly the same, of course, but much we need not explain to each other. We live it. Many days, he still wants to die, but I remind him he’s still needed. The time is not yet. It will come, most likely the moment I must begin to prepare for something more.
The continued loneliness of a SAHD (in 2015)
Based on a post written October 18, 2011.
I am still sick and bloody tired of the stigma that is attached to Stay-At-Home-Dads, and house husbands. I never like answering the following question: “So, what do you do for a living?” The people that ask it are rarely satisfied with my answers. They are usually fishing for employment status, and often they wince and writhe with uncomfortable facial expressions and gestures once they learn I am on disability.
It was worse when I was younger, and lived in a slightly more affluent part of town. The most uncomfortable reactions were at church, of course; it’s not unheard of for mothers to work, but fathers working has been the norm for LDS families for many decades. I stood out like a sore thumb. It was worse when my children were little. Oh, don’t get me wrong. My current ward (congregation) understands my situation, mostly. There were dozens of fathers taking turns looking after their babies, and I got help, mostly when my son was little (Neru was school age by the time we entered the ward). But of course they were all gone at work weekdays, and I never much enjoyed church playdate activities, as women dominated any conversations. There was only so much common ground before topics slid to things that really didn’t pertain to me as a man.
Then, of course, there were all the challenges autism presented– Cimmorene got really overwhelmed for a time, and so the Primary leadership would come to me when Boy was throwing some conflict.
The media is all about Mom
I enjoy being a parent. But EVERY SINGLE parenting magazine I pick up is “Mom.” “Mom.” “Mommy.” “Mom.” and it’s blatantly obvious in the advertisements, as if Madison Avenue believes that all dads still will have nothing to do directly with their children– because that’s Mom’s job. Sure, there are articles about SAHDs and such, but far, far, far too many keep the taboo in place.
Just one of many examples. This was part of a Cool Whip campaign on their Facebook page. Image credit: 360i_bucket at Photobucket
I speak of print, but as I saw “social media” unfold, and come into the mainstream, the message persists. Note, dear readers, that what I had written previously was about WIRED– specifically about “GeekDad“, and “GeekMom”. The contributors all seemed to cling to the status quo. GeekDad contributors, if they wrote about parenting, wrote about it as if it was almost an afterthought. I cringed when Jonathan Liu demurred and said he just “happened” to be working at home to be a SAHD. So I left GeekDad articles behind and started reading GeekMom articles more, because they would talk about parenting issues more directly. But then it was the same “mom talk” drift– they’d quickly shift to topics that really were about women, and not really about men.
I see this image WAY too often– as if Dad blogs aren’t really a mainstream thing.
What… am I supposed to climb back to my video games, tools (hand or power), and assorted mannish hobbies? Please, understand. It’s pretty discouraging to see the onslaught of sites that either refer to “Mommy” or “Beauty & Fashion”, and I go and see that the voices of fathers will be pretty few. If men respond, they rarely identify themselves as fathers. It was very, very true at GeekMom… almost ZERO responses from men.
My world has plenty of yin, plenty of yang
There is this notion that women drive social media because they drive conversations in general, but I call bullshit. Men will talk for hours upon hours about subjects that interest them. Why the hell aren’t they comfortable talking about parenting? I’m also very weary of the post-war stereotype that “men do the work outside of the home, women do the work inside.” Cimmy’s helped me a ton with DIY projects (unless it’s electrical- then she leaves it to me) and I cook most of the dinners. On the stove. In the oven. I broke the grill my parents passed down to me, and I haven’t fixed it yet.
And since my back has grown worse, Neru and Cimmy help me with the yard work.
Disability has already got this SAHD feeling like an old man
I was grateful when an old family friend moved into our neighborhood. We are usually comparing notes on cooking, food preservation, music, mechanics, and many scholarly topics. His children are about the age Cimmy and I are; he was friends with my mother-in-law since childhood. He is retired, although he is miserable if he isn’t working on something. He’s an amputee since he blew off a bum leg with a shotgun (long story), but he likes to keep busy. Despite a miserable first marriage, he is happy married again to a woman that is full-time employed. He welcomes my company, and Cimmy’s, too, when he is at home, although he is rarely, if ever, idle.
Generally speaking, the only people I can socialize with during the day are retirees. (My mother recently retired, but that’s another very, very long story.) Maybe that’s just as well; the sciatica, the neuropathy, and other health issues have got me acting like a grumpy old man. I couldn’t stay in the mommy world. And I’m not in a daddy world. There aren’t many guys my age in my daily activities I can relate to. I can’t help it. Stereotypical guy stuff costs $$$– especially what many in my men’s group at church do. Firearms: $$$. 4X4 wheelin’: $$$. Fishing: $$$. Paintball: $$$. And so on.
I would write about how I was considering asking to attend the older men’s group at church, but, again, another story for another time. I’ve struggled for a long, long time to relate to men my age. There’s got to be something for the modern world. I don’t have a business to pass to my children. I was never that interested in sports. Anything I am interested in is not one of the national pasttimes. Most of the time, if I’m hitting the gym, it’s because I’m desperately trying to get better, either taking Cimmy, or Neru. And that’s growing rarer all the time. I try to be involved in my children’s schooling, but I cringe when the phone rings and someone (usually not connected to my son) makes the assumption that they need to talk to Cimmy. I guess they need to hear my stories about failing student teaching and all that. I’m aware of how schools work.
Once again, I feel like this is just a pointless rant. The more I search the Internet, the more depressed I get.
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I think I got gaslit, even if men are not typically gaslighted
This screenshot shows Ingrid Bergman being gaslighted. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Dear readers: The standard trigger warning applies. I’m trying to stay light on the details, but… I’m nauseated just thinking about them. Please, take any precautions you need; I know many of you ask the same.
I thought I’d shared my story with this person.
Someone with a strong media voice.
And I don’t think I tweeted anything different from what I shared in my story.
But… I was assumed to be a MAN making a WOMEN’S issue my deal, and not allowing them to own it alone.
Never mind that I was upset that someone was tearing Cimmy a new asshole in the same conversation. That was totally ignored, for some reason.
I got numerous excuses when I complained, privately. This person said they had grown numb to such nuances, because of numerous hate mails flooding their inbox.
NO NO NO DAMN IT, I HAD NIGHTMARES ABOUT BEING RAPED. ONLY WEEKS AGO. LIKE BLOODY FUCKING HELL WOULD I WISH THAT ON SOMEONE, JUST BECAUSE THEY WERE SAYING SOMETHING I DISLIKED.
And I wasn’t disagreeing with what was said at all. No way. If they weren’t already a part of Cimmorene’s painful, horrifying experiences, they were experiences of a friend, or a churchmate, or someone else close to me. Mostly women, yeah, but a number of men.
Raped? Oh yes. Raped. No, not the Anne Hathaway one… that was pretty creepy, though. No, it was another one. I was blindfolded. Gang raped. By men. What the hell is in the garbage of my brain? (No, that sort of gay porn isn’t my thing, if that was ever a possibility.)
I have moved past suicidal thoughts.
NO NO NO I’m not going to tell someone to kill themselves, when I dealt with that. Someone in my parents’ congregation took his life only a week or so ago… incidentally, I didn’t that mention in my Suicide Prevention Day post. But I hope you get the idea. Of course, I was shamed once for not condemning a suicider as “selfish”. I can’t. I’d have to tell myself I was selfish… well, I already did. Several times.
This is all I can write for now, dear readers. I hope you understand. No, I won’t name names. I already feel bad just writing about it… because it feels like so much veiled aggression. But I’m angry. And afraid.
I was just trying to stick up for Cimmorene. I had no idea I was being held in contempt, too. No idea.
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A Blogger’s Journey: The Nadir Before (National Suicide Prevention Day)
What a time for pain to be hitting me even harder, dear readers.
Maybe it’s just as well.
Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, Socrates! Not my method of attempting, but I’d rather be a tad whimiscal here, than dark. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Suicide is an ugly topic for me. It cast a long, long shadow and was right at the very beginning of my 30+ years of therapy. Yes, I mean I considered it myself… and made a very half-hearted attempt.
The bitterly ironic thing was I came much closer when I wasn’t trying as such– like the drug OD, or breathing gasoline fire. (Yes, a story I haven’t told yet.)
I am a survivor of suicide– one of my dear childhood friends took his own life. It was very frustrating for me, because I’d had the pleasure of reconnecting with him not too long before, in my church’s young adult congregation at the time (which was huge because it covered over 5 small cities). The obituary was vague- something about him being stationed in Germany, leaving behind a wife and an infant child. The horrors of war, with all the PTSD it entails, I can only suppose.
I’ve been harrassed online because I refused to condemn another man who took his own life as selfish. That too is a long story unto itself– he was a convicted child molester– and many of you may know, that other prisoners view them as lower than the scum of the earth.
But having experienced suicidal thoughts, and other artifacts of the many traumas I have been through– many I haven’t even begun to detail here– I couldn’t.
Image credit: @SPSMChat/#spsm. (Duh!)
Consider joining me on the #spsm Twitter chat to learn more. It’s intense at times, because the live stream consists of five professionals (psychiatrists, therapists et al) who do talk a lot of job. But many of them wear pirate hats. There is good news beyond the lapses into jargon and intellectual words (don’t worry, I freely admit I’m guilty too, especially with technobabble), and there is hope. Not to mention they are very actively doing good; taking action beyond mere words.
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I STILL want a dog.
Dear readers, I’m a church-going religious man.
I don’t talk about it much because I really don’t want to hurt anyone that’s been burned by organized religion. But I mention this because yesterday was tough. I was home, in terrible pain. I just couldn’t seem to get ready on time and told Cimmy to go ahead and take the kids without me.
Boy, Willow, and Shawn
Boy got permission to hug Willow
Boy drew a picture about his experience
I saw these images slowly appear in our mutually shared Dropbox. Cimmy uses a Samsung Galaxy tablet, and since Boy destroyed our Canon PowerShot, it’s now the primary photography tool. Because Cimmy is a little bit protective of her technology, it now means she’s also our principal photographer right now.
This evoked a FLOOD of emotions. If you don’t follow all the links, dear readers, just observe that I have blogged about wanting a dog, and researching service and therapy options, for at least five years, or more:
JJQ#18: Pets
I want a dog.
More on the service dog quest.
Yet more on the dog quest
Descending further down the Abyss (Transitions)
I now have a collapsing disc just above the fused vertebrae, and awful swelling around the bone graft of the fusion.
Just how far can the pain go?
Thinking on my experiences with domestic violence— yes, sadly, that is a thing I’ve witnessed, and experienced. Lindsay Fischer (then as Sarafina Bianco) and Amy Thompson welcomed me into #domesticviolencechat, another Twitter chat that intersected with the #sexabusechat community. I wasn’t sure I fit in, at first… much like the other Twitter communities I mentioned. But I was nevertheless accepted.
We’re all wondering where Timothy (@GerhardTimothy) is and that he’s okay. I especially value the conversations we had, because then it was easier to feel okay as a man in the chat discussions.
I’ve told Amy a little bit about my experience, but haven’t told anyone else much in full. That will change, soon. I think Lindsay and Amy encourage my perspective (they’ve said this to me numerous times in various ways) because it adds more scope to the issue. It’s not just a woman’s issue, and it’s not just an issue between couples. In my experience, it involves generations of families- although such matters are usually discussed in abuse contexts (child abuse, adult abuse, etc.)
I think it’s also time to bring out the Redemption of the Four Kingdoms material. It’s long overdue, actually– if many of you remember my teasings and many cryptic references to it, I’ll be amazed.
But so much of this writing is difficult to do when I am drowning in wave after wave of agonizing pain. I’ll have to do it in bits and pieces. I’ll probably write posts that I feel are lacking in quality, although I want to cut down on the perfectionistic traps and toxic habits mingled in such thinking.
I will try to sleep now, dear readers… it’s 02:39 as of this writing where I am. I hope the pain will ebb, and the terrifying nightmares stop. Only about a week ago, I dreamt I was molested and raped. Again. In a different way. It felt so real, but I’d never experienced it in real life. How?
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REBLOG: When women abuse boys.
Three years after I wrote this post, a news story broke that was much closer to where I live. This woman was not a teacher, but was the town mayor for a time, and her husband was the high school principal. The name? Linda Lusk, then 49. The boy? Only 14 at the time. The town? Prosser, WA, just 45 minutes from my home.
The news agency that covered the story– 20/20 and ABC News– also covered the story of Mary Kay Letourneau. Years later they returned to both MKLT and Lusk, and in my opinion, whitewashed a lot of their stories. Fualaau, LeTourneau, and the two girls– now teenagers– were portrayed as a happy family. Lusk was shown with a young 20-something man who was supposedly the new love of her life. No mention was made that he was married, and eventually returned to his wife and child.
See also A Survivor’s Journey: The Challenge of Triggers & the Media
<div> I'm an avid reader of periodicals. I generally read more news in print than I do online.
The Associated Press recently decided to do a series of stories on teachers who sexually abuse their students. I was shocked at their emphasis on male teachers. Have the stories of Pamela Smart, Mary Kay LeTourneau, and Debi LaFave said nothing that did not bear repeating? While many offenders may indeed be male, it in no way diminishes the crimes of those who are female.
I decided to research the stories of the women a little more. On the surface, the horrors seem apparent enough. Smart’s case seems especially bizarre to me since the media focus was on the murder of her husband. There is fairly discussion of her methods of preying on Bill Flynn. LeTourneau had two children by her victim, and is now married to him. LaFave currently blames her…
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An Artist’s Journey: Get The Balance Right! (redux)
Those of you that are in my abuse and PSTD survivor Twitter support groups might be familiar with my Sanity Sign series. What you might not know is how it got started, or how far back the inspiration goes.
I’m a big Depeche Mode fan.
There was a particular album cover that I just adored. Granted, I’d gotten the image during the compact disc era, when gorgeous art that had covered vinyl LP jackets were shrunk to the jewel cases that CDs came in. This image was for the single “Get The Balance Right“:
This song really resonated with me, and I figured that the Town, Country & Planning’s (TC&P) design for the artwork was based on construction signs (especially as the single was released around the year “Construction Time Again” was an album).
So I did a lot of artwork based on the image- variations of street signs that I could think of, and such. I don’t think I’ve managed to save very much of it, but there was this:
North Hall Mural 1994
North Hall was a dormitory I stayed in, while attending Whitman College from 1994-1995.
Then I decided to recreate some of the images I’d made in 2010, as part of a card I sent to a pen pal Down Under:
Yep, that’s all freehand, and not digitally cleaned up.
About three or four years passed, and I started getting involved in a Twitter chat called #sexabusechat, as I heard about it from a prolific blogger. A particular quote from this person seemed to fit this old theme of mine. (See Rachel Thompson reminds us that we are a Work In Progress.) This image was the result:
which was largely modified from the standard US crossing traffic sign, because I wasn’t too sure if TC&P Associates’ designs were under copyright.
Then I found someone on RedBubble doing artwork based on DM album covers. I figured if any attorneys connected to DM weren’t chasing after him, and the artwork remained up there (and is still there, last I checked), my own use and modification was fair game.
So I grabbed this image:
and then created this for #NoMoreShame/Trauma Recovery University:
Sometime later, I went and made a digital recreation of one of my original images, heavily modifying the image I’d taken above.
As I said, I’d done a number of variations in the distant past, but of course, the Internet had come a LONG way since I started making this image in 1993. Standard symbols featured on U.S. and international street signs were easier to find by way of Google Images. I decided that the image above would be my trademark signature, and so I started putting it into subsequent projects, like this one I did for Aussa, based on a comment from one of her readers.
Like all recovering perfectionists, however, I wasn’t satisfied with the fonts I was using. I wanted something that was close to Clearview, which is what the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) uses. I found that a font called “Highway Gothic” had been created, which was free of charge. And so I grabbed it and started incorporating it into my following projects, like this one:
I hadn’t had much success in the past using scalable vector graphics (SVG) before, at least not as far as producing images completely from scratch. But once again, my rabid perfectionism pushed me back to try again. Since I was sharing these images with my Twitter followers, and I had to resize many of them over and over again, I found raster-based graphics (using the GIMP) didn’t scale very well. There was too much pixelation, making the work look rough. Over time, I found many stock images (that is, the standard symbols I referred to earlier) were available in SVG formats.
So I fired up Inkscape and remained determined to make something. This image was the first result:
Yes, I’m showing this image at its original size to show you how clean SVG is.
and used Inkscape again with excellent results for this last project I did:
I hope I’ve demonstrated that my work is improving. I’m not the same sort of artist as my wife Cimmorene (@wavemistress) is, or my daughter (@YellowNeru)– I think they are much more talented in traditional freehand methods. But this is inspiring to me.
[EDIT November 30th, 2015] I decided to recreate one of my designs from the 1990s, and elaborate on it a little more:
You can find the Sanity Sign series, and some other old artwork I’ve brought way, way back from the dead to get new life at jaklumen.deviantart.com.
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#1000Speak: Hugs for the Survivors
I think just about everyone had a teddy bear at one point, didn’t they?
My father had one named “Boo Woo”.
I had a number of teddy bears, with different names. One of them, I’d take the tag and stick my thumb in it before sucking. For some reason, it made my thumb taste better, although sometimes I’d get it caught.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, dear readers, I shouldn’t have to remind you of some of the ugly parts of my childhood. I was bullied and abused at school and church as well as home, especially during my preteen years in middle school. I think that was about the time that I finally started to banish cuddly toys from a space on my bed.
Rather odd that any boy would bully another over that, though, considering the history of the teddy bear.
The teddy bear was named for Theodore Roosevelt, easily the most badass president the United States of America ever had. Image credit: BadFads Museum
I came back to cuddly toys after marrying Cimmorene. She offered me Milo, who still occupies a space in the master bedroom (EDIT: Milo has been deployed to England with another survivor. A plushie dog Cimmy named “Bill” now has his old position). She decided to buy me a Bekin-made bear, whom I named “Buster” for the movie Phil Collins made famous.
Because I was still sensitive about being bullied, I’d loan him to my children, especially my son. I’d tell him Buster needed to store up more hugs.
Sister #1 used to collect Beanie Babies. She decided to gift her collection to my folks so that grandchildren (mostly my children, and my niece and nephew who are Sister #2 JenntheAmazon’s kids) could play with them.
This delighted Princess to no end:
It wasn’t too long until Boy started loving on the Beanie Babies. His current case manager for counseling has a small collection in her desk drawer, and it turns out that one of them (“Goatie”) was the very same kind I sent Aussa for a bridal gift.
Both Aussa and “Snack Cake” Deborah (who spearheaded a Heifer International campaign for the Great Goat Shower) were amused by this pic.
Aussa’s going to have to monitor Pinterest now, since Pinning this image was the quickest way to grab it. Image credit: aussalorens.com
Of course, I was just expecting that she’d quietly get the gift of the Beanie Baby and the “got goats” window decal, with little fanfare. Nope!
https://twitter.com/AussaLorens/status/527147187914805248
I just about fell out of my chair when I saw that tweet. No way could I shrug it off, saying, “Well, it was cheap.”
So it was just easier to tweet about the awesomeness of Beanie Babies.
https://twitter.com/jaklumen/status/531936799124242432
When I first started having back pain, Cimmy got this snake Beanie Baby for me. I can’t remember what the Ty corporation gave it for a name, but I dubbed him “Bruno”. He’s currently guarding my mini red wastebin full of scissors and pens and is on the shelf just above my computer monitor.
Anyways… my point in all these rambling stories is that hugs are essential, and as a survivor, if I can’t get one right away from a loved family member or friend, I will take it from a cuddly buddy, even if it’s not alive. I am lucky that living creatures will give me physical touch, however– this includes my parents’ talkative cat, Skittles:
My father and Skittles. Image credit: Dad Pratt at Flickr
Skittle and Cimmy, during a housesitting visit
to Jenn’s stupid but loveable beagle mix, Dexter:
and a schnauzer named Oscar, who barks his fool head off whenever anyone comes to visit. (Jenn probably hasn’t done a video with him because he’s just too excitable.)
Princess gets really stressed out when Cimmorene and I fight and argue, and, no surprise, she feels that her little brother is a chi vampire (meaning, he steals energy, or more literally, in Western terms, “the breath of life”). Yes, I know that’s not quite fair– he can’t help his struggles with autism– but, it’s still difficult.
After an intense family council meeting reviewing our mood charts (we made some so Boy would better be able to recognize emotions), she drew a rather raw, dark portrait of herself. So, if you look at the image just above, I gave her a hug, without too many words. I let her hold it as long as she wanted.
Dear readers, we survivors need hugs. Are you part of the 1000 Voices for Compassion movement? What more can we do to be more compassionate towards each other?
Special thank you to Serins, who sends us hugs in her comments.
the tao of jaklumen 