Username: ramstadk Last login: Tue March 25th 2014, 10:11 PM Updated on: Tue March 25th 2014,

11:02 PM Name: Janet Reno has no ego when devoured by the id I am a starfishmonkey. a mysterious creature, indeeed Currently in: Berkeley Contact info @ bottom open invitation to anyone who wants to talk PTSD/trauma/panic with me. here or email is a-ok.

Tuesday March 25, 2014. 11:01 PM some stuff about PTSD, followed by regular non-PTSD stuff at the bottom of the post. March started out kind of brutal but is ending up more calm than expected. I feel pretty established in my life routines now, but getting out of them, even for a day (or a few hours, or a single minute, some days), still makes me feel a lot of fear. I know I'm fine in my house with my food and my water, but what happens out there when I don't have doors or blankets to keep me safe? This gets better and better with time, and I can say I feel much safer not only in the world, but in the experience of my vulnerability. That said, I passed the 400 Nights in a Row of Nightmares mark around the beginning of the month, too, which undoubtedly contributed to my feelings of overall fear and anxiety. Then, I passed Night 420 in a Row, and had a little celebration with myself over having an extra "420" this year (once a stoner, always a stoner?). At the suggestion of a few pals and one of my energy healers, I've started doing research into lucid dreaming. I've had lucid dreams in my life, but can't control starting them. Once I'm there, it's cool, but I'm hoping the skill of initiating lucid dreams can help me change the violent, survivalist, haunting quality of my Night Life. As a glimpse into my daily life, today was the first time in about half a week that I've had a long chunk of time to myself. I get a lot of alone time being varying levels of ok and also being unemployed. As an extreme introvert (new sport?), this alone time is key for me, and it's been so especially as I've focused most of my energy on surviving/healing. Anyway,Tuesday is therapy day and I was feeling reclusive and nervous about venturing out into what was a dark and rainy day. When I got to the bus stop, a man was walking up the sidewalk toward me, and he very obviously and deliberately looked over my entire body before continuing on. Ok, whatever. Used to it, and I'm extremely hyper-vigilant, so I knew he was looking before he even realized he was doing it. But, just a few minutes later, he came walking back toward me, and this time, when he passed me, he turned around and actually walked backward down the sidewalk and just kept leering. In that moment, my brain goes into full-blown PTSD mode, and my first instinct is to run that muthafucka down. I probably would have run him down if I were still my GrinnellSelf. I would have flipped him off if I were my 22-24 year old self -- and probably would have yelled some angry ass shit about objectification and harassment, too. I would have spied on him from

the corner of my eye, slowly opening the swiss army knife in my pocket and desperately trying to feign ignorance so it and him would all go away if I were my 25-26 year old self. Today, I noticed my brain jumping into fight mode and was able to take a deep breath, realize that he wasn't lunging at me, even though he is a fucker, realize there were enough people on the street that I wasn't likely to get attacked, realize that his behavior was causing me to react from my traumatized self, not the self that felt safe, though pissed off, at the bus stop. This is a huge victory for someone with PTSD, being able to recognize that chemical reaction, and work with my body to get through the terror and correct it. So, celebrating small victories over leery jerks and the embodied person I'm slowly becoming. In that same light, I keep thinking about reunion and how many of you I'd like to see. Part of me is ready to jump in a car and drive out to Iowa, and part of me knows I haven't been able to leave my house for more than a few days at a time without some serious anxiety, and I haven't been out of the state of CA in a year. Hell, I haven't been more than 3 hours away from my house in a year, and the least time I did leave the state, I had a 4 day panic attack and barely made it back home. I never know how I'll feel one day to the next, one week to the next, but I think I have to be realistic with myself about the possibility that I'm not ready to be so far from my Berkeley haven. I'm choosing not to decide anything for a while longer, and working on continuing to feel strong in who and where I am, particular needs and all. In other, non-PTSD-related news, I am obsessed with Bob's Burgers, the animated delight. Tina Belcher is a budding teenage wonder, and Louise's scheming and antics provide nearly non-stop hilarity. I've watched some of the episodes a dozen times, at least, and I still love them.

Wednesday February 26, 2014. 8:42 PM congrats, [vazquezi]! also, yeah, once I just committed to the no caffeine lifestyle, it really quickly got pretty easy to live without. then came added sugars/refined sugars. I admit to not having these fully removed due to a deep, deep love for spicysweet ginger beverages. [savillea] thanks for the props! I think we did meet once, plus, you did the SITA program the semester (or maybe two?) after me, yes? I'm sure we'll meet again at some bay area event! it's rainy in berkeley and I'm a recluse, so I've been rewatching That 70s Show. the more I watch, the more I sound like Hyde, man.

Sunday February 9, 2014. 5:10 PM thanks for all the love, pals. it was great to hear from all of you! really, each and every one. I remembered that I left giving up caffeine off my list. as in, I order decaf with NO SHAME. I even fresh grind decaf beans when I make it at home. other than the small amounts of caffeine in

that, really dark chocolate, and the occasional green tea, I've been caffeine free for about 1.5 years. people with anxiety: i didn't want to admit it, but it's one of the best things you can do to reduce overall/buzzy anxiety. Ani in Humboldt in 2 weeks. gaaaay ol' time!

Tuesday February 4, 2014. 2:53 PM content warning: I'm about to do some reflecting on PTSD/Panic/Sexual Abuse. And it'll probably be long cuz it's a WHOLE YEAR. I'll keep this stuff between the dotted lines for easier skippage. Here goes! --------------------------------------------------------------I'm just over a year out from my PTSD diagnosis. I'm really proud of where I am now, especially given I didn't think I'd even survive through January 2013. Instead of resolutions for 2014, I'm doing celebrations! AND I'M NOT SPELLCHECKING! WOOHOO! -I haven't had a panic attack since July 2013. I spent months having days-long panic attacks in early 2013, so this is a HUGE deal. -I've gotten to the brink of a panic attack and been able to calm myself down three times -without valium (and once with valium)! Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths. This is an even HUGER deal because my brain was not trained to properly resolve trauma. It gets stuck in fight or flight or freeze and doesn't know how to come down again and close the loop. Instead, I fight or freeze and then force my body to clamp it down and put it away. When that happens, the brain doesn't complete the appropriate cycle of chemical releases. It's like cutting off a toddler's temper tantrum. If you let 'em cry it out, they'll naturally calm down and fall asleep. That sleep is a rest and repair cycle that is essential to releasing a traumatic experience. If the kid isn't able to freak out, scream, cry, calm down, then sleep, the cycle stays open and it slowly trains the brain to stop before that sleep stage. That's basically been my brain my whole life. I would get into fight or flight, and then shove it down. I never had the rest, so my brain was trained not to complete that chemical rest cycle, either. I've been training it consistently and lovingly over the last year to help it understand how to appropriately resolve traumatic experience (otherwise not being able to screw the lid back onto a jar leads to me throwing the jar across the house and feeling unmatched rage and hopelessness...). The number of unresolved cycles my body is, and has been, holding is astronomical. All of the uncompleted cycles have been oozing out in the last year. I try to welcome them, but some of it is really hard and painful. -I sleep 8+ hours per night, every night. I'm able to accomplish this with the use of medication, but I've been an insomniac my whole life (my mom says since birth...) and getting consistent sleep is something I'll NEVER take for granted. In early 2013, I would consistently go 3, 4, 7 nights in a row without sleep. Mixing in panic attacks made those nights unbearable and I shook, sweat, vomited, and cried 24hrs/day for days on end. I eventually felt so crazy with sleep

deprivation and fear, I would breakdown even further. I cannot describe what that looked or felt like because I can't remember anything more than flashes of those times. My body is finally getting the rest it needed 20+ years ago, and that was the first major shift in my healing. -I am still having nightmares almost every single night, but they aren't killing me or driving me crazy. I was always a vivid dreamer, but these nightmares are in a league of their own with respect to violence and survival. The first horrible dream I had was on January 21, 2013. I remember because I was one week into an intensive outpatient psych program at a hospital in Oakland and hadn't spoken yet. In all fairness, I don't remember anything from that first week and relied on C to get me there every day, so I don't think I had many thoughts ready to be verbalized. Anyway, I got to program and burst into tears, recounting a dream in which I was beaten with a 2x4 for hours and hours and hours. Since then, I've had over 350 more nights of nightmare-filled sleep. When I hit 100 nights in a row, I was desperate for them to stop. I woke up terrorized every morning, feeling the physical pain of whatever had happened in the dream. If I was shot, I could feel the points where the bullets hit. If I was stabbed, I could feel the knife wound. If I was raped, I could feel that, too. It felt the same. My body must have held that feeling memory so tightly that it can reproduce it when the memory is called up. Now that I'm over a year later and have had a nightmare every single night save a handful of odd skips, I don't wake up in fear. (my docs have tried all sorts of ways to stop the nightmares. At first I wanted to let them go, then they got to be too much. I'm on a PTSD med designed to stop nightmares and flashbacks. I don't really struggle with flashbacks too much, but the meds, no matter the level, have no effect on the dreams. we've decided to just let the dreams go until they work out what they need, and I guess they're still working.) -Speaking of not waking up in fear: I don't have sleep-panic-attacks. my psych RN recently explained to me that I was not just having nightmares, I was also having panic attacks in my sleep. The dreams would cause my body to go into panic while I was asleep, which made waking up from the dreams worse because I would be mid-panic attack. Well, I stopped having panic attacks in my sleep about 5 or 6 months ago. I rarely wake up drenched, with numb hands from holding tight fists as closely to my body as possible. I still clench my jaw ALL THE TIME. I think my teeth are probably halfway back into my gums by now. I worry about the long-term consequences of so much clenching...my jaw cracks, the muscles always hurt, and I find I am clenching no matter what I'm doing. But, all in all, waking up without my whole body being in pain and shaking and covered in sweat is really nice. -I no longer puke on the daily. I spent over 2 years throwing up every single morning. At least once/day, but sometimes once it started, it just didn't stop. I'd be sick all day. I know that sounds crazy. Who throws up every single day for over 2 years? Past Kirby, that's who. It was horrible. I would wake up (if I had slept) and immediately run into the bathroom. I've only had a handful of puking days in the past 7-8 months. Even so, nausea is the first symptom of anxiety for me. It used to make me so angry, and I really resisted the nausea. Now I know it's a signal that something doesn't seem right to me. It helps me recognize things that set me off, and gives me a head start on potential panic. -I can mostly do my dishes and laundry. For a long time last year, I couldn't feed myself, let alone clean up after myself or perform basic adult responsibilities. It was enough to make it

through the days, that was all I could manage. My energy levels are still very low. I had to stop playing softball and lifting kettlebells, at first because I couldn't function, then because I couldn't leave my house, then because I couldn't be around people who didn't know what was happening with me, then because I couldn't reliably not have panic attacks at the drop of a hat, then because I was put on a few medications that prevent my heart rate from spiking. I've been able to start hiking again, but I have to remind C to start slowly so I can build up my heart rate at a reasonable pace. -I am starting to understand emotions. I spent the vast majority of my life denying the existence of emotions. They were excuses, distractions, they appeared in weak people. I remember the first time I truly realized how much I had shut out emotions in order to survive and protect myself: I started seeing this awesome therapist in SF and she asked me how I was feeling and I answered with some rant about capitalism and young people with jobs that pay way too much money, over-inflated senses of self, blahblahblah. She said, pointedly, "you're very good at telling me what you think. but I really want to know how you feel." I had no idea how to answer her. Not only did I have NO IDEA what feeling was, I wouldn't have had the words to express myself even if I had felt things. I use a feelings list, now. There was a list of feelings in this book for lesbo couples and when C asks me a question about feelings that I don't know how to answer, I get my feelings list and read through it until something resonates. There are so many words I wouldn't have thought of on my own. My brain tends to think "umm, ok...?" counts as a feeling. -I don't drink alcohol anymore. Like, hardly ever. It messes with my brain in ways I can really feel now that I don't drink. I don't miss it. I reallllly like good beer and good scotch/whiskey, so every once in a while I'll have a beer or a small amount of scotch if I'm feeling really stable. This means I'm a CHEAP DATE. I'm a 2 sip tipsy, half-beer drunk. I smoke a lot of weed, which isn't much of a change from college, I guess. A lot of people might judge that, or picture me as a stoned out kid, but in reality, it helps me to function more like a "normal" person. I have an extra edge of energy about me, all hyper-vigilant and whatnot. When I use cannabis, it turns the volume down. Helps with my ADD, too. Since I'm able to have a prescription in CA, I have the ability to use only strains that truly help me manage the symptoms specific to my PTSD. I've done a LOT of research so I can be really specific about my choices (ie too much THC and I'll be in a panic on the floor almost instantly). Weed really saves me. It keeps me off Valium, and other highly addictive big pharma drugs. I can use it when/as needed, instead of having to worry about withdrawal symptoms or the negative consequences of adjusting intake levels at will. -I've learned a lot. A. LOT. I've read books and tried all sorts of different healing methods. body work, somatics, energy healing, therapy, kava, meditation, gardening, ayurveda, guided visualization, holotropic breathwork, art. I feel like I've put together a pretty good toolbox and can handle most of what comes up with a few different tools. I'm working on longevity, now. Finding sustainable ways to care for myself. Also, WHAT IN THE FUCK was I thinking watching years and years and years of Law & Order: SVU???? I know I thought it was protecting me, proving I was strong and untouchable, proving nothing was wrong. I don't watch that stuff anymore. Ever. I used to feel like I'd be missing out, but the only thing I'm missing is putting more trauma in my body and I don't really miss that at all. I won't see The Hunger Games movies, even that is too much for me. I've learned to set new boundaries that respect who I am as a person with PTSD. This only comes into conflict because I LOVE LOVE LOVE horror

movies. Like, the good ones. Like hitchcock and kubrick and old German stuff like M, and this weird Russian trilogy... -I'm not afraid to be alone. I used to beg C not to leave me alone during the day. She had to take a lot of time off work to care for me. When she had to be gone, we had to schedule people for me to be with, or things for me to do, but mostly I would cry and cower and count the minutes until she came back. Now, I spend most days alone. I've been out of work for almost a year, which is its own stress (fuck you, capitalism), but I've come to really need and cherish my down time. I need it to rest and not get over-exposed/over-stimulated. It's great to not be terrified of yourself and everything/one around you. -I've let go of a lot of resentment. I'm more zen, now. Kinda woo-woo-y. I feel quite different than I did at Grinnell. I was angry and confused and haunted and didn't understand it at all. I held back from people, was closed off, probably missed out on getting to know a lot of cool people because I couldn't let them in. I have also made a lot more sense of my reaction to the hate crimes in Spring 2008, why they disrupted my feeling of safety in the ways they did. I couldn't understand why, all of a sudden, I felt like I couldn't hold my shit together, like my armor was full of holes, why I trusted a handful of people and NO ONE ELSE, even if I had known them for years. My life was a disaster area for years as this trauma started to bubble up to the surface. Once it erupted, it was like a hellstorm upon earth, where earth is my whole sense of self and entire being. --------------------------------------------------------------What a year! I'm looking forward to re-engaging with the world this year, feeling healthier and happier, reconnecting with friends I just couldn't fit into my life during all this shit. And, I guess I'll be looking forward to seeing some of your faces in real life at Reunion. I'm nicer now. It's cool. :) Speaking of Reunion -- MOST CONFUSING FORM EVER. I can't even bring myself to fill it out because I feel like it necessitates a serious planning conversation with all of you. If I want to spend all my time on Cleveland Loggia, can I request that our year live on south campus? How will Lonnski's accommodate all of us at one time? Are there enough sweet potato fries in the state of Iowa? Is that snow cone place still open? Can I still mix 4 flavors together? Is it inappropriate for me to request Johanna Meehan as my roommate? How many kum&go lighters should I buy while I'm there? I wonder how much it would cost to buy 1008 (the house, not 1008 lighters...)? Who is organizing the streaking events? Someone must be doing that, right? How is one weekend possibly going to be enough time?! [smithsar] sending you and your family lots of good energy. I love the image of you with a tea partier father. <3 [skellyel] love you, glad you're able to be with your family and celebrate him.

First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone. There is a ladder. The ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner. We know what it is for, we who have used it. Otherwise it is a piece of maritime floss some sundry equipment. I go down. Rung after rung and still the oxygen immerses me the blue light the clear atoms of our human air. I go down. My flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin. First the air is blue and then it is bluer and then green and then black I am blacking out and yet my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power the sea is another story the sea is not a question of power I have to learn alone

to turn my body without force in the deep element. And now: it is easy to forget what I came for among so many who have always lived here swaying their crenellated fans between the reefs and besides you breathe differently down here. I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes. The words are maps. I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail. I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly along the flank of something more permanent than fish or weed the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth the drowned face always staring toward the sun the evidence of damage worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion among the tentative haunters. This is the place. And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, the merman in his armored body. We circle silently about the wreck we dive into the hold. I am she: I am he whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes whose breasts still bear the stress whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies obscurely inside barrels half-wedged and left to rot

we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held to a course the water-eaten log the fouled compass We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear. Diving into the Wreck, Adrienne Rich

[carmodyc] I just drank an entire bottle of vodka! [ramstadk] No, you're just manic. [goeringm] When I hear the word manic I think of a maniac whose 'a' fell off. It was at precisely 12:18am on this day that [rothbaum] said, and I quote, "I couldn't think of anything snarky to say." [blencowe][carmodyc][goeringm][lindquis][reiersga][rothbaum][fieldsr][gatesnat] [klooster] [reynold4][smithcar][cohnbenj] [1008][1021]

Ph. 415.498.0175 Email. kirby.ramstad@gmail.com Snail Mail. 1539 Fairview St, Berkeley, CA 94703