BOOK ONE—CHAPTER 3 FIRST KISS Part 2 Inner Conflict Plays Hide and Seek with our Smarts

Once my body-image has been battered by a busload of bullies during puberty, I'll see myself as unworthy of positive male attention for most of my life.  In fact, the more attracted I feel toward a guy, the more my psyche will cower behind darkened shadows of self-doubt.

During junior high, insecurities secreted from my conscious self would have surprised my new friends, because a cheerful smile will have masked my anxieties, and the same will prove true in high school, when I'll date, a lot.  However, as you'll see, dates will not transition into boy friends, because I'll be unable to distinguish between excitement catalyzed by mutual attraction and anxiety caused by fear of rejection— so

Each time a guy so much as pulls my body close to his own, a hodgepodge of emotion will erupt from deep within, stimulating adrenalin (rather than pheromones) to race through my bloodstream, flooding my mind with static.  And since my dates (and I) will have had no clue as to the blended sources of many-layered insecurities attacking my self confidence from deep within, every guy who takes me out will try to cozy up with a self protective, (uncharacteristically) quiet, teen-aged girl who must have seemed—boring—based in the fact that, upon sitting, hip to hip, every clear-headed thought will have blown straight out of my dizzied state of mind.

I remember one guy in high school who’d continued to come back for more of the same until, finally, during a kiss in his car after a date that had satisfied neither of us, he pushed me away, sputtering:  Annie, something's wrong—kissing you is like kissing a wall!   And though he’d felt as confounded as was true of me, he’d come closer to tapping into the truth than either of us could have fathomed concerning the intensity of swirling emotions dammed up behind my defense wall of denial, which will have continued to block my conscious awareness from so much as gaining a clue as to why I’d grappled silently with spiking anxiety whenever male desire so much as hinted at lustful thoughts laying hands, lips or hips upon any anxious portion of my torso. 

The fact of that memory arising, right now, decades later, suggests that—the closer a guy got to my body, the more my tensely coiled 'up tight' reaction pierced my spirit's naturally spunky effervescence to shrink back as though in fear for my life.  Why?  Because

The human spirit is like a metronome, signaling the cadence of a person’s state of mind as feeling fully relaxed at one end of the spectrum to feeling ever so tensely wound around angst at the other.

Though my spirit’s sparkle was often seen soaring as high as the sublime, it could plummet (as fast as a happy-go-lucky duck, thunderstruck by buckshot, falls from the sky) whenever subconscious insecurity, repressed in its unidentified state, felt reason to geyser out of the depths of my brain as if my thought processing center, having been shot straight through the heart with adrenalin, had imploded from within.

Over most of my life, I'll remain in the dark as to how often subconscious fear of rejection is empowered to shoot down my self confidence with guys, one after another.  Needless to say, no guy ever rejected me as spontaneously as I'd rejected myself.

The fact that I've clearly admitted to quitting on my long range goal (of studying Hebrew) in favor of saving face might inspire you to ask:  Annie, what did you hope 'we'd' absorb from that story describing your traumatized experiences inside the van from hell?  I’d reply:

First off:  Each painful encounter illustrates how often our defense mechanisms deny us access to deeper truths, concerning our most vulnerable character traits, which, having been acquired during early childhood, tend to slip out of subconscious hiding and then slip right back in before our conscious awareness has even an inkling of a clue as to which subconscious (and thus unidentified) less than desirable trait we've just exposed.  As long as denial supports our mental blocks (which blind us to self demeaning, self defeating traits), we’ll continue to shoot ourselves in the foot or suffer bouts of foot-in-mouth dis/ease while unknowingly sabotaging our most deeply valued long range goals and personal friendships, as well.

Secondly I'd say: It’s a safe bet that at the age of eleven, my thought processor had not yet developed the host of inner strengths that prove necessary to call forth depth perception under fire so as to stop a bully in his tracks by staunchly voicing my self respect with dignity and patience intact.  In fact, most adults I know have little conscious clue as to how often their voices shrink up into acquiescent meekness so as to quietly remain out of range of any mean-minded bully’s rat-a-tat attacks.  (How often have we sat upon our couches feeling aghast, cringing while viewing newscasts of innocent, deeply loved children gunned down in classrooms while our lawmakers consistently do nothing to tighten gun control laws in protection of lives not yet lost but soon to be blown away if not this week then next—God save little lambs from the inaction of elected shepherds whose reactions, numbed by denial, blindly fail to protect our happy-go-not-so-lucky ducklings from maniacal harm running rampant through our streets so freely as to see gang initiated drive by’s elevated to shooting sprees where our young are gunned down in school after school.  And then we hear—let’s arm teachers as if placing six year old processors in the position to absorb gun battles sanctioned by authority to take place in first grade classrooms makes any sense of civic chaos, at all!  If bullying is to be stopped, courage must be revealed, beginning at the top!

Thirdly I'd say:  Just as with learning the ABC's in school, children need to be gently encouraged (coached) at home to muster the courage to stand up and make sound use of their voices whenever their bodies or sense of self respect is attacked.  (Additional stories on this subject, such as—ABC NO BULLIES FOR MY KIDS! and BULLY FOR DAVID—which have been penned, will be published at appropriate times, down the road.  Bottom line, stories, written or yet to be written, will provide us with scenarios in which each of my sons was coached to stand up to bullies who proved to be peers, teachers, principals and deans.  (Hmmm—perhaps, my story teller, feeling need to pen so many vital stories, had overwhelmed my processor at an earlier stage in my life when a heightened sense of self awareness had not yet developed today's belief that I can depend upon my brain's self-empowered, insight-driven intuitive sense of internal clarity to write a memoir concerning humanity's need to simplify emotional chaos by concentrating my newly relaxed state of mental attention upon one true tale following another just as is true when a historical novel is in the process of being patiently (rather than tensely) researched, penned and reviewed.)

Fourthly—you watched my processor actively absorbing new insights while my brain was engaged in the process of reflecting over BULLY FOR ME:  You witnessed the fact that until recently, I'd had no conscious clue as to how much of that early trauma had yet to heal.

Fifth in line:  You watched while I identified and peeled away layers of self protective fear that had continued to clip away at my wings whenever a guy’s healthy libido enticed mine, which had been fearfully numbed, to unfreeze, heat up and grow so bold as to fly freely into his arms.

And in keeping with one insight spotlighting the next, here comes number six:  While writing BULLY FOR ME, I felt myself absorbing the inner strength necessary to bare the depths of my shame to myself by feeling bee stings piercing my wall of denial, which my defense system had numbed when I was eleven.  As of recent nights, I developed hives and itched as had been true during childhood with one remarkable caveat—rather than feeling anxiously confounded, I experienced a release of latent anger and outrage, both emotional reactions based in clarity, which prove crystal clear to the portion of my processor, which has finally released sound reason to not feel lost in a fog—at last.  

As to insight number seven, I've been distinguishing the difference between self-confidence, which can feel as wiggly to hold onto as a hare, hopping here and there before disappearing into a hole, and self-esteem, which, developing at a turtle's pace, is made up of a host of inner strengths that layer up deep inside replacing yesteryear's personal vulnerabilities, over time.

Though a slice of my self-image had taken a serious hit on that van, flattening my spunky spirit’s natural self confidence with men, most of my intellect's budding self-esteem survived the fires of humiliation—meaning that stories concerning the next several decades of my life will showcase the host of reasons why many of my eleven year old half baked strengths will have continued to mature while my preteen libido, along with yesteryear’s unprocessed fears, which had felt need to duck behind my wall of denial, remained numbed to my brain’s adult pleasure center‘s entreaties imploring my smarts to identify and gain control over fears that had encapsulated a portion of my processor within an emotional fog that had felt much too dense for a child’s think tank to navigate, all alone.  So while my self-confidence with guys had crashed BIG TIME at the highly vulnerable age of eleven, my high self-esteeming (budding) leadership skills did not burn; in fact, upon reflection, portions of my spirit continued to fly so high as to freely flash through a portal into the seventh dimension of my processor, where intuitive clarity thrives.

As for insight number eight (reminding me of eight nights of Chanukah lights, commemorating the spiritual miracle inherent within the eternal human quest for freedom) upon its completion, BULLY FOR ME spotlighted a technicolored vision of a specific inner conflict, which had gone undetected until—now.  This insight highlights the fact that each time my storyteller describes some aspect of my character, which proves in need of jumpstarting toward healing or maturing, I’ll begin to undergo yet another period of personal growth, right before your very eyes (and mine), thus exemplifying the ways in which the writing process, itself, serves to heighten my conscious ability to deepen my brain's insight-driven, intuitive depth perception in order to understand additional aspects of my self-image more clearly than had been possible before my consciously heightened awareness felt sound reason to set out on a soulful quest to seek well educated guidance in order to follow Socrates' lead to muster the courage to 'See Both Sides of Myself' more clearly and honestly and thus, more thoroughly, today, than had been true, yesterday.  Why?  Because each morsel of deeper truth that I consciously seek to process and absorb, concerning my past misperceptions, frees more of my think tank to truly develop into the less fearful, strong individual, whom I'd mistakenly believed myself to be, all along.

And thus, while engaged in writing this memoir, my processor’s depth perception will continue to deepen.  For example, now, more than ever before, I'm coming face to face with this last insight-driven, classic fact of life for today:

No matter how deeply I believe in my intuitive ability to excavate repressed details concerning my past, I'll continue to be an enigma—to myself—forever— and here's why that's true:  I'll never make my way through all of the strata of details secreted from the conscious portion of my mind over these past seventy-five years.  And if I was so foolish as to attempt to accomplish such an impossible feat that would require hermetically sealing myself away so as to invest every hour of the rest of my life in looking backward rather than growing ever more mindfully aware of how best to concentrate the better part of my attention upon freeing my wholesome sense of self to relax engagingly with every soulful moment, yet to come, in the company of those I love most to the fullest extent of my high flying spirit’s connection to enjoying life, every day.  Hooray for freeing love to fully express its sense of joy by slaying the dragon of repressed self rejection!

On the other hand, if we back track a bit, I can show you what I mean...
(See what I mean about our brain's being complicated little critters—thank God for the insight suggesting—balance in all things—LOL!

BOOK ONE—CHAPTER 3 FIRST KISS Part 1 Self Respect

Let’s introduce this next chapter in my life with a string of insights based in common sense:

Be careful what you wish for—
Because life is a mixed bag of tricks, and

Each wish granted includes surprises—some nice, some not

Respect is the basis of any lasting friendship.
So if you dismiss your own harrowing experiences as—NO BIGGIE—repeatedly—then your friendship with yourself is in trouble because—
Lasting friendships rely upon compassion based in depth perception

In the absence of compassionate depth perception, human vulnerabilities tend to be judged too harshly.
When judged too harshly, friendships can’t help but weaken, over time.

If the friendship that’s in the process of weakening is the one that we'd once enjoyed with ourselves then common sense suggests questing ever more deeply into our past to discover which early life experiences may have undermined the inner strength of self respect, which has need to feel secure if children are to develop into adults who are self empowered to remain so well grounded under fire as to by-pass sinking into emotional quicksand each time a mean minded mudslinger attempts to take the high ground by putting us down.

If depth perception does not deepen, over time, then we’re likely to remain blind to having subconsciously absorbed a bully's disrespectful attitude toward the impressionable child, whom you and I had been, and once our thought processors have absorbed thinking patterns in which we unknowingly demean ourselves, your friendship with yourself (and mine with myself) is bound to hollow out and implode sometime down the road.

BOOK ONE CHAPTER 2 (end5) BULLY FOR ME Part 14 “FESS’IN UP—NOT!”

Once my ego had been thoroughly trounced, I vowed never to ride in that van, again.  However, along with this decision came a dilemma.   In keeping with the fact that denial slides back and forth between suppression and repression, I felt fearful of revealing my humiliation to my parents, who saw me as bright, cheerful, and popular.  So rather than ‘fessing up’ to my distorted vision of ‘the truth’ (concerning my having somehow transformed into a social pariah)—I threw the baby out with the bath water by offering my mom and dad a rational reason to drop out of Hebrew school, altogether—and with my newly distorted self-image secreted 'safely' inside me, guess what compounded, consequentially?  Emotional complexity.  Why?  Because my need to hold fast to familial admiration denied my parents access to that which I'd considered the whole ugly truth concerning my confounding transformation upon moving into our new home.

And to complicate emotional complexity even more, I’d no clue of having subconsciously secreted yet another deeper truth concerning the distorted state of my self image at the highly impressionable age of three, when Mother Nature decreed that I'd have no conscious clue as to when denial would serve as my psyche's favorite defense mechanism of 'choice'.

As today I feel wholly free to expose both of those secrets, which I’d kept from myself (by way of repression or suppression) concerning the diminishing state of my self worth, I can also reveal that between the ages of three and eleven I'd experienced a series of reasons to deem myself a popular leader or a good for nothing outcast with no wiggle room between those two poles—and as those opposing poles remained side by side within my subconscious until recently, we‘ve clarified why I'd developed into an anxious over-achieving people pleaser.

If you know anything about being raised in a conservative Jewish home, you know full well that I could not have pulled off what I’m about to pull off had I been my parents' son.  However I was a girl.  And in 1954, it was highly uncommon for girls to study Hebrew, which is one reason why I was cast as the ambushed Lone Ranger on that van—lots of bullets piercing my persona—no Tonto in sight to minister to the lasting nature of my psyche's wounds festering behind my mask.

It's also important to note that this decision to learn the language of my religious heritage had been my own, because something (long forgot) that our rabbi had stated from the bima had inspired my desire to study Hebrew.  So when I told my parents that the little I was learning was not worth their expense, my dad, being a prudent agnostic, arranged a meeting with my teacher.  Upon hearing that his daughter was at the top of the class, Dad asked me to reconsider.

With a resounding NO! (which was highly unlike me), I reiterated that the class was unruly—my teacher spent most of his time yelling in futile attempts to regain control—and I was done wasting my time and Dad’s money—and as all of that was true, every word I said made sense to Dad and Mom, as well. 

So there you have it.  In order to ‘save face’, my brain maneuvered around the whole truth by slicing it in half.  And as THE GIVEN REASON made sense, THE REAL REASON remained ‘safely’ undisclosed, and having clarified that detail, here comes the moral to the story—

If you think to know any person (inclusive of yourself) through and through—please think again, because denial proves to be a highly popular, deeply complex little critter, which is why Socrates pleaded with contemporaries to:

"Know Thyself"

When Dad asked what happened to my desire to study Hebrew, I replied:  I just don’t care, anymore.  And that was factual, too, because once misery sucks eagerness dry, desire shrivels up and dies.

In short, every word I’d said was true.  And since my secreted descent into that black hole had come to an end without telling even one lie, I figured I’d escaped from hell; all was well, and life would go on just as before.  But here's why I couldn’t have been more wrong—With no conscious clue that I wore a mask to hide my shame wherever life ventured to take me from the prepubescent age of eleven on, the bully on the bus continued to threaten to expose my wounded vulnerabilities from within, suggesting that no matter what had continued to shape up on the outside, my distorted self image had been hammered so deeply into my brain as to have disabled my smarts from climbing out of that deep, dark hellhole by myself.  And as my parents had no clue that their beloved child’s self worth had become stuck between two poles with no wiggle room in between, they couldn’t see their way to help me to repair my broken reality compass, at all.

At this point several questions arise:

1. From whom had I denied the truth—the whole truth—and nothing but the truth?
2. What traumatic experience had initiated the development of my self-defeating pattern of suppressing shame years before my spirit had choked on humiliation while riding to and from The House of God?
3. Why was a popular, self confident child unable to open her mouth to shout:

NeVER AGAIN!

By the way, if you think telling half-truths to ‘save face’ hurts no one as much as oneself, please think again, because I'm about to show you what happened when another vulnerable heart reached out courageously to connect intimately with mine.  And as I can feel this train of thought pulling into the station where FIRST KISS awaits to come aboard, you'll come to see how trauma, left unresolved, creates a pattern of dis/ease, which interferes with LOVE's good health.

As one story leads into the next, you'll also come to see why self defeating patterns persist until such time as each of us hunkers down to do the work of identifying and exorcising traumatic static, which haunts the minds of adults until each subconscious abscess is patiently revealed and healed, through and through.  Whew!  Hard work but necessary if peace of mind is to disempower subconscious spikes of latent anxiety from striking down the unhealed portion of your self worth and mine, as the future unfolds.

BOOK ONE CHAPTER 2 (end4) BULLY FOR ME Part 13 ENSURING NEVER TO COWER IN THAT VAN AGAIN

If reactivity to childhood trauma remains repressed indefinitely then
Inecurity based in an inferiority complex will reflect back at us from
Subconscious mirrors until emotional complexity is insightfully simplified

Therefore, no matter what others may say they see when looking at me
My long standing fear of rejection will reject any view that differs from
Mine until every aspect of a specific trauma feels completely healed

Today, my intuitive faith in the human brain’s capacity for
Personal growth relies upon the self assured SIDE of my self worth to
Work toward rewiring each traumatized insecurity with self respect

Upon peeling each layer of defensive denial away, my mind’s eye opens
To need to expand my sights, empowering towering fears to embrace
Leaps of faith, which land in safety nets buoyed with hope for change

And now, having readied my processor to release the very last details of
Bully For Me, can you guess what my parents were told to ensure that
I'd NEVER ride in that van, spirit crushed between bullies, again?

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY 2019

Happy Valentine’s Day, dear friends!

I hope your ❤️ feels happily content!

We just returned from surprising Barry on his
50th birthday—

How is it possible that my son is 50 when

His mother doesn’t feel a day over forty?
By remembering ‘balance in all things’, I’ll not

Peel heart healthy aspects of denial away😊

BOOK ONE CHAPTER 2—BULLY FOR ME (end3) Part 12 DENIAL SLAMS THE DOOR ON TRAUMA

As the driver opens the door of the van, I dash from the curb to my front door seeking asylum from all conscious awareness of trauma, and so relieved am I to wrap my wounded vulnerabilities within the sheltering sanctuary of family life that denial, acting like a safety shield separating my psyche from the mean-minded cruelties of the outside world, locks every traumatizing detail of past events out of the conscious portion of my mind, except for one—Never Again will I consent to getting into that van.

If you're wondering whether my voice sings aloud in testimony of denial’s most recent take over:  Hi Mom!  I'm home!  What's for dinner?  I'm starved!  Your guess is as good as mine.

What I can tell you is this:  My memory offered no clue that my ego had suffered a series of ‘heart’ attacks until my chest felt painfully short of breath every time I sat down to pen the end of BULLY FOR ME, over these past few days.

In hindsight, I could not force the wounds of my ego to get naked in the presence of a fully clothed audience without anxiety spiking until the self assured side of my brain had rebalanced the sum of my character traits as a whole.  And thus have I worked, day by day, to peel layers of self protective armor away while pounding this story into my keyboard so as to outfit my vulnerabilities with inner strengths necessary to consciously bear a wound, which had felt too raw to bare to you, until today.

Whew!  Peeling denial's layers away from deeper truth is tough work but worth the effort because: 
The only person who can strip away self protective layers of denial so as to coax my subconscious to reveal details fearfully secreted from my conscious comprehension is me.  On the other hand, experience has taught me that stripping away at defensive layers of denial, based in trauma, can prove so anxiety provoking as to feel nearly impossible to achieve without the calming presence of astutely compassionate professional guidance.

So hopefully, now that I’ve laid soothing hands of compassion upon this specific aspect of my battered ego's repressed (and thus unhealed) wounds, this short circuit, which imprisoned my self image to remain stuck in a traumatized place ever since I was eleven, has been rewired.  As always, time will tell if healing this subconscious pain is complete or not

What I can say for certain, right now, is this:  Upon awakening each morning for years, every fiber of my being has felt magnetically drawn toward the computer, and hopefully, you’re getting the gist as to why my processor feels so hot to consider (and reconsider) every string of insights detailing repressed angst that spills readily into the conscious portion of my mind.  As emergent trains of thought naturally couple up, one after another, highly personal stories seemingly pen themselves in such a well-organized fashion as to end every chapter of my life with the beginning of the next, suggesting why it's no wonder that my processor’s pattern of operation has come to embrace the virtue of patience as a necessary inner strength when growth in emotional intelligence proves to be an on-going personal goal.

In truth, the path of virtue offers each of us countless personal trials, and as one of my trials proves to be condensing my thoughts (as anyone who knows me well will verify), the editing process is not my forte, suggesting why I feel eager to say that BULLY FOR ME is almost but not quite finis ...

BOOK ONE CHAPTER 2—(end2)BULLY FOR ME Part 11 UGLY DUCKLING

2011
Oh my God!
I can't believe what just happened!
I mean truly—only moments ago!
I sat down, ready to write B.F.M. (end2)  Part 11 when
I heard something big cRaSh! to the floor!
So leaping to my feet, I dashed out of my office into
The living room where, much to my surprise, a huge piece of art
(4'X4' square) encased in plexiglass was seen standing
Upright, completely intact on the Italian ceramic tiled floor!
As this sight was so shocking as to render me speechless
Moments passed while I stood there collecting my wits before
The sight before me offered my processor as much reason to feel
Relieved as stunned to see the plexiglass frame and floor tiles
Unharmed at which time, I returned to my office, feeling inspired to
Pen this next train of thought, which felt worthy of tracking as soon as
I sensed it chugging out of the conscious portion of my mind:

Who's to say when two things (or people), seemingly connected, like a painting securely attached to a wall, unexpectedly separate—suggesting that the undetected process of growing apart has been crumbling their intimate connection, little by little, for quite awhile.  Reminds me of relationships, which seem solidly secure on the surface while, in truth, a pair of interwoven hearts have been moving through the slo-mo process of parting ways.

So let's see—where was I before a valuable artifact slipped from wall to floor?  Oh yes, in review—I'd left you hanging onto the voice-of-authority raging away while every boy and one girl sat gawking in silence, still as statues, fingers gripping tightly to edges of wooden benches, eyes glued to the apoplectic expression of fury, contorting every feature of the bus driver's face while authority’s voice of frustration is winding down.

In the silence following authority’s lightening quick flash of fury, hypnotic tension, zinging tautly, back and forth through the air, holds every processor in the van spellbound as though fearing a time bomb exploding if so much as a shudder of a sound shatters the silence until—a snicker is released, and lo and behold—

Pandemonium busts loose freeing the braying of donkeys to ricochet off ceiling, floor, windows and walls spraying a hellish display of hilarity pointedly at every nerve in my body, stimulating my anxiety to spike as humiliation, piercing straight through my persona, strikes my conscious awareness so deeply—rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat—as if imprinting my self image with the painful permanence of this tattoo:

LAUGHING STOCK! UGLY DUCKLING! OUTCAST!  ANNIE THIS IS YOU!

Now it's the bus driver's turn to gawk in astonishment while his well-meant admonishments are trampled to death by the riotous uproar of this uncaged zoo.  Upon firing off one last flaring glare at his mutinous charges, seen leaping gleefully off wooden benches into life boats, the captain, succumbing to defeat, sinks back down into his seat while I, watching his spirit deflate, feel mine refusing to passively go down with the ship, and thus do I choose to deflect male rejection by walking the plank, sealing my spirit’s fate to drown humiliation in a turbulent tidal wave of subconscious angst, which runs much too deep for the mind of a child to fathom for decades to come.

Upon reflection, I imagine depths of frustration with which 'my friend' shoves the pedal to the metal while making a beeline straight toward my house.  And though my protector alters his route to get me home in record time, let’s...

Imagine my anxiety skyrocketing beyond denial's ability to numb humiliation 

Imagine my body pressed stiffly up against non-stop laughter piercing every nerve with agony too unbearable for denial to numb as that van (every bit as white as the hide of the good knight’s galloping steed) careens toward my house

Imagine my head pounding with need to escape so as to fly free of ridicule’s evil spell long before the bus driver pulls up to the curb and slams on the brakes

Imagine how this final rocky ride home from the house of God will portend for the future whenever a male hip draws too near to my own ...

Imagine preteen me desperate to separate from that hormonal pack of
Laughing hyenas, who’d not stopped needling my budding sensuality for so much as a second ...

Imagine me sitting here, decades later ...
Pounding emotion, long repressed, into my keyboard while
An overwhelming sense of yesteryear's pressurized angst
Quickens the palpitating beat of my heart, releasing latent
Spikes of anxiety, which had shanghied my processor whenever
The ghostlike presence of yesteryear’s subconscious fear of
Male rejection arose to numb all conscious awareness of
My self-empowered sensuality titulating
The magnetic arousal of male sexual excitement

Imagine the ghostlike presence of those bullies heckling
My sense of security if I gain so little as one pound, today—Jeez Louise—
Someone save me from reliving pain-ridden moments, long past, forever!
Uhhhh—hold the phone—
How easy it is to forget that ...

The only one who can free my psyche’s distorted self image of latent pain crushing my spirit, today, is—ME!

After walking that plank, I (like a caged gerbil running on a wheel) was fated to swim in circles for decades until, thank goodness, the subconscious portion of my brain stopped rock’n roll’n round that shipwrecked moment just long enough for my processor to gain insight into my need to gain the courage to remove my blindfold so as to dive, repeatedly, eyes open wide into the deep end of my mind so as to mine forgotten details by seeking out an astute helpline whenever subconscious aspects of latent emotionality get to feeling like a series of whirlpools, spinning my awareness from ‘this is now to that was then’ too swiftly to keep my head above water in hopes of saving my psyche from drowning in rapids of repressed fears that surface as spikes of unidentified anxiety whenever any sensation of yesteryear's unresolved angst has been stimulated to geyser up, unexpectedly—interminably!