AS DRAGON #1 IS CLEARLY NAMED, MY RAGING ATTITUDE NEEDS BE TAMED!

First things first—upon reviewing today’s post as well as
The one published previous to this one, both prove in need of
Grammatical editing aimed at easing your processor’s
Absorption of insights with mental clarity intact —

Once my processor rests up, I plan to direct
The conscious portion of my brain (which listened up
Attentively during one English class after another) to
Correct mistakes based in complexity of thought
Flowing naturally through the intuitive portion of
My brain toward my finger tips, each of which
Hits the keyboard as swiftly as a well practiced
Though not perfected pianist, who, while
Engaged in performing, does not consciously
Acknowledge which finger is tapping each
Key, moment by moment, and
While my conscious mind is reconsidering these
Trains of thought with my hold onto clarity intact
I plan to maintain a heightened level of
Conscious awareness concerning my need for
Self control so as to temporarily curb
My well practiced intuitive powers from
Re-emerging ever so freely during
This particular editing process so that
My sixth sense will remain in a semi-dormant
State of being rather than feeling stimulated to
Fully awaken yet another insight-driven dive into
Subconscious territory where additional
Secrets I keep from myself are stored until
My conscious connection to readiness to
Hear yet another deeper truth call out to
Me as if to say:  Annie, once again, you’ve
Grown toward taking another leap of faith upon
Having mustered the courage to work toward
Achieving the next level of mental gymnastics
Necessary to pave your personal path with
Inner strengths so as to identify and overcome
Yet another deeply repressed fear of
The great unknown that lies directly ahead, and
Annie, here is the insight that’s bound and
Determined to shine its spotlight upon
The emergence of today’s deeper truth:
As loved as you now feel by many who have
Come to value the kindness born of
Unconditional love that fills your heart to
Overflowing with compassion, your
Mind’s eye can clearly see that
The sweet, scared half to death, three year old
Little girl’s subconscious fear of walking through
Life’s storms, all alone, with her head held high so
As to mask the depths of her need for
Loving comfort bolstered by respectful, emotional
Support can be safely left in the past based in this fact:
As my future continues to unfold, I will not feel so
Unworthy of love when I tire while helping others as
To feel fearfully guilty upon calmly voicing
My needs, which may conflict with my loved ones’
Need of me, and clearly feeling freed of undeserved guilt
I need not fear being insulted, or chastised or left to
Fend for myself—during life’s harshest time, all alone
Triple Whew!

And now, having offered your processor
A heads up concerning your choice to read on or
Await the re-groomed versions of deeply
Complex trains of thought (which, upon completion
Will surely be announced) I’d like to remind you that—
My first thought is not always my best thought
For example—I titled today’s train of thought:
AS DRAGON #1 IS CLEARLY NAMED
MY RAGING ATTITUDE NEEDS BE TAMED!
When deeper truth suggests that
MY REPRESSED FURIES RUN SO DEEP AS TO
BE IN NEED OF ROARING RATHER THAN
TAMING BEFORE THE SELF ASSERTIVE PORTION OF
MY VOICE CAN EXPRESS ITSELF ALOUD IN
A MANNER OF SPEAKING SO CALMLY AND
CLEARLY AS TO INTUITIVELY (THUS
INSIGHTFULLY)TAP INTO DEEPER TRUTHS SO
MINDFULLY AS TO BE THE SHOT HEARD
(AND SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED) ROUND THE WORLD
(I mean, otherwise, why is my power of intuition guiding
My processor to pen and send each next string of
Insights into cyberspace, day after day?)
.
Ahhh!  My second thought feels so much better than my first!
Why?  Well—here comes today's string of insights (once again
Older ones serving to brighten my current point of
View so as to ignite insights, which, feeling brand new, will
Surely highlight the primary reason as to why today's first thought
(Which had been sparked, unconsciously, by my imagination’s
Dark side, to pen the title) had need to switch tracks toward
My second thought, which, rather than being
Darkly imaginative, is bound to resonate with a deeper sense of
Truth based in my think tank’s conscious awareness of my less than
Wearied thought processor’s recently restored reconnection to logic:

As the homily states: There’s a place for everything and
Everything in its place, suggesting that in this case
My exhausted processor had need of being plugged into
A quiet place in which to feel totally at rest before
My 'lost' connection to logic could feel so naturally
Recharged as to overcome my dark side's deeply
Imaginative thoughts, which proved empowered to
Overwhelm my sense of personal safety once
A current event had triggered a spike of anxiety to
Strike the exhausted state of the logic-based portion of
My think tank just as lightening, during a thunder storm
Strikes a tree, and as, once again, my processor's vulnerabilities
Felt violently exposed, another fear, buried alive and carried
Forward throughout my life in an unprocessed and thus unidentified
State of being erupted through my wall of denial so unconsciously
As to have whipped my subconscious engineer into
A frenzy, which spun what little was left of
My mental strengths into such downward spiral as to
Have caused my mind's eye to fail to see train tracks, directly
Ahead, leading nowhere but cliffside before my blindsided
Intelligence had time to slam on my brain’s brakes, and thus
At breakneck speed did the dark side of my mind usurp control over
ALL of my think tank as my thought processor was subconsciously
Swept back across the time line, where rather than 75, I 'was'
Once again, three, plunging straight down so as to hit bottom
In such an ungrounded manner as to have descended as deep as
Deep can be into the time frame when my home life had felt like
That gorge-like bottomless black hole that had swallowed
Every spirit in my family whole during the aftermath of
My baby sister's death, so utterly consumed had my brain become
As though, once again, my think tank, having been triggered to
Succumb to being sucked into that deeply repressed caldron
Boiling over with a lifetime’s worth of inter-related repressed
Fears concerning my worthlessness (?) had been
Laying in wait to swallow my spirit along with today's smarts
Ever since when? ever since Janet's sudden death, at which time
My undeveloped three year old think tank had literally looked up to
Adult role models for ‘guidance’ as to how to feel and react, because
The instinctive portion of my brain, like every human brain, had been
Preprogrammed before birth to mimic adult reactions as
A means of unconsciously absorbing whatever my eyes saw
And whatever my ears heard as being 'necessary' for
Personal survival while my role models and I
Made our way through life’s classic celebrations as well as
Life’s harshest hardships, and during the extreme emotional
Upheaval, following Janet's death, I, left 'on my own' with only
My three year old processor (in its immature state of being)
Could in no way fathom much less comprehend or absorb
Any of the deeply macabre changes that had, without
A moment’s warning, transformed our cheerful
Loving, well organized home life into a psychological study of
An extended family’s descent into each person's
Highly personalized hell—based in the undeniable fact that
Two sudden deaths, within the brief span of six weeks, had
Spun our sunny little corner of the world off of its axis, and
As each of my role model's minds spiraled directly away from
Emotional safety, all of our processors, including mine
Crash landed on a foreign planet that left our spirits in a place
So darkly foreboding as to have given rise to my feeling subconsciously
Terrified of the future as if everywhere I'd looked, all that could be
Seen on the faces of my loved ones was a terrifying vision of darkness
Ahead as if each of us had personified a black cat, condemned to walk
Under one ladder after another, at midnight, no chance of sunrise
Ahead, and as this confounding state of terror, forever, gripped
My heart and tore into my mind, a small child was destined to
Experience episodes of PTSD once my fear of the future was
Buried alive behind my defense system's wall of denial so as to grow
Ever more bold most especially as I age and subconscious
The Specter of Death, which dwells within the dark side of my mind
Subconsciously threatens the survival of everyone I love—
Young and old—As to death coming in threes—over these past
Couple of weeks, in addition to normal calls, my phone rang thrice—
Each time announcing the death of a person I loved, or someone
I knew or whom had been loved by one of my loved ones, who'd
Cried aloud in pain

With the re-emergence of older insights, which, as my brain
Rested, began to poke their way through my processor’s dark side so
As to filter, one by one, into the still exhausted, bright side of
My think tank, which has been slowly but steadily regaining
Its hold onto clarity, little by little, my processor’s well-developed
Power of intuitive intelligence has been whispering of
My mental readiness to fire off small sparks of positive focus, which
Along with my self worth, had been locked out of the conscious
Portion of my processor for several weeks with this caveat:
I didn't 'forget' that exhaustion, followed by a series of
Triggering events, drags my sunny spirit into the underworld that
Exists within my brain.  I mean exhaustion has been one of
Several triggers that leaves me vulnerable to be seized by
An attack of PTSD so many times that you'd think that during
My darkest hours at least one vestige of deeper truth would whisper
Of hope into my ear—and if you think that's true of me then
I'd agree, because in recent years, I've come to know at my core that
Even during my darkest hours, my well developed power of intuition
Can be heard encouraging my adult processor to listen up as in—Annie
You've hit bottom before and worked your way back up to
Clarity after resting in solitude—and so with the help and loving
Respectful support of family and your closest friends in whom
You feel safe to confide, you'll succeed, again, and thus
With the passage of these past several weeks, while
My wearied host of mental strengths continued to rest so as to
Re-energize, my spirit has continued to revitalize my
Realistic sixth sense concerning the true nature of my self worth—
Not just today, but as a sweet child of three, and as my mind, body
And spirit continue to inch ever so slowly but consistently toward
Restoration, I have been working my way out of the gorge, yet again
And thus has my bright side, which still wearies more quickly than
Usual, is currently guiding me to show you what happened when
The negatively focused dark side of my imagination
Held my positive focused connection to reality hostage within
Time frame of my think tank's unprocessed past, I'm planning to
Offer you a post, penned last week (though not published till
Today), which will exemplify the ease with which
The dark side of human nature, triggered to be released
Empowered my imagination to fool my brain's processor into
Conjuring up a fire-breathing dragon-like demon, which
I led myself to believe 'resides' within the underworld of
My brain, and as this dragon may prove to be the primary
Focus of the deeply repressed terror that I find so terrifying
As to have triggered my anxiety to spike so high as to strike down
All of my conscious connection to emotional self control, we shall
Watch this darkly imagined dragon lash my sense of personal safety to
A stake where my smarts, concerning my self worth, goes up in
Flames each time an episode of PTSD is triggered by
A current event that in any way 'resembles' the scariest time of
My three year old life, and as you can imagine, when
An episode of PTSD is triggered while mental exhaustion can
Play negatively focused tricks on the wounded portion of
My self esteem, my wearied think tank falls into
A mind maze where my tensely tightened oxygen-deprived
Body (which includes my brain) blinds my mind's eye from
'Seeing' myself choking on subconscious smokescreens, which
Prohibit my smarts from fathoming whatever is actually
Tormenting my personal safety, 'today', in the same way that
Had caused three year old me to plunge straight
Into a hell hole where bitter memories that I'd witnessed
Concerning terrifying episodes of mother-daughter betrayal
(Personified by my gramma and my mother) during
The emotionally torrential weeks that had followed
My sister's tragic death, and since I was too young to process
The meaning of negatively charged words exchanged between
Two of my most influential role models, back then, the hell, encased
In smoke and mirrors that I lose myself within, today, feels
Every bit as darkly confounding and personally threatening to
My self worth as had felt true back then when I'd no clue as to why
Furiously charged condemnations shrieking back and forth throughout
The air as though to raise the dead, continued to make a child, just
Turning three, to cower, trembling, as though her very life
Was threatened, under a table where I'd bury my head while
My chest and abdominal muscles grew as tense as a
A pair of tightly clenched fists, leaving my lungs gasping for
Air, starving my heart of oxygenated blood, necessary for
Adult Annie to think straight so as to 'find' MY way out of
This mind maze, which has a trap door that will continue to be
Triggered until the bright side of my mind grows so
Intuitively, insightfully strong as to sense each next episodic
Plunge into PTSD before I reach exhaustion's point of
Slo-mo return, and since I believe the primary cause of
Traumatized fear has remained actively repressed within
The dark side of my brain since I was a child, not yet three
I've recently come to see that—“It’s the assessment of
A circumstance that matters not the circumstance, itself”
(I lifted that quote from a horoscope, which was not
Mine until my processor’s slo-mo resurgence of clear
Mental energy caught wind of this fact:
A morsel of wisdom, like that, benefits, one and all)

Each time my processor has been in over-drive
Over long, my mental strengths exhaust freeing
Repressed, though unidentified insecurities, common
To three year old children, to arise and overwhelm
The conscious portion of my processor's adult
Intelligence, repeatedly.  And though today's insights
Are not new to me, I am becoming ever more aware of
The fact that decisions to stretch myself beyond
Human endurance have been made by
The deeply repressed, insecure portion of
My think tank at times when mental weariness has already
Grown too great to withstand more of the same, and
My propensity to pressure myself to produce more than
Is humanly possible has been based in the flawed, deeply
Repressed impression of my worthlessness, which was
Born soon after my sister's death, and I have a feeling that
Within that pocket of my subconscious lives and breathes
A false self evaluation that repeatedly stretches
My already exhausted think tank on a rack, where I am at
Risk of temporarily annihilating my host of mental
Strengths so completely that they plunge into yet another
Ever deepening, spiraling episode of PTSD, which
Upon erupting through my ‘everything is swell persona’
Fires up the repressed and thus unnamed dragon that
Drags my sunny spirit so swiftly straight back across
The timeline into its lair that my current level of
Mental intelligence wholly succumbs to my dark side’s
Lifelong subconscious, imaginative nightmares to such
A deeply alarming, self-degrading degree as to signal
A three year child's unresolved anxiety, buried alive, to
Spike so high as to knock out my processor’s bright side with
Yet another unforeseen sucker punch (as my gramma sucker
Punched my mother's heart, spirit and processor during
The most deeply vulnerable, pain wracked time of
My 'mommy's' life), and each time my smarts are unconsciously
Flung so far into the past as to cause my brain to reincarnate
The utterly confounded, totally terrified, barely three year old
Me, whose upbeat home life had morphed within seconds flat into
A death dirge drawn out over so many months as to have
Left the resilience of my spirit utter limp as though
I, rather than my mother, had been beaten to a pulp within
An inch of my life, and to illustrate that last intuitively written
String of insights, here it comes—the post
Penned (and titled) by the dark side of
My imaginative mind, last week:
***************************
A dragon, residing within my subconscious, awaits
My exhaustion before pouncing upon my mental
Vulnerabilities, thus empowering itself to drag
My spirit into the darkest, most tortuous dungeon of
My brain where my current lack of energy is
Lashed to a fiery spit so as to sear my self image to
A crisp, yet again, and this visualization of a deeply
Repressed, self conceived misbelief, which has
Anxiously needled my self confidence concerning
Self worth, began at the age of three at which time
I lived and breathed after my baby sister, adored
Openly by all, stopped breathing and died, and
Finding my terrible self alive while a child, whom
I'd wished had disappeared, had done exactly that
Leaving my entire family in the hell hole of despair
I am not worthy of their love unless my think tank can
Make sure that no one else stops breathing, forever
And if I fail to be such a good girl that I'm adored as
Much as Janet was then I don’t deserve to live and
Feel happy whenever those I love are not
Free of strife unless—I successfully stretch my brain to
Assuage their pain—Oh my God!—If that’s not
A God complex (unknowingly absorbed and repressed into
My three year old subconscious) speaking through
My intuitive powers then what is?
I’ll tell you what this is—
This is the traumatized portion of
My processor begging for release from every aspect of
Undeserved survivor's guilt so as not to feel
The demise of my self worth so easily aroused each
Time my processor tires, freeing each next episode of
PTSD to be self empowered to disarm and suck my host of
Earnestly won, mental strengths into that black hole where
My personal sense of safety feels dependent upon
Making such sound use of my acquired wealth of
Knowledge concerning family communications as to
Charge myself with feeling certain that
Every relationship in my little corner of the world will
Feel swell, forever—and ever since I began to write
This blog/memoir, several years back, guess what
Happened?  My little corner of the world has
Swelled to include every person on
Planet Earth whose personal well being is
Endangered by a slew of fire breathing
Dragons, whose maniacal hunger for
Power cares not whose lives are arrested or
Whose spirit is trampled or whose well being is
Devoured, straight down to terrified little children
Separated from anguished parents, who will develop
PTSD as surely as had been true of me after
Our baby ‘disappeared’ and I had no clue
As to where she (and my beloved grandfather, who
At 52, had been hearty until he died suddenly of
A massive heart attack, six weeks before
My sister stopped breathing), so that both had
Disappeared as though a lightening bolt had flashed into
Our lives, dragging my family into the dark side where
The sun would never (?) shine, ever again as it had
Once upon a time, because even when the sun did shine
After my second sister's birth, I had no conscious clue of
My dark side having swallowed this question, which, behind
My wall of denial has haunted my spirit's smile, subconsciously
24/7—since my grandpa and our baby disappeared, never to
Return then who might suddenly be next?
Mommy?  Daddy?  Or Me?

Though some of you, who have followed my blog since
Its inception, may recall the fiery argument, which (having
Arisen several weeks after our baby’s death
Rocked our emotional environment, as if
A third earthquake, registering at a ten, had caused
Whatever little was left of my personal sense of
Safety to implode my think tank’s
Subconscious absorption of undeserved guilt concerning
Who had actually been responsible for
Causing Janet's disappearance, and
Those of you who have already read that
Story posted, several years back, may also recall
The primary reason why my depressed, three year old
Spirit bounced back rather than dragging at
Half mast throughout each stage of my life as is true of
So many children, whose low energy yields quietly to
Spiking attacks of anxiety or, on the other hand, that
Story highlights insights concerning the primary reason why
I'd refrained from ‘acting out’ negatively whenever
My self worth suffered a direct hit, and now
As my life story is being rewritten, story by story, post by post
You shall witness my sister's death, the argument that threw
My processor over the cliff as surely as Wiley Coyote plunges
Consistently downward while the Roadrunner's processor
Remains cool as a cucumber—Beep Beeping his way toward
Personal safety, again—this positively focused description of
Both sides of my think tank, suggests that my smarts are bound and
Determined to transform my runaway Wiley Coyote into
My Roadrunner's sidekick that that my first (unprocessed) recovery
From early childhood depression will reappear, sooner than
You may suppose—As for now, today’s intuitive train of thought
Leads my think tank to ask us to seriously consider this next question:

How many millions of low energy people (like those
As yet not diagnosed with walking pneumonia) are
Walking through life suffering undiagnosed episodes of
Oxygen-deprived PTSD?  How many, who experience
Anxiety and/or mild (thus undiagnosed) depression have
No conscious clue of this next fact, long
Acknowledged by the science of psychology:
Our defense systems must work ever more intensely
24/7 to restrain repressed fury and pain, which
Existing within subconscious memory in an
Unprocessed state of mind, remain unidentified?

Emotional pain, repressed in an unicentified state
Cannot be released in a healthy manner, so
One day, like an over stretched rubber band constricting
A wide variety of unresolved fearfully furious reactions
We can’t hold back the undertow for even one more
Second, so our nerve ends snap, shocking
Everyone in sight, who witnesses that which
The untrained mind deems an over-reaction, when
Actually, the camel’s knees have been buckling
Long before its ultimate collapse is witnessed once
The final straw has landed upon his overwrought back

Though common knowledge indicates that everyone’s
Brain contains a holding tank of tightly compressed
Deeply repressed, left over fear and/or rage
We commonly express shock and perhaps self disgust
When our very own naturally repressed
Emotional reactiveness erupts through our
Defensive walls of denial, and if we subconsciously
Harbor a self defeating, lack of self worth so as to
See our own occasional outbursts as horrible rather than
Natural to all human beings then upon repressing wrath
Yet again, our spirits and mental state of mind may
Grow ever more rageful or depressive—why?
Because repressing rage, overlong, redirects our
Brain’s main source of energy toward maintaining
The insulation of our walls of denial behind which
Burning angst fires up upon a pyre that grows ever
More smoky while we believe our own emotional
Pretense that we take out in public( known as
Our persona) suggesting that
All is well, deep inside, until our spirits’ fuel tanks
Are sucked bone dry, and if a person has
Experienced reason to repress mild episodes of
PTSD over his/her lifetime—
Well, we are kegs of emotional TNT awaiting the next
Bump in a road rockier than we consciously
Remember to blow our persona’s facade to
Kingdom come!  In a nutshell—
The scientific definition of clinical depression is
Unidentified rage subconsciously repressed, over long ...
In my case—

I HAVE BEEN REPRESSING
OVERWHELMING SENSATIONS OF FURY
OVERLONG—FOR EXAMPLE, ONE OF
MY FIRE-BREATHING FURIES IS BASED IN
THE FUTILITY OF CONFRONTING
IRRATIONAL BRAINS AT ALL LEVELS OF
LEADERSHIP, WHO FEAR PULLING
THEIR PROCESSORS OUT OF THE SWAMP SO
AS TO FACE REALITY HEAD ON, AND BEING
THAT THAT’S JUST THE FIRST
NAKED FURY, WHICH HAS SWELLED BEYOND
MY PROCESSOR’S WELL PRACTICED
CONNECTION TO SELF DISCIPLINED CONTROL
TODAY’S TRAIN OF THOUGHT IS SPOTLIGHTING
MY NEED TO CHANGE MY ATTITUDE FOR
THE BETTER BEFORE MY BRAIN FEELS SO
FURIOUSLY ENFLAMED AND DERANGED AS TO
STROKE OUT—I MEAN, WHAT GOOD CAN
I DO IF I’M DEAD OR DEPRESSED OR
RAGEFULLY OUT OF CONTROL?
IN SHORT, I FEEL ALL OF THIS BEHIND
MY WALL OF DENIAL WHERE MY BLOOD STREAM
HAS BEEN BOILING OVER WITH ANGST AS
THE DEPTHS OF MY EMPATHY FOR
THE PAIN OF STRANGERS ENDANGERS
MY MENTAL HEALTH, WHICH
HAS BEEN STRAINING FOR YEARS TO
RESTRAIN, CONSTRAIN AND TAME SO MANY
FIRE-BREATHING DRAGONS AS TO ENVISION
MY INTELLIGENCE REPRESSING
VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS OF
EMOTIONAL LAVA, WHICH HAS BEEN CHOKING
MY PERSONAL WELL BEING—24/7—AS THOUGH
ONE OF tRUMP’s DIRTIEST SOCKS HAS BEEN
SHOVED DOWN MY THROAT SO DEEPLY THAT
I CAN’T BREATHE OR EAT TO SAVE
MY OWN LIFE—IN FACT
OVER THESE PAST TWO WEEKS, SPENT ON
THE COAST WITH MY KIDS—BIG AND SMALL
I’M SEVEN POUNDS DOWN—AS IF DENYING
MY RAGE OXYGEN AND NUTRITIOUS
SUSTENANCE MAKES SENSE—AS IF
STARVING MYSELF GANDHI STYLE, WILL
INFLUENCE OUR LAWMAKERS TO
CLEAN UP THEIR SWAMP AT LONG LAST—
AS YOU CAN SEE, TAKING MY AGGRESSION
OUT ON MYSELF IS NOT HEALTHY BY ANY
STRETCH OF IMAGINATION—RIGHT?  AND
SINCE, OTHER THAN VOTING, I CAN’T
SAVE THE WORLD FROM MEGALOMANIACS
LIKE tRUMP, MY INTUITIVE INTELLIGENCE
Is GUIDING THE CONSCIOUS
PORTION OF MY PROCESSOR TO CONTINUE TO
FEEL SELF INSPIRED TO WORK TOWARD SAVING
MY SPIRIT FROM FEELING SUCKED INTO
YESTERYEAR’S LITTLE HOUSE OF HORRORS WHERE
A SWEET LITTLE GIRL IS STILL COWERING IN
SUBCONSCIOUS NEED OF MY ADULT’S
PROTECTIVE HEART-SMART INTELLIGENCE TO
BE THE KIND OF PERSON WHO WOULD FREE MY
(and all of the children in CAGES!) FROM
EXPERIENCING SUBCONSCIOUS TORRENTIAL
DOWNPOURS OF SPIRITUALLY DEVASTATING TERRORS
LIKE THOSE THAT TRIGGER MY OWN EVERY TIME
I FEAR THAT ANOTHER CHILD, SEPARATED FROM
PARENTAL LOVE IS HEADED TOWARD
FUTURE EPISODES OF PTSD, AND
HAVING EXPRESSED TODAY’S DARKLY CLOUDY
THUNDEROUS FLASHES OF WHIPLASHING INSIGHT
I’M CLEARLY AND THOROUGHLY FURIOUS AT
PTSD’S ABILITY TO BLINDSIDE MY BRIGHT SIDE—
REPEATEDLY, JUST AS I’M FURIOUS THAT
MINDS, WHICH PROVE AS BLACK HEARTED AS
tRUMP’S, CONTINUE TO USURP CONTROL OVER
SO MUCH OF THE WELL-BEING OF
‘WE THE PEOPLE’ WHO POPULATE
EVERY CORNER OF THE WORLD

How ludicrous is it to believe that
My think tank is supposed to relax when
The dark side of my processor has misinformed
The conscious portion of my processor to
Imagine my exhausted host of inner strengths
Readying themselves to do battle with
A herd (?) of self conceived, flame throwing
Dragons that reside within my mind
If I am to fully recover from PTSD
Then my intelligence is charged to
Identify mixed messages given to myself
Exacerbating inner conflicts so confoundingS
To escalate repressed madness based in unresolved
Angst  rusting through my over stuffed and
Thus, ever cracking, defense system’s wall of
Denial, and if I’ve not clearly described
Mixed messaged madness driving me close to
Crazy then please feel free to offer up
Your definition by filing my blog’s
Comment box with experiences of your own

Today, we can more readily see how Aha!
Moments serve me well by hollowing out
And whittling my fire breathing dragons
(Conjured up by the imaginative nature of
My dark side) down to palm-in-hand
Toy size), eventually shine the INTUITIVE
Light of insight upon deeper truths, which, like
This one, has thankfully emerged from
My processor’s newly re-energizing
Bright side—Seriously!
My brain has not ever secreted
An enflamed dragon’s lair inside my head—in fact
The only permanent resident within
The dark side of my thought processor, since
The age of three, has been a terrified, deeply
Stressed, sexually abused little girl, whose
Self assertive voice, having been arrested in
The aftermath of her baby sister’s sudden death, rails
Against the bars of her subconscious cage, inner
Rage signaling my defense system to
Ring the bell of yesteryear’s terrorizing alarm whenever
The adult me (whose protection this deeply confounded
Ghost of a child, who haunts my well being whenever
A loved one’s emotional fire is in need of cooling down)
Demonstrates ‘telling’ signs of my host of inner strengths
Weakening, as would a set of muscles, from
(self abused) overuse ... And had I not reviewed
The train of thought, directly above, with you, today
My self conceived misconception of a dragon of
Any size, dwelling within my mind may have
Fired off yet another subconscious inner conflict, which
My tenaciously intuitive nature would have felt
Need to hunker my think tank down so as to puzzle
Its way through another darkly self-conceived
Mind maze down the road—however with
Today’s insight-laden, self strengthening
Sense of clarity brightening my current outlook
Concerning whatever mental or emotional challenge
Life is certain to offer up, if not today, then tomorrow—
Let’s look forward to the next reveal of
A train of thought (not in any specific order) which
Like this one,  my smoke-filled think tank conjured up
During these past two weeks when my state of oxygen
Deprived, extreme mental exhaustion had need to
Cocoon, suggestive of metamorphosis (hopefully)
Taking place as I stand, bravely, on the threshold of—
Old age ...

AS A PORTION OF MY ORIGINAL TRAIN OF THOUGHT CONCERNING HOT TUBBING WITH MY FIXER SWITCHED TRACKS, HERE IS THE REVISED VERSION OF THAT POST (edited and expanded after publishing)

The train of thought below was written on Monday, August 5th, to a dear friend who has been patiently awaiting my readiness to enjoy time, together, since I arrived on the coast—

Ever since Thursday, July 25th when Will and I drove from the desert to the coast with Ravi in tow (where we three celebrated Ray’s eighth birthday with extended family), time spent alone is what I’ve craved most.  Why?  I’d stretched much too far mentally, emotionally and physically during the three weeks that Steven had need of me to take care of our four year old grand daughter in the aftermath of his house flood, and ever since he and Celina (both of whom joined us on the coast several days later) drove back to the desert on Sunday, August 3rd, with Ravi in tow, I’ve listened seriously to my mind, body and spirit’s deeply personal need for peace and quiet.  As to why Ravi came with us, everyone in the family, including me, wanted her to be on the coast in time to enjoy her cousin Ray’s eighth birthday party (celebrated on Saturday), and Steven couldn’t leave the desert till Sunday.  So I, loving how close knit my family proves to be, chose to stretch my exhaustion beyond the point of rebounding with anything resemblant of ease—yet again.  (As if, by locking my intellect behind my wall of denial my think tank can easily forget to remember that the same lesson repeats till our processors wholly absorb it, hook, line and sinker!)

During this past week, while my three sons enjoyed each other and their families at the lovely time share resort where our whole family eagerly convenes, every summer, I made good use of the self assertive portion of my voice, and as everyone observed my exhaustion and respected my need of solitude, I chose to spend most of my time alone.  Craving time alone when my family is together is very new to me.  But respecting that inner need proved necessary, primarily for this reason:  Though everyone is always undergoing some stage of personal transition (for better or worse) I, feeling myself moving through an active state of mental change, have not yet identified which self debasing character trait my subconscious may be in the process of shedding.

Though this unidentified change taking place inside my brain feels somehow distressing, growth spurts, experienced in the past, encourage me to take a leap of faith toward believing that as challenging as this period of transition is proving to be, my host of hard won mental strengths, once fully recharged, will land on both feet in a well grounded placement that is bound to feel as intuitively and thus naturally well balanced as if I was a well practiced Olympiad gymnast, who has challenged my intelligence to achieve a ten after achieving a quadruple spiral through the air.

While undertaking this highly challenging mental feat, I am naturally early to bed, late to arise.  I feel resistant to talking or listening and am writing much less than usual.  In fact—I’m cocooning.

Makes the intuitive portion of my brain wonder if, at each critical stage of life, the shedding of invisible wings ( with training wheels) must take place before our processors can hope to sprout a mental wing span that’s more expansively resilient to life’s universal adversities resultant of personal growth spurts that prove as classically painful for the adult nervous system to undergo as it is painful for the tender gums of babies to swell while cutting first molars, which, eventually, will loosen up and wiggle around for quite some time before bleeding, during detachment, is complete thus providing space needed for wisdom teeth to erupt through the gums in a classically painful manner, yet again, later on. ... the difference being, that unlike our gums, which tend to be exceptionally sensitive creatures, our brains are equipped with walls of denial, behind which the depths of each person’s host of emotional pains is buried alive, where it stews, silently though fitfully, on. Back burner within the subconscious portion of our minds ...

Actually, while expressing all of this to you, I’ve just clarified a lot for myself concerning what's taking place that I can feel but not see inside my think tank's cocoon.  In fact, I wonder if it’s too much to hope that a conglomeration of tensely compressed, deeply repressed emotional reactions stemming from a host of stewing, long lasting frustrations, each of which proves way beyond my control to repair, is in the process of morphing from compressed complacency toward realistic combustibility while my defense system's rebelliousness against revealing the depths of my angst to the conscious portion of my processor readies itself to accept the fact that my power of intuition has determined my readiness to fully acknowledge whatever I cannot change so that rather than freeing unprocessed angst to emerge all at once (like a pot of stew boiling over while the blind, leading the blind, continue to turn up the burner on the stove, notch by notch, I must bide my time until this geyser-like, subconscious release can be calmly, thus accurately, assessed, fury by fury, so that intensely constrained rage does not burst, all at once, through my wall of denial, shattering the conscious portion of my naturally intelligent brain, leaving jagged shards of yesteryear’s unresolved fears to pierce ever more deeply into my wounded self worth before my exhausted inner strengths have been given sufficient time to revitalize.  And thus do I give thanks to patience, initially well practiced so as to see myself grow ever more self disciplined so as to discipline my trio of disciples, namely my sons, with creativity leading my mind’s eye to offer up logical consequences injected with healthy doses of loving good humor intact, and thus does my think tank shine insight’s spotlight of valor upon the role played by patience each time my self awareness feels challenged to withstand heightened spikes of anxious reactiveness until a mere mortal like me feels an intuitive sense of mental readiness guiding my host of worn out, slow-to-bounce-back inner strengths to re-emerge from the cocoon in which mental metamorphosis has been taking place, yet again.  However, rather than seeing myself as a butterfly, I must be a cat with nine lives, beginning with 'cute as a kitten' until the Grim Reaper saw me evolve into a small scary cat afraid of yesteryear's dark shadows and, most recently, I feel myself morphing into a cat, like Nala, brave enough to have grown so mature as to adventure ever more deeply into the great unknown, thus intuitively venturing away from her ‘pride’ just long enough to listen to the self assertive portion of her voice ascend from her own personal hell once the rejuvenation of her deeply determined host of mental strengths verified which path the next stage of her destined role in history has need to mark as her own ...

And now that the bright side of my imagination is on a positive roll, I can’t help but think wishfully that with the eventual emergence of the whole stormy lot of my deeply repressed furies standing naked before me, each one will evaporate into thin air.  Gosh!  Wishful thinking aside, wouldn’t a slow release valve freeing a deeply repressed, intensely constrained, utterly congealed conglomeration of inter-related, unprocessed angsts, one by one, prove to be a wholesome change, indeed, for a mind as active as mine (which, as we can clearly see) proves in dire need of relaxing by consciously deciding to offer all of me as much down time as proves necessary to rest if I am to fully absorb the monumental nature of this insight-driven change for the better in my decision-making process so as to head off future episodes of PTSD before my processor passes exhaustion's point of slo-mo return.  Then, I signed the text with an emoji heart preceding my name.

Hmmm—I sure hope that most of the text (paraphrased above) is not wishful thinking—oh wait!  I just spotted My Fixer reaching for my sunscreen while readying herself to slip into my bathing suit so as to head out to the hot tub overlooking the resort's bright and sunny, yet deeply serene ocean view!  Sounds good, right?  In fact, I’m about to pull today’s train of thought into a rest station so that the sum of my parts can slide wholly into the water that’s bubbling up in a most inviting way as though warmly welcoming my decision to stop writing in favor of relaxing—

Hey!
Hold the presses!
Tis light bulb flashing time inside my mind!
Insight has just spotlighted this probability—
My first thought (about cocooning while shedding a self-debasing trait) was not my best thought, because rather than shedding a self-debasing trait, the conscious portion of my mind has just landed upon this reality:  One of my positively focused traits has been actively gaining strength, and the name of this high self esteeming, self confident trait is my self assertive voice, which in the past could not say no to certain loved ones, because I’d felt that their needs had preempted mine—namely my three sons.  However now that each has grown to full-fledged manhood—my vision of my mothering self (which has actively been in flux for quite some time), can clearly see that I’ve been shedding my think tank's  idealistic attitude concerning motherhood in favor of expanding my processor's wingspan!

Without a shadow of doubt based in undeserved guilt, ‘tis my time in life to expand my wings so as to offer my spirit the freedom to soar, not above the classic dramas of family life, but high enough to enjoy and re-energize my good health by inspiring my think tank to wholly accept my need to retire The Fixer as well as my Control Freak, who has long been pounding away at my neo Cortex, begging my intelligence to ready itself to admit to need for subconscious release.  And as today’s sense of clarity glances reflectively over the past several decades of my life, I come to see that these two traits have comprised my Thing One and Thing Two, who, left on their own, had overwhelmed my peace of mind by sweeping my think tank into the eye of one gritty sandstorm after another, most of which had not been mine to clean up, over most of my life!

In short, as Oliver Livingston Seagull had need to learn—I've consciously known it’s unnecessary for me to lead our flock; however, subconsciously that's not what I'd felt—leaving my peace of mind torn in two.   In fact,  I had to exhaust, several times, in order to feel that tis way past time for my wings to relax and fall back naturally within the formation, knowing full well, that as hard as the winds blow during my migration toward old age, the minds of my three sons, each heading his own portion of our flock, are as well rooted in family values as their spirits have been set free to scout out the great unknown that lies ahead of each of us as our family flocks together as birds of feather are wont to do.  And thus does today's intuitive train of thought spotlight the string of insights, which (given time to process and marinate within the monumental restructuring of this change for the better in my attitude) will refocus my think tank toward consciously and more consistently tracking my mind’s need to relax before exhaustion, sucker punching my mental strengths, frees PTSD to entrap and swallow my intellect's hold on logic into that little house of horrors, where three year old me had mistakenly held my positively focused smile and creative imagination accountable for empowering everyone I'd encountered to join in my mission to overcome their dark sides without expecting anyone else to muster the courage, humility and patient determination to do a whit of internal work necessary to achieve one of life's most arduous tasks.  If knowledge is power, and if seeking knowledge concerning the complexity of the human brain is my advocation, then where did I go wrong?

I'm as naive as the next person, who forgets that the scientific exploration of the human brain is in its infancy.  I have not studied neuropsychology.  I studied communication skills—and I thank my lucky stars for that, because otherwise, the bright side of my brain may never have grown so intuitively inquisitive as to have withstood the emotional pain that accompanies the expansive nature of self awareness gained by developing the mental strengths necessary to communicate openly and honestly with the dark side of my imagination, which has proved as dark, in its own way, to any story authored by EAP.  Hopefully, when it comes to scaring myself breathless by darkening my best character traits, I’ll gain control over my imagination before it mistakenly leads me to believe I can read the dark side other people’s minds she never I can barely read my own.  And having referred to both imagination and birds that speak aloud, I believe your smarts will follow my drift when I quote the raven:  PTSD be gone—FOREVERMORE.  (Close enough)

As to whether the probability (I hope)  penned above will prove to be a factuality—time will tell.  As for now, my need to cocoon while surrounded by my beloved family makes sense!  And since today's thought process has made its way through yet another foggy segment of emotional combustion within my brain space so as to spotlight common sense beckoning my think tank to come in for a soft landing, followed by a gentle hug, peace of mind has been naturally restored—at least momentarily.

Seriously—up until today, I’d had no conscious clue that, over this past year, I’ve been working to expand my mindset (wingspan) so as to develop the ability to state (simply, clearly, self confidently and graciously) that respecting my needs as I age is as important to me as satisfying my adult sons’ need of me.  I mean what devoted mother says that aloud?  The answer to that last question is—a mother who, though devoted to every member of her family, intuitively comes to see that she cannot expect anyone to respect her needs unless she can calmly, patiently and with good nature intact—assertively clarify her needs to one and all—including me—especially my need to recognize when to replenish my energy source, which, with every birthday, runs out of steam more quickly while demanding more downtime to refuel.  Speaking from experience, even the white whiskered Energizer Bunny (which had once-upon-a-time twinned with me) has need to be replaced or restored to full capacity upon morphing into a rechargeable variety—and that’s the truth.

HOLY SMOKE SIGNALS! MY FIXER DOES NOT NEED TO RETIRE—MY FIXER NEEDS TO ...

I began to write this blog (memoir) with thoughts of
Guiding others to enjoy marriages worth saving before
Complacency’s slow death march leads two unsuspecting
Souls blindly toward divorce court, where, if
Children are involved, two adults, who had once
Loved each other, will return to torture each other, perhaps
Passive-aggressively, till death do they part
I’d also planned to inspire parents by way of
Story telling to follow my lead concerning
Need to dust off and make sound use of
Their imaginations to conjure up creative methods of
Disciplining small children, whom they dearly love, with
Attitudes based in mutual respect and good humor, both of
Which require rewiring adult minds to grow aware of
How best to groom young minds by re-grooming
Their own toward heightening levels of
Parental patience to exceed and outlast
Every childish outburst that proves so natural as to
Be timeless, universal and classic to
Every generation,  ever born
Seriously—common sense states that with clarity intact
Tis waaaay past time for adults to stop yelling at
Children for yelling as well as spanking children for hitting
I mean what kind of mixed message concerning
The emergence of emotional immaturity on the part of
Adult role models is that?  Do as I say, not as I do ...
Since children are preprogrammed to learn by mimicking
Their brains are bound to do what parents do, dismissing
What was said unless what was said and done match
Repeatedly with consistency—in short
Parenthood demands personal growth in terms of
Developing mutually respectful, good natured
Leadership (communication skills) of one and all
Idealism at it’s best—right?  ‘Shoot for the moon
Land amongst the stars’—‘Be the change you wish
For the world’—‘Life is either a great adventure or
Else it is nothing’—‘Everything is connected’—
just as your thigh bone is connected to your brain
As years of blogging progressed and one string of insights
Spotlighted the next, I came to see that
The person who’d been most in need of guidance—
Astute professional guidance (which, over time, inspired
My think tank to fully embrace my thought processor’s
Natural capacity to interconnect with the source of
My brain’s secret stash of inner wisdom, often referred to as
My insight-driven power of intuitive thought) has always
Been none other than me—and here’s where that
Last insight, concerning my sixth sense, rings aloud as
Clear as a bell each time deeper truth erupts through
My defense system’s wall of denial:
 Time after time, my on-going need to fully recover from
PTSD has erupted through my defensive wall of denial in
It’s unrelenting attempt to spotlight
This next reality to which I am finally not blind:
Rather than fixating my conscious intelligence upon
Retiring My Fixer, my power of
Intuitive intelligence has been challenging
My brain’s whole-some connection to clarity
To identify and resolve deeply repressed
Inner conflicts, which have arrested the natural
(On-going) development of my processor’s
Good Mental Health ever since a line up of
Early childhood traumas derailed
My processor away from tracking
Insight-driven trains of thought fueled by
Strongly rooted deeper truths within
My very core, leading me to believe that
Whatever was said to disparage
My authenticity was somehow based in
Truth, which disabled my self worth from
Withstanding any emotional storm that
Threatened my personal safety, and
Today’s insight driven train of thought
Written by my brain’s well practiced power of
Intuition, wholly acknowledges my need to
Rewire (rather than retire) My Fixer’s
Mental focus toward concentrating
My mental energy upon working diligently to
Maintain a conscious sense of awareness concerning
My adult need to self soothe the deeply traumatized
Repressed (buried alive) portion of
My three year old brain, which subconsciously
Continues to pressure my current self-image to
Prove itself worthy of love by stretching
My think tank beyond human endurance while
Working to encourage each my loved ones to
Believe in their mental capacity to resolve
Every one of their unmet needs while
I continue to deny the very existence of
My own, most especially my need for
More down time to rest, relax and reset
My deeply stressed, over-stretched think tank with
Each candle that’s added, annually, to my cake—
And thus do we come to see why I need to
Rewire My Fixer to switch tracks toward
Refocusing its concentration upon
My mental good health by ‘looking in’ rather than
Exhausting my resources, scouting out
Unexplored territory, which is just beyond
Our family wagon train’s next horizon, and
Thus does today’s intuitive vision of newly
Expanded self awareness seem to be
Shaping up into (not a long range goal but rather)
A deeply personal life long pursuit, which
Has been aiming the spotlight of
My intuitive powers directly at the portion of
My self awareness, which has remained
Blind to the fact that tis waaay past time for
This parenting Instructor (who during
Her prime had guided thousands of families to
Embrace positive attitudes based in
Good humored, mutual respect) to
Pass the baton  to her sons and retire, so that
The story teller, waiting patiently
In the wings for today’s Insight-laden
Train of thought to emerge with readiness to
Switch tracks, can take center stage for more than
A few days after posts, recently penned but not yet
Published for public consumption are withdrawn from
Drafts to assure the bright side of my mind that
Any self-conceived, fire breathing dragon, biding
Its time to drag my positively focused sense of logic
Back into the terrifying darkness of its lair with
Plans to fry my deeply deserved self worth to
A crisp, yet again, will be seen so clearly as to be
Whittled down to plastic toy size, small enough to
Be held in the palm of my hand, barring
The dark side of my mind from smoking up
The true light of days, weeks, months
And years to come in which
My spirit’s smile, feeling freed from
Yesteryear’s undeserved guilt, at long last, will
Mindfully absorb it just reward of
Enjoying a life well-lived, having mustered
The patience, courage and tenacious humility
Time and again, to believe in my brain’s
Expansive capacity to gather, absorb and
Store a wealth of knowledge, which empowers
The untarnished portion of my processor to
Guide my host of inner strengths towards growing
Ever more emotionally mature with each step that
My heart chooses to take as my loved ones and
I, hand in hand in hand, continue to approach
The great unknown, recharging each other’s
Positively focused connection to hope for
Change for the better—much more often than not ...

PLTG

Written and posted, today, Monday, August 19th ...
With each episode of PTSD ( or in my case PLTG as in pain leading to gain) my hard won inner strengths eventually expand and deepen like the roots of a tree, which serve to nourish and stabilize its trunk—or in my case, the core of my self worth—which, while branching out ever more securely, also grows so well grounded as to weather each next storm that reality suggests must be borne.

As to what I need most whenever a current situation overwhelms my thought processor (by sucking my self worth into a subconscious eruption of yesteryear’s haunting, daunting, little house of horrors) is threefold—unconditional love, emotional support and time wisely spent with my therapist, who, being well trained in EMDR therapy, guides my processor (ever so patiently) toward spotlighting and rewiring each newly exposed, deeply traumatized, self depreciating pathway of thought, which, upon feeling stimulated to emerge from subconscious repression, distorts my current self image to match whatever I’d misconceived about my three year old self during the months following my baby sister’s death when nothing I did could hold back the emotionally reactive storms that had ‘declared’ any natural demonstration of ‘naughtiness’ on my part to be a burden too great to bear for every broken heart that I’d loved.  And just as spontaneously as lightening had struck our home twice within a matter of weeks, initially, each uprising of PLTG burns my personal sense of self worth to a crisp right after anything that currently awakens an unprocessed fear left unidentified during childhood’s most traumatized moments prods each next episode of PTSD to erupt from its subconscious hideout to suck my processor’s connection to logic and personal safety into the little house of horrors, yet again, where, likened to my three year old brain, my adult think tank is stripped of its hard won, acquired inner strengths, leaving my processor feeling utterly powerless as well as furious that I’ve not yet wrestled this subconscious adversary to the mat—I mean seriously—as valiantly as I work to retrain my brain—where is my Rocky moment?

Please know full well that while I’m making my way ever so slowly but intuitively through this most recent eruption of deeply repressed childhood unprocessed pain, my well practiced power of intuition continues to muster the courage to take yet another leap of faith over yesteryear’s emergent fears concerning my unworthiness toward seeking insight into the specific causalities that triggered this lengthy strike of anxiety to spike so high as to stimulate my defense system to protect my stressed-to-the-max processor from bursting a cerebral blood vessel and stroking out by knocking out my think tank with one wallop of a punch, thus ‘shanghai-ing’ my connection to logic ... forcing my brain, which had been in a relentless state of overdrive for several months—beginning last October, when I was unable to ungarble my speech—to consider nothing other than my exhausted need to cocoon so as to—rest—rest—rest ... until deeply strained mental pain leads to gain, as in PLTG
Annie

PS
After sending this message
My heart, missing my friend, stirred
And much to my surprise
I  chose to see her for a brief spell
The very next day ...

LETS DEEPEN OUR UNDERSTANDING OF PTSD

 Sometimes emotional reactiveness swirling around inside our brains is too overwhelming to think straight ... and that is definitely true of those who experience episodes of PTSD, most especially when sneak attacks of PTSD remain undiagnosed over most of one’s life.

Being that some of my self perceptions, concerning subconscious expectations, are still perfectionistic, I tend to feel much more angry with myself than with those who have wronged me, and that dichotomy creates swirling sensations of inner conflict so overwhelming as to spin my processor’s connection to logic into a state of dizziness that disrupts my think tank’s hold onto mental clarity.  I have come to call episodes of PTSD ‘sneak attacks’, because they sucker punch my processor without so much as a hint of warning that my inner strengths, having stretched beyond human endurance, are succumbing to spiking anxiety that feels so darkly fearsome as to knock out any conscious connection to logic before I can acknowledge that, once again, mental exhaustion releases ghosts, long repressed, which blindside my awareness to the fact that yesteryear’s unprocessed terror has been freed to emerge from subconscious repression, casting my brain into no man’s land where my smarts are overwhelmed by the sudden descent of childhood’s unresolved depression as if I’ve stepped off of a sandbar only to feel myself sucked into a riptide so swiftly as to feel unable to stop myself from floundering, breathlessly, feeling utterly unmoored —drowning in a downward spiraling mind maze—yet again  ...

The first time that this subconscious spinning sensation of drowning sucked my connection to emotional safety into the depths of the dark side of my brain occurred two years after my father’s death when I’d unconsciously begun to relive the daunting nature of haunting experiences, which were based in my repressed belief (at the age of three) that any time my mother’s frown appeared, I was somehow at fault for not meeting her needs, and therefore I’d felt subconsciously unworthy of her love.

Over recent years, time well spent in therapy has offered me insight into understanding many emotional triggers that stimulate an episode of PTSD to suddenly erupt, though there are times when I have no conscious clue as to what has stimulated a mind swirling episode of PTSD to arise from within the depths of my dark side, striking down the vibrancy of my spirit so spontaneously as to suck all of my think tank into yesteryear’s unprocessed, dark house of horror, yet again, as was the case, early last week ...

So, if, beginning at the age of three, my self worth has depended upon my taking care of my mother’s needs (evolving to include the needs of everyone I loved) by denying the very existence of my own and if, during recent years, I’ve been choosing to love myself, vulnerabilities and all, then perhaps my current challenge is to identify, voice and meet my needs without worrying, subconsciously about feeling so selfish as to find myself unloved and alone whenever my needs and those of my loved ones conflict—I mean, I wish anxiety would not spike as soon as I feel need to say:  Truly, I wish I could say yes to your request but I can’t—so deep runs my fear of disappointing anyone so as to feel as adrift and alone as had proved true of a deeply confounded, terrified three year old child, who’d had no clue that human emotional reactivity knows no bounds during lengthy times of intense grief,  and thus does today’s train of thought reveal a lot about the emotional pressure that I’d mistakenly absorbed to be whomever my birth family had needed of me beginning at the highly vulnerable age of three, when the development of a child’s self worth is determined by voice tones and facial expressions that shine or scowl in his/her direction before the undeveloped nature of the young think tank can even begin to fathom the emotional complexity of irrational human interactions ...

As I’m just beginning to emerge from the self protective cocoon that my defense system felt need to weave around my whole being during last week’s spiraling descent into the dark side of my brain (no light sabers in sight to offer my power of intuition spotlights of insight concerning why my processor felt so suddenly, utterly engulfed within an emotionally suffocating depression until yesterday), I’m planning to publish trains of thought that my think tank felt compelled to write, over these past few days, though my power of intuition did not feel ready to reveal these thought for public consumption until my descent into PTSD began to lift, today.  Why not?  Thus far, Insight has offered me no conscious clue ...

I’m not planning to publish these thoughts in any order, because most of my processor was still feeling swamped within a darkened state of subconscious disorder when one string of insights after another seemed to filter out of my depths on its own ...

The human brain, having suffered early life trauma, remains as mysterious a phenomenon as is true of the magnetic attraction that pulls one person toward another though strangers they may be ... offers me reason to believe that feeling intuitive need to seek out deeper truths, which we do not know that we’ve hidden anxiously from our conscious selves, will always feel more fascinating than fiction can hope to be ...

KINDNESS

Three things in human life are important
The first is to be kind
The second is to be kind
The third is to be kind
     —Henry James

During the heyday of Henry James
Insight into the fourth thing that’s important
Had not yet been spotlighted by psychology’s
Expanding definition of sound mental health

The fourth thing in life that’s known to be
Important, today, is a heightened awareness of
Intuitive powers guiding each of us to
Sense when to be kind to oneself

And kind to myself is what
I need to be, right now—Why?
I’m feeling anxiously overwhelmed and have
No conscious clue as to why that is true

IS MY FIXER IN TRANSITION FROM BOILING OVER TOWARD HOT TUBBING, AT LAST?

The train of thought below was written on Monday, August 5th, to a dear friend who has been patiently awaiting my readiness to enjoy time, together since I arrived on the coast—

Ever since Thursday, July 25th when Will and I drove from the desert to the coast with Ravi in tow (where we three celebrated Ray’s eighth birthday with extended family), time spent alone is what I’ve craved most.  Why?  I’d stretched much too far mentally, emotionally and physically during the three weeks that Steven had need of me to take care of our four year old grand daughter in the aftermath of his house flood, and ever since he and Celina (both of whom joined us on the coast several days later) drove back to the desert on Sunday, August 3rd, with Ravi in tow, I’ve listened seriously to my mind, body and spirit’s deeply personal need for peace and quiet.  As to why Ravi came with us, everyone in the family, including me, wanted her to be on the coast in time to enjoy her cousin Ray’s eighth birthday party (celebrated on Saturday), and Steven couldn’t leave the desert till Sunday.  So I, loving how close knit my family proves to be, repeatedly, chose to stretch my exhaustion—again.

During this past week, while my three sons enjoyed each other and their families at the time share resort where our whole family eagerly convenes, every summer, I made good use of the self assertive portion of my voice, and as everyone observed and respected my exhaustion, I chose to spend most of my time alone.   Craving time alone when my family is together is very new to me.  But respecting that inner need is necessary.  Though everyone is always undergoing some stage of personal transition (for better or worse) I, feeling myself moving through an active state of mental change, have not yet identified which self debasing character trait I may be in the process of shedding.

Though this unidentified change taking place inside my head feels somehow distressing, growth spurts experienced in the past encourage me to take a leap of faith toward believing that as challenging as this period of transition proves to be, my fully recharged mental strengths will land on both feet in a place that feels as intuitively natural as would a well practiced Olympiad gymnast, having challenged her/himself to achieve a quadruple spiral through the air.

While undergoing this mentally challenging change, I am early to bed, late to arise.  I feel resistant to talking and am writing much less than usual.  In fact—I’m cocooning.

Makes me wonder if shedding old wings before sprouting a wider wing span at each stage of life is as painful for adults as it is for a baby cutting molars, which will wiggle around, bleed, and fall out before wisdom teeth come in ...

Actually, while expressing all of this to you, I’ve just clarified a lot for myself concerning what's taking place that I can feel but not see inside my think tank's cocoon.  In fact, I wonder if it’s too much to hope that a conglomeration of tensely compressed, deeply repressed emotional reactions stemming from a host of steamy, long lasting frustrations, each of which proves way beyond my control to repair, is in the process of morphing from compressed complacency toward realistic combustibility while my defense system's rebelliousness readies itself to accept that which I cannot change so that, as unprocessed angst emerges all at once (like a pot of stew boiling over while the blind, leading the blind, continue to turn up the burner on the stove, notch by notch, time must pass before this geyser-like, subconscious release can be accurately assessed as to the depths of my fury (concerning each frustration) by the conscious portion of my naturally intuitive brain (Aha!  here comes my imagination, thinking wishfully that with emergence, the whole stormy lot will evaporate into thin air.  Gosh!  Wishful thinking aside, wouldn’t a release of deeply repressed, utterly congealed angst prove to be a wholesome change, indeed, for a mind as active as mine, which proves in need of relaxing by consciously offering itself more down time to rest if I am head off episodes of PTSD before I pass exhaustion's point of no return.  Then, I signed the text with an emoji heart preceding my name.

Hmmm—I sure hope that most of the text (paraphrased above) is not wishful thinking—oh wait!  I just spotted My Fixer reaching for my sunscreen while readying herself to slip into my bathing suit so as to head out to the hot tub overlooking the resort's serene ocean view!  Sounds good, right?  In fact, I’m about to pull today’s train of thought into a rest station so that the sum of my parts can slide wholly into the water that’s bubbling up in a most inviting way as though warmly welcoming my decision to stop writing in favor of relaxing—

Hey!
Hold the presses!
Tis light bulb flashing time inside my mind!
Insight has just spotlighted this probability—
My first thought (about cocooning while shedding a self-debasing trait) was not my best thought, because rather than shedding a self-debasing trait, the conscious portion of my mind has just landed upon this reality:  One of my positively focused traits has been actively gaining strength, and the name of this high self esteeming, self confident trait is my self assertive voice, which in the past could not say no to certain loved ones, because I’d felt that their needs had preempted mine—namely my three sons.  However now that each has grown to full-fledged manhood—my vision of my mothering self (which has actively been in flux for quite some time), can clearly see that I’ve been shedding my think tank's  idealistic attitude concerning motherhood in favor of expanding my processor's wingspan!

Without a shadow of doubt based in undeserved guilt, ‘tis my time in life to expand my wings so as to offer my spirit the freedom to soar, not above the classic dramas of family life, but high enough to enjoy and re-energize my good health by inspiring my think tank to wholly accept my need to retire The Fixer as well as my Control Freak, who has long been pounding away at my neo Cortex, begging my intelligence to ready itself to admit to need for subconscious release.  And as today’s sense of clarity glances reflectively over the past several decades of my life, I come to see that these two traits have comprised my Thing One and Thing Two, who, left on their own, had overwhelmed my peace of mind by sweeping my think tank into the eye of one gritty sandstorm after another, most of which had not been mine to clean up, over most of my life!

In short, as Oliver Livingston Seagull had need to learn—I've consciously known it unnecessary for me to lead the flock; however, subconsciously that's not what I'd felt—leaving my peace of mind torn in two.   In fact,  I had to exhaust, several times, in order to feel that tis way past time for my middle aged wings relax and fall back within the formation, knowing full well, that as hard as the winds blow, the minds of my three sons, each heading his own flock, are as well rooted in family values as their spirits have been free to scout out the great unknown that lies ahead of each of us as well as our family's flock as a whole.  And thus does today's intuitive train of thought spotlight the string of insights, which, given time to process and absorb the monumental restructuring of this change for the better in my attitude, will refocus my think tank toward more consciously and consistently upon relaxing my mind before exhaustion sucker punches my mental strengths, freeing PTSD to entrap and swallow my intellect's hold on logic into that little house of horrors, where three year old me had mistakenly held my positively focused smile accountable for empowering everyone I'd encountered to join in my mission to overcome their dark sides without doing a whit of internal work necessary to achieve the universal nature of one of life's most arduous tasks.  If knowledge is power, and if seeking knowledge concerning the complexity of the human brain is my advocation, then where did I go wrong?

I'm as naive as the next person, who remembers that the exploration of the human brain is in its infancy.  I have not studied neuropsychology.  I studied communication skills—and I thank my lucky stars for that, because otherwise, the bright side of my brain may never have grown so intuitive as to communicate openly and honestly with the dark side of my imagination.

As to whether the probability penned above will prove to be a factuality—time will tell.  As for now, my need to cocoon while surrounded by my beloved family makes sense!  And since today's thought process has made its way through yet another foggy segment of emotional combustion within my brain space so as to spotlight common sense beckoning my think tank to come in for a soft landing, followed by a hug, peace of mind has been naturally restored—at least momentarily.

Seriously—up until today, I’d had no conscious clue that, over this past year, I’ve been working to expand my mindset (wingspan) so as to develop the ability to state (simply, clearly, self confidently and graciously) that respecting my needs as I age is as important to me as satisfying my adult sons’ need of me.  I mean what devoted mother says that aloud?  The answer to that last question is—a mother who, though devoted to every member of her family, intuitively comes to see that she cannot expect anyone to respect her needs unless she can calmly, patiently and with good nature intact—assertively clarify her needs to one and all—including me—especially my need to recognize when to replenish my energy source, which, with every birthday, runs out of steam more quickly while demanding more downtime to refuel.  Speaking from experience, even the white whiskered Energizer Bunny (which had once-upon-a-time twinned with me) has need to be replaced or restored to full capacity upon morphing into a rechargeable variety—and that’s the truth.

BOOK ONE—END FIRST KISS Part 12: NO WAY, JOSE!

Might
Life be easy, breezy if
Unearthing Boogie Men buried alive
Deep inside our minds proved
Less challenging once
We feel intuitive need to
Pull them back out and
Confront them, eye to eye?

No way Jose!
Because
When it comes to
Life or love
If it's not one thing
Driving us crazy
It’s another
And that's The TRUTH!

BTW in case you’re wondering why
Part 10B skipped straight to Part 12
The answer to that riddle lies in this fact:
Somehow, I managed to delete Part 11
Suggesting that inner conflict, concerning
Boogie Men haunting peace of mind, is not
The only mental conundrum to
Drive a sane person close to crazy

BOOK ONE—END FIRST KISS PART 10B ELVIS AND ED—September 9, 1956

As time goes on
Facts jumble up inside our heads like
Jelly beans on a trampoline
And once facts have leaped from
Here to there, guess what layers up?
Mythology, and once
Mythology makes mincemeat of facts
Few may recall how much
The truth matters to peace of mind for
One and all

Paraphrasing Wikipedia:
Sullivan’s Show of Shows
Was the first show that
Televised The King on national TV

Whoops!  Glancing back at
The previous statement
One word is missing, which
In its absence, transforms
Truth into fiction—so
Before moving on
Let’s each take a moment to plug that
Missing puzzle piece into its proper place
Ah!  That feels better!
Wouldn’t it be great if retrieving
Missing puzzle pieces, buried subconsciously
Proved that Easy Peasy!

Quoting Wikipedia:
“Elvis mythology states that Sullivan censored Presley by only shooting him from the waist up. Sullivan may have helped create the myth when he told TV Guide, ‘as for his gyrations, the whole thing can be controlled with camera shots.’ In truth Presley's whole body was shown in the first and second shows.”

While considering the statement directly above
I came to see that my brain sure did fool me!
Though I’d watched Elvis perform on Ed’s
Show of Shows, I’d believed the myth about
TV cameras having been focused above his waist
Over most of my life

And thus has today’s train of thought
Illustrated sound reason to suggest that
Your intuitive inner spy may be
As inclined as mine to feel need to
Dive into the deep end of your mind from
Time to time so as to spotlight
Missing puzzle pieces, which
Upon being plugged back into
The true story of your life, will expand
The bigger picture in ways that naturally
Brighten a portion of your self image, which
Had darkened when you were too young to
Think clearly and objectively for
Yourself about yourself

If we stop to reflect for one more moment
About those two statements, concerning
Elvis and Ed, we can see how easily
Fact transforms into fiction with
The elimination of
Just one not so insignificant word

At this point, you might like to state that
Neither of those discrepancies matter, today
However, what does matter as
Time marches on is the attitude that
We choose to employ upon
Growing aware of the fact that
Our best character traits have been
Slandered by a person whose narrow minded
Egocentric focus has perceived that he or she
Has something to gain by causing us pain
Just ask Simba—he knows of what I speak