Category: Depression

Posted in Child abuse, Depression, Emotions

Energy of Activation

Posted on by debthumanblog

That’s from a college biology class. Enzymes lower the energy necessary for activation of cell processes. There is nothing to lower the energy of activation necessary for an entire body to act, to create, to do something besides sit.

Do I bat away the unwanted memories and feelings? All from childhood and all caused by parents who hated me. Is there ever a time when the memories stay quiet?

I have no happy memories of childhood. Just times with my mother snarled at me, times when I was expected to know what adults know without the benefit of anyone telling me what it was I was supposed to know.

The memories have been coming in waves the last couple days. All unbidden. All unwanted as I was unwanted.

The memory of begging my mother to come to my college graduation. She didn’t allow me to take science or math classes in high school. I graduated from college with a degree in biology and another degree in journalism. She refused to come to my graduation.

I want to make the memories go away and never come back. While the abuse was happening, I stuffed the trauma into brain rooms I kept closed. Once I no longer lived with my hateful parents, the memories insisted on being heard and seen. Removing my toxic, drunken, violent, narcissistic mother from my life at age 37 didn’t make the memories stay quiet.

The horror of complex PTSD is the memories that refuse to stay quiet.

Let it go they said. How do I do that, I asked. There was no answer. Forgive they said. I don’t know how I said. There was no answer, no advice, no roadmap to inner peace.

I wrote out my anger and frustration. I painted out my childhood misery. I quilted out what I felt. The pain never leaves.

I can’t remember how many times I’ve been suicidal. Five or six is my best estimate. Times when I stood on the edge of death and turned around to walk away.

Will I always be able to walk away?

Or will my life end with a bullet?

I’m never going to have real parents who love me. Would it have spoiled some vast, eternal plan if I were to have had real parents? When I die, will God explain to me why I was singled out for such horrendous treatment?

I never deserved the abuse, but I got abused anyway. What purpose did that serve?

Make friends. How? What do I do with a friend? I grew up hiding in my room so I wouldn’t have to hear the hate and flinch from the blows. Blows that eventually caused the retina in my right eye to detach in places. Places where my retina was glued back down via laser.

Memory: I got dragged into church every Sunday. My mother once told me I didn’t have to sit with the family. But where else could I sit? Every seat was filled with loneliness and ever present sadness.

I tried other churches, but I never fit in.

When I started taking adult education classes at a temple, I suddenly fit in. I met other women who had demanding, professional careers. They could talk about something other than toilet training.

I learned to survive. I didn’t learn to live.

I’m always going to struggle to figure out what to do in social situations. At least I taught myself which fork to use. Hint: Start from the outside of the knives and forks and work your way into the mass of cutlery implement by implement until you reach your plate.

Every year, I got the flu the second day of Christmas vacation. Being sick meant I could mentally be somewhere else in my brain on Christmas. I remember being dragged to Christmas dinner clad in pajamas because I had the flu. Being sick never got me out of mandatory misery.

Each year, I get older. Each year, I read more about how social interactions (what the hell are those?) are necessary to stave off depression and dementia. I am terrified that I will be alone, unable to drive, and be miserable. More miserable than I am now.

I used to have people I chatted with after services. But then there was a pandemic. And then there was a rabbi I wasn’t fond of. I will force myself to go to a “women’s night out” at Chabad. I’m not sure why I’m reluctant to go.

I love taking classes at the local university. I don’t interact with my classmates. I am older than their grandmothers. What would we talk about?

One day, classmates talked about video games they played as they grew up. I couldn’t stand it. I told them that I grew up watching dead bodies being dragged out of Vietnam on the evening news. I didn’t tell them the first question when meeting a man was to ask what his draft number was. That number told me how involved I should get. No sense loving someone who would be shipped off to die.

I want to go to Hanukkah on the plaza. A giant menorah, city Christmas tree, lighted Christmas decorations. I want to stay home. I want to go and take photographs. I want to photograph the lights at night. I still want to stay home.

If I stay home, I won’t be disappointed. If I go, I will still be lonely and alone.

Something inside of me never learned how to navigate life.

Posted in Depression, Fiber, Peripheral neuropathy, Photography, Quilts

Art Heals

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’m having a peripheral neuropathy flareup. One of the sure antidotes to the pain is to make art. I had a major depressive episode Monday, and saw the beginnings of a quilt in my head. Or maybe it’s the beginnings of a painting. I’m not entirely sure. I thought about how bipolar disorder, or any DSM-V label, separates the person with the illness from the rest of the world. Like the time I listened to a woman clearly old enough to know better talk trash about someone who had bipolar disorder. When I told her I have bipolar disorder, she literally backed away from me. Gotta watch out for those mental illness cooties.

I dug out my box of fabric and started auditioning fabric for this quilt.

This usually takes a long time. Today was not usually. Today, the fabrics jumped out of the box and insisted on being put together. I was careful about values. How many times have quilters gotten out fabrics and then realized every fabric was a medium value. The red is medium bordering on dark, but I didn’t find a fabric I liked better.

Start here:

End here.

I”ve been playing around with moon shots lately. We’ve had partially cloudy skies and I wanted to get some of the cloud feeling into the shot. The shot, without any editing, is the top photo. I shoot in RAW rather than JPEG. Current thinking is that because modern sensors are so much more sensitive, there’s no need for RAW. RAW files are huge and take up a whole lot of room on the hard drive or the external storage. I don’t use the cloud. I don’t trust the security and someone dumping child pornography into your cloud account can net you many years in a federal prison. Worse, because cloud users don’t own the cloud, the feds don’t need users’ permission to run barefoot through all the person has stored. Because the user doesn’t own the cloud, the user’s standing to contest the warrant or warrentless search is likely nil. Translation: if the feds find child pornography in your area of the cloud, you’re screwed.

The RAW advantage is the sensor records far more detail than JPEG. That advantage is critical when doing nature photography and you have only what nature has given you to work with. When I adjusted the exposure, the background was revealed. The photo is a whole lot more intriguing than the sky was when I took the original shot.

I’ve been playing around with photos in editing with the intention of using the final photo to design fabric. Lately, my Spoonflower shop has gotten a lot of traffic and I’ve had some sales. You can find my designs here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

I am linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Posted in Depression

Today’s Mood: Depressed

Posted on by debthumanblog

Today is Father’s Day, a day I hate. I didn’t have a father. The violent drunk my mother married never forgot that I was someone else’s kid. I tried talking to him after I found out I was adopted. He said he wasn’t my real father. That explains why I was never his real daughter. That explains why he gave his kids an allowance but didn’t give me an allowance until I begged for one. This explains why he hit me but not his real kids. I’d share a happy memory, but there are none. I’m supposed to be grateful that he gave me a name. I had a perfectly good name before I was adopted. Instead, I’m the family shame because my mother wasn’t married when I was born. That was a big deal in 1952. She married The Drunk a month before my fourth birthday because she didn’t want to send me to school without a father. That was for her benefit. She was a violent, drunken narcissist and never did anything for anyone else’s benefit.

Father’s Day and Mother’s Day are days when I am forced to remember that I never had parents.

Today is Tina’s yahrzeit – the anniversary of her death according to the Hebrew calendar. On the civil calendar, her anniversary is June 24. Of the three siblings I grew up with, she was the only one who seemed to like me.

And so I’m depressed. I’ll be okay as soon as the antidepressant kicks in.

Posted in Depression, Embroidery machine, Emotions

Ouch

Posted on by debthumanblog

It’s been 26 years since I last endured holiday hell. Used to be I’d go into a deep depression the third week of November and the depression would last until January 1. Holidays featured screaming, fighting, crying, bad food and that was just the first hour. It went downhill from there.

Two weeks ago, every story in my writing class featured being home for the holidays. I was shocked to discover the stories triggered a depressive response. A few days later, I needed to push a walker around. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my spine. This feels like strained muscles. Oddly, taking a double dose of antidepressant relieved much of the pain. I’ve got an appointment with a massage therapist later this week.

I’ve been working on some art.

I’ve been making free standing lace ornaments featuring a nativity scene.

I tried using metallic thread for this. It a frustrating process.

These and other ornaments are in my store, Deb Thuman Art which you can find here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

I’ve been working on the quilt for my painting class. Because I can’t find stock images that would be suitable for quilting, I’m working on making my own images. It’s slow going.

I’ve also been working on fabric designs.

Once the blocks get put together, they look so different. You can find these and other designs in my Spoonflower shop here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-idea-continues-on-off-wall-friday.html

Posted in bipolar disorder, Depression

I’m heading into a depressive episode

Posted on by debthumanblog

I have bipolar disorder. My moods have a mind of their own. Without medication, I have mood slams. With medication, I have mood swings. It’s an improvement.

There’s nothing in my life at the moment that would necessitate a depressive episode. In fact, things are going remarkably well. I got into a painting class that I wanted. My brain is going into overdrive coming up with ideas for paintings. I drew out on canvas the first painting and I like what I am seeing. In class today, I’ll work on color charts. I want to work with one color plus white and ivory black. Ivory black has blue in it so when it’s mixed with yellow and white, interesting greens appear. I’m curious to see what happens if I use reds, violets, and yellows. Do the reds make violet when mixed with white and ivory black?

I got into the writing class that I wanted. This is going to be an interesting class. Much younger than the creative writing classes I’ve taken in the past. I’m looking forward to writing some of the scary stuff I’ve been thinking of. What I’ll be writing is what’s inside of me.

So why am I depressed? I have no clue.

Posted in Antisemitism, anxiety, Depression, Embroidery machine, Emotions, Fiber, Grief, Psych meds

Fighting To Get To Center

Posted on by debthumanblog

I more or less survived last week. I’m still alive – which is a major accomplishment. Last week, I wrote about my sister’s yahrzeit and my emotional fallout. Tuesday evening, I lit a candle and said kaddish.

Meanwhile, I’m seeing more and more the effects of the hate crimes and antisemitism are having on me. I’m back on anti-anxiety med. My stomach hurts. I know I need to sleep but I’m wide awake and watching the clock go from 1 AM, to 2 AM and getting more and more anxious as the hands move around the clock.

Clumping around in a boot designed to make sure I don’t aggravate an injured achilles tendon is causing me to have back, hip and leg pain. I’m cleared to go to the gym provided I avoid any machine that involves using my ankles. Except I’m too depressed to go to the gym. I hate this. I’ve had to go back to the full dose of my antidepressant. Being depressed is depressing which causes me to be more depressed. Depression – the ultimate perpetual motion machine.

I have some choices. I’ve contacted an attorney I know who handles civil rights cases. Apparently he’s not interested in my case because I never heard back. I could go to the State Police and ask them to investigate the campus police, but I doubt it would do any good. I could go to the US Department of Justice and ask for help under Title VI, but dealing with the feds means watching cobwebs grow around my case. I could go to the state attorney general although I’ve dealt with the general counsel for higher education who refused to help me. No one cases that Jewish students aren’t safe on campus. I am afraid of being physically attacked on campus. At least my handicap hangtag lets me park next to the door of the art building.

And I’m having a crisis of religion. Not faith – my faith is solid. It’s my temple that gives me pause. It’s a reform temple, and I fit into Reform Judaism. But the temple is now and has been in financial crisis for several years. The board had decided to arbitrarily raise everyone’s dues. They expect 20% of one’s gross income. Unless you earn $120K or more. Then the board expects 2%. Meanwhile, they are squeezing nickels and dimes out of people. There was a Purim celebration and members were asked to bring hamantaschen – special cookies made for Purim. Then, people were asked to pay $7 per family to get in to the celebration. Bring food then pay to eat it.

The only other temple in town is Chabad House. I like the rabbi. I loved the class I took on medical ethics. The rabbi is actively working with the university president to attempt to ensure Jewish students are safe on campus. My rabbi is doing nothing.

Unfortunately, Chabad is orthodox and I’m not. I dislike the separation of men and women under the theory that women will be a distraction to the men. That comes dangerously close to blame the victim. I dislike the limited role women have in orthodox Judaism. Their role is to have kids and have a dead-end job so the husband can spend his days in the library studying. Just one problem….women’s reproductive organs have an expiration date. So what is this woman with limited education and limited skills supposed to do after she can’t have more children?

So what am I to do? I miss going to services but I can’t tolerate the leave it alone and antisemitism will solve itself attitude the reform temple has. I fought too hard to get an education and to be an equally-paid attorney to give up and not be allowed to fully participate in an orthodox temple.

So here I sit. No temple to go to for services. Not going to the gym because I’m too depressed. Clumping around making me more depressed. Bleah.

Posted in bipolar disorder, Child abuse, Depression, Emotions, Fiber, Mental Illness, Photography, Psych meds, PTSD

I’m Not Myself Right Now

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’ve finally reached the point where I can start to integrate the crap that happened to me growing up, feel the feelings it wasn’t safe to feel then, and start to heal both mentally and physically. If you’re wondering what I’m writing about, it’s child abuse. My mother was a violent, drunken narcissist who had four children she didn’t want and made real sure we knew she didn’t want us. Her husband was a violent drunk. By the time I was 10, I had myself and three siblings to raise. I mirrored what I was my mother doing and did a lousy job of raising myself and siblings. I grew up hiding in my room so I wouldn’t have to hear them yell, literally, at me and hit me. I had no idea there was anything unusual about my family. At the age of 9, I had such severe depression that even the kids in my class noticed. One boy asked me what was wrong. His words had to go through many layers of water before I could hear them. Then, I had to formulate an answer, and the words had to go through many layers of water before I could say them. I eventually told him nothing was wrong. I wasn’t lying or covering anything up. I truly had no idea that there was any other kind of family.

I’ve been reading The Body Keeps The Score. It’s not an easy book to read and I can only read it in small doses. I’ve been doing micro-dosing with ketamine for little longer than a year and I finally found a therapist who takes my insurance and accepts new patients. The combination is allowing me to feel what I felt at the time the crap was happening. I’m even getting the stress pains I had at the time. It sucks. But it’s the only way to integrate what happened into whole memories and process them into something I can live with. At the moment, they are fractured memories that cause a plethora of physical problems.

Meanwhile, I’m working my way through the current trauma of a hate crime, antisemitism, and confronting terrorist wannabes – students being manipulated by real terrorists and being conned into thinking antisemitism is a good thing. I’m angry. I’m pissed. I want to scream. I’m considering a civil rights suit against the university.

And so I’m not myself. I’m having reactions out of proportion to events. I’m sounding like a crazed woman. I’m not having fun. It sucks.

Art. It ain’t called art therapy for nothing. I can lose myself in art. I can figure myself out in art. So often, I don’t understand what’s going on inside of me until it comes out of my hands. I’m working on a sequel to the novel I finished. Like the first novel, the main characters are a woman who is my age, Jewish, and a criminal defense attorney. Her lover is a police officer. In the first novel, I wrote about an officer involved shooting, mental illness and people who are homeless. (Unhoused is such a sanitary, offensive PC word and I won’t use it.) This time, I’ll be writing about antisemitism and hate crimes. What’s inside of me needs a voice. I’m considering taking a writing class in the fall. That could be dangerous for me. I’m hoping I can bring Brady, my service dog in training and the world’s cutest labradoodle, to class with me.

I’ve been playing around with my embroidery machine. And I’ve been surfing eBay for embroidery thread bargains. I found a doozy and it will arrive on Monday. I’ve played a bit with making my own designs.

The ferns are my design, the border is a stock design from the embroidery machine.

I bought a set of Hebrew fonts and started playing with them. The Hebrew is shalom. Shalom is one of those multi-purpose words. It’s use for hello, goodby and peace. Peace meaning the absence of war, but also a deep personal inner peace. The Star of David is done with variegated thread and I like how it came out.

We had a particularly bright moon last night. It’s a smidge past full, but well worth photographing. I used a 400mm lens. Sure would be nice to have something like a 12,000 mm lens, but that’s far outside of my photography budget.

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

My store, Deb Thuman Art, is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

Posted in Depression, Emotions, Memories, PTSD, Unwanted Children

Depressed

Posted on by debthumanblog

That’s how I feel and it’s getting worse by the minute. I have two bad days a year: April 1 and June 24. April 1 was my youngest sister’s birthday. June 24 was the anniversary of her death. Melanoma killed her. She was 35.

I’ve been plagued by memories – none of them happy. My mother went into labor on a Sunday morning. When we got home from church, The Drunk told us we had a sister. My brother, a few months shy of 5, burst into tears. “You promised me a brother!” Way to go Drunk!

When I was 11 and Tina, my youngest sister, was 13 months old, she played with oven cleaner. My mother watcher her do it. After cleaning my sister off, she put the oven cleaner soaked sneakers back on my sister. My sister spent the next four hours crying. My mother spent the next four hours yelling, literally, at my sister telling her to stop crying. Eventually, Tina’s diaper needed changing. That’s when my mother noticed Tina had second and third degree chemical burns from the waist down. Off they went to the emergency room. Because they were Caucasian and had enough income to afford health insurance, no one at the hospital bothered to call child protective services.

Many years ago, the Olympic event featuring skiers doing tricks and turns was called hot dogging. Tina and her friends went skiing. It was a miserable day with freezing rain. Tina said the weather was so bad she did the last run with her eyes closed. When she got to the bottom of the hill, her friends asked her where she learned to do all that hot dogging. Tina responded that she didn’t know how to ski. That may sound like resilience, but it wasn’t. It was the legacy of child abuse. You didn’t ask for help in my house. You figured out how to do it yourself or face the wrath of two drunks.

When my sister had her first period. She didn’t tell anyone. She knew there was always an assortment of feminine hygiene products under the bathroom sink, so she grabbed a pad, pinned it in her pants, and went to school. That wasn’t resilience either. When I had my first period, I didn’t want to say anything to my mother because I was sure she would bitch at me. The next morning, there was more blood in my panties and I was stuck telling my mother. To my shock, she didn’t bitch at me.

The last week, I’ve had a cascade of miserable memories. Tina died in 1997. A friend saw the death notice and called to ask how I was. That’s when my friend discovered I had no idea my sister died. I didn’t even know she was ill. After I hung up the phone, I heard keening for the first time. It’s the most blood curdling sound you can imagine, and it came out of me.

My mother had decreed I wasn’t to know Tina was sick or that she had died. To tell me meant getting cut out of the will. My surviving sister, hereinafter The Fruitcake, told me the reason no one told me Tina was sick was because I’m a horrible person. I never asked my mother and The Drunk for money, I put myself through college, I put myself through law school, I’ve only been married once, and I’ve never had an abortion. Clearly I’m every mother’s worst nightmare.

The universe gave me revenge. My mother spent the last years of her life in a nursing home and there was nothing left for my greedy siblings to inherit. Even so, they refused to tell me our mother had died. I only knew because I got a notice from Legacy.com. I had to crash the funeral. My remaining siblings were shocked to see me.

All these years later, I still can’t get past April 1 without major depression. I’ll do something special for me tomorrow. I might take Brady and go on an adventure. I’m considering going to Mesilla (where Billy The Kid hung out) and doing some photography. I’d like to have lunch someplace, but I’m not sure where I want to go. I’d suggest going to Albuquerque, but there’s nothing much I want to do there and the Albuquerque Fiber Arts Fiesta is in two weeks. I don’t feel like making two major trips that close together.

Listening to Roger Daltry sing Behind Blue Eyes isn’t helping although it does explain how I feel. Sort of.

I hate my mother. I don’t apologize for that. She was a violent, drunken narcissist who had four kids she didn’t want and made very sure we knew she never wanted us.

Please make it stop hurting.

No one can make it stop hurting.

This is how it felt from my fourth birthday in 1956 until the day I got married in 1972. It never stopped hurting. It was never happy.

Posted in Antisemitism, Depression

It Won’t Last

Posted on by debthumanblog

Even The NY Times, a notoriously anti-Israel paper, has to admit every so often, that hamas is horrible, they are terrorists and what happened in Israel is horrendous. Still, the paper cranks out endless articles about damage – personal and property – in Gaza and blames Israel. That’s like saying Ukraine is at fault for being invaded by Russia.

After 9/11, the United States blew up two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan. We were given excuses. Rescue Christian missionaries. Find weapons of mass destruction. Make money for Halliburton. But no one blamed the United States for retaliating against a vicious terrorist attack. The United States sent an elite team into Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden. But all of that is okay. If you believe what the United States has done is permissible and righteous, you can’t criticize Israel for retaliating against a terrorist attack orchestrated by a deranged man who says his purpose is to wipe out Israel and kill Jews.

We’re having a semester break right now. I don’t have to worry about what the hate criminal will do next. I don’t have to wonder if I’m safe on campus. Actually, I never have to wonder that. I’m not safe on campus. I don’t have to worry about surviving a physical attack long enough for the police to arrive. I don’t have to check my pockets to make sure I have my pepper gel and stun gun before getting into the car to drive to school because we’re having a semester break. This more or less calm won’t last. It will disappear the instant I park on campus when. the spring semester starts.

During this uneasy time out, I’m battling bone-crushing depression. I have to force myself to brush my teeth. I have to force myself to take a shower. I have to force myself to put on clean underwear. Every few days, I have to take a double dose of my antidepressant in order to function for a couple days. I can’t keep taking a double dose because after two, or at best three, days, I become a zombie. I have jewelry photographed, but I haven’t found the energy to list the jewelry in my on-line store http://www.DebThumanArt.com. I have two bras half made, but I don’t have the energy to finish them. At least I’m not suicidal, which is the happiest thing I can say.

I’ve been thinking about what I want to paint in the spring semester. Frida Kahlo said she wasn’t a surrealist; she painted her own reality. I’ll be painting my own reality. It won’t be pretty art. My art never is.

This is the sketch for a series of self portraits I want to paint. I have no mouth because no one in academic administration hears me. I’m alone. There is no chapter of Hillel. There is no chapter of Chabad. The Anti-Defamation League is spread so thin, they don’t have the resources to help me. I’m alone, scared, armed and voiceless. I have to decide if I want to keep the painting flat like the sketch, or if I want to give some dimension to the face and shoulders. I’ve been considering making the sketch into a quilt, but I’m so far behind on sewing, I am worried I’d never get it finished.

Am Yisrael Chai

The People of Israel Live

Posted in Depression, Emotions, Photography

Nobody Hears Me

Posted on by debthumanblog

Frequently, I don’t understand what’s going on inside of me until it comes out of my hand. I’m on the receiving end of a hate crime, and it has infected every part of my life. I took a double dose of antidepressant today, and I’m still depressed.

And so I turned to art. I’ve been playing with text mask in photo editing.

This is what I say.

This is what people hear.

They all say “Please make it stop hurting.” I used a regular font, and a symbol font. The unintelligible one are what I think people hear. Except I don’t think they are hearing anything.

What do I do with all this? Have it printed and turn it into an art quilt? Have it printed and. turn it into a series of art quilts?

Posted in Depression, Emotions, Israel, Judiasm, Photography

A Brief Period of Uneasy Calm

Posted on by debthumanblog

I couldn’t bring myself to go to the painting studio on campus this week. I’m feeling better, calmer, and it’s transitory. I’ll be back on campus on Monday. I’m still afraid. I’m still angry. I’m afraid my painting will be ruined by the person who flung the hate crime at me. I’m afraid of being physically attacked by hamas sympathizers.

I don’t like feeling like this.

Meanwhile, someone hacked my website, http://www.DebThumanArt.com. When I checked my site, I got a page warning me that I was about to visit a page full of malware. It took several hours, but I finally got the page fixed. According to Wix, there’s no malware on my page. There is some interesting art on my page and all of it for sale.

I started playing around with a photo I took several months ago.

I was set to get into bed when I looked out the window and saw a big, orange moon setting. I grabbed my camera, went outside without wearing shoes or a jacket, and started shooting.

I’ve been playing with text. Rather than using one of the regular fonts, I started using symbol fonts. This is what you get when you write: LILIL over and over.

This one is Love written over and over.

I just finished ordering proofs of 96 fabric designs. Once the proofs arrive, I’ll be putting the designs into my Spoonflower shop https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman I finally put the 84 designs that had been sitting and waiting for me into the store.

Am Yisrael Chai!

The people of Israel live!

Posted in anxiety, Bigotry, Brady, Depression, Fiber, Israel, Judiasm, Quilts

Alone In A Sea of Hate

Posted on by debthumanblog

Every time I think I’m over reacting, I realize what happened is worse than I thought. First, I thought the person’s reaction was odd. Then, I realized it was anti-semitism. Then, I discovered the person slandered me. Then I discovered the university views slander as protected speech. It’s not; but I know the attorney who made that decision and I’m not surprised by such a glaring misstatement of law.

22K+ students at NMSU, and I’m the lone Jew. Hillel has no presence on campus. Chabad has no presence on campus. In 44 semesters of continuing education, only twice was there another Jew in my class.

I’m alone.

I’m armed at all times when I’m on campus. I carry pepper gel and a stun gun. I have a safety plan in place. I have the campus police telephone number programmed into my phone.

According to the president of the university, if I’m upset by what’s happening in Israel, I should go to counseling. According to the Office of Institutional Equity, if I’m upset by the hate crime hurled at me, I should go to counseling.

This past Tuesday, I went to the campus police to report that what I thought was odd, rose to the level of a hate crime pursuant to New Mexico law. Knowing I couldn’t manage without Brady, my service dog in training, I took her with me. I had to hug her twice just to get through the day.

After taking to the police, I was so upset about being on the receiving end of a hate crime, I couldn’t eat and could not enjoy the drink I ordered at Starbucks. Brady and I explored the library. Here she is looking at books and searching for the book with the recipes for dog treats.

I had arranged to meet with my painting teacher outside of the painting studio. It was a good plan. Except I had to go into the painting studio to fetch my paintings and the hate criminal was in the painting studio.

The next morning, I woke up and decided the hate criminal had taken all she was going to take away from me and I was taking back my life. The hate criminal isn’t done with me yet. Apparently, she has the mental capacity of a 12-year-old and is doing petty, childish things just to piss me off. I’m doing my best to ignore her. She’s not going away, but neither am I.

My art has changed.

It’s not finished and the painting is on an easel so there’s only so much I can do to eliminate the background.

Also not finished and also still on the easel. Suddenly, I’m painting about being alone, I’m facing evil, and no one is going to help me. I’m trying not to hate Muslims. I’m trying to remember that Muslims are not terrorists and terrorists are not Muslims. Terrorists worship hatred and murder. News organizations have gotten recordings of terrorists’ cell phone calls bragging about murdering Jews on October 7, 2023.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, “Since the October 7th terrorist massacre by Hamas in Israel, we’ve seen a nearly 400 percent increase in antisemitic incidents across the United States.”

The fact that the crap that has happened to me is happening to Jewish students on college campuses across the country doesn’t make me feel better. There’s a new rallying cry at Columbia law school: Fuck Jews.

I’m alone.

I’m scared.

I have only myself to rely on to protect me.

The last time I had this much anxiety, I was studying for the NY bar exam.

Posted in bipolar disorder, Depression, PTSD

Depression is Pretty Depressing

Posted on by debthumanblog

Complex PTSD is pretty depressing. C-PTSD and depression together and are bone numbing. C-PTSD comes from a series of traumas over a period of time when there’s no hope of escape. Translation: child abuse causes C-PTSD.

I’ve been working my way through the Mindbloom series on depression. Mindbloom is ketamine at home with support from Mindbloom clinicians and guides.

For years, I felt nothing when I had a flashback. I longed to feel now what I felt when the child abuse was happening. Then, the flashbacks allowed me to see the horror of what I lived through. Then, the flashbacks arrived with the same emotions I felt at the time of the child abuse.

I have a theory about flashbacks. At the time of the trauma, the part of our brain that is for self preservation blocks the overwhelming emotions that happen at the time of the trauma. Then, when our brains know we are ready, we have flashbacks. Flashbacks are part of healing. One day, being tired of the flashbacks, I decided to look at the flashback I was having, acknowledge what happened was horrible, and the flashback sunk down and never returned. That’s the secret to flashbacks. Look at them. Acknowledge them. They lose their power.

The flashbacks I’m having now are part of the healing and recovery process. I no longer have the repeating nightmares. I don’t remember when I had the last one. The flashbacks are no longer debilitating. But 51 years after leaving a toxic home, I’m still having flashbacks. I doubt I will ever be free of the flashbacks.

We watched a movie the other night. I had no reason to think this movie would trigger flashbacks. But it did. One brief scene and so much of the crap from my childhood came rushing through my brain. I’m starting to see the refusal of the adults who lied to me acknowledge their lies, the adults who beat the crap out of me and refused to admit they did anything wrong, and when I finally got the courage to disclose the abuse, the adults refused to believe me and blamed me for getting beaten – all of that was truly horrible. There’s some fierce pissed off just behind that realization. The thought of all that pissed off coming out is scary. But it has to come out. I will never be free until the fury comes out of me.

Posted in Child abuse, Depression, Emotions, Memories, PTSD, Unwanted Children

This Weekend Will Again Be Painful

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’ll be staying home on Sunday. I detest mother’s day. My mother was a violent, drunken narcissist and it would be bordering on impossible to find a time she when was nice to me. I vividly remember when acne started for me. Not because of worrying about dates or classmates. I didn’t have dates because I was what she called her “built in babysitter.” I had to watch her kids while she went out and got drunk. After getting dressed one school day morning, I walked into the kitchen, and my mother gleefully announced, “Debby has a pimple on her nose. She looks just like a witch.”

Nothing I did was right. Nothing I did made her proud. Although I wasn’t allowed to take math and science courses in high school, I put myself through college starting at age 25. I wasn’t allowed to go to college after high school although I badly wanted a college education. I earned two degrees. One in journalism and the other in biology. It was not easy to take science courses having never had any science classes in high school. I did it anyway. My mother refused to come to my graduation because she had to “open up the cottage.” My mother and her husband, hereinafter The Drunk, owned a cottage at a lake in the Southern Tier of New York. My siblings, their friends, and the hired help could spend weekends at the cottage. I wasn’t allowed to go there. One year, The Drunk told Jim to fix the dock at the cottage so there would be a nice place for them to play. Jim declined.

One summer, my mother and siblings went to the cottage during the week, and I had to stay home and babysit The Drunk. I’d spend the day going through cookbooks looking for interesting recipes to make for dinner. The Drunk would always come home late, tell me he had already eaten, and stagger up the stairs to go to bed. I asked to go with my mother and siblings, and she told me I couldn’t.

When I would spend the night at a friend’s house, my mother would tell me after I got home, “It was so peaceful while you were gone.”

Imagine a hurt so deep that even 51 years later I can vividly remember what she said to me.

One year, I got her an especially appropriate mother’s day gift: a Venus flytrap. She let it die. Another year, I drove to her house to give her a mother’s day gift – can’t remember what it was – and sat in her driveway crying. That’s how much I didn’t want to see her. I forced myself to get out of the car, walk up to the front door and ring the doorbell.  It never occurred to me to just walk in. It wasn’t my house.

At my maternal grandmother’s funeral, she bragged to the extended family about drinking so much she puked. She then proceeded to talk about her kids growing up. I remained silent simultaneously wishing she said anything about me and dreading her saying anything about me because I knew whatever she said would be hurtful. My sister-in-law said a friend had made a casserole for the family. I silently wondered if it would be okay for me to stay and eat some of the casserole. I wasn’t part of the family. No one threw me out, so I stayed and ate.

One day, my sister-in-law was at my mother’s house. She gave my SIL wine. She didn’t offer me even lukewarm water in a cracked cup. When I mentioned that to her, she made it my fault that I had nothing to drink. After all, she insisted, it was my house. It was never my house.

While I was working between high school and marriage, I asked – I knew better than to just take – to have an egg so I could have an egg salad sandwich for lunch the next day. She refused to let me have an egg.

I don’t have children  – a decision I’ve never regretted – because I could never do to another person what was done to me and I knew no other way. One therapy session I asked my psychologist why anyone would want to have children. He thought I was making a joke. I still can’t imagine why anyone would want children.  It isn’t easy not to have children. I got pressured by both friends and family who, for some reason, thought biology was destiny. Turning 40 was a relief. People stopped pressuring me because, science notwithstanding, people think pregnancy after age 40 is too dangerous. What an incredible relief to be allowed to be myself.

At age 66, I discovered being without children was one of the healthiest things I’ve done. A biopsy revealed I have a septate uterus. If I had managed to get pregnant, I would have had a 90% chance of a miscarriage. Deciding not to have children didn’t just save my sanity; it may well have saved my life.  

Time, and a whole lot of therapy, removed from me a longing to have a mother. I still hate mother’s day.

Posted in bipolar disorder, Depression, Fiber, Photography

Has It Stopped Hurting Yet?

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’m filled with unease. Unsatisfaction. Emptiness. Depression. There’s an unspeakable lack inside. Something so basic, and something which cannot be discussed. Discussion won’t fill the emptiness. I know; I’ve tried. I don’t have any answers. At least I’m not suicidal. Yet this misery disappears as quickly as it appears. While it’s here, I think whatever art I’m working on sucks. The photos I take don’t amaze me, yet I can’t tell if they are bad shots. The necklaces I’m working on look ugly to me. There’s no magic in them.

I’m about to embark on another Magical Mystery Ketamine Tour. I have a zoom meeting on Tuesday. I’ll get sent my supply of Ketamine and I will be working on how to love myself.

I’ve finished writing the novel. Now, I need to find an agent; but to do that, I need to distill 43,000 words into one gut-grabbing sentence. Writing the novel was easier. In the meantime, I’ve started writing the second novel. I’m not looking forward to writing pages only to discard them. It’s the only way I know to write a novel.

I’ve been working on some fabric designs. I’m waiting for a good sale at Spoonflower so I can get 168+ designs proofed.

I’ve been playing around with lines and dots.

And squiggles

I love designing with metallic colors.

I think this one might work with the kaleidoscope faces for Apple Watch.

This one is just for fun. I may do some more faces.

There’s a fairy ring in the back yard. It’s not made of mushrooms and toad stools. This one is made of yucca plants. The circle of yuccas was growing wild, and we left it where it was. We’ve been here 21 years and this is the first time the fairy ring bloomed.

Fairy ring.

Blossoms hiding among the leaves.

This was a tough one to expose. Get the plant exposed properly, and the sky blows out. Get the sky exposed properly, and the plant is black.

Peek a boo.

I haven’t decided if I like this next shot. I usually avoid the traditional golden hours when the world has a golden cast. When I got up yesterday, I saw the fairy ring, and started photographing the blooms in the back yard.

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

My online store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com