BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

TRAUMA SURVIVORS PLEADING FOR THEIR 'EXODUS' Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. I have sworn, and have confirmed it, to observe Thy righteous ordinances. I am afflicted very much; quicken me, O HaShem, according unto Thy word. Accept, I beseech Thee, the freewill-offerings of my mouth, O HaShem, and teach me Thine ordinances. My soul is continually in my hand; yet have I not forgotten Thy law. The wicked have laid a snare for me; yet went I not astray from Thy precepts. Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage for ever; for they are the rejoicing of my heart. I have inclined my heart to perform Thy statutes, for ever, at every step. Psalms 119: 105-112 In reading this week's news across the globe, I am always struck by the resiliency of trauma survivors. Victims of political hypocrisy, victims of Middle East terror and even crime victims here in New York. I am also sickened by the majority who turn the other way - think it's not goi...

Keli Ata wrote a good piece in March 2007 about the Israeli people, who endure daily acts of terrorism. She asked if their anxiety when they hear Arabic is the result of racism or PTSD? The answer, in my mind, was PTSD. Absolutely no question. I have had PTSD for 43 years now. Probably longer. PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is joked about and claimed by a lot of people who may or may not have it. And the 'fluff' we can read on the web about symptoms is not the same as the hard diagnostic materials that clinicals & psychiatrists have access too. The latter is horrifying in its accuracy to sufferers. I didn't know I had it until about 1998. About 1 year into my being a mother and just a few months after I was diagnosed with serious hormonally-caused Post Partum Depression. When my counselor brought it up to me, she honestly thought I knew that I had it. I didn't. Nor did I think I was depressed. I just thought I was moody, like everyone always ac...

The Body's Ways to Express Traumatic Memories & Feelings That Can Find No Other Outlet I am totally disabled ( though I often look fine ) and the crash is always inevitable. My M.S. is in flare after every activity and all the overlapping syndromes that come with it. Sleep can't come fast enough - but the guilt & blame are right on top of me immediately. I lay in bed - which is where I am most of the time; upset that my children don't have a better put-together mother; and I think about what brought me to this point. I was exposed to a lot of toxins at my last job and coupled with a lifetime of emotional verbal, psychological, sexual & physical abuse, repressing my anger and "not telling" ( aka - being a good girl ) -- my immune system snapped. My body snapped along with it. Pain for me is endless & relentless. I spend a lot of the time I am not with my kids - coping with what illness is doing to, has done to or may do to me. I get so fed up wit...

by Underground Panther in the Sky When I was growing up and I faced people in school on the bus, people who rejected and bullied me, soon I felt strange, like I had been marked. When kids from schools I had never attended, kids I never met spat on me, it felt like I had some invisible neon sign on my forehead -- I could not see it only bullies could see it. It felt bad like the mark of Cain. It was burned into my being by abusers. The contact I had with psychopathic evil that erased my self-hood as an innocent kid, in repeated blinding soul-shattering moments of senseless unspeakable horrors and betrayal, made a mark. If you care and can feel, and see too much of the evil in the reality we live through, too soon, too close it changes you forever. I knew this was true even when I was 6 years old. I just didn't have the words to express it than like I do now. It felt as if abuse had made a change within me, a message I did not want to send out, advertising the damaged goods -- I am w...

ABSOLUTELY CRIMINAL FOR THE U.S.! Uninsured patients with traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance, according to a troubling new study. The findings by Harvard University researchers surprised doctors and health experts who have believed emergency room care was equitable. "This is another drop in a sea of evidence that the uninsured fare much worse in their health in the United States," said senior author Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard surgeon and medical journalist. The study, appearing in the November issue of Archives of Surgery, comes as Congress is debating the expansion of health insurance coverage to millions more Americans. It could add fodder to that debate. The researchers couldn't pin down the reasons behind the differences they found. The uninsured might experience more delays being transferred from hospital to hospital. Or they might g...

This article is another gem from Kathy Krajco on Narcissism. It is part of my blogging about emotional, verbal or mental abuse this month on this as well as my other blog to raise awareness about non-physical Domestic Violence. "Where were you when I was burned and broken? While the days slipped by from my window watching Where were you when I was hurt and helpless? Because the things you say and the things you do surround me While you were hanging yourself on someone else's words Dying to believe in what you heard I was staring straight into the shining sun" Coming Back to Life - PINK FLOYD/ The Division Bell But just a note: Apply this to the current political correctness and denial of the DANGER of the Islamofascist tide in the U.S. - and you may just get the big wakeup call you needed. FACING FACTS by Kathy Krajco One reason why the victims don't face facts about a narcissist is because we don't want to face the fact that we mean nothing to them. The ego d...