The Anti-choice movement – Pro-Birth and the Fear of the Single Woman

Date: August 31, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Uncategorized, Women and Feminism
Comments: 2 Replies
Pro-abortion march

Pro-abortion march (Photo credit: American Life League)

I honestly don’t know if it is possible to debate this subject in a logical way.  For every argument the pro-choice side throws up the pro-life side throws up a photo of a mangled fetus or an ultrasound, then the pro-choice side points to images of dead women and butchered reproductive organs.  Obviously it is a highly emotional subject for many, but there was a time when no one would even think to politicize a woman’s choice in the matter.  Abortion has existed for thousands of years, and if made illegal will simply return to the back alleys in the form of dangerous sometimes lethal procedures.

I use the term pro-birth in the title of this piece instead of pro-life for a very specific reason.  Most proponents of the pro-life argument are in fact pro-birth and not exactly pro-life.   As some pro-birth types who fight to save every pregnancy are the same folks who would love to see an end to food stamps, welfare, the WiC food program, Medicaid, state child health insurance programs and even Head Start, the pre-school program for low-income children. If they are so pro-child and pro-family why leave low-income households with little to no government support.    They cavalierly say these families and mothers can “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” when they don’t even have a pair of boots, much less any straps to pull them up with.  Some of these more extreme right wingers would not only put an end to all government assistance, they would also end access to most forms of birth control and abortion in nearly all cases.  Yet according to a report by the Guttmacher Institute 6 in 10 women who have an abortion already have a child, sometimes several children and the primary reason they give for having the procedure is the need to care for their existing children.  According to the same report, 4 in 10 of women who have abortions have income below the federal poverty line.   So many who seek abortions are already mothers desperately trying to support and take care of their families.

The myth perpetuated by some in the anti-abortion movement is that of a cold-hearted selfish single woman who gleefully terminates pregnancies at will.  They have sex without marriage, and a life lived for themselves and not for the benefit of a child.  To some conservatives these women are not following the rules of nature by being sexually active and not reproducing.  Although modern humans especially in wealthy industrial nations are not even close to living in our natural state.  Thanks to advances in medical technology we are living into our eighties, with marvels such as: antibiotics, vaccines, organ transplants, chemotherapy, blood transfusions, pace makers, and artificial joints.   We also are hardly living according to nature when we ship food all over the world.   We use fossil fuels, chemical pesticides and fertilizers and have boosted food production to levels that were unheard up just a few generations ago.   These medical and technological advances are taken for granted yet any woman who wants to control their reproductive system is asking for something entirely unreasonable.  If we can cheat death with antibiotics then why not plan our families with hormonal birth control?  The single childless woman who lives her life without a man would be a far rarer occurrence if she did not have control of her reproductive rights.

Making their case even more confusing are the same conservatives who rail against the childless single mother are the same who condemn a woman who purposefully has a child out-of-wedlock.  In 1992 vice president Dan Quayle lamented against a fictional character on the show “Murphy Brown” for setting a bad example by actively choosing to raise a child as a single-mother.   Twenty years later the debate still rages, but what these conservatives forget is that we have always had single mothers.  The tragedies of premature death, warfare and abandonment have always supplied plenty of single mothers. The real fear is women living without men, defying the male power structure and living as they see fit.  The single unmarried woman becomes the ultimate she-devil, the woman who can live without a man and things like abortion and birth control make this lifestyle that much easier.

To some conservatives any woman who lives without the traditional nuclear family structure is somehow going against “the rules”.  The teenager who gets pregnant and terminates her pregnancy somehow got away with negative behavior.  She did not pay the consequences for her actions.  The brutalized rape or incest victim must also pay penance for the sins of another and endure nine months of a pregnancy only then to raise her attackers baby or give the child away.  The religious person might think that since they are “playing by the rules” that everyone around them must adhere to the same morality.  Even though many religious types don’t even adhere to this strict code of moral conduct themselves.  According the the Guttmacher Institute 3 out of 4 women who have abortions would call themselves religiously affiliated and Catholic woman have abortions at almost the same rate as the general population. A recent study cited in the New Scientist showed that pornography sales are actually slightly higher in Republican leaning states than in Democratic ones, one of the highest being the ultra conservative state of Mississippi.    And how many examples of religious leaders do we need that have committed transgressions against their own sermons of morality.  Here is a handy list of just 12 that doesn’t even include the child sex scandals in the Catholic church.

But most important the same groups that claim that every fertilized egg is a sacred human life aren’t even consistent in their message.  Medical procedures such as IVF use countless embryos many of which do not result in a life birth.  Most couples make dozens of eggs and try to implant a few at a time.  In most cases several eggs are naturally rejected by a woman’s body and fail to attach to the uterine wall, many more remain in frozen storage.  The majority of these frozen embryos are ultimately destroyed when the freezing process has degraded them or when a couple is finished with the process.   The real fear here isn’t the plight of frozen embryos because after all these women are actively choosing to become mothers, at great cost and with some medical risk. The real fear is women actively choosing to not become mothers.  If the pro-lifers really cared about every embryo we would see pickets and protests outside of fertility clinics.

The world is overflowing with children who are already born and living on the edge of survival.  If the energy and money spent trying to save every pregnancy in the US went instead to ensuring the safety and well-being for children in the third world or even here in the US, millions of lives could be saved.  Of course some on the pro-life side of the debate are active in children’s charities and even adopt or foster unwanted children, but most would rather spend their time and energy condemning total strangers whom they know little about.

I just have to go back to a bumper sticker slogan that I saw many years ago that for me puts this issue to rest perfectly.

If you are against abortion, don’t have one.

If a pro-life advocate wants to raise their children and teach them that abortion is a vile crime against humanity, no one is stopping them.  However when they try to limit the rights of a total stranger and what she can or cannot do with her body they go too far.

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Life as Straight Spouse: Living with the Scarlet G

Date: August 25, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Divorce, Gay Husband, Gay Rights, Relationships, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
Comments: 8 Replies
G

G (Photo credit: chrisinplymouth)

In the American classic  “The Scarlet Letter” Nathanial Hawthorne wrote about Hester Prynne, a woman who conceived a daughter through an adulterous affair with a minister.  Her community, in 17th century Massachusetts, forces her to wear a red-letter “A” upon all of her clothing as a constant reminder of her transgression, and to publicly humiliate her.

Since I left my closeted gay husband nearly three years ago, I can relate to Prynne all too well as I have felt like a giant “G” for gay follows me wherever I go.  But in my case the symbolic “G” I wear on my heart is bedazzled like a disco ball and surrounded by flashing lights.

This morning, on a dating website I get the following from a man who lives in all places Northern Illinois…I live in Brooklyn, NY so I have no idea why he wrote to me to begin with…

You seem to have a history of dating gay guys, at least that’s how your answers look to the casual observer. What’s up with that? You also said you just got divorced, is that what happened? I feel bad for you if that’s what happened… 🙁 Also, sex with the lights on should be a bit different than with them off, not exactly the same.

There is nothing on my profile that indicates that I divorced a gay man.  The questions section is a separate section that another user would have to dig deeper to read.  A few of the questions are about having sex with someone of the same gender or bisexuality, I did make some comments in that section but I never once say anything as blatant as…my ex was gay.  I write things like if you even think you might be gay, please keep looking I am not the girl for you.   The man from Illinois who sent this lovely email to me this morning…looked gay himself.  He had artificially streaked blonde hair, and a couple of modeling shots that looked straight out of a gay sporting magazine – hairless bare chest and all.

I debated if I should just delete the email and move on.  The last line about “sex with the lights on” really pushed me over the edge so I decided to write a response.  I basically told him he was projecting and that to most women he might appear gay himself.  I also encouraged him, that if he was gay that he should come out of the closet.  I even suggested he read a book about gay self-hatred called “The Velvet Rage”.   I know I should have deleted the email and not given it a second thought, but I sort of snapped.  And I wouldn’t normally try to forcibly “out” anyone but since he had done the same to me, I didn’t hold back.

I spend nearly every day of my life trying to talk myself down from the very things this stranger from Illinois put in his email.   Every day, I reinforce the sentiment that I am worthy of a normal relationship, that I am not defective or sexually inadequate.   But then something like this happens and I think to myself…

“Maybe that is why I have had such a hard time dating”

Maybe deep down that is how straight men see me, as damaged or frigid.  They may think to themselves what kind of woman would marry a gay man?

Because I have been so public and open about my situation I cannot escape my past.  A common saying in the straight spouse community is that when our spouses come out of the closet we retreat into our own.  In many mixed orientation marriages, a straight spouse is forced to keep secrets for months, sometimes years to protect their partner.  I understand why each situation is different, as there are no easy answers for many mixed orientation marriages on the right time to disclose the truth.   In my example I really didn’t see the need to continue the lies as my spouse and I had no children, and his sexual orientation would not affect his career.  When my spouse came out of the closet, I made sure the doors were open as wide as possible.

I don’t regret that decision, but there has been a cost.  By putting it out there, I can’t decide when I reveal this information to a potential new partner.  If I try to hide it and they find this blog or any of the articles I have written for the Huffington Post, I look suspicious.  Even if I wanted to delete every article that I have written about my marriage on this blog, the Huffington Post pieces remain, and I honestly don’t regret writing a single syllable.  And since I have been working on a memoir about my marriage for months, the topic dominates my thoughts anyway.

I assume that some men might think I am asexual, have a decreased sex drive or that I find them attractive because they read as gay.   I have no idea, but I know that since I have been single, I have had very little luck dating anyone.  I guess many think I must have had something seriously wrong with me to have ended up in such a marriage.

But what I have found when I have met other straight spouses is that the problem doesn’t lie with us, it lies with our spouses.  Most straight spouses are if anything, too loyal, nurturing and understanding towards their partners.  We attracted our spouses in part because they knew we were the type of people who would stand by them.  And then we get stigmatized when we did nothing more but to love another person unconditionally.  It hardly seems fair, but so much of being a straight spouse is not fair.

Since I started writing about my marriage I occasionally get insanely cruel comments from strangers who mock my circumstances.  I know I would have laid down my life for my spouse if needed, and that I put my entire heart and soul into my marriage.  I  believed that marriage was a sacred institution and did everything to keep mine intact.  But there was nothing I could do to keep a house of cards from falling over.  And now despite everything I have done to improve my life and move on, there are some that would still blame me for the lies of my former partner.  But thanks to the internet I know I am not alone and that straight spouses are some of the strongest people out there.  Eventually this will be so far in my past that I will no longer be defined by it, I will be in a loving committed relationship and won’t have to deal with random closeted men from Northern Illinois sending me hateful emails.

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The Pro-Life Fringe: Where Todd Akin gets his insane ideas.

Date: August 22, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Catholic - Former, Uncategorized, Women and Feminism
Comments: 3 Replies
, member of the United States House of Represe...

, member of the United States House of Representatives. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have had several requests from my regulars to blog about Missouri senatorial candidate Todd Akin‘s remarks about rape.

“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,”  “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”

As soon as he uttered those words, the firestorm of backlash was overwhelming.  People were shocked that anyone would believe such things about pregnancy and rape, sadly it was not the first time I have heard such theories.   My devoutly Catholic parents dragged myself and my three siblings to multiple pro-life marches and protests throughout our childhood.  I was often singled out at these protests because I was born in 1973, the same year that the Roe vs. Wade case made abortion legal in all 50 states.   So when I heard Akin’s uniformed rants I knew where I could find the source of this misinformation.  One of the loudest voices in the anti-abortion movement is Dr. Jack C. Willke, a one time surrogate to presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the former president of the US National Right to Life Committee.   Willke and his wife are authors of  “Why Can’t We Love Them Both: Questions and Answers About Abortion.” first published in 1971.

The following is a direct quote from an article in the LA Times

It’s  ”just downright unusual” for a woman to get pregnant from a rape, Willke said in an interview Monday. He said studies have shown this to be true, but produced little evidence beyond a few footnotes that cite a handful of decades-old papers. “This goes back 30 and 40 years. When a woman is assaulted and raped, there’s a tremendous amount of emotional upset within her body,” Willke said, adding that this trauma  “can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy.” “No one really knows” how often those emotional effects prevent pregnancy, Willke said, but he estimated that there are just one or two pregnancies for every 1,000 rapes. That contradicts research published in the 1990s in the Journal of American Obstetrics and Gynecology, which found that the occurrence of rape-related pregnancies is 5%. More than 32,000 women experience rape-related pregnancy every year, the research found.  Scientists at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., concluded in 2001 that the rate of rape-related pregnancy is even higher — 6.4%, twice the rate of pregnancy from consensual sex.

I went hunting for more anti-choice propaganda on the internet and what I found mostly was website after website blatantly plagiarizing each other using the exact same language and data most of it misleading and inaccurate.   Here is a quote from one Abortionfacts.com

In a healthy, peaceful marriage, the miscarriage rate ranges up to about 15%. In this case, we have incredible emotional trauma. Her body is upset. Even if she conceives, the miscarriage rate is higher than in a more normal pregnancy. If she loses 20% of 600, there are 450 left. Finally, we must factor in one of the most important reasons why a rape victim rarely gets pregnant, and that is psychic trauma. Every woman is aware that stress and emotional factors can alter her menstrual cycle. To get pregnant and stay pregnant, a woman’s body must produce a very sophisticated mix of hormones. Hormone production is controlled by a part of the brain which is easily influenced by emotions. There’s no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape. This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy. So what further percentage reduction in pregnancy will this cause? No one really knows, but this factor certainly cuts the last figure by at least 50%, and probably more, leaving a final figure of 225 women pregnant each year, a number that closely matches the 200 found in clinical studies.

So the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that there are about 32,000 rape-related pregnancies and AbortionFacts.com claims there are around 200.  The numbers aren’t even close, one is an advocacy group intent on ending legal abortion in this country and the other is a peer-reviewed medical journal.   The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology is not a political organization so why would they fabricate the numbers on rape-related pregnancies.  While the pro-life site uses heated language such as “assault” rape and not just rape, as if there is a difference.  Most women are raped by men they know, not strangers on the street or intruders to their home.  According to Rape Abuse Incest National Network (RAINN) approx. 2/3 of victims knew their attackers before the rape, 80% of rapes occur to women under the age of 30 and 44% are victims under age 18.  Simply put most of the victims of rape are in the prime of their reproductive years.  Human beings are designed to get pregnant, even though a woman is fertile for only about three days a month, sperm can stay alive inside a woman’s body for up to five days there by increasing the likelihood of pregnancy.  The anti-choice groups also like to point out that in some rapes the male attacker does not ejaculate inside of his victim.  Pregnancy can still occur from the amount of sperm found in per-ejaculate fluid.   It is also widely known that rape is a highly under-reported crime due to added stigma and shame towards the victim.  So no one really knows how many pregnancies are the result of rape, and we probably never will.  Then there is the issue of a rapist demanding custody and visitation of his victim’s baby.  In 31 states, a rapist  can sue for custody and visitation just like any other father.

In a way though Todd Akin did the pro-choice movement a favor, by pointing out how extreme the pro-life movement really is towards women.  From their perspective even a teenager who is raped and impregnated by her stepfather should go ahead and have that child and maybe even raise it.  So what if her life is ruined and she may have to stay under the same roof as her abuser who might go on to abuse her child as well.  Who cares if she is a minor and has few legal rights to rectify her situation, she should just accept her fate and become even more powerless and dependent towards her rapist.  Ethical dilemmas like these are exactly what caused me to go from the pro-life position of my youth to the staunch pro-choice position I hold today.  I just can’t help but think of worst case scenarios, such as rape victims, incest survivors, abused women, and women with extreme medical complications.  It is not for the government to make these decisions but should be a private matter between a woman and her doctor.

One ethical question I always love asking a staunch pro-life supporter is the following.

If you passed by a burning building and heard a baby crying, you run in to find a baby sitting right next to a container holding 50,000 frozen embryos and you can’t carry both out to safety.  Which one do you pick up and run out of the building the crying infant or the heavy container?  Most rational human beings would choose the baby although I guess there are some that might let the living baby burn to death to save the frozen embryos.

I can’t help but see this analogy played out on a daily basis while so many babies and children starve and suffer throughout the world, where are the pro-life advocates crying out for their well-being?  Where are the pro-life advocates rushing to adopt unwanted children?  If every child could find a home why are there so many in our foster care system?  Why are there millions of children who die every year of hunger, disease and poverty?  There are some in the pro-life movement that might adopt a child from foster care, or become active in children’s charities but you don’t see much of this sentiment on their websites.

And even my mother the same devoutly Catholic woman who raised and took me to those pro-life rallies found Todd Akin’s comments repulsive.  I guess since my mother had four children in the span of five years she knows how easy it is to get pregnant so she wasn’t buying his theory that a woman’s body has a way of “shutting things down”.  Even though my mother is staunchly pro-life, she does believe in an exception for rape and incest, and for any case where the life of the mother is in danger.   Unfortunately for Mr. Akin my mother lives in the state of Missouri and he definitely won’t get her vote.  Abortion is a hot button issue for many Americans, but if the pro-life side wants to be taken seriously they should stop spreading misinformation and lies.  If you have to lie to get your point across there is something seriously wrong with your message.

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Dating in NYC: The Cool Detachment

Date: August 3, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating - NYC, Depression, Divorce, New York City, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
Comments: 8 Replies
Emotion

Emotion (Photo credit: rexquisite)

Since my divorce, I can’t seem to do anything right when it comes to dating.  I try to hard, I don’t try hard enough, I go out too much I stay inside my apartment for days on end, it doesn’t seem to matter.   I have read multiple books on dating, even ones on male psychology and they don’t seem to help.  I have sat down with male friends and tried to get feedback on how their brains work.  I have shared numerous stories with fellow single women all which end in a similar refrain a lot of heartache and disappointment.  I just don’t get this city.  But I think I am starting to figure out the missing element, and it isn’t something that I can grow overnight, nor do I necessarily want to develop.

It’s the cool detachment, the emotional wall, the blase manner, the cavalier treatment of other people like they are hardly worth a moment’s notice.  Detachment is the style of the many tribes in this city.  And I am like tissue paper, desperately trying to suppress emotion and play things off like I don’t care, but I desperately care.  I want what I lost, but the longer I keep looking for it the more it seems like an unattainable goal.   I push down my emotions and smother them as best I can, because the more my emotions show the more they scare everyone away from me.  And yet I still do everything wrong.  I try to play it cool, act as if I couldn’t care less, and I get away with it most of the time.  But then I start to care, not full throttle, just a hint.  I let my guard down for a moment and try to let someone new into my life and the whole thing collapses before it begins.  I don’t know what to do.  I try to do the right thing.  I don’t see the point in going out with someone who is still tortured by his ex-wife, or an ex-girlfriend, so when I meet men like this and I meet many…I politely walk away.  And I won’t go out with someone who is already married or in a relationship, I don’t need that kind of bad karma.  And I would never do to someone else what another did to me.  So I try to allow things to slowly grow and give things space and time but it never works out and I remain alone and broken.

So I hide and try to erase the past decade or so of my life.  I tell myself “Don’t talk about your divorce, don’t talk about your divorce” and it feels like not talking about everything that has completely re-built and shaped me for the past three years.  Don’t talk about your fears, don’t show weakness, don’t show that you actually care or give a damn.  Just play it cool, the others around you are doing it and they are winning.  Well they might not be winning but at least they seem to play the game better than I do.  But I am who I am and that is a fairly emotional person, so it feels like shoving myself into a vice that is pinching me on all sides.  And I see it on the faces of new men that I met, when I was younger it seemed like there was more excitement in the game, now it is everyone trying to out “cool” each other.   Everyone tells me to just be myself and it will all be OK, but when I am myself nothing works out.

How did we get like this?  How is it the only way to successfully date in New York City is to get so jaded and so burned that you just stop showing any passion.  I don’t want to turn into that person, but I honestly have no idea how I can go on like this.  Never more than a couple of dates and the whole thing implodes, and in some cases it just dies without much fanfare at all.  Men fall for the image of me, not my reality – a complicated, damaged and world-weary soul.  But I have survived so much horror and lived to tell about it.  I have nine years of a relationship that went to hell and back and didn’t give up on it until it was obviously beyond hope.  Shouldn’t my loyalty and dedication count for something?  I would be the last person to flippantly leave a relationship over something trivial or the next big thing.  I guess in a city where everyone is replaceable and there is always a newer, younger, shinier version walking down the street, none of this matters.  I sometimes think that the overwhelmingly promiscuous nature of this city comes from people who have just grown so tired of trying for something more and they give in to anything to ease the feeling of loneliness and pain.  And at least a fleeting moment of human contact can smother it, if for a second.  But like any drug used to feed a hunger that it cannot truly contain, more and more is needed until it the fix becomes insatiable and the cycle continues.

So many have called New York an emotional desert and I just keep trying to prove them wrong.  I am not going to become a deadened human being, I refuse to let that happen to me.   And I have to be true to myself, so I will keep hoping that something will change.  At this point I have very little left to keep me going besides hope, so until I meet someone who can put up with Ms. emotional over here, that is my reality.

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A Loving Couple: What Gay Marriage Really Looks Like

Date: August 3, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Divorce, Gay Husband, Gay Rights, Politics, Same Sex Marriage, Straight Spouse
Comments: 1 Reply

Any regular readers of this blog already know, I am a straight spouse.  A straight spouse is a person who married someone who they thought was straight only to find out years later that their partner was actually secretly gay.   My marriage was smoke and mirrors of lies, deception and ultimately betrayal.  From the outside my marriage appeared completely normal but we were both stuck in a miserable union.  I blame homophobia and the fear of homosexuality in part for the phenomena of gay men and women entering into these unions.  Every straight spouse knows all to well the personal hell that is a mixed orientation marriage.  Our partners, filled with so much self-loathing, bent themselves into knots to become something they weren’t and thousands of spouses and children end up as collateral damage to these sham marriages.    And then there is a marriage, like this one…

Tom & Jon

I remember when Jon first met Tom.  Jon was an actor, and Tom was a writer.  They had the same easy-going sense of humor and love of all things nerdy.   Smart, funny and supportive of their friends they were both well liked by almost everyone who knew them. Tom and Jon were one of those couples that were so cute together, they even dressed alike.  I haven’t seen either of them in years but we keep in touch thanks to Facebook and email.

Anyone terrified of same-sex marriage should watch this video.  Jon and Tom are just like any married couple.  They have a lot of the same interests, they love each other deeply and live fairly ordinary lives.   When I watch this I don’t see the end of civilization or the return of Sodom and Gomorrah, I just see a wonderful man who is very proud of his partner and his marriage.   And honestly I have been witness to some fairly dysfunctional and abusive straight marriages…haven’t we all?  Marriage is a crap shoot and if these two men can live together happily with their two cats, why should anyone care?  The whole point of a secular marriage is if one of them gets sick, the other one can visit them in the hospital, if one of them dies they can leave their estate to the other and on and on.  They should have the right to the same legal protections that any married couple have in this country.  Same sex couples aren’t storming churches demanding that the faithful accept them into their congregations.  They aren’t  pushing for legislation to ban straight marriages, or to make it legal for a gay employer to fire a straight employee based on their sexual orientation.  They aren’t promoting laws to make heterosexual sex illegal.  They aren’t designing programs to make straight people gay.   They just want to live their lives in peace.  This is NOT the end of the world, this is normal.

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Life After Divorce: A Change in Perspective

Date: July 28, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating - NYC, Depression, Gay Husband, Gay Rights, Relationships, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
Comments: 16 Replies
...Hope...

…Hope… (Photo credit: ĐāżŦ {mostly absent})

I don’t normally write this type of post, I usually try to have a point before I write.  Some of these come right out of me while others take days even weeks before I am happy with them.  But the past few weeks have been so strange, painful and weird I felt I had to share.

As most of my regular readers know I have worked on a book for the past few months, a memoir about being married to a gay clown.  The project has been so overwhelming that I have avoided socializing, looking for a permanent job and even cut back on performances.  The book has completely kicked my ass.  I am not going to go into too many details for a number of reasons, but a couple of weeks ago I got some bad news about my book.  So I have taken a mental hiatus from it to give myself a break, and to eventually re-group.  Needless to say it was difficult news to get and a huge blow, as the book and my writing are one of the few things giving me hope lately.

And also in the past month a few things reminded me how terrible I still am at dealing with the opposite sex and dating.  To protect the privacy of others I won’t get to too many details but its been a rough few weeks.  In one incident I was fairly humiliated and mortified but I immediately picked myself back up, dusted myself off and refused to show any sign of being hurt.

Since my divorce, I have lost a lot of confidence when it comes to dating.  I tend to over think everything and misread pretty much every signal out there.   I just keep falling flat on my face, and it isn’t a lot of fun.   To add to my bad mojo, earlier this week some random person posted a fairly nasty, personal, direct attack towards me on this blog.  Ironically he picked my most popular post of the week and said something along the following.

No one cares what you have to say, you are a narcissist, get over yourself, you are still a nerd this blog is crap.

I am pretty sure I know who wrote it, but I won’t go into any more detail because why fuel that fire?   But calling me a narcissist is an easy shot as I am a performer who usually gets on stage with nothing more than a microphone.  It does take a certain type of personality to do that kind of work.  I also have a website, a youtube channel and this blog, all named after myself.  I just thought it would be better branding to keep everything the same, there was no more thought put into that decision.  So guilty as charged I guess, but a true narcissist can never admit they are wrong, and I admit I screw up all the time.  So that is a bit off, and I also tend to hide out in my bat cave doing nothing but writing this blog, or working on my book.  The whole transition from performer to writer has made me far more introverted.  I am not exactly walking around screaming “look at me!” when I don’t leave my apartment for days on end.   As far as “getting over myself” the person in question has no idea what he is talking about.  The following is all true and I openly admit it about my life

  • I make next to no money, I scrape by every single month.
  • I live in a horrible neighborhood and I have to rent out my living room as a second bedroom to afford rent.
  • I don’t really have much of a performing career –  I perform around NYC but for very little money, and despite repeated attempts I can’t seem to land an agent.
  • I have trust and bonding issues so dating has been next to impossible.
  • Even though I worked in my ex-husband’s profession for about nine years, the entertainment agents who used to hire me – stopped hiring me after the split
  • I work as a human prop – background extra in film and television – a mostly dead-end job that is completely unreliable.
  • I tried to get a “real” job for months and registered with about 10 employment agencies and got exactly one interview, which I couldn’t make, and it was for a temp job.
  • I am from a working class background – Many things from paying for college to pursuing a career in the arts have been much more difficult for me as a result.

That is my reality.  I am hardly kidding myself.  But since I have had so much success with my writing, my hope is that it will pull me out of this mess.  In fact I know it will, I am just not sure exactly how it is going to work out.  And to the person who has nothing better to do with his life than to troll the internet and make direct personal attacks against me…well…I don’t even think I need to comment…it is fairly pathetic, especially when the person remains anonymous.  We all have enemies, but I usually just try to avoid mine.

So given all of that I should have been down…and a few years ago I would have sunk into a depressed state…and I did have a couple of bad days.  But since I discovered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) I decided I wasn’t going down that road.  I told myself that all of this was a sign from the universe that something completely positive was about to happen. I just keep focusing on the positive, and then the strangest thing happened.

I check my blog every single day, just to see how it is doing and at around 9 am, it showed that I had already had about 200 readers. For my blog those are crazy numbers so I went to investigate where it was coming from.  Someone on the Straight Spouse Network had decided to post one of my older articles, On Being a Straight Spouse – Broken Memories and it was exploding.  As the day went on more and more people were reading it, and the positive comments started pouring in.  As I read through them I started to cry, because they were all so heart-felt and it proved to me that there is a purpose to this blog and to my life.

Meanwhile I posted another article to the Huffington Post, I didn’t think it would get picked up as the Chick-Fil-A story is a few days old but to my amazement they printed it and it is doing extremely well.  So on top of the glowing comments I got on my old blog piece, I was getting a ton of crazy twitter and facebook attacks on my “Chick-Fil-A Do you really want to run your company on Biblical Values?” article.  And I have long since gotten used to attacks from strangers, I don’t even remotely sweat it, but it did make my day quite interesting to say the least.  When the dust settled I had a total of 806 readers on this blog for the entire day, my second highest day to date.  And it still isn’t completely over as I already have over 200 for today and it is still climbing.

The negative energy was somehow turned positive and everything lined up to remind me that there is a point to what I am doing here.  Even though I have performed since I was 11 years old, at no time in my performance career have I gotten this type of feedback.  The universe is telling me something…still not sure how I am going to steer my life back on a better path but I am headed in the right direction.  Thank you.  I am truly humbled by the wonderful comments I get, and to any straight spouse reading this blog…HANG IN THERE…YOU ARE NOT ALONE!  Much love.

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Dating After Divorce: Disposable People

Date: July 23, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating - NYC, Depression, Divorce, Gay Husband, New York City, Relationships, Uncategorized
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The above pair is my favorite pair of shoes on the planet.  Shoes, clothing, perfume, makeup all make me extremely happy.  The above pair I don’t wear often, but every time I step out in these I feel quite happy when they are on my feet.  Right after I got this pair of nearly perfect footwear there was a problem.  The sole of the heel broke off, and I didn’t realize it until I got them home.  The wear and tear of walking around on them like this had begun to grind down the heel.  I took them too my best shoe repair shop and for only $12 were repaired to a condition that was better then when I bought them.  The sole that the repairman placed on the shoes was thicker and stronger than the original.   Since my divorce, subsequent meltdown, massive depression and the recovery that followed I feel a lot like my favorite pair of heels.  Surviving my crisis and the hell that followed it has actually made me stronger as a person and a better potential mate for a partner, but the rest of the world doesn’t always see it that way.

I have written about this topic before in other blog posts.  In another article I called it “The Shiny Penny Syndrome”.  The idea that no matter how nice a partner you have in front of you, there might be something just better around the corner so why bother investing in keeping the partner you already have.   We have an epidemic of this mentality in New York City.  It only gets worse as we age and the older and more world-weary a person become the most banged up and tarnished they might seem to a potential suitor.  From the email and comments I get I have to think it is a common problem throughout the US, especially single people over 35.

I have read numerous articles about men getting so fixated on porn that real women do not measure up to the glorified standard of their virtual lovers.  A porn star is always young, ready willing and able with proportions and assets that few real women posses.  Never mind the porn star cannot actually be touched or embraced, or listen to a man’s problems, comfort him while he is sick or just sit quietly next to him on a sofa watching a movie.  The porn star is always the predictable and controllable.  She won’t call him with her own problems, won’t demand that he go to a party with her friends, won’t beg him away from a game, she won’t have a moody day when she wants time on her own, and she won’t nag him to do the dishes.   A porn star is always convenient, she does everything expected of her and nothing more.

Women also do this, expecting their perfect match to not only be kind, caring, and an amazing lover but also physically fit and taller than average.  The guy has to live close and have a good job, but not one that takes him away or causes him to work 14 hours a day.  He must respond to text messages, phone calls and always be emotionally available but not a wimp or too sensitive that he comes across as feminine.  He must love her friends and all of her interests and hobbies and never even think of straying or even look at other women.  Some women are hoping that the perpetually young, financially stable, quirky but masculine lover from their favorite romantic comedy will just bump into them on the street and change their lives forever.

Of course not every man fixates on idealized porn perfection and not every female wants some wealthy living breathing Ken doll with a stock portfolio to rival Mitt Romney.  But what gives?  Dating since my divorce has just left me feeling like a disposable girlfriend, good for an amount of time, then discarded without too much fanfare.  I have difficultly bonding anyway, so this type of behavior just makes me more wary, and more emotionally distant and distrusting.  Humans are more than the sum of our parts: a nice ass, pretty eyes, a good job or a decent apartment.   Why do we treat each other like this?  Why do I keep hearing stories from friends both male and female that sound the same.  Guy meets girl, gets really excited then drops her like a hot rock because he finds too many “deal breakers”.  Or girl meets guy gets really excited and then drops him when she realizes he isn’t exactly what she was looking for in a partner.

For some people in the dating pool, other human beings are nothing more than an object.  A new person is like a new pair of shoes thrown away when they don’t quite live up to their expectations.  The shoes looked so ideal at first, but once worn the shine is gone and the shoes tossed.   Meanwhile cluttering the universe are thousands of bright, shiny, new shoes that will surely fulfill expectations.  Perhaps it is our “You can have it all” consumerist mentality that is always preaching the gospel of never-ending search for perfection.  Why have a girlfriend with cellulite when you can have one with smooth thighs, never mind that you are 45.  Why have a boyfriend who is losing his hair, or is your exact height when you can date someone who looks like a movie star and runs a hedge fund to boot!

Are we turning into spoiled children who will never be satisfied?  Does our culture run on nothing more than pushing the next big thing down our throats?  And to get us to want more, more, more we have to feel bad about what we already have?  I don’t think we are quite there yet, and I hope we never get there.  After all we are human beings with flaws, dents, hang-ups and emotional baggage…and not just a lousy pair of shoes.

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Chick-Fil-A – Do you really want to run your company on Biblical Values?

Date: July 20, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Agnostic, Gay Rights
Comments: 49 Replies

Chick-fil-A

So a top ranking executive, Dan Cathy,  at the fast food chain Chick-Fil-A said the following in an article in the Baptist Press
“We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”

Some have opposed the company’s support of the traditional family. “Well, guilty as charged,” said Cathy when asked about the company’s position.

he was also quoted as saying

“We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles,”
He has every right to voice his opinion, and to worship as he sees fit.  But I do question his belief in running a company on biblical principles.  I also wonder if he has actually read the bible.   According to ChristianAnswers.net the Old Testament contains 23,214 verses, the New Testament contains 7,959 verses.  Out of those 31,173 verses approx. six condemn homosexuals.   Jesus Christ had nothing to say about homosexuals or homosexuality.  Here is just one of the six damning versus.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 – “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

So along with homosexuals…thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers are also doomed from entering the kingdom of God.  Now if God is truly condemning “the greedy” to eternal damnation along with homosexuals that would certainly include a large portion of the population in any capitalistic economic system.  And what is a swindler?  Is it that essentially the same thing as a thief?   Adulterers are also quite common and would include many well-known Christian leaders.  And surprisingly the bible also only mentions homosexuality in men, not women.

I will give Chick-Fil-A credit for not opening their stores or doing business on Sunday as according to Christian tradition, Sunday is the Sabbath and working on the Sabbath is punishable by death in the bible.  But how far does Chick-Fil-A take their biblical values?

Here are just a few restrictions and laws also included in the bible.  Paraphrased for length.

Leviticus 19:19 – Don’t wear clothes made of more than one fabric

Leviticus 19:27 – Don’t cut your hair nor shave.

Leviticus 20:9 Any person who curseth his mother or father, must be killed.

Leviticus 20:10 If a man cheats on his wife, or vise versa, both the man and the woman must die.

Leviticus 21:17-18 People who have flat noses, or is blind or lame, cannot go to an altar of God

Leviticus 15:19-20 When a woman has a discharge of blood, which is her regular discharge from her body, she shall be in her impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening

Leviticus 11 – Includes many dietary restrictions including unclean meat such as – pork, rabbit, camel, shellfish, birds of prey, bats, mice and various bird and lizard species

Deuteronomy 13:12-15 If you find out a city worships a different god, destroy the city and kill all of it’s inhabitants… even the animals. 

Deuteronomy 17:2-7 Kill anyone with a different religion.

1 Corinthians 3:2 – You are not to combine milk with meat

So I would love to ask Mr. Cathy, if his employees all have beards and long hair?  Does his company allow menstruating women to work?  And what about the menu items that contain pork products and dairy combined with chicken.  Are these not also abominations?  Are the uniforms made of only one type of cloth and thread?  Is it acceptable for an employee to murder a customer or fellow employee if that person is not a Christian?  If an employee curses their parents are they put to death?

I don’t quite understand how many Christians who cite these six scant verses in the bible that condemn homosexuality conveniently ignore some of the more extreme laws.  How is one verse the “WORD OF GOD” and another discarded as being out-of-date.  Who decided what is relevant and what isn’t?  It sure sounds nice to say that one lives by biblical laws, but no one really knows what those laws entail.  Of course there is great wisdom and philosophy in the bible even for non-believers but the darker passages cannot just be ignored.  Cherry-picking the bible and then using it condemn homosexuality while ignoring the other absurd and out-dated prohibitions is intellectually dishonest.

A religious person can and should live however they like as long as their behavior does not go against secular laws and does not harm others.  But homophobia does harm, and results in harassment, bullying, suicides, loss of employment, and infringes upon the basic human rights of others.  Some Christian conservatives are actively trying to force their religious beliefs into law in a secular society while most homosexuals are just trying to live their lives and not be treated like second class citizens.  Gay men and women are not trying to limit the rights of heterosexuals, this is hardly an even or fair fight.

If Dan Cathy really wants to live according to the biblical tradition of the family and run his business according to biblical law then he should get to work and stop picking and choosing which laws he takes seriously.  If Cathy wishes to run his company according biblical law, then at least we had better start seeing full beards and long hair on every employee.   It might not be up to health code but it would be according to God’s will.

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The Night a Feminist Fell in Love with Machismo

Date: July 16, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: New York City, Uncategorized
Comments: 1 Reply
D train, led by car #2590, entering Bay Parkwa...

D train, led by car #2590, entering Bay Parkway on the West End Line. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When it comes to living in the big city, I have a bit of a fear problem.  I don’t have a valid driver’s license in part because driving a car freaks me out, I lose all confidence when I am lost in a tiny town or village, and I have a strange fear of getting stranded in the middle of nowhere.  All of my fears of life in the country are totally irrational, but in the big, bad, scary city of Gotham, absolutely nothing freaks me out.  I have seen people publicly having sex, been flashed by men on the subway, grabbed on the street, nearly pick-pocketed, had many screaming matches, and I couldn’t even begin to count the times I have witnessed public urination and even defecation on my neighborhood streets.  None of this makes me flinch.  When a man grabs my arm on the street, I immediately unleash a torrid of obscenities.  A would be mugger doesn’t want to deal with a screaming woman shouting at him especially a woman with my kind of volume.  When threatened, I am not exactly demure and I am not exactly quiet.

I have what some would call a reckless habit.  I like to go see shows late at night in places like the East Village, Williamsburg, Bushwick and the Lower East Side.  I am a bit of a loner, and I don’t enjoy the stress of having to coordinate a “Let’s go see a show” buddy, so 99% of the time I attend most late night events by myself.   I also usually know performers in the shows I go to, so attending shows by myself is not a lonely endeavor. My mode of transportation is almost always the New York City subway system.  I have lived in a metropolitan area for nearly 20 years, 8 years in Chicago and 11 in New York City.  I take public transportation daily, but I have yet to file a police report or get in an actual physical altercation with anyone.

The other night I did my usual and hopped on the Q train to see a show at Coney Island USA.  I went to see my buddy Fisherman and his orchestra of sorts – a lighthearted burlesque show with live music, my usual fix.   After the show I hung out with some friends and around 1 am I left to take the subway home by myself.

As usual when the train is in the station, only one car has its doors open.  I decide to sit in the air-conditioned car and not on the muggy platform.  A dozen or so people are already in the car, including a rather strange-looking fellow.  He has shabby white hair and a raggedy beard.  His outfit looks like a twisted throw back to the swinging sixties.  He sports a brightly colored tie-dyed t-shirt, a denim vest and jeans covered in political buttons.  He is colorful yet filthy.  The raggedy hippie is either flying drunk, on drugs or mentally ill and is probably a combination of all three.   I chose a seat as far away from him as possible.  He is loudly muttering and getting into fights with people on his end of the train.  I couldn’t tell what exactly what he is blathering on about, but I knew that the rest of the car is completely annoyed with him.  He isn’t just sitting there being a drunken idiot, but actively upsetting others while engaging in fairly hostile language.

By the time the car starts moving, he is subdued.   My mind goes elsewhere, he is just one of many crazy people I will encounter on any given day in New York.  The train only moves a few stops from Coney Island and all of sudden I look up and the crazy hippie is nearly right on top of me, muttering incomprehensible drivel.  Standing on a few feet from where I am sitting he reaches out an arm in my direction to grab me.  I immediately stand up and shout

“Get away from me…Don’t touch me”

Instead of backing off he lunges for me, getting angrier, he tries to explain himself.  I jump back a couple of feet and stand my ground.  I am alone, in low heels and a dress with long blonde hair and my huge blue eyes.  Even though I feel unstoppable, I know I look like one big target to someone mentally deranged.  I am often pointed out by a crazy person on a train car, even when I am not looking up.  Call it a doll syndrome or a Barbie complex, the mentally unhinged always love picking on the baby-faced blonde.  As I stand there waiting for what to do next, I hear a non-verbal threat from a seat near me.  Two young men, in their early twenties with thick Brooklyn accents immediately jump up and threaten the man to sit back down.

“Hey Buddy”

The hippie slumps back into his seat and immediately begins to antagonize the young men.  I can’t make out what he is saying as he is muttering nonsense.  I debate going to another car, but I figure the crazy old man could follow me, and at least in this car the two young Brooklyn thug types have my back.  Yet at the same time I worry that they would end up getting in an actual fight with the man, and as much as he is scaring me I don’t want to witness a full out subway brawl.

The two Brooklyn boys are both a tsunami of testosterone, loud, aggressive and fearless.  Things immediately escalate and the Brooklyn boys, threaten the hippie by pounding on the wall of the train car, just above his head.  The deranged hippie just keeps riling them up.  The moment things would calm down, the hippie would look at me as if I was a big juicy steak and he was a dog without a meal.  This is not lost on the two Brooklyn boys, who would then return to intimidating him.  At ear-splitting volume they shout

“Don’t you know what I could do to you?  Why are you giving me a hard time?  Why would you continue to disrespect us like that?  I could wipe you out old man!”

After a few more stops and screaming on the part of my younger protectors, one approaches me and asks when I am planning on getting off the train.  Then he walks over and asks the hippie what stop he was getting off on, the hippie replies.

“Whatever stop moves me man”

And with that the hippie looks over at me again.  Even though he is older, he is a huge and he probably could overtake me just based on his size.  I am stone-cold sober and have my phone out ready to call 911.  But it will be difficult to dial if he knocks me unconscious, or throws my phone onto the tracks.  Despite his claims of being a peace-loving “hippie” the look in his eyes screams predator.  The younger men discuss among themselves what they were going to do and wait until we got to another stop.  They then lure the man over to the doors, and when the doors open the younger and larger of the two position the hippie right in front of the open doors and scream

“You are getting out here!”

And with enough force to knock over three men, he takes the hippie by his shoulders and shoves him onto the platform.  The doors shut and the train moves out of the station.  The second the doors close a palatable release is felt throughout the subway car, the psycho is no longer a threat to anyone.   I slowly walk over to the two young men and thank them.

“Hey it’s no big deal, that guy was a monster, you could see it on his face, he won’t mess with you lady”

I ask what neighborhood they live in, because they remind me of a friend from Bensonhurst, a somewhat notorious old school neighborhood in Brooklyn.

“Kings Highway” “I am Irish and my buddy here is Italian, we grew up in Brooklyn, and we aren’t going to put up with some fool like that asshole, and don’t worry we weren’t gonna hit him, he wasn’t even worth that, we just wanted to scare him and get him off the train!”

His Italian friend responds

“And don’t worry we aren’t teenagers, I am 22 and he is 23 years old, we have seen more crap in our day…anyway have a nice night lady and get home safe”

I return to my seat across from a young black man and woman.  The young man has his jeans rolled up to his knees exposing his calves and his female friend is making fun of him

“Rolling your jeans up like that makes no sense, and your legs are ashy!  You can’t go around like that…you look crazy”

“Leave me alone girl, don’t you know my bunions are killing me!”

And with that I fall over laughing.  The couple looks over to me and we all starting laughing, about the crazy hippie, the tough Brooklyn boys, bunions and ashy legs.

Even though I know I am taking a risk riding the subway alone at all hours of the night, I don’t feel that scared.  Statistically I am more likely to die in a car wreck on a highway than murdered in a subway car in New York City.  When I first moved to New York I witnessed almost identical situation only less extreme.  A drunk man was causing quite a commotion on a subway car, and at after 15-20 minutes of putting up with him, three large men calmly walked up to him and pushed him out on the next station.  They didn’t even exchange words with the drunk man, the men just did what they thought they needed to do.

One of the most amazing things about living in New York City is the feeling that you are never really alone.  The lives of 8 million are constantly intersecting with each other, worlds colliding every day.  Our proximity gives us opportunities to connect with people of totally different backgrounds.  We can’t get in our cars and shut out the rest of the universe, we have no choice but to interact with one another, bound together whether we like it or not.  In a city that prides itself on its dog eat dog mentality and survival of the fittest philosophy situations like the Brooklyn boys and the hippie remind me that were are all in this together.

As Manhattan slowly becomes sanitized and gentrified the outer boroughs still feel much more authentic.  One of the things I love about Brooklyn, is that the old school tough guy mentality isn’t completely lost.   As Starbucks invade nearly every corner and mom & pop stores disappear, replaced by Dunkin Donuts it is nice to know that Brooklyn still produces some badass young men who are willing to get involved to help out a complete stranger.   Private school boys raised in luxury probably wouldn’t have thrown a threatening hippie off the train like that.  I was thankful for their lack of fear and street smarts.  I don’t want to live in the false safety of homogenized suburbs.  I want to live in a city with rough edges, and among people who won’t just sit back and take the world at face value.  New York City constantly surprises me and that is why I love this city so much.  Normally two super macho young guys would intimidate me, I never thought in a million years I would fall in love with brute male energy late at night on a subway car.

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Growing up with Depression

Date: July 13, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Depression, Divorce, Gay Husband
Comments: 11 Replies

First Day of School

I guess it has always been there to some degree since childhood.  I would love to say that my childhood was happy and that everyone around me was loving and supportive.  But who has that childhood?  I have met a few who have been fortunate enough to at least have strength in their basic foundational relationships.  The lucky few who are supported by both their parents, have a secure and safe environment, and a steady predictable routine. My upbringing was relatively stable in most respects but emotionally I would describe it as volatile.

I don’t blame my parents, and at my age I would feel a bit silly putting any blame on them considering my circumstances.  I wasn’t abandoned or left to starve and I wasn’t neglected or ridiculed.  My parents got married young and had four children in five years.  We didn’t grow up with much, and money was a constant source of stress and anxiety.  Their marriage wasn’t perfect and they were not ideal parents but they always made their children their primary concern.  So with all of their faults I knew the did the best they could consider the obstacles they were up against.   I may not have had a father I could have tender moments with, but he worked overtime, marched on picket lines and lived with very little material wealth for the sake of his children.  My mother was in over her head with four babies and a husband who worked all the time but she always made us the center of the universe.   She constantly took us to trips to the library, bought us every educational toy or game we could afford and made sure we did our homework.  She may have been too obsessed, but I would rather grow up with her than an indifferent mother.

School wasn’t much of a solace as I was awkward and socially withdrawn.  I found children my age to be a bit of a mystery and found more enjoyment reading a book than playing with other kids.  There is much more I could write about, but I won’t because I cherish relationships I have with certain family members.  I don’t want to dredge up old traumas for the sake of this blog.  Some things need to remain private, for the sake of my siblings and my immediate family.   When things got bad I literally hid in a closet in our basement.  I would shut the door and wait for my world to stop spinning out of control.  To this day I don’t think anyone in my family knew I would go down there, I guess they might know now…if they read this blog.

Depression has always been there.  The dread that will sometimes wash over me that I can’t shake.  It causes me to overreact and panic and lose faith in others.   My divorce made it much more pronounced but depression has been with me for as long as I can remember.  I had no idea how bad it would get until post-divorce I became suicidal and nearly completely lost my sanity.  Clinical depression is nothing to joke about or to shrug off as just the blues.  I realize now that I suffered from a mental illness that is quite common but extremely frustrating to manage.  But I fought back with traditional therapy, medication, cognitive behavioral therapy and eventually my situation greatly improved.

Although now, I can feel the seductive pull of the dark clouds sucking me back in from time to time.  At first it feels comfortable to give in to the black moods and collapse in tears but they soon take over.  Instead of having a quick therapeutic moment of release the dread wins out and starts to devour me.  I find myself lying on my bed looking straight up trying to fight back a panic attack.  I haven’t had one in over a year, and I am so proud that I have been able to stop them but when things get bad it is a constant struggle.  At least now I know I have some control, I don’t have to huddle in a closet until it passes.   Just knowing that I have some control has been paramount to my recovery.  As a child I didn’t know what it was, I couldn’t understand why I wanted to retreat by myself, why I had difficulty dealing with other and why I constantly had crying fits that were nearly inconsolable.   I couldn’t understand why things got so black in my head, and why hope was such a hard thing to imagine.  My Catholic upbringing caused me to look for a supernatural source but now I know the real demons live inside my head.  If it is brain chemistry or some genetic defect I don’t know, or if repeated trauma caused something in my brain to develop abnormally.  The source of my depression doesn’t really matter, at least that is what therapy taught me.  What matters is management, and trying to live with and fight against this affliction.

For the most part I do alright.  I am so much better off than I was just a year ago, but I still struggle.  I know from the amazing feedback I have gotten from this blog and from fellow sufferers of depression that this disease is a tricky one.  If you are reading this and you have struggled with depression since you were a child, don’t give up hope.  You can and will beat it.  Some of us aren’t as lucky in life as others, some of us are born with more obstacles that the average person, and some of us are born with the biology that causes depression.  But it doesn’t mean that we can’t beat this disease and we can’t overcome it.

I wish I knew what I know now when I was six years old, if I could I would go back to that little girl with the ice blonde hair and the rosy cheeks and tell her that God isn’t punishing her when the gloom overtakes her mind.   Whatever is going on in her head is not pay back for any sins she committed and it is not a battle between good and evil.  The dark moods are just a slight flaw in her wiring, and that flaw is depression.  Everyone has a flaw, no little girl is born perfect.

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