Paranormal Living

So there I was sitting at my desk. In a moment of weakness, I searched for changes to a playlist. Shortly after I pressed the search button, there was a crackling noise, and a bit of ink appeared on one of my comedy flashcards. I studied the watermark and it looked like a heart shape. Not perfect, but close. I looked at the ceiling to see if something fell, then tried to scratch it, to see if it was a piece of pastry from my almond croissant earlier. It wouldn't come off. It was as if someone drew on my flashcard with a tiny fountain pen. When I turned over the card it was my lucky number 3. A bit that jokes about experiencing the ghost of my daughter's grandfather...

(3)
That was the same bathroom I experienced the ghost of my daughter's grandfather telling me to "be good to his son." While I was on the toilette.
If that doesn't make $#%^ awkward then nothing will.
Talk about spooky $#%^!

I cried and laid down wondering if it's my mental health again. I most certainly didn't ink that heart on the back of the card with the ghost story. It appeared on the card with a crackling sound. *mod edit*

Part I
In the spring of 2015, on my way home from work, I was almost to Second Avenue and 24th street heading towards the nearest train. By the time I dragged my pumps around the corner I saw some commotion on 2nd Avenue.

A woman dropped a quarter and I thought it vanished from sight. It disappeared from the surface of the pavement. It wasn’t that it had rolled away, it evaporated into thin air with all our eyes on it, as if we were hypnotized to watch it.

Two businessmen were walking down the street, towards three women heading uptown. I overheard their exchange about the coin. They all were looking down.

“Where’d it go?” The man asked with the Midwestern accent.

“It vanished into thin air,” an older lady dressed as if she could have just come from church said in disbelief.

“That’s crazy,” her friend said shaking her well plastered hair.

“Impossible,” the other man said peering through thick glasses.

A third woman in sandals walked down the steps to look on the ground there, as if the quarter rolled out of sight.

The Midwesterner reached into the pocket of his khakis. “Here you go, I don’t need this one,” he
said handing the first lady a shiny new quarter.

I walked around the group as they continued to search for the lost coin, baffled at its disappearance. I relaxed when this happened. Reassured by the Midwesterner’s generosity and the experience of the coin. I felt connected to the East Village and Gramercy through my routine walks along their sidewalks. But when the coin was taken from the sidewalk where the woman dropped it near 24th street, I felt that something more powerful in the universe linked to my reality.

As soon as I got home, I video called my friend, Sophie. She remembered another story I’d told her.
“Yeah, I’m a little worried. I know the idea of time travel is delusional, right? But, could the coin have rolled back in time? Could October have been the other end of a wormhole? Back then, a coin appeared out of nowhere in that same spot.” I said hesitating a bit, knowing I must sound out of my mind.

“Oh my God, I remember you telling me,” Sophie said letting her jaw drop open.

In the fall, I had been worried about money and wasn’t sure about my future. I’d started to feel like if I didn’t have a solid financial situation, then I didn’t have value, but that was when the quarter rolled toward me. There was nobody else around. The quarter appeared out of nowhere in the center of the sidewalk, in front of me on my walk to work. At that moment I was thinking about my monetary value when the coin came to me. Once I saw the coin, I gave up obsessing about money, but felt paranoid for a few days. I kept walking, freed from the ideas that I needed more money.

That coin spoke to me in a deep way.

It was a sign that someone somewhere had the ability to give or take away things. I believed my relationships with the people around me, and with whoever controlled that quarter and knew my thoughts were really what should matter. The coin was not under my control.

In October 2014, I didn’t need the money as much as a symbol of worth, and seeing the coin appear out of thin air had shocked me awake. I didn’t chase the quarter, because I didn’t know where it came from. It made me a little paranoid that someone was watching, and playing with me. So, I let the coin roll down the steps to the paved patio and kept walking.

“Oh my God. A wormhole on 2nd Avenue?” Sophie questioned lifting her brows.

“I don’t know, I searched for the “disappearing coin trick” and saw all sorts of magic tricks that can be played out. There is even one stunt in a café where they made a scene happen like out of a poltergeist movie. I don’t know how it happened, but it was reassuring to think that there is some other force watching out for us.” I said.

“But how would they have known to roll it while you were thinking your self-worth was tied to finances?” Sophie asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

The strangeness that inspired much of my life over the past decade was made up of reality, but I worried. Was I misunderstanding my surroundings? Either I was getting sick again, with the experience with the coin, or something strange was happening around me.

It isn’t that I asked for strange things to happen, they just did. And when they did, I tried to document them. Everyone said it couldn’t be real, my family and providers said it was delusional. But I accepted treatment, I took effective medication. Why did things keep happening? When the coin went missing or appeared out of nowhere, it made me wonder; what if it was real?

I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t want to believe my experience, because if it was true, then someone may be in control. Had a magician, God, or some other intelligent life form played with me? I preferred to think I was just sick again.

Sophie had lived with me while she was in college. Sophie knew strange things happened around me. Things would be moved about, spices would go missing, just before I’d reach for it. The radio would turn on and off independent of being touched. And at times it spooked us. The doors would be unlocked when it should have been locked. The lights would at times flicker on or off without being commanded.

Sophie worried that somehow, I was at the center of something strange. I had confided a secret. It involved New Hampshire. It was just weird enough that Sophie thought Spooks could be targeting me to drive me mad, to take away my credibility regarding the secret of the sexual abuse at Jamie’s birth. Sophie added the coin to the list with the radio, lights, lock, and spices.

“Look at it this way, at least you got to experience the coin. Some people go their whole life without interesting things happening to them.”

“Ah, they probably have weird stuff happen to them, too. They probably just weren’t paying attention,” I said jokingly.

“Seriously, when things happen that are strange most people just ‘let it go’. Like that time my keys were lost, and I found them in the freezer. You are not alone in this, you’ll be ok, just take it easy, and relax, it will sort out eventually. Just keep documenting, someday they’ll understand,” Sophie said concerned that maybe I wasn’t mad.

For me only time could give me insight into the coin.

2017 Eclipse

The sun was high in the sky as I drove away from the beach. Jamie sat next to me on our trip home to New York City. I’d rented a car to pick her up from a YMCA camp near the Delaware Water Gap in New Jersey and we’d driven up to visit Dr. Mitchel’s family at their annual beach house vacation. Their family invited us to share their time with them to help fill the void of loss. We backed away from the white house towards a small green mermaid statue at the edge of the sand dune. Dr. Mitchel had walked over to the fence in sandals and shorts. He’d lost a loved one to mental illness, and our relationship acted as a healing connection.

At a Yankee Dental Conference dinner with his wife in 2009 we’d shared stories that were deep and personal. I shared my story of the sexual abuse by a physician at the birth followed by the onset of mental illness, and I learned something fascinating about Dr. Mitchel’s wife’s beliefs.

“We come into this world to help one another through this lifetime, and work toward our soul goals.” She said.

Over beef burgundy with pasta, we forged a healing relationship. Dr. Mitchel provided insight from his years of experience, and I gave him a way to try to heal his soul from feeling the pain of helplessness against losing someone special to mental illness. As we left the parking lot that summer day, he lowered the thin linked chain that cordoned off the entrance to the lot between the sand dune and the fence. He waited for us to slowly drive over the chain. Then he refastened the metal to the hook to chain off the entrance, and we all waved goodbye.

That morning the radio buzzed in preparation for a solar eclipse. Jamie alternated between iTunes DJ, Google maps navigator, and conversationalist. The sun was high in the sky when we pulled out of the parking space. We talked about her time at camp, her response to the letters I’d sent to her at camp. She scheduled a visit with her new best friend from camp. We started to plan for her going back to school and I explained my work schedule for the coming months. While we travelled along the eastern seaboard, I was hit hard by the thought that I’d missed so much of motherhood wrapped up in my thoughts about the birth.

My heart tugged at the realization that I’d lost so much time in motherhood trying to heal from the memory of being sexually assaulted during the exam in childbirth. I’d never had a fiercer attraction than I felt for the man who touched me. When the physician violated my sacred space, regardless of his intentions, I broke in response. I’d never had anyone touch me like that who didn’t say they wanted me, too. I’d never been touched by someone who I didn’t have a consensual agreement with who I could love. After Dr. Richard’s touch, it was too much to try to reconcile the reality of my perception of his abuse with my fantasy of desire. I became trapped in the memory of his touch wanting forbidden love. He did not, and would never be able to love me. He was just doing his job. I was treated clinically rather than like the human I am.

When I was put in the role of the patient, I was told it was time to examine my progress in labor. The system took my ability to protect my sacred space at the most vulnerable point in my life. Would I have been allowed to say something? Would the system have let me say he was too hot? In 2005, I don’t believe they would have accepted my desire to change providers without making it a big deal.

Both the fantasy and abusive reality were bad for Jamie and me considering our situation. I was a 28 year old new mom, with Jamie to care for, and reconciling the sexual experience required every free cell in my brain for years and years. Due to my illness compounded by my preoccupation with the memory of the trauma and PTSD from the experience, I struggled over the years to stay in the moment.

The radio tuned into a pop station as we approached 2:52 the time the 80% eclipse would begin. Cars pulled over on the side of the road. Drivers held their phones to the sky, tracking the sun above. I kept driving, noting that it was just a little less bright out. It wasn’t significant enough to stop. It didn’t impede my vision. The traffic in Connecticut along 95 was heavy and slow. As I drove something happened to me. It was subtle, but profound. The feelings that had held me tight for over a dozen years released inside me.

As we listened to music, it happened. Jamie played Total Eclipse of the Heart on repeat throughout the eclipse. After the eclipse we talked about the Taylor Swift trial verdict that I’d mentioned in one of the camp letters. I explained the significance for women everywhere, when a disc-jockey was found guilty of groping her. She was not held to blame for his losing his job over his actions, and counter sued for a dollar for the grope. I had a personal reaction to the events of the Swift trial. I went back in my memory and considered my experience from a new perspective. Silently, I reflected as the music played and Jamie texted with all her new friends in a group chat. Her phone was blowing up with hundreds of comments, it chimed like extra beats in the music. We laughed as it took on a beat of its own, and she silenced her device to a vibration.

The chuckles pained me. I felt upset at the memory of Dr. Richard’s touch in my sacred space and how it had taken such a deep root inside me. I grieved about the time I’d lost as a mother, and how Jamie had been hurt by my inability to move past the memory of not being loved by Jack or Dr. Richard. But I was determined not to wallow any more. I recognized that I have the rest of my life to be the mother the way I’d set out to do when I started trying to conceive Jamie.

I hoped that she would heal from the pain of not feeling unconditional love. For the longest time I didn’t know how to love. After everything I went through, I didn’t like myself for a while. I tried to love Jamie the best I could, but not loving myself, I didn’t have the resources to meet her needs emotionally. It wasn’t until I broke free from Jack that I began to heal my heart, and learned to love myself and began to fulfill Jamie’s emotional needs. She’d been raised with a form of unsatisfying and conditional love from Jack. It was a love based on a behaviorists world view. When she behaved as her father wanted she was rewarded with feeling his conditional love. My love was unreliable for her due to my medication sedation, and illness. These ailments physically limited me. She was still rightfully angry that I wasn’t a better mom for her. She compared her experience with her friends.

“You failed me so many times, I’ve lost my trust in you through years of disappointments and broken promises.” She said.

“I’m trying. I want to be the mom I set out to be when I planned to have you. I’m sorry I got sick, and I know I need to do a better job as a mom.” I said.

“You shouldn’t have had me if you couldn’t handle it.” She said.

“I was well when I conceived you, I had no idea I would get so sick. Even if I had known I’d get sick, I still would have had you, because you are the best part of my life. I love you more than anything, and you are my connection to the future.” I said getting teary eyed.

“I don’t believe you. If that was true, you wouldn’t smoke.” She said.

“I’m quitting. We have to go on a tight budget this fall, and I’m giving up all the expensive things that are not essential.” I said.

“Good. You know how upset it makes me to see you killing yourself with cigarettes and alcohol.” She said.

We continued to plan for the fall. She made a list of all the clothes she needed for the fall, and we talked about how we would make our budget work. Jamie was the best seventh grader I’d ever known. She understood our situation, in some ways she understood things better than me. I loved how she was bright and intelligent. My heart squeezed with love, and painful regret and guilt for all the time I’d been captivated by the memory of the trauma of the touch from Dr. Richard and not being loved through the experience. In that moment I realized, I’d never really be able to love the physician who’d put me on this path without the world changing and understanding from a higher level a higher love.

For the first time in my life, I began to feel upset for Jamie and the injustice she’d endured due to my experience. Jamie was such a great kid. She was a member of the Principal’s Council, the student government group at her school. Her leadership qualities were strong, her logic was sound, and her intelligence keen. I couldn’t remember a time when Jamie hadn’t been correct in her assessment from her perspective. The issue I had with her perspective is that it was not always grounded in love and trust, and I felt responsible for that weakness.

Over the next few weeks we shopped for school clothes, supplies, and I signed her up for riding lessons at the barn. Even if her and my relationship was still healing, she had a healing relationship with the horses at the last barn in Brooklyn. I trusted that even if she didn’t feel good about her relationship with her dad and me, she looked forward to riding. I knew that gave her something in life to love. Even though we didn’t have much money to spend on things, I made sure to pay the bill for her horse riding lessons.

By the middle of the month I took the bus up to Albany, NY to run a meeting for my professional association. I’d been elected as President shortly after I’d published my book, a mental health advocacy story I’d published as “fiction, based on a true story”. I mean, how else do you publish delusional memoir? I’d shared the book, and even having read “All in Her Head” the house of delegates for the New York Dental Hygienists’ Association elected me as President.

On the bus ride home in September 2017, I googled something I’d just learned about, the Mandela effect. The Mandela effect was first noted by Fiona Broome a paranormal expert who attended a Dragon Con Event in 2011 and a group of individuals had alternate memories regarding President Nelson Mandela. Fiona Broome remembered a story where Mandela had died in a prison in the 1980s. He’d lived through that time to become president of South Africa and didn’t pass until after 2013. I wanted desperately to understand my reality and these strange phenomena where many people were affected with the same shared memories unnerved me.

The Mandela effect opened many questions for me. I’d remembered books from my childhood were Berenstein, not Berenstain; I remembered the Portrait of Dorian Gray not the Picture of Dorian Gray, and hadn’t it always been Sex in the City, not Sex and the City. These small but memorable changes had crept into my memory bank, and this time I was experiencing something that I wasn’t alone with. Up to 20% of Millenials and Generation X’ers were Mandela effected.

Most disturbing to me were the changes in my recollection of geography. According to news stories there was a terrible hurricane, named Maria, in the Atlantic ocean. I read and overheard people talking about Puerto Rico described as the 52nd state. I’d remembered it as a territory rather than a full state. I remembered the flag had 50 stars because there were 50 States. However, I returned to understanding that the group consciousness agrees with me that there are 50 states.

When I exhausted the news on the Mandela effect, I meditated on my emotional response to the time I’d lost on my journey through motherhood to the memory of the physician’s touch. Tears fell from my eyes at the injustice Jamie had suffered due to my inability to release the trauma of the memory of his assault.

Jamie was with her dad that night. I got home from my trip after midnight.

On Monday morning September 18, 2017 after I walked Jamie to the train for school, I finally came to a new conclusion. I didn’t feel right blaming or holding the physician accountable for my grief for Jamie. I decided that forgiveness was the best way forward. I found peace in my decision to love myself. I forgave myself and the physician. My phone buzzed with a reminder from my step mom Jill to take my medicine. When I reached for my pill bottle, which should have been half full, it was empty. It scared me. I’d noticed spices and things around the house coming and going again. Like the fingernail clippers the year before.

September 2016

Last night I went to Bar Chord. I sat at a picnic table in the backyard where the murals are painted. It was the first free night I’ve had in a while, Jamie was at her dad’s. One thing led to another and I ended up going home with an artist.

I hadn’t meant for it to happen. I learned the artist was married, and I knew that it was wrong for me, but it felt so nice to connect. So intense. I liked it intense. Part of me worries I’m playing with fire. I don’t know how I’ll feel once I bond with him. In a weird way, he feels like my equal. I like that, but I know I could never trust him. I worry it will turn into a dark and unhappy space for me. I think about Dr. Richard and it makes me cry. I know, that will NEVER happen, but I still want Dr. Richard. People like the artist help me forget how sad I feel about not knowing Dr. Richard.

October 2016

Last week I looked everywhere for the fingernail clippers. They disappeared from the place I expected them to be. The small china cup that held the clippers was missing. I searched and searched, the kitchen, bathroom, closets, my daughters room, her closet, my boxes of things. It was 1:30 AM by the time I gave up. Everywhere I looked there were no clippers. I finally found a fingernail file, a gift from the Empire Conference I attended a few years ago. I grated down my nails irritated at the missing clippers.

Then tonight, when my friend, the artist, asked to smoke a cigarette, I went to get something to take to the terrace to ash in, and there it was: the small porcelain tea cup with the fingernail clippers. It was sitting right there, right where it was supposed to be last Saturday when it was missing.

“It’s back,” I said.

“What?” My friend asked.

“The ashtray went missing, and now it is right here. Do I have selective vision? How did I not see it before? How is that possible?” I asked.

My friend had no idea the significance of my find. He was oblivious to the irritation I experienced last Sunday night at 1:30am. I had searched and searched for the clippers and that tea cup. I would swear on my life that it was NOT there just last Sunday, but it returned to me today.

It was a full moon, and I told my friend the artist that I couldn’t be intimate with him anymore. I felt too guilty having a relationship with him. He had commitments outside of the connection we shared. So, I told him I needed distance.

He played some songs for me on youtube, then I said it was time to walk the dog. We said a hurried goodbye, and I returned home to consider the significance of the reappearance of the nail clippers.
I wondered if it had something to do with my email. I’d told everything, the truth of my story.

I felt reassured when things I needed were returned. If ever something goes missing and isn’t returned I’ll worry that my protectors failed. For now, I feel safe.

When my medication went missing the morning of September 18th, 2017, I worried that I wasn’t supposed to take the medication. In my state of fear, I lied to my family about taking my medication.

On Tuesday, I went to work. I’ve been told that the medication doesn’t leave your system for some time. I didn’t feel like a threat to myself or others, so I didn’t consider going to work a problem having missed my dose of medication. I slept okay that night, not as soundly as I usually do, but I made it to work on time. It was a good day, filled with positive interactions with student learners in the clinic and their patients. However, the computer system AXIUM was acting up. With one of the patients the odontogram where the teeth are charted on the computer screen said a front tooth was missing, but looking in the mouth and looking at the x-rays, the tooth existed in real life. We couldn’t figure out how to make the tooth appear on the chart. I brought over Dr. Burns and she confirmed the tooth was there, then we emailed everyone in IT to address the computer glitch. It unnerved me because I’d read a story about the mysterious planet Nerbu X in our solar system. I was starting to see signs in my environment, and this error message made me wonder if AXIUM, our flawed electronic dental records system, might be a metaphor about our world. Like Nerbu X, the glitch in the system was showing the tooth as missing when it was actually present in real life. After that, every time something happened, the error messages in AXIUM would give me warnings. It had me on edge.

“I don’t know why it is giving us all these error messages,” I told one student I was working with.

“I know, I’ve never seen it be this bad before.” She said.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a sentinel being.” I said half joking, half serious.

“What does that mean, sentinel,” She asked.

“A sentinel being is something with consciousness,” I said. Everyone in the cubical chuckled as we dismissed the error message and the signatures were accepted.

At home that night I was getting more messages in the form of things appearing around the apartment. A stray orange Gatorade bottle appeared in the fridge half empty. We didn’t know where it came from. Then, the radio was also acted up. It turned on randomly to sing pop music with lyrics that were a little different than I’d remembered them.

In response to my decompensation, I created a key to interpret the signs and signals. The key used the alphabet to interpret signs using my assigned protective concepts. I used the semantics reading the words in the reverse direction. For instance, “Trump” meant: “Plan. God, You Are Thankful.”

Trump
T Thankful
R Are
U You
M God
P Plan

When strange things happened, I’d use my key composed of protective concepts to guard me from fear of the experience. I believed I was being saved by semantics, a form of a game. It felt as if mythology was real dealing with my experience of being played with.

Wednesday morning came, and the morning was going well until 10:30am. I walked over to the reception desk on the fourth floor by the CD side of the clinic floor. Each clinic floor was divided into sections: AB/CD. I saw a grey metal hole punch with “CD4” etched by a dental drill. When I saw the shaky hand scratched letters I became afraid. Explosive, I thought when I repeated CD4 in my mind. The chakra at the back of my neck opened in fear. Then, the fire alarm sounded as I stood in front of the reception desk and printer. It howled throughout the building the second after I had my fearful thought. Unsure what was going on, I walked back to my students who had just finished the final step I’d assigned. I’d already checked everything else. We dismissed the patient beneath the ringing sirens, and flashing lights. There were lines at the stairs as the building evacuated. My students asked me if I was afraid.

“No, I have faith in a higher power,” I said and made eye contact with the people nearby on the stairs as we waited to descend. I prayed to God for protection from the siren and the fear of an explosive. When we got outside the sun was so bright and warm. It was a beautiful September day. I took a deep breath, and after a few minutes they let us back into the building.

That night I got home and hugged Jamie tight. We made dinner after she finished homework. I set out my bag for work the next day in Queens. When I went down to walk Buddy, I read the dramatic news stories between Trump and Kim Jong-un. The stories were so funny when I used my key to interpret the news, that it made me laugh hard. The belief system was rooted in a deep level of feminism, whereby women could take back power in the world through withholding climax from their men for the sake of world peace. A car parked along the service road began to blink with the right turn signal on. The car was empty. It almost felt like the lights were laughing with me.

For as long as I could remember, when I walked Buddy the automated lights we passed would shut off in response to our presence. I worried that somehow the lights were responding to Buddy and me. It bothered me that my presence caused darkness. I’ve always preferred bright lights. Brightness diminished my perception of bokeh or light refractions on the lenses of my glasses and helped reduce my perception of auras that sometimes surround people and objects.

I took the f train Thursday morning to Queens. I sat at my desk in the morning light and looked over Kew Gardens. The lush greenery of early fall had yet to turn into autumn splendor. Class began on time and I worked with students in anatomy lab to support their learning. Things were going well with the exception of my issue with flickering lights following me. As we entered the clinic the lights started to blink. The small LED lights flashed like we were at a disco. Even the large overhead lights would randomly turn on and off.

“These lights are weird, it’s like supernatural.” One student said spooked by the strange phenomena.

“It’ll be ok. Just think of it as ambient lighting,” I said trying to reassure her.


“I guess, but I’ve never seen anything like this. Do you think it will be ok when we have patients?” She asked.

“I’m sure it will stabilize before we see patients.” I said.
A man came in from the side door to the clinic and flipped off and on the light switch observing the unusual lighting effects. He tried every switch near the door trying to figure out which switches were impacted.


“Are you here to fix the lights?” I asked.

“I’m the electrician. It’s something happening with the transformer,” He said. We all chucked at the twinkling lights above. After he moved to the other end of the clinic floor, the student and I began to work.

“Welcome to supportive learning,” I said. “My goal is to help you to review any content you may not have gotten right the first time and help you to review your study habits so that you can build both your core knowledge and your process knowledge. By that I mean the things you memorize – core knowledge. And how you learn or check your knowledge base – process knowledge,” I said.

I noticed that it was emotionally challenging for students to feel like they’d failed when they missed questions. I reassured them that by reviewing things and approaching the errors with a growth mindset, where learning is a process and not a fixed objective, they’d make it through their educational journey as life-long learners, and I worked to reassure them that the knowledge base in the profession was expanding rapidly.

“When I was a student, the difference between non-succedaneous and succedaneous, was not core knowledge that I retained. The injustice in the dental educational system is that it abuses student hygienists by making you pay for and learn more than an associate’s degree, then it fails to give you full recognition, but don’t worry, this program’s master plan allows you to put your earned hours towards a baccalaureate degree. Sorry, I’m getting off topic.” I said, and we returned to the corrections. I asked the students to open their text books and find the text with the correct answers, underline the text, then write the terminology in a notebook to make flashcards later.

“This will help you to learn your source material and be able to easily access where your knowledge came from at a later date,” I said beneath the twinkling clinic lights. I believed my higher power was showing me through these student’s lessons a simple truth. I thought the instructions had two meanings. One was teaching students how to find their sources and become researchers. Second, these instructions could be used later for determining that we live in a multiverse. I knew I’d never be able to prove or disprove my belief in a higher power and how I’d been shown the multiverse. I read something about “disco lights” and the prophesy of Jesus. I wondered if someone was playing with me again, or if my reality was being influenced by a higher power.

That night Jamie was at a friend’s home. New York City public schools were closed for the Jewish and Islamic holidays. I reached her about 6pm, and we both felt tired and hungry. By the time we got home, it was past time to eat. I fed Jamie a quick snack, and started heating water, and chopping garlic and peeling potatoes for a meal of fried catfish and garlic mashed potatoes. Buddy stayed by my feet hoping for me to miss the trash can or drop a scrap. I changed his water when he scraped at his bowl.

I searched for the recipe for the catfish meal but couldn’t find it. Rather than abandon the attempt at cooking, I decided to use the quality ingredients delivered earlier that week and rely on my skills as a cook. I dipped the catfish in an egg batter then dredged it in flour and added some ground sage before frying it in the buttered pan. In the other pot the potatoes boiled with the garlic.

The raspberries and whip cream topped snack had improved Jamie’s mood. She joined me for our meal that night. We talked about how our budget was working. She continued to understand the limitations of the budget. I didn’t share my concerns with her about the fire alarm, the “disco lights” at work, or the missing menu card. Instead we focused on her. She wasn’t feeling well. Her sinuses and “allergies” were acting up. I suggested we rest the next day.

“I’m not feeling very well,” I said. I was beginning to feel transient physical, visual, tactile, and other sensory symptoms of medication withdrawal and amplification of psychotic symptoms and an altered perception of reality. I was too sick to think of the consequences of going off medication cold turkey. The burning skin was back, in addition to pins and needles, heartache, chills, burning souls of my feet, chakra bursts, pulsing energy, etc. The list of my symptoms was starting to grow.

“I’m not either and I have so much homework. I have to write pages and pages for English.” She said.

I was struggling with fear and fatigue, and our home showed it. There was stuff on the chairs in the living room, I needed to do laundry, scrub the kitchen, and pick up the laundry on the bathroom floor. Plus, I needed to take out the trash. The building’s trash shoot was closed off for renovation, meaning I had to walk outside to the curb with the trash, and I hadn’t done any house work since the previous weekend. It just felt like too much. Jamie was old enough to help but she told me it was my responsibility not hers. I tried to explain that we were a team, but she would get upset because her teachers had overwhelmed her with assignments. I chose not to argue. Instead, I took down the smelly trash when I walked Buddy.

As I walked Buddy, I noticed my surroundings. There were police in the neighborhood that night. A long NYPD van with 6-8 officers sitting inside looking at their cell phones was parked at the corner of Ditmas Ave. and Ocean Parkway. I read NYPD “Delusional Plan. Why, Nation.” It made total sense that we needed police, to protect against some people’s delusional plans. Fortunately, my plan was the love orgasm plan. I felt safe within my semantic game.

Buddy and I walked past the NYPD van to cross Ditmas. I saw a captivating woman in the crosswalk. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Buddy. She lifted her gaze to mine. She wore a wool skirt and shall wrapped around her shoulders. She connected with me through thick glasses. She looked young for such a look, and when our eyes met, the pain in my chest lifted. I walked Buddy past her path to clear the way for her to get out of the middle of the lane and thought about her calming gaze for much of the rest of the walk. Her stare helped me feel comforted. That night was to be the fall equinox, and that witchy woman’s gaze soothed my pain.

We passed down the block past the rose bushes to the corner of Webster, where Buddy always marks the corner of the fence. As I looked down at the bushes inside the fence, my vision went to black for a split second. When I could see again, I saw a black and brown spotted Tabby cat sitting between the bushes with a downcast gaze. The second before I’d only seen dirt between the bushes. I felt safe with this animal there. Buddy was indifferent stopping to smell the patch of grass in front of the fence. Knowing that woman’s gaze helped me and being watched by the local wildlife (stray cats) reassured me. This night the lights stayed on as we passed by the buildings. I wondered if the cat was a shapeshifter, or if I’d slid between the veil.

Jamie was in bed by the time we arrived home that night. I felt exhausted. I threw off my shoes and climbed in bed. But my mind was a buzz. High on a mixture of curiosity, fear, and hope, I couldn’t stop my thoughts. They just wouldn’t turn off. They slowly progressed. My mind wasn’t racing, it awakened to a new type of processing. My thinking lifted. I could no longer perceive time normally. The months of the year were hard to recall. I struggled to schedule tasks. However, my ability to play a game with semantics wildly expanded. When I wrote notes about my experience on the computer screen, a text box appeared. It simply said, “compare and contrast”. The message assigned me a task to look for contradictions and contrasting events. What I learned as I played this game was that it was inappropriate when reading about death, dying, or most news of sadness or terror.

As I read the news, I listened to music on iTunes, iHeartRadio, and from my radio. Everything felt predetermined and intentional. Did someone know my thoughts? When they didn’t like what I was thinking, the phone froze, song paused, or a new story launched for me to read. The devices controlled my perception.

When I asked if the fire alarm was their doing, they were perplexed.
“You mean you don’t know?” The text in the browser asked me.
When I searched my memories trying to know what I didn’t know, that was when the browser launched independent of my key strokes to a news story. It was an article about Durga, the Hindu goddess of justice appeared from the American Institute of Vedic Studies. I’ve been feeling for a long time that someone was helping me through my struggles with mental illness. The great mother goddess, who appears as Durga has been given many powers by Gods and Goddesses. She is a super power in the realm of the supernatural. I tried to understand the significance of this information.

The songs on the radio sang sweet love ballads. It made me wonder if maybe God loved me. I kept sinking low when I had the thought that only God would love me. My dating life was fun, but when I reflected on the inability of the men in my life to love me through my mental illness, my heart ached. I wanted unconditional love. The type people at church talked about in my youth. When I thought that God loved me romantically, it was a powerful aphrodisiac. I liked it, but I sank low when I thought of how I felt about the men in my life. Pulling back from the memory of the men who’d failed me, I lifted my mind, and thought about my history of my romance with God. I couldn’t forget the way I’d taken my virginity. The first time I’d had sex was with Jamie’s father, Jack, which was true. But, I’d climaxed before that on my own. I’d used the most powerful thing I could think of in high school. I fantasized about God. I knew it was wrong, but it was fun.

Part II
Durga’s Plot

While I was coming to grips with my new understanding, and the intensity of the grandiose idea of God’s love. The messages continued. From a combination of the text on the screen, music on the radio, and my thinking I came to believe that Durga and the angels of heaven or Gods, depending on what religion you used to try to describe the higher order of our subjective reality and the higher realm of power.

I believed that Durga plotted with others to design a “bad romance” whereby all religion paints the backstory for this love affair with the third eye, a higher power, and sexuality. In romance writing the force is the thing that brings two characters together so that a romance can blossom. In my story that force was the concept of healing. Someone in the higher dimension thought of using “healing” as the force to bring God into proximity long enough for humanity to fall in love romantically. In 2005, I broke when I couldn’t separate my fantasies of the physician from the reality of the abuse of his exam during my labor at the time of my daughter’s birth. Then my husband didn’t love me through the experience, and I struggled.

I believed that God was slowly healing me through time, and modern interference. Until the 2017 eclipse, I was unable to conceive of my experience as sexual abuse. I wanted to believe in the physician’s humanity and believe that he didn’t intend to assert his power over me. But thinking back, I remembered the look on his face when my husband took a picture with the physician’s camera for a picture album cataloging all the deliveries he’d attended. His trophy collection. I couldn’t forget his cruel expression when the flash exposed him, I lost my mind as I tried to erase that memory. I wanted to love his humanity and failed to connect with reality in my attempt. The experience changed me. Eventually I couldn’t sit with the anger, I didn’t like feeling that toxic, so I chose to forgive, but still, it left me forever touched, and the ramifications for my daughter and my relationship were significant and long term.

When I deeply reflect on my perception, I am uncertain of any reality that is not verified. Memory is subjective. It can be influenced and twisted by many forces. It was also the most vulnerable moment of my life. Plus, with having experienced so many versions of reality in the multiverse during my illness*more later, I have stopped believing that there is a simple reality. The physician may be the well-intentioned version of himself, and not the power player I remember being touched by. Anyway, at this point, the intention doesn’t matter. I perceived it in my reality, and I’ve forgiven him. He is free. I am free, too. I chose to love him unconditionally, regardless of his actions or my delusions. Even though I don’t get to be with him in the physical world, I feel alive in my higher level connection to the universal source. I live in the Light and live my life with love, and it feels divine. I am better not having him in the physical sphere. Any connection to him is of a higher level. It only happens when I lift up and feel the energy rise within and through me.
But I find sometimes we go to the sitting place in my mind and spend time being sad when I cannot lift beyond my visceral needs.

I’d been through so much. A song played on my iPhone by Rockell who sang “Show Me the Way.” The song wanted me to show the way. I couldn’t escape the reality that I need to care for my child, and I knew I was suffering with my illness. I knew I would need to return to medication to treat my illness and return to sanity, but I knew the side effects were severe with the medicines I took. After over a decade of medication compliance my body was suffering from the medication side effects. The smooth muscles throughout my body had become stiff. Even breathing was at times labored and uncomfortable especially when wearing a constricting bra.

Instead of worrying about me, I started to worry about the physician and his world. I was told not to worry about the physician. I was told that when his time comes, he dies a peaceful death. The messages told me that on the journey through to heaven, God (or whoever was playing with the messages) looked back in the rear-view mirror and saw an image of his likeness in the physician. Who knows, maybe Durga forced Him to do it. There was a country love song about those two meeting in the back of an old bar and falling in love. I think maybe it was all an elaborate setup.

When I focused, I worried about reality. I read news stories about the threat of nuclear war. Then the messages started coming. I was instructed that I had to decide the future with my action. I was given the choice either to climax, or the world would be destroyed. The messages told me our futures were at stake. Thinking of my role as a mother, of course I chose to climax. What was the worst that could happen if I pleasured myself? It was so strange feeling as if someone could read my mind and control me so intensely. However, I never felt my free will was taken. Despite being played with so completely, the choice to act was always mine. Although, the perversion of psychosis is real. I felt coerced into action. It was my understanding that some higher power needed to ejaculate on the solstice, or the next thousand generation would be baron. Somehow, I was the focus of the attention of the higher power and by climaxing I believed this started a religious chain of events – beginning the Rapture. My delusion of grandeur about the end times is a common theme in mental illness, although my experience of it may be different. Granted, looking back on the scripture, my belief is impossible. The bible clearly states the pregnant woman gave birth with “labor pains” to a male child. And I didn’t have the wings of an eagle, I had mental illness and a half-written romance novel titled the “great blue heron”.

At climax I felt a sensation of honey like energy spread over my body. I was vibrating so intensely, I felt like I was buzzing. The music on the radio sounded so alive and fresh to me. I felt high. That night I didn’t sleep. As I understood it, He needed to climax to reproduce to create a new heir for his family. Somehow my climax helped him out. Minutes later a story about a dynastic heir emerged in my news feed.

When I stopped sleeping, my mind kept slowly thinking new thoughts. It wasn’t going fast, just slow and steady. I needed to consider to understand what was happening to me. I was captivated by the game, and my experience. Throughout the night I read forwards with the authors intent, then applied my semantic language reading backwards in loose associations that I found to be ironic and funny to read. It felt like I was experiencing the feminine and masculine forces of the ethos. It created a funny and ironic balance.

The basic protective concepts when placed together explained something about our God, who I came to understand as coming from a higher realm like magicians in a parallel universe. I believed he was King Arthur, the King of Heaven, and really the leader of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian faiths, who is a masculine force. Past experiences with things appearing and disappearing around me had altered my understanding and perception of time. When I shared this story with my writing group, they cautioned not to share it, because my story may be radically insensitive to religions around the world. But, I have lived experiences of mental illness that defy reality. I still remembered the story of the coin. Unsure of what to do, I’ve kept my story silent for the most part.
Taking it out and working on it when I am able.

When I read the signs, they explained that He (God, the Male God) orgasms. I mean, we were made in his image, right? So, why wouldn’t He orgasm? “Orgasms Are,” I read when the messages told me to “Grow.”

The humor tickled me at the notion that Durga, the supreme mother goddess had set up the author, my God, in a sort of a bad romance, where all world religions form the perfect backstory for the setup for this new mythological reality. She assisted using the character in my imaginary world “Sunny” trying to help me through my mental illness. She’d plotted for Arthur to work to heal me from the original sin of the physician’s abuse at the birth of my daughter, and to rebalance the male and female forces in the universe. Even Jesus worked into the backstory to create a reality where America exists as it can today to allow our higher power to fall in love. Even the Pope was part of the conspiracy to create a world where God can heal us all.

The music sang to me with unusual lyrics to a song I had heard before. The lyrics were nothing like I remembered them. I’ve looked for the song and can’t find it in my library or locate the artist, but I remember the story vividly.

The lyrics told me a story where God and others saw the holy Light but failed to descend in time.
“We’d just taken you to walk the plank. We were so surprised. It was so surreal. We didn’t look at what happened until it was too late.” The music said.

Putting it together with the messages I was reading in the news stories, I figured Durga was who they saw in the Light. They could see Durga, because she is a goddess. Their family in heaven share a third eye. They’d explained that they saw their family’s sins and sins committed against them. I saw into the third eye as I gave birth to Jamie and looked into the holy Light beyond the lotus. The flower opened with the purest Light I’ve ever seen at the center.

The lotus flowered during the transition in my labor hours before I gave birth. I sat and breathed deeply and used techniques I learned in yoga practice in my early 20’s to deal with the pain. As I meditated, the sensation of the contractions of labor was intense. They felt similar to the orgasms of pregnancy.

The lotus flower pulsed and bloomed with one thousand petals of every hue of color. Reds, greens, yellows, oranges, purples, blues, and at the center was brightest Light filled with love and sensual energy that shot sparks through the entranced imagery. There was darkness all around the periphery of my vision of color and Light. The radiating flower pulled me towards the Light and held my attention through the labor. There was also a Mandela in an electric yellow/green and orange pattern that emerged from the lotus. It was hypnotizing.

I understood that because Arthur explained He saw Durga, they determined a sin had occurred, but seeing the holy Light transmitted simultaneously, they were confused. So was I. They later explained that being sexually abused during the birth violated me. But they hadn’t immediately gone to look beneath the veil to understand my story.

When the sexual abuse was registered as sin, it changed everything. He said the world could never be the same. I believed they were changing timelines to prepare for a new reality – one where equality and justice ruled.

In response to my curiosity about the romance plot, I looked back at the story I’d written in 2011. Originally inspired after my first professional encounter with Dan, my boss’ boss whose gaze made me feel things I’d forgotten I knew how to feel. I remembered something. I remembered being taken by the browser and shown the sir name for a line of English Nobility. I’d laughed at the idea that my writing used the sir name for the King of England. This was too much. It was impossible, wasn’t it?

I’d debonded from Jack with the hope in the delusion that someone loved me. The idea that Dan (my boss’ boss) could love me burned hot, until Father Figure by George Michael played, and I realized he was too old for me. I was young enough to be his daughter. Plus, I didn’t believe he’d abuse his power that way. I knew I was sick and delusional, and that in fact, my computer was hacked and leading me around the internet. I’d chosen to believe that someone could love me, and the content on my broken computer, over trusting my broken relationship with Jack, the head of information security. Looking back, I wondered if I’d trusted Jack, if things would have turned out differently* footnote story about the hack in 2016/2017.

I found a copy of one of my stories saved randomly on the hard drive of my computer rather than saved in a file. It was randomly dropped at a high level of my organization system. I usually kept my written works together in a file under my projects folder.
 




Romance with God
When a revised version of my failed submission for the Flame Contest showed up on my hard drive I opened it up curiously. I couldn’t remember revising it with such a strong masculine voice. I wondered how it got on my computer. Was I blacking out, or forgetting the memories of my work? I started to read it, and that reading played over in my mind creating new threads of thinking from which delusions formed. Had Durga helped me again? Or, my heart skipped a beat, Arthur? (Read the appendix)

Part III

The Back Story of God’s Love
This fall something happened to me. I experienced things that can't have been true. I mean, it's just too much.
The basic premise is that Durga Plotted to seduce the God of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faith. She did this using the theme of healing to bring God into proximity with women to heal them from the sin of sexual abuse such as the Me Too movement. God fell in love and realized why America exists, because this is where he has the potential to love and be loved. SO, the premise is sorta freemason... where God forgave Lucifer, because He fell in love. To accept Lucifer back into heaven, He (God) participated in a ritual to become the devil. I know, it's complicated.

My Reaction to the Bad Romance
News stories about the royal family, the third eye conspiracy, thoughts of my story linked with God, God the devil. And more.


Holy Fire and Druga’s Protection
When I looked up the holy Light in the bible, there was a reference about Jesus emitting the holy Light. The Mormon’s go into great detail about the belief in Jesus bringing the Light to every person. More simply, I think the Light I saw was coming from within my brain. I also found references to Jesus and the idea of the holy fire. Then in the thirteenth century, the miracle of the Holy fire was deemed a fraud. But it made me think of all the fires and fire alarms. Thankfully I reminded myself Durga is the goddess of protection against fires and things. I had a history of being afraid of fire. With the name like mine, who wouldn’t.

Part IV – Chapter 1
Karma:
Motherhood and Mental Illness
I wondered if somehow Jamie was Durga’s child – Karma. Durga’s daughter is Karma. But Durga had never stayed after a major defeat in one of her battles, she always disappeared. I worried about Jamie if anything happened to me, and I couldn’t repair our bond, because you know what they say about Karma. I also worried that Jamie belonged as the daughter of the King of Heaven.

Since the conception, I’d struggled to believe that Jack was her father. I had an alternate memory about the night she was conceived. I’d written about it in the book I’d published. I’d told myself it had to be a fantasy, an implausible fantasy. But, I remembered it clearly. In June 2014, after I’d had sex with Jack and he’d fallen asleep next to me, I’d masturbated to climax. The sex toy I’d reached for felt sticky and warm, but I used it anyway. I was too turned on by the idea that someone wanted me badly enough to trick me into getting pregnant with their child. Although, it did occur to me that it was wrong on so many levels to masturbate with my husband asleep by my side, he’d left me wanting more. Our home in New Hampshire was being painted that summer and an extension ladder leaned against the back of the house by our open bedroom window. I heard it creak as I climaxed.
I postulated that if I was right, and Durga together with others from the spiritual realms set up Christianity, Islam, and Judaism as a backstory for the romance between a sort of a masculine King of heaven to transition from a male dominated society to a balance the power on earth between men and women. If I was right, the future would be filled with large sustainable cities, that were environmentally friendly, and where justice reigned. The images they took me to allowed me to have hope for the future. It reminded me of the ancient Mythology, where women united against men to end war and create peace on earth.

Another possibility included that it could have been my soul emitting the Holy Light. I mean, I’d seen it during the birth. Must have been my Light, right? If true, then I doubted my understanding of “God.” I wondered if I misunderstood the role of the King of Heaven and the Mother Goddess Durga. A collective third eye that emitted love was more likely the true God. The one that I know and love, who is eternal love.

I loved that male God of Christianity too much so I preferred my higher power to be the God that existed in the third eye as a universal truth that belongs to all of us. I figured maybe I was right and it is as if we live in an ant hill or a bee hive. Confused by the number of messages coming at me, I tried to understand, even if nobody else would agree with me.

My story explained a new perspective for the reason behind the intelligent design of our universe in ways I could understand. The United States of America was intelligently designed with the eye at the top of the pyramid waiting for women to climax in a form of spiritual ecstasy. When I explained the story to close friends, I found many women in my life shared about their own close connections with God.

“Every Sunday morning, I have a romance with God,” one friend said enthusiastically after I explained how I loved Him.

Another friend said her mom relied on God’s love to raise her kids as a single mom. My heart started to sink low when I let myself get down into the details of the failed relationships with the men in my life. When I rose up and saw the bigger picture of the systematic failure of culture and religion, denying women power, I felt better. The thought of any one man failing me pained my soul. But looking back from 2021, I can at times lift to a higher vibration and love unconditionally.
The protective concepts in my list of keys were a plan that defined the ultimate feminist ploy. The notion that women uniting to deny men climaxes and refuse to participate in sexual unions without love was divinely funny. Even the word porn made me laugh. When I read it I understood it to mean: “Nation ouR Orgasm Plan.” Reading forwards that orgasm plan for America was “porn”, which usually isolates people, which contrasted nicely with the notion that a love plan for orgasms could work.

The associations were bright and vibrant in my mind. The connections taking place were crystal clear to me, although looking back, my friends, family, and medical providers struggle to follow my ability to associate so flexibly. The looseness of my thinking allowed me to make associations, find irony, and discover humor where nobody in their right mind would find anything. It kept my experience lighter than I’d ever known when confronted with a mental health crisis. I believed it was a game with our higher power playing with my reality.

One of my favorite words was Durga, which when I read backwards, it meant “American God, Are You Delusional?” Durga clearly was a Hindu Goddess.

Later that night I walked Buddy, strolling slowly on the sidewalk along Ocean Parkway. Buddy liked
to stop at every tree, hydrant, and corner to sniff and mark the objects. When he lingered his face at the base of a puddle of possible markings from another dog, I’d gently nudge him on.

“Don’t lick that, Buddy.” I said. Buddy loved to lick everything. I’d seen where his tongue had been. It made me uncomfortable at the thought of him licking my feet.

I experienced time distortion where I thought I was only gone for our typical half hour walk. When I walked in the door Jamie said it was two hours, and she was just about to call me. When she explained the length of my absence, I tried to retrace my steps and think about how long it should have taken. Buddy and I must have been moving slowly, I thought.

Exhausted, I kicked off my shoes and laid down. Still unable to sleep my mind continued with its progressive thinking. The music played on my phone, and I read stories. I wondered if I’d been taken through the veil and kissed by God. When I looked at the star charts, everything looked to be the reverse of reality as I knew it. I began to imagine that I’d slipped to the other side of the galaxy across the Milky Way. Thinking I was in a mirror reality helped to explain my experiences. I was still in the grips of a Mandela effect, where everything was similar, but different from how I remembered it should be. I’d began to see the veil, a lapse of darkness that caused time to be distorted, and I felt surrounded by spirit animals like pigeons, starlings, finches, flies, parrots, cats, and dogs in my neighborhood.

When I came home that night, I worried about the threat of an atomic war, I prayed for peace. I was told that my next task was walking all the world leaders into the Light to protect the world from harm. I focused on Kim Jong Un first. I lured him towards the Light with the promise of the honey of my love. When things became dark, I turned on my dental lamp and he laughed and came into the Light. I repeated my task with Putin. Using the dental lamp when it became darker than I liked. I was worried that I hadn’t done a good enough job, then I checked my email. Apple iTunes sent me a password reset from two days in the future. That reassured me that the future still existed.

When I laid in bed again, my thoughts took me low. I surrendered to my experience. I felt hopeless against the power of the perversion of my psychosis and inability to sleep. I understood that the realm of higher power is in command orchestrating every moment in the dynamic dramatic program called life.

In the morning, Jamie opened my bedroom door. She poked her head between the door and the frame with the hall light shining behind her. It was early Saturday morning.

“Mom, I’m going to the barn soon, but I don’t feel good.” She said.

She talked to me, but I had a hard time hearing her. I had just explained with my thoughts that I wasn’t afraid if they chose to take me. They’d told me that I belonged home in heaven. That is when I began to see the Light in the upper left corner of my vision. I refused to look at it though. I chose to focus on Jamie. I need to stay for Jamie. She needs me. The thought was firm in my mind.

“Ok?” Jamie asked.


“Sure,” I said, not sure what I was agreeing to.

Jamie turned and then came back carrying my small black hand bag. She explained again that she needed money to go to the convenience store for lunch with the volunteers at the barn. I pulled out a twenty and gave it to her.

“Text me when you get there, and when you leave. Please be home by sunset,” I said.

“Love you, see you later,” She said and closed and locked the front door.

By Sunday, I wanted to get out of bed. I felt disoriented, even though I was eating well, the sleep deprivation was taking a toll. I’d ordered plenty of food and water online for delivery. I was able to cook healthy food for me and Jamie. But Jamie’s mood was grouchy.

“I think I’m sick, look at my throat.” She said and opened wide handing me her L.E.D. flashlight.

“Honey, it looks a little red, but I don’t know if that means you are sick. Maybe we should go to a doctor. You seem irritable.” I said. Reading the signs, when Buddy lifted his right paw, I interpreted that we needed to take her to get an exam. We’d been to a walk-in clinic in park slope before. I put on a nice yellow dress, flats, and a light weight jacket. Jamie’s terrible mood showed as she whined and yelled about everything. She was hungry but refused any food I offered her.

Thankfully, Durga was there to help. Jamie got stuck in her pants. It was as if Durga had cast a spell to make the pants impossible to pull up.

“Help me get my pants on,” Jamie demanded. I went to the couch to help her.

Both Jamie and I struggled and laughed as we attempted to pull up the jeggings. It really was an impossible feat. By the time we were laughing hard, the struggle ended. When we got outside, it was a beautiful and sunny fall day.

Jamie put the park slope address into the phone. A driver with a Russian accent picked us up, but the app on the phone took us to a Bay Ridge location. With everything I was experiencing I just went with the experience. I didn’t try to get to park slope.

I figured we were taken to Bay Ridge because the signs said the eye was delusional and God’s energy needed to protect me and Jamie. I was worried that Jamie was God’s child. I was concerned that Jamie would be harmed by those who were in power, or worse that Jack would intervene if I failed to address her needs adequately.

We arrived at the clinic shortly after 9:00 am. The email receipt said the charges were made by EZ-Car, but I thought I’d used my UBER app. Ignoring the strangeness, Jamie and I signed in. I shared her insurance information and we were quickly called into the exam room.

Jamie sat up on the exam chair. The attendant had a nice yellow aura and wore a hijab. I started to realize that we shared a love for God. My God was her God. When the physician’s assistant came in he was glowing in Light. It was quite amazing. I’d never seen such a glow. Even when I chose Jamie over the Light the day before, she and the Light had glowed half as much. I was unsure what to think of the Light surrounding him.

They recommended a variety of allergy medications, antihistamines, and even antibiotics if her condition didn’t improve. They suggested seeing an allergist to help with understanding her condition and getting the right care long term. When we left the CityMD we walked to a pharmacy around the corner to purchase over-the-counter remedies.

Then Jamie was hungry and wanted Starbucks. She typed into her phone and found one a short walk away. We sat inside and ate hot sandwiches and sipped on iced tea.

On the way home, Jamie talked for a bit as she read the labels of her medications to me. I looked out the window and read the graffiti. The Brooklyn Queens Expressway seemed to be further inland than I remembered it being. It was a strange ride home. The landmarks I knew were missing from the Brooklyn Skyline. The only landmark I could identify in the distance was the Freedom Tower. Everything else seemed to point a Pisa Dynasty. I figured the lack of sleep had taken its toll, and I must have misunderstood my surroundings.

Once we were home, Jamie decided she was too sick for a party at a friend’s so she stayed home that day. I cooked pasta and chicken with ground sage for dinner. I couldn’t find any other spices.

By the time Monday came, I knew I had to tell my family what I was experiencing. That morning while I walked Buddy, the signs written in the cement on the sidewalk were reinforcing what I read from MDs office. The message said that Jamie was God’s child. They’d taken a throat culture to send out to the lab. When I thought paternity tests had to be blood based, a message appeared on my phone. The message when I read it both ways said He was family. The sidewalk in front of the Jewish Center had a single letter “C” etched when I looked down. When I read the sign to see, it hit me hard that God told me so.


I called my sister, Chloe, a little before 6 am her time. I choked on my tears as I explained about falling in love with the King of Heaven, and telling how the Hindu Goddess Durga was helping Jamie and me. My Mom, Dad, Sister, and Brother, each called each other to plan how best to help. I needed medical attention.

Chloe called my psychiatrist to notify her that I wasn’t well. A new prescription was called into the pharmacy along with a refill that my brother would bring to me that night to add another medication that I’d been well with for years before that I’d stopped because of the side effect, and I’d refill the prescription that I had been switched to.

My sister-in-law came over that afternoon to be with me. When she saw the kitchen she immediately stepped into action. My nephews played in Jamie’s room, we put Buddy away in my bedroom, and in something of a daze, I spent some time at my computer reading the news as physical sensations began to take over my body. Sensations were rolling over me in waves moving from one area to the next transiently.

After I had made calls to all the family members, I must have saved a sewing machine that Jamie wanted in my list of purchases to make. I also must have moved the radio from the kitchen to the dining room table that night. The next morning when I got out of bed to get breakfast for Jamie, I asked her how the radio ended up on the dining room table.

“You put it there last night, don’t you remember? You were talking about how much you like to listen to music out here.” She said.

I couldn’t remember having gotten up from bed the night before, but I trusted Jamie’s memory over my own. Either I’d blacked out on my memory, or Durga was helping me again. I looked for a message in the sign from the radio, but I couldn’t understand. When I realized I’d become too sick, I knew I could not go into work in the condition I was in. I sent an email to my department leader asking for coverage for my shifts in clinic.

Chloe scheduled the next flight from LA the next day, Wednesday, September 20th. She arrived at noon. I took both my medications that night. And got the first few hours of sleep I’d had in days.

Thursday morning Chloe took over getting Jamie ready for school, making breakfast and walking Jamie to the train. After I walked Buddy that morning we sat and she helped plan the schedule of doctor’s appointments. That afternoon I had a physician’s appointment in Manhattan. They called to say that my insurance company said my usual physician was not listed as the primary care provider on my insurance. I called to straighten out the provider information with the insurer. For some reason they had changed the provider. I called the office of the physician who was listed and the office was closed that week, so I figured the error was not mine. I couldn’t remember making the change or scheduling any appointments with this other person. We kept the appointment with my doctor I’d seen for the past seven years.

After we made the calls I got a text from the CVS pharmacy near my home that a prescription for Jamie had been filled for antibiotics for her sinus infection. We picked up the medicine on the way to the train, and because Jamie was still feeling ill, decided to pick her up from school so that she could take her medicine. We decided we’d be gone for too long to let Jamie stay home alone, so we had to take her with us on our trip. We’d need to go into Manhattan to my appointment.

I’d also received a notice that the new laptop I’d ordered had arrived at the Bookstore. I let Jamie use this device sometimes. A few weeks before one of my devices stopped working. I’d sent it into Apple and they’d determined liquid had been spilled on the keyboard making it short out. When I got to the store, I struggled to find the email to pick up the computer. I’d given up on finding the proof in my email that the order had shipped. Chloe had helped find the threaded email lost in a list of old emails due to google yahoo issues. Once they found my invoice and brought out the computer, we left the store. We walked down Broadway, I was reading signs everywhere in my surroundings. When I looked at the back of a Benz, the tag said “RIZE”. I thought God was saying I needed to lift my spirits. “Energy Sleep. I. R.” I read that he commanded the extra energy to sleep and reassured me of His presence.

When we rounded the corner to the nearest coffee shop, with a sticker over the In Living Stereo sign, it was aptly named “Dark Star” Coffee. I thought it was funny considering the darkness of my mood at believing God was the only thing that loved me. I also found humor to the name In Living Stereo, considering how the signs were found not only in visual cues from words, but also found in music this time. I tried to order tea, but chose a bubbly water instead.

The glass walls surrounded a man at a broad desk inside the music store. It created a fish bowl effect for the man working at in living stereo. We climbed the stairs to the loft and started to recollect ourselves after the challenge of finding the email in the computer store. Jamie had made a point to remind Chloe “You’re not as cool as you think you are, you know that, right?” Jamie said when Chloe tried to get selfies with her.

I stared at the pictures hanging on the walls, a picture of the cow made me smile. I thought it meant God was telling me See Orgasm Woman. I thought the picture of the cow was proof of my experience being real. Jamie and Cloe looked through our purchases. The wooden stools were comfortable enough and I liked the music on the stereo.

After we’d felt done sitting we went to walk further down Broadway, but our group wasn’t feeling well, so we decided to take a car downtown. We sat near a statue of balloons by CUNY in lower Manhattan. Jamie was irritable and wanted some hot tea, so we found a starbucks, and headed to my physician’s office.

At the office Chloe explained to my physician that she was there because I was sick again. And that my psychiatrist wanted to rule out a physical reason. They took my vitals and gave an EKG to check my heart. I’d shared my list of physical symptoms I’d been experiencing. Everything looked normal. Then the nurse came in to draw blood. During the blood draw, I lost consciousness. I felt like I was in an altered state. When I looked down at the needle, I worried I was transforming into something where my blood was inaccessible. She was not able to withdraw a sufficient quantity for analysis. They laid me back to recover. In the visit notes the physician said it was over an hour, but it felt like much less time. My perception of time varied from reality.

We took a car home from the appointment, and when we got to our door, a package was waiting. Jamie’s singer sewing machine that I accidently purchased had arrived. It was a great distraction from everything I was experiencing. Jamie and Chloe spent all evening trying to set it up. They finally asked me to help when they couldn’t get the needle and bobbin threaded. I found the automated threading button, but put the bobbin on backwards. They figured the rest out as I went back to resting.

That night I went to flush the toilet and the handle to flush the toilet fell apart. Annoyed, I lifted the lid on the back of the toilet, and looked at the apparatus. I realized the handle linked to a chain that lifted a rubber stopper to flush the toilet. I pulled up the chain and the toilet flushed. I explained how to flush the toilet to Jamie and Chloe and we laughed.

“Sorry, but you’ll all have to pull your own chain,” I said.

“Ewe, that sounds gross.” Jamie said.


“At least it’s safe in the clean part of the toilet. It just feels cold when you reach in the tank.” I said.

Chloe started to make a list of all the issues going on in the apartment for Erik to address. She called him up and suggested he bring any tools he would need to repair the refrigerator’s insulating trim that had detached from the door, and fell off everytime you opened the refrigerator. He’d need to purchase a new toilet handle at the hardware store, and we needed him to bring a ladder to replace Light bulbs.

Once Erik finished with his chores I asked him to push one of the carts filled with our bagged laundry to Laundry Mania. I set out with the first cart about 5 minutes before him, but I’d run out of cigarettes. I decided to cross to the Ocean Mini Mart to buy a new pack.

When I arrived half of the employees had red marks on their foreheads, the other half didn’t. When I got to the counter, everyone had red dots on their foreheads. I’d been their customer for years, and I’d only seen it on their foreheads a few times.

“Is it a holiday today?” I asked gesturing at my forehead.

“No, I wear this every day,” The cashier said.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“It is for my God,” He said shyly and when I asked what the God’s name was, he said the name which I typed into my google app as soon as I left the store. Something like SamSara. The website that I landed on explained it was the god of duality and illusions. When Erik looked up my browser history later in the month, everything in the browser history had been wiped clean. I couldn’t find the right God when I went back to look for the source of this knowledge.

One man was blowing up a black number 3 balloon. At first, I wondered who would buy a three year old child a black balloon, then I realized there must be a zero missing for a thirty year old’s birthday. At that moment my vision went to black. When I recovered my sight there were no balloons being inflated. I stood in front of the counter with my twenty dollar bill in hand to give the cashier without a red dot on his forehead.

Perplexed by what had just happened, I pushed my cart back towards Ocean Parkway stopping briefly to light a cigarette and search for the name of the “god of duality” samsarah, when Erik called my phone.

“Where are you?” He asked.

“I just stopped at the Ocean Mini Mart for cigarettes. I’m on my way.” I said. He was already at Laundry Mania waiting for me. It was a ten-minute walk to the laundry mat. I’d set out five minutes before Erik. How had I lost at least 10 minutes? When I added the lost time to the fragments of memory of seeing the black balloon inflated, having my vision flash to black, then having there be no balloons in sight, and no red dots on foreheads, I was confused. I couldn’t find the right God when I went back to look for the source of this knowledge.

Chloe’s favorite pants disappeared in the laundry. She looked everywhere for them, but they weren’t there. I explained that when they were found I’d ask mom, who was coming to visit next, to ship them back to her. I had experience with things going missing. They were always returned, but on their own timeline. Chloe flew home at the end of the weekend to be available to work in LA.

On Monday I visited my psychiatrist, and we talked about everything. I showed her the key I’d been using to keep my experience light and funny. She said it was a classic symptom of Mania to create a key. She wanted to add another medication that should be soothing and help with sleep. I still wasn’t sleeping well. She offered for me to be hospitalized.

I wanted to continue to recover in my home, with my existing support system in place. My team of family and friends had circled the wagons to provide support and help. I’d spent years cultivating relationships that were prepared to take on the task of being there in the short term and long term to 1. Listen, 2. Dad would facetime to observe medication compliance, 3. Help in little ways by picking up the phone and being present for Jamie and me. The thought of going to the hospital when I already had a support system, would have done more harm than good at this stage in my progression into illness. I was not a threat to myself or others, and leaving my home, my daughter, the dog, and not having access to technology to pay bills and take care of my life would create more issues than it would solve.

I explained that my current support system could function through this event in my home. We talked and discussed other options. Alternatively, I suggested if I didn’t improve, I would consider a residential care setting. It would probably be a better fit than a hospital for me, if I got worse.

Dr. Bouley prescribed the maximum dose of Depakote, and I headed back to Brooklyn.
Tuesday – Aaron over
10/4 Wednesday – therapy
10/5 Thursday – Buddy vet emergency; Mom arrived
10/6 Friday – therapy
Weekend – Mom here till Sunday
Sidewalk where the “c” was is no longer present.
10/10 Tuesday – Eye appointment
10/11 Wednesday – therapy
10/12 Thursday – Eye appointment learning about bokeh and aura’s
Friday 10/13 – Buddy doesn’t have cancer;

Reflection on class values:
Upper class – legacy
Middle class – things
Lower class – people

May you all be lower class in your values.


List of Physical Experience
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Heartache Auras Dental sensitivity Multiverse rides through parallel universes in uber rides called EZ-car
Headache Highlighted text Left brow sensation Pain in the neck
Stiffness Lights play in my mind False fire alarms when my chakras pop in fear Light brighter
Difficulty breathing Chakra bursts Lights blink when laughing Forehead strain
Burning skin Pulsing energy Lights go randomly on and off when I walk the dog Shortness of breath
Pressure chest Gut wrenching Left brow buzzing Pounding heart
Pressure sinuses Gas Pleasure spreading across by bridge of my nose Left arm on fire with burning sensation
Foot tapping Tingling Stomach twisting Forehead pressure
Pressure left arm Buzzing Toe tapping Comfort
Tickle brain Teeth on edge Nasal sensations Fresh air
Butterflies Pain in neck Spices go missing Clear sinus
Blushing Spreading warmth from my core Spices come back Pleasure spreading
Chills Jaws on fire Tingling left shoulder Shoulder pain
Ear pulling Piercing headache Cold front waiste Burning under my thumb
Ringing ears Nose hot Tingling around waiste Heart thumping
Burning ears Cold heat Twitch left shin Brow aching
Hot forhead Back sides Sides numb Third eye strain
Eye strain Warm back Warmth on left shoulder Back warmth
Burning souls of feet Green orb Right neck beginning to feel things Chest pain
Burning brow Full chest Right thigh Hot unibrow
Warmth spreading across my breasts Multiple sensations all over my body Teeth numb Cold arms
Radiating heat and lightness Spreading heat back Left pinky Left forearm hot
Cold breeze Cold teeth Gut check Heat wrapping around my waist
Right side no signs Lips burning Warm mouth Tight throat
Palms sweating Cold numb jaw Eyes sting Twitch in my heart


Subtle changes to lyrics from music on the radio:
Lady Gaga
Michael Jackson
Macklemore appears for the first time in my reality
AC/DC
Annie Lennox
Celine Dion
DJ Snake
Elton John
Enrique Iglesias
Erasure
Fifth Harmony
George Michael
Grace VanderWaal
John Mayer
Justin Bieber
Katy Perry
Lady Gaga
Lionel Richie
MIA
Madonna
Mariah Carey
Maroon 5
Miley Cyrus
Natelie Merchant
The Notorious B.I.G.
Pitbull
Rihanna
Selena Gomez
Stevie Wonder
Taylor Swift
Whitney Houston

Explained the past.

Vision for the future:
Large cities.
Healthy Communities
Green
Sustainable
Equality
Peace

Light years to go.

12/2/17
I thought the feelings were getting better. Then last night was hard again.
1. I just can’t rid myself of this affliction. I’ve tried everything to forget the memory of the physician’s touch and his presence in my sacred space.
2. Running from it. Makes me cry. Makes me feel like a monster. Like I’ll never deserve to be loved in this life.
3. Running into it. Brings it back front and center. Reminds me that my love for the physician is delusional. He never loved #metoo.
4. Praying to God. Believing in love from my higher power just makes me want to escape this reality, and be with God. Then I start to feel like, no man will ever compare to God’s love. Why bother dating? Why am I even here? Then I think of Jamie. She needs me.
5. Blaming the physician for stupidity – makes me feel bad. It makes things feel very dark for me. I don’t like to blame the physician for touching me during the exam. He was too young, my clit was too swollen, and it was my mind that was broken.
6. Distracting myself real men. I have yet to meet a man capable of loving enough to help me heal my soul from the physician’s touch.
7. Playing with power exchanges, trying to heal from the physician violating my sacred space has made me feel very dark and hopeless. Although, fun in the moment at times.
8. Writing about my feelings helps me to better understand my emotions, it creates a salve for me to ease my psychological pain from the trauma of my experience of not being loved after the physician entered my sacred space.
9. The greatest psychological harm was caused by treatment where we were forced to act as if we weren’t both humans and like there was some construct that separates us clinically after I was touched in my sacred space.
10. After he touched me in my sacred space, I needed to be treated like a human being after the physician’s exam tapped my desire. It left me isolated with zero way to resolve my conflict between reality and delusional love with the physician and therefore the Hospital.
11. I understand the need for rigid boundaries in hierarchal healing relationships, but I’ve never been given the ability to resolve my emotional conflict with the physician and being trapped by desire the way I was.
12. I want to heal, and I felt so much trauma from my experience, I’m not sure how to move on and remain intact, with my heart full.

In 2005 I experienced medical trauma at the birth of my daughter. I’m past the initial stages of my trauma, I’m out of the marriage where I felt vulnerable and unsupported. I live in recovery with a diagnosis of mental illness, and live in acceptance of my condition of mental illness, but medication has not healed my soul. The problem was that I felt trapped by the traumatic experience, and emotionally unable to resolve my conflict with the physician over my experience alone and in isolation. My therapists didn’t have the understanding to help me critically reflect on the issue from multiple perspectives. A supportive dialogue would have helped me so much.

I feel like I was stuck in the plot of a terrible romance where bad communication drives the plot development. It was a misunderstanding. He never talked to me like a human, because our #healthcare model forbids it. The story should have ended years ago with good communication and conflict resolution. Instead it has festered.

I’m tired of crying about it. I want a process to help me move on with my life and escape this the trap. I like to think of myself as emotionally able to adapt. Instead, I was treated with silence about my emotional health and wellbeing, because that is what the system deems appropriate. There are two roles: Doctor and patient, and moving beyond that into critical reflection is forbidden. There is no process to deal with a situation like mine. I need a process.

The medical system failed me when I was assigned the role of patient, where some construct separates us as “Doctor” and “patient”. I’m a human. I want conflict resolution, critical reflection with experts, and the ability to have dialogue to move on. I want to understand, and move on.

At this point, I want a process where a team of concerned experts gather to discuss this long lasting trauma with the hopeful outcome of helping me get out of this trap. It’s 2017, almost thirteen years after my experience, and I still struggle with feeling trapped by my memory. I needed to talk about my perceptions, and have the people who were involved share their perspectives without the fear of litigation. I want a process where I can understand what happened by hearing the medical perspective, and juxtapose that with my emotional response to the memory. Instead, my perspective was silenced by the Hospital’s legal team.

Being treated clinically as I entered motherhood emotionally devastated me in my postpartum. To not have my identity including my sexual response to the physician’s examination, the lack of acknowledgement of how it impacted my mental health and wellbeing, the lack of support of the medical system in my healing journey from my perception.

Real or perceived, I’m beyond the medical model. I want to heal my soul, and there is no process available to heal from a system error. My emotional health and wellbeing were compromised by the physician entering my sacred space. The system needs a process to learn from these types of events.

I also do not wish to harm the physician and his family. And wish for peace physically, spiritually, and psychologically. I needed to understand what happened, including my desire that left me trapped in the memory.

We are at such a strange time in history. The #metoo movement must look to reform the process and ethics that guide us as a society. The only way to do this is to develop a process of critical reflection, where two individuals either directly or indirectly work with a panel of experts to deconstruct the situation where a medical error, or medical trauma occurred. I understand the need for rigid boundaries in a hierarchal healing relationship. I’ve given up on the idea that a simple apology will help my cause, and I already know that it didn’t help having him telling me my behavior was inappropriate and should stop. I wanted to be touched by someone who loved me, and I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to move forward to find that until I resolve my emotional conflict with the physician, and not feeling loved after his touch. My ability to protect my sacred space was taken from me by the system when I was made a patient. Every other man who’d touched my sacred space always had a consensual relationship with me. I understand, logically that he didn’t love me, but emotionally, I needed a dialogue, some process to inform my emotions and escape from the memory.

I’ve forgiven myself for getting sick, and forgiven the memory of the physician’s abuse, but I’m still haunted by my desire for him in my sacred space. Maybe it is erotomania, but I’m mostly normal in that if we had been able to have a honest discussion (directly or through a process) where he expressed his perspective and reflected on what happened from his point of view, either directly or through mediation with experts in communication with him, I’d be able to resolve this affliction. Relationships are my greatest strength in my recovery from mental illness. Why is communication forbidden regarding my perceptions from the birth. I broke in response to his touch, and I don’t want to hurt any more. I want to heal.

When I was a kid, my parents learned that if they didn’t want me to do something, punishment never worked. If they wanted me to change my behavior they needed to explain why they didn’t want me to do something. I need to understand why it happened, and why he doesn’t, won’t and can’t love me. I understand that it is against medical ethics and all, but the harm this situation caused me is undeniable. I want to stop hurting. I want out of this trap. Communication through a process with healthcare reform and improving the medical malpractice laws are my only hope to freeing my soul from this trap.

My friends and family have explained that he can’t love me repeatedly, so I understand cognitively, but emotionally, until there is communication through a process of critical reflection, I don’t understand what happened, and/or why it happened. I’m stuck. I’m still broken over a decade later. I know there can’t be anything beyond this process for resolution, and I’ve accepted that. I mean, when I’m honest with myself, I feel too much pain and trauma from this unresolved conflict to form any loving relationship with a man after what I felt in response to the memory of the physician’s touch, and being silenced by the Hospital’s legal team.

--- Another 4 years later, 2021, I feel that I'm starting to rise to a new place of being with my story. I know I get sick, but I don't always sink into sadness. About half the time I can lift my energy and connect to the source and ground. I feel such love from the universe when I am able to do this. I just want to love and be loved.

A note on the ability to lift my spirit and the 12-step program

In September 2021, I found my way to a 12-step program. I remember standing in my kitchen one Saturday afternoon and realized, I’ll never get sober alone. I had the insight that I needed social support. If I stayed alone, I wouldn’t have the strength to abstain on my own. In recovery, I've learned it requires myself to be stronger than I like. Through finding other people who are doing the work and willing to lend support to my program, and through working these steps I’m beginning to reliably stay a little bit better emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Plus, by not drinking I don’t nearly drown in the self-pity of my experience.

The principles of the 12-steps require that I’m well to do the work – in my humble opinion I don’t think I can do it when I’m unwell. It is too messy to try the steps while I’m sick. Mental health recovery needs a strengths-based program. Recovery from alcohol and addiction focuses the light on the shadows. Must be well to do this. I’ve been feeling healthier again so started to read more. The program is basically a set of spiritual steps that work as a type of metaphysical instrument to extract oneself from the depths of despair. In my experience, I’m predictably experiencing relief when I actively work through the program.

What I’m finding to be true is that – There is no magic in recovery. We get what we work for. In the first 111 days, I’ve attended over 133 meetings. I’d heard that to aim for 90 in 90 days may help, I found that through learning from the program, I felt something I’d been searching for a way to see my own role in the trauma. A way to appreciate how my character defect escalated what might have been a problematic incident with the physician at the birth, but for most people would not have resulted in the personal devastation and total annihilation of self. The devastating tsunami wave of pain and misery knocked me out for a very long time. I’m not claiming that this method is perfect, I have a long way to go, but it is the beginning point for a new start of my spiritual healing journey.