The Function of Blocked Memories

Today I was able to articulate the reasons for blocked memories and why it has not proven to be functional for me to discuss anything about what happened to me in college.

18 rapes is alot to absorb.  That is bad enough.  However, when I reported it to the President of the college, the Dean of the college, college professors, other students, the rape crisis counselor on campus, the psychiatrist on campus, and with all of that, nothing was done and I was given nothing to go on for keeping myself safe.  Instead, I was either ignored, or accused of lying, or told that even if it did happen, it was consensual and I "asked for it".

There was also an attitude of "how much of an idiot does she (as in me) have to be to allow that to happen to her?".

I saw a picture of a sign that said, "DON'T GET RAPED".  The picture was redacted to say "DON'T Get RAPEd".

That clearly illustrates the real problem in society.  We tell women "don't get raped" instead of telling men "don't rape".  

Why was a woman raped?  There is only one reason a woman is raped:  it is because a man decided to rape her.  It is that simple.  There is no other explanation.

However, that is somehow dismissed and instead, other explanations for rape besides the obvious in my last sentence are expressed, including, but not limited to, the following:

• she was wearing promiscuous clothing
• she was drinking
• she stayed out late
• she went to a man's apartment or home
• she "asked for it"
• bad sex doesn't equal rape - it is just bad sex "morning after" regret
• she sleeps around
• she is a prostitute
• she is an exotic dancer
• she is a porn star
• she is lying
• she was topless on the beach
• she was flirting with him
• she drunk-dialed him
• she is married to him
• she is his girlfriend or fiance or wife or mistress
• she wrote him love letters
• they're having a lover's quarrel

I could go on and on about the rationalities that are promoted to justify rape or sexual assault.  As you can see, the rationalities promoted to justify rape or sexual assault are all on the woman.  Apparently, men have no responsibility whatsoever to exercise self-control and act as protectors of women and protect women from men who want to rape or sexually assault them.

My generation was socialized into believing that protective men are bad people.  We were socialized into believing that women are supposed to spit on men who try to protect them and embrace men who promote their sexual promiscuous behaviors under the pretext that sexual promiscuity is feminine independence.

I have put the feminist movement into two categories:  the suffrage movement feminists and the baby boomer feminists.

The Suffrage Movement Feminists (SMFs) are advocates for the role of men as protectors and providers for their wives and children and advocates for restraint from promiscuous behavior.  The Suffrage Movement Feminists believe that the role of men is to protect women from rapists and sexual assaulters and make sure rapists and sexual assaulters are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The Baby Boomer Feminists (BBFs) are very different.  BBFs spit on men who serve as protectors and providers for their wives and children claiming that those men are oppressive.  BBFs don't want men to open doors for women or carry heavy things for them.  BBFs encourage women to be sexually promiscuous and encourage multiple partners and to lay topless on the beach and burn their bras under the guise of a "sexual revolution" for women to have sexual freedom.  

BBFs do not advocate for the prosecution of rapists or sexual assaulters.  Instead, BBFs advocate for women to murder their children with abortions if they get an unwanted preganancy from a rape and allow the rapists and sexual assaulters to run around free without consequence to create more unwanted pregnanacies in the future.  

What is most disturbing is BBFs' efforts to take Second Amendment Rights away from women so that they cannot defend themselves from rapists or sexual assaulters.  BBFs also want to take Second Amendment Rights away from men so that men cannot protect women from rapists or sexual assaulters either.  Promotion of sexually promiscuous behavior without consequence keeps Planned Parenthood busy which funds the Baby Boomer Feminists in the Democrat party.

My realization that I was played by these people is why I left the left.  I consider myself a Suffrage Movement Feminist and denounce the Baby Boomer Feminist movement that promotes rape culture for Planned Parenthood slush funds that line the pockets of Baby Boomer Feminists led by Hillary Clinton and the other women in the Democrat party that have pushed the women's movement backward instead of forward through the advocacy of rape culture.

The 2020 election was stolen.  Hillary Clinton was on camera pushing the narrative that Joe Biden should not concede no matter what (even if he knows he lost the election) because she had hundreds of lawyers ready to go after Donald Trump.  Joe Biden himself admitted on camera that he would illegally grab the oval office with what he said was the most corrupt election mechanism set up in the history of American Politics that would result in him taking the seat of  President of the United States of America without getting a single vote from any American voters.

This means that BBFs are advocating rape culture, destruction of Second Amendment rights, and, as proven from the stealing of the 2020 election, BBFs do not want women to have the right to vote either.

The millions of women in this country who voted for Donald Trump and voted for Republicans that resulted in a Republican majority in the House and the Senate had their voices silenced at the ballot box in violation of the Constitutional rights to vote that was fought for by the Suffrage Movement Feminists since the 1800s.  Hillary Clinton and her BBFs have trampled on the very right to vote that was fought for by the originators of the Feminist Movement - the Suffragettes who fought for women to be able to vote.

Hillary Clinton and her BBFs have put our country on a trajectory for destruction.  It is terrifying to see what they are doing to our country and our planet.  They are pushing everything that was fought for by our predecessors since the revolutionary war backwards against everything that we stand for as a country.

My 21 year old brain who had never lived away from home could not handle all of this at that age.  The blocked memories are a vital necessity so I can function in this dysfunctional system set up to push the Suffrage Feminist Movement backwards to the stone age with socialization for exploitation of women for the BBFs' own selfish gains.

That's all for now.  More later.

What's the Point.....

I ask myself this question on many occasions about what has happened in the past, how does it affect the present, and what is the purpose for the future.  Sometimes I feel like there has to be some higher purpose for everything I went through.  I often fall back on the test of Job - we keep our faith when things go wrong and don't make sense.  Instead of moving away from God, we move closer to God, because that is the best remedy for getting the demons out of our world, and if we can keep our faith and trust in God through difficult times, and move closer to Him instead of away from Him, then when the thunderstorm in our lives are over, we come out better, stronger, and now we can help others.

All of this sounds good in theory, but quite frankly, there are times when I just get depressed.  PTSD cost me my relationships with my family and friends.  I live and work alone because of it.  I have a great deal of difficulty meeting people and making new friends because of it.  Even though I have overcome most of the original grip PTSD had on my psyche and soul for so many years, it still has left an aftermath of broken relationships with family friends, loss of my home, my possessions, my career, my education, essentially, so many things I had worked for that if I didn't have PTSD gripping my soul and my brain, what would my life have been like in that case.  What would have been different.  I am going to be 50 in a couple of weeks and I look back at the damage that PTSD did to my life and the life of everybody around me that was close to me, and it's damage that can't be undone. All of that is very depressing for me.

My mother was playing Chinese Checkers with me one day and she always beat me at that game.  I couldn't figure out why, but she always won whenever we played.  It was a fun game and an excuse for us to bond when I was a kid.  I remember one day when we were playing I asked her how it is that she always wins, and she didn't answer right away.  However, there was a point in the game a few minutes later when I moved one of my pieces one step backwards.  When I did that, she said to me, "don't do that."  I said, "what do you mean?"  She said, "don't move backwards.  Always move forward.  Every step you take, you always move forward, you never look back.  Not just here, in life.  Always look forward, and never look back."  So then, I changed my move.  I moved a piece forward.  She said to me, "good.  That's right. That's how you win."

I take that advice to heart and I apply it to my life when I think about the past and trying to make sense of it all.  I fall back on the advice of my mother in the game of Chinese Checkers and in life.  "Never look back.  Always move forward."  I didn't realize it at that time, but she was giving me a life lesson.  She was, and still is, a great mom.

Marie Osmond Caves into Pressure from Sexual Abuse Cover-Up Culture

I recently saw an interview by Larry King of Marie Osmond.  She admitted to being a victim of sexual abuse (see YouTube video below starting at 2:55).  However, she also said (see YouTube video below starting at 8:38), "I don't want to be the spokesperson for sexual abuse.  I'm talking about post-partum depression."

I guess the question that comes to my mind is, "why not Marie?"  She is one person who could probably rip through the guilt and shame and bring it into the spotlight where it belongs.  I wish she would change her position on this.  It would probably help with her depression, and help many other women with their depression and other conditions like PTSD that are ancillary to sexual abuse.

Marie, you already put it on national television and published it in a book.  33% of the women in this country get it.  Don't backpedal now!  Blaze the path and others will follow.

Here's the interview from YouTube.

Changing Your State With a New Story

I have been burying myself in videos by Tony Robbins and I have found them to be very helpful.  I have been struggling with PTSD for over twenty-five years.  What I'm about to suggest may come off as trite or silly for someone who has PTSD, but I found it to be very helpful for me, and so by sharing, hopefully, it will be helpful for you.

With PTSD, I get a trigger - like a look or smell of something that reminds me of the trauma of my past, and when that happens, my adrenalin goes 1000 mph with pupils dilated and intense fear and the same painful feelings of imminent death, blinding pain, and extreme fear that I felt at the time of the traumatic events that resulted in the PTSD condition.  Needless to say, it's not fun.

Tony Robbins talks about changing your state.  That this can be done by simply changing the story.  I started to explore this because if I could somehow snap myself out of a PTSD episode and be myself, that level of control over my emotions would be empowering, to say the least.

So, I started to really listen to what was the story that was playing in my mind that was causing the PTSD episode to occur.  There has to be a story playing in my mind that is not making sense, because that story is creating fear and pain and it is the wrong story, because, I'm alone and nothing is happening to me.  The hard part is listening to the story.  It is very hard, but I did manage to figure it out, I think.

The story that was playing in my mind was that whatever happened to me was my fault, and if something like that happens, it is my fault, there is nothing I can do about it, and the only foolproof way to be 100% sure it never happens to me is to trust nobody, go nowhere, wear baggy clothes with no make-up so I don't look interesting or attractive to anyone, and basically, live like a Howard Hughes recluse.  Then I'm safe and everything is okay, except, I have no friends, no family, no love, no connections, and the extent of my relationships is remotely through the Internet, on my cell phone, or by e-mail or, sometimes, video conference calls.  That's it.  What a great life.  Not.

So I began to realize I need a different story.  So, I started to work on it.  I started to come up with a different story.  Easier said than done.  So far, this is what I have come up with for my new story.

First, I said, what happened to me was not my fault.  I trusted someone and that person violated my trust.  The person who violated my trust - that is the person who is at fault, not me.  When I trusted someone to come into my personal space, and I was vulnerable with that person, and that person violated my trust, that person was wrong, not me.  So, I eliminated the belief that whatever happened to me was my fault.  It was not my fault.  That's the first part of the story.

So, the second part of the story is, what can I do to make sure that it doesn't happen again but still have relationships and trust people.  This is much more difficult for me.  I didn't have the answer to this one, but I began to realize that if I didn't have this answer, then I would not have my new story.

I decided that for me, the core of the issue was power.  The first guy who raped me controlled my scholarship.  The second guy who raped me and stalked me controlled my social circles.  My husband controlled me economically and socially and he beat me repeatedly.  All three had one thing in common - power.  I gave them power over me.  That didn't make it a "fault" thing with me.  It's just that I trusted people and gave them power over me and they violated my trust.  Sometimes trusting the right person can be empowering, not a violation of trust.  Synergy can produce amazing results. In my case, I had given my power to the wrong people.

So, what is the solution.  I decided that the solution, is to never give my economic power to anyone or give weight to social circles against my principals ever again.  That way, nobody controls me economically, and I have the power to stand up for myself and find the people who will stand by me when others don't.

So, my new story is this:

What happened to me is not my fault.  I trusted individuals who violated my trust and gave them power over me economically and socially.  I will dedicate the rest of my life to empowering myself economically with better social capital to ensure that what happened to me before never happens again.

So, now I take all of my energy and I dedicate it to building my company and building my social capital with the right network of people who support me professionally and personally.

Everybody has to write their own new story.  The most important elements of your story if you are rewriting your story to overcome PTSD is to make sure your story has two things:  (1) it was not your fault, and (2) you will not give your economic or social power away to anyone ever again.  This will enable you to interact with others but keep your power of choice to change your state on your own by changing the story in your mind.

Try the new story exercise and the next time you're having a PTSD episode, stop and read your story.  See if it helps.  Comment and let me know how it worked for you.  Share your new story.  The more new stories we share, the more we can help each other.  You may have to rewrite your story over and over again.  In fact, I'm not even 100% satisfied with this story, but it's a start, and I find that just giving myself the power to change my story and change my state helps me to feel in control, which is a step in the right direction to putting PTSD in the past where it belongs.

The Car Accident Inside

I graduated with a 3.7 GPA from a community college in my area and went away to an out of state university on scholarship for my grades and for my accomplishments in speech competition - I won over 30 awards in speech writing and speaking including 4 National Championship awards. I was on top of the world.

When I went away to college, I was harassed, stalked, and attacked repeatedly while I was in school by one individual who had a say in my scholarship, and thereafter, by another who had control in my social circles. I tried to report all of this to officials on campus and to my so-called friends. I was directed to a "rape counselor" on campus. The "rape counselor" met me every day for two weeks and once a week thereafter. Since the counselor was assigned by the school, it led me to believe that the school cared. The school did nothing. They didn't report it to police. They didn't do anything to the predators that made my life hell. I was told by everyone I spoke to that it was somehow my fault because I had asked for it because I was too friendly, too trusting, I dressed too nicely, etc. The counselor said nothing and just sat there and listened and offered absolutely no help or advice. I might as well have been talking to a wall. Finally after a few months when stopped going, the "rape counselor" blew up my phone and started speaking to me, but even then, she never told me to go to police or report anything, she just told me to keep coming and talking to her like a wall. In hindsight, I believe she was planted by the university to gather information to use against me if I ever did decide to sue the school. They were just doing what they thought was necessary to insulate themselves from liability, not to protect me as a student.

I was confused. I thought somehow the predators were right and I was wrong. The predators had a lot of clout on campus. I was the newcomer transfer student. I was also lonely and wanted to have friends and fit in. With a social structure and university structure and everybody and everything in my world at that time saying that I was wrong and they were right, it affected me.

I stopped eating, I experienced severe depression where I slept for days, I couldn't read my textbooks or hear anything in class. I ended up in the hospital when I passed out from starvation and dehydration because I never left bed and never ate. The doctor diagnosed me with anorexia and they fed me and gave me water intravenously until I was better. People thought I had a body image issue. I didn't. I just wanted to disappear.

When my grades died, I lost my scholarship. I went from a 3.7 GPA and 30 awards in speech competition, to being a college dropout and developing a stuttering problem. I had reported what had happened to me to the dean of the liberal arts college where I was a student, the president of the entire university, a "rape counselor" and "psychiatrist" on campus, other students. Nothing. Nobody heard me. Nobody cared.

I dropped out of school and came home a college dropout. I had failed myself and my family.

I have been fighting Rape Trauma Syndrome and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder my whole adult life. I have been through the PTSD machine. Angry outbursts, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, nightmares, inabilities to concentrate, psychiatric hospitals in-patient admissions, loss of family and friends, isolation, fear. Most of all, fear. Fear that never goes away and never ends and is there 24/7.

The one thing that was never taken away from me was my desire to learn. I felt like everything else had been taken away from me but my desire to learn, and the knowledge from it, was never taken away. It was the one thing the predators never took from me: my desire to learn, my work ethic, my determination, and my refusal to be defined by a college degree, a college institution, institutions in general, family, and friends. Needless to say, it is alot to stand up against, but I have also learned that faith and prayer and God on my side has given me strength to accomplish and do amazing things I never thought I could do.

My PTSD is so severe I can't even go near a college campus without experiencing severe PTSD symptoms making it impossible for me to function, let alone finish school.

What could my life have been if I could have gone to college free of rape, harassment and stalking. Why are these luxuries and not fundamental rights based on common sense and the basic tenets of a civilized western society.

I'm doing the work I love in the field I love. It took a very long time for me to get to this point, but I am here. I just wish that I could have finished the education I was supposed to finish.

I am writing with the hope that it will help others to understand the long-term effects of this rape culture on college campus. Women are damaged and denied education, but that's not even the worst part. What is most disturbing is that institutions of learning are teaching young men that rape, harassment, and sexual assault is okay. The rapists, harrassers, and sexual assaulters on the campuses of today will be in key positions of management and authority in the workplace and will carry what they learned in college to the workplace with continued harassment, sexual assault, and rape against women in the workplace and at home. The colleges are integrating rape, harassment, and assault into the fabric of our mainstream society as acceptable.

My Split Personality Life

I really hate having to stay anonymous for this blog. After all, what did I do wrong. I don't have anything to be ashamed of, right? Sounds good in theory, but reality doesn't work that way. In reality, when I have tried to express what happened to me and my frustrations about it, I have been hit with, at a minimum, an undertone of "you asked for it" attitude. It's so ridiculous. Saying that I asked to be raped is like saying somebody asked to get in a car accident or asked to be mugged. Nobody asks for it, and if somebody is in a car accident or gets mugged, the first priority is never blaming the person with an "I told you so" attitude. The first priority is to make sure the car accident victim or mugging victim is okay, and then focus on future prevention.

The problem with Rape Trauma Syndrome and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is that the car accident is on the inside and nobody can see it. On the outside, I look fine. I look okay. I don't have any physical broken bones. My body is not splattered all over the pavement from getting hit by a bus or a train. However, what happens on the inside, that's another story. My soul is shattered, my psyche is shattered, everything internal is a giant broken mess, and the damage doesn't go away. It's not like I can just take a nap or a vacation and come back repaired. RTS and PTSD do not work that way. They are like unwelcome roommates that just show up in your soul and move in and stay there. And, they just take over everything and kick you to the curb. As a result, I experience intense fear when I don't want to or need to. I experience nightmares, flashbacks, difficulty concentrating, and it never ends. The only reason that I can even start this blog is because I have had this condition for over 20 years and maturity, time, psychiatric drugs, therapy, and attention to diet, sleep and exercise, and the power of prayer and belief in God to give me strength I didn't even know I had, all of that, has made it possible for me to even talk about it.

I couldn't even talk about what happened to me without experiencing extreme blinding emotions that made it impossible for me to function. The solution for me was to just avoid whatever was causing the trigger/flashback: in my case, drop out of college.

For a long time, I felt like I was a wimp. I mean, so something happened to me. Why can't I just forget about it and move on. Why can't I just put it in the past and leave it there? That's how it should be, but that's not how it works. I wish it did. I wish I could forget everything and just start over somewhere else. PTSD and RTS, the unwanted roommates, won't let that happen.

So, at this point, I started this blog mainly because I discovered recently that when I committed my thoughts to paper without any fear or repercussions of what somebody would say or do with my words, it helped me to feel better. It helped me to recall some memories as just memories without the blinding emotional pain.

That made me realize that I could just start an anonymous blog for my streams of consciousness, and who knows, maybe other women who have been through what I have been through can get some sort of validation or catharsis from what I'm saying, since I suspect every women who has been through this is keeping quiet and trying to pretend nothing happened just like me.

So, I will write about what happened and my thoughts about it, but in reality, I still continue to slap a smile on my face and act like my world is perfect and nothing happened. I have yet to understand why this society is so terrified of a discussion about rape but so indifferent to the victims of it. It baffles me to this day.