Thursday, November 17, 2016

5 DIY Hair Dye Hacks in Under 5 Minutes



So here we are back to hair tutorials.  I'm not going to lie.  I didn't see myself doing hair tutorials or beauty tutorials ever.  Which, I suppose in hindsight, is a bit odd.  I often times forget that those little things we do in our own times, the skills we refine are indeed just that - skills.  Pretty frequently I have to step back and eyeball my hobbies objectively and realize, oh yeah!  This could be useful to my viewers!  Such is the case around hair videos.  I only wish I'd filmed shaving my head last year..

That being said my passions are in politics, activism, reading, writing and a lot of those things are really stuffy and intellectual or really solitary pursuits.  To my surprise (yet again) I enjoyed doing this short and sweet video because let's face it - beauty videos are FUN!  They're about please aesthetics and they're kind of relaxing.



Who knows, maybe more beauty videos are in my future.  In the meantime, check out this quick video that I hope will give you DIYers an edge up when dyeing your own hair.  I'm a big proponent of learning to do it yourself.  It's tricky and time consuming to dye your own hair but it can save you a LOT of money (especially when you're a brunette trying to stay platinum like me.)




Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Using Manic Panic (Specifically to Get Silver Hair)



Silver hair is all the rage right now.  Some people are calling it Granny Hair.  I don't know about you but when I see a woman rocking sexy silver hair at any age my first thought is not "Granny."  Dammit, why do we always have to put a weird slightly negative spin on anything women do to feel beautiful.  I think of Drow and Witchers when I see silver hair.  Alas, I am nerd digressing.

There's some pretty good info out there on going silver all of which makes it sound drastic and difficult.  I'm not going to lie the first time I did silver about a year ago it took me awhile to get there and figure out what I was doing.  But now I'm passing the knowledge on to you so you don't have to go through the same trial and error.  This year it wasn't as difficult.  If you want to figure out how to gently start the bleaching process without frying your hair check out my series on how to do just that.  Believe me, gently bleaching your hair (especially if it's dark) can be the most tricky part.



Silver is an interesting color because the base for it is Violet aka Purple.  So that means that to get to silver you must to a degree go violet.  It will neutralize the yellow and rust tones.  There are two ways to go about this.  One is with permanent hair color and the other is with non-permanent hair color (semi, demi).  

Manic Panic is a great option for bleached hair because it doesn't include any harsh developers.  It actually can condition your hair so it will add some much needed moisture back into the hair straight away.  The key is being careful not to go with the wrong color or depth.  The good news is, if you're shooting for silver and you go too far with the purple after a few washes you'll eventually get there albeit with a more roundabout route.

The downside to Manic Panic, obviously, is that it just doesn't last.  Especially when you're going light (like in our case for silver.)  But it's a good way to let your hair recover for a couple of weeks as you prep to go permanent.  Let's face it no one wants to walk around with that rusty, just-bleached look, do they?  Just be forewarned at about $8 - $10 a bottle a semi permanent can get pricey and tedious after a month or two.  But it's a great way to let your hair rest on your route to permanent.

In this video I show you how to use Manic Panic to get silver with their toner and violet.  Here's another sneaky tip.  You can also straight with violet and just add hair conditioner until you get a pastel color.  This method is cheaper just not as pigmented (depending on how dark you mix it I suppose.)  Good luck!  Check out the video to find out how and if you have additional questions then PLEASE leave me a comment on YouTube.  It goes straight to me phone and I'll be happy to help!






Monday, October 31, 2016

Halloween Update




It's been awhile.

No, I haven't forgotten about this blog.  Okay, maybe I did a bit.  Well, that's not entirely true.

So I started to dabble into Tumblr a little bit.  I'll link that at the end of this article.  I'm not going to lie to you.  Social media has never really been "my thing."  I've always been ages behind.  I was on Dead Journal while people were pimping out their MySpace.  I dismissed Instagram as an obnoxious fad and now most days I prefer to Facebook.  Oh, and Facebook, I didn't have one of those or even a phone with Internet for the longest time either.

So obviously I've come a long way from that.  Now I have a YouTube and an Instagram - of course a Facebook as well.  I'm still holding out on Twitter, perhaps unwisely.  I'll get there some day.  For now it's still a bit like reading Greek to me trying to decipher people tagging one another.  I realize this all makes me sound incredibly ancient.  I had a laughable run in with Snap Chat when my friend encouraged me to download it.  Needless to say, I had no idea what I was doing despite her best efforts.

So in regards to this blog I haven't really been sure what I was doing.  I just knew that I needed one to go along with my YouTube channel.  Prior to this I had one for a few years that did well enough I suppose.  I used it to publish misanthropic ramblings, poems and short stories to no avail while I bitterly lived my banker life instead of my best life.

In two months it'll have been a year since I started my YouTube channel.  I adore it.  Now that I've take steps to become the artist I've always felt I am inside I've never felt more inspired.  For several hours each week I spend some of my precious time breathing trying to turn emotional garbage into something beautiful with a meaningful impact.  It's crazy, fun and heart rending sometimes.

In the wake of this I've neglected this blog a wee bit, but I've returned!  The reality is my first love has been writing since just about forever.  I feel the beginnings of creating a YouTube channel has heavily involved me finding my voice and just how to express my wee narrative.  I feel like a year in I'm happily finding my stride and I have something to offer in written form as well.

So if you've some how found this amongst the sea of things that is the Internet, hello, welcome.  I hope to be seeing you on here again and keep an eye out for more updates on my life, insights and this crazy YouTube thing I'm doing.  For now I'm super frazzled on coffee and about to hit the gym for a much needed cardio session before working our midnight sale at the shop.  

Happy Halloween all, I hope you're all enjoying what I consider to be the best holiday of the year!  Here's what I wore for Halloween this weekend.  I had a blast!  The Phantom of the Opera is one of my favorite characters and favorite musicals.


Monday, September 12, 2016

Owning Yourself Financially


Originally from Houston, Texas, Runic Rigel is a YouTuber and writer who helps her fiancé run a small, local business in the small Midwestern city in which they live.



It may seem at odds with the current mindset but I believe we’re living in a time where loving what you do is a prerequisite for doing it. This rule applies especially to those of you in pursuit of being your own boss or creative guide. Motivating when you’re in charge of your own schedule is freeing but terrifying. There is no upper management to blame if you thrive or fail on the guidelines that no one but you has set for yourself. I’m also learning that when you work for yourself, part of the reason you must love what you do is because, there is no escape. Now our work lives, social lives and personal lives intricately mingle with one another. There are certain things we can do but social media has taken on an almost uncanny life of it’s own. Aspects of our lives will cohort and meet regardless of what we do. There is no off button.





Even when I’ve pried myself away from my desk I’m still attached to the store’s e-mail, Ebay and employees contacting me through my phone. When I go on personal outings like a walk or to run errands people that recognize us from the little retail store my boyfriend owns want to stop and have a conversation. Are we taking certain items for trade? How much cash could they get? People want to talk shop not realizing this is what we already do every day - sometimes from the moment we wake up until the wee hours of the morning. Unwittingly, they are infringing on very precious personal time. It’s not infrequent that I’ve been up until 2 a.m. in the shop pricing items and setting up displays during the only time I can work on them — after the store closes.




Representing yourself or owning an institution eats up everything. It consumes your thoughts, your conversations, how you behave and if you don’t keep it in check it’ll consume your interpersonal relationships too. It changes peoples’ perception of you. They don’t see the amount of time you exchange for the compensation you receive. Nine times out of ten it doesn’t all come out in the wash. A nine to five this is not. It isn’t uncommon for both me and my partner to spend over twelve hours a day individually. We price records while we watch TV, we take calls and texts from employees at all hours, we simultaneously take vacation while also attending conventions and shopping for the store, we respond to online inquiries from wherever, whenever.




I don’t just mean the shop either. Right now I am working to establish a platform for my art. Almost every minute I’m not working on the store I’m working on my own personal start-up, a business that is made up of my thoughts and me alone. When I’m not working on the store I’m working on focusing my feelings, my ideas and creating them into a product of self-expression or research. Anytime I’m spending my time on something that doesn’t manifest into a product that I can cherish and be proud of I feel guilty. Many times this makes leisure time less satisfying while others it’s more enjoyable, rare and sweet. The reality is we’re not guaranteed tomorrow. We’re all on borrowed minutes. I want mine to count for something. This is where I turned when I went about-face from the banking industry. These works with long hours, little pay and no health insurance are my pursuit of passion.




It takes work to run a business but it also takes work to make sure that the business doesn’t run you. It’s a fine, vastly rewarding and terrifying line that at times feels exhausting, overwhelming and the furthest thing from gratifying. In what is being increasingly referred to as a shared economy adulthood no longer seems limitless but far more like indentured servitude to corporate institutions. If you are not laden with debt and loans from the pursuit of education it’s just as likely you will be chained to debt regarding medical expenses or some other form of credit. However, I do believe in this Wild West called the Internet we have an advantage. The feather in our cap is that we’ve grown up in and around this world of inter-connectivity and the pursuit of intuitive design.




I won’t lie, I’m on the older side of the Millennial time frame. I started out with no Internet, then dial up and didn’t have cable high-speed until I was almost out of High School. Yet, I do that in this point in history if you are willing to put in the work and commit regularly to do what you love and if you use resources like the Internet to connect, you can do so to the right people. They’re out their waiting to intimate, collab and commune with you if only you can find them — whether they be customer, partner or friend. A platform is waiting if you’re ready to spend the thankless work of building it from nothing.




In this new era of phones, apps and social media replacing the social life we have to align our skills and time to insist upon their value. Self-motivation and the hours we have available to work are our biggest commodity. If you can learn to walk the tight-rope of time management skills and relationship building I truly believe the possibilities are endless. That’s what I’m counting on anyway.




So owning a business is hard, but you think I should do it? Not necessarily. What I am saying is that by pursuing something you love you open up doors not only for yourself but others. I’m telling you it isn’t always easy but there’s a rewarding feeling in there that your time is being exploited instead of a corporation slapping you with a number and exploiting you instead. What I’m letting you know I believe is that the “little guy” is still important and that in the land of Netflix and chill maybe it’s time get out of our feet and take ownership of the economy that’s been tilted from favoring us.




In a world stacked against the little guy finding your own way can be it’s own mighty form of protest against an unjust system that favors the already grossly wealthy and powerful. We are encouraged each day to embrace complacency and consumer. Instead, I suggest that you feed the monster of productivity, just don’t let it get at your fingers or you might lose the proverbial hand you need to do good work.

Monday, June 20, 2016

LONDON - Three Countries in Two Weeks



I'm writing this on the train to Amsterdam as the countryside soars past us.  The blade of the tall wind mills generating electricity remind me of the ride to Minneapolis from Wisconsin but we're far from the Twin Cities now.  There is a cheerful, quiet din in the train car but without my headphones in my ears I jump every time another train from the opposite direction passes by at the speed of lightening.  There is always an initial sound of a head-on rush as aerodynamics impact with one another although the trains do not.

After traveling more regularly over the past two or three years I've learned it's always better to record your journey as you're taking it.  I still regret not journaling my solo Las Vegas trip during the course of it while the bizarre memories were fresh (aside from a few hangovers.) So I've resolved that this time will be different.  That being said, what better time to write about this exodus than when I'm zipping through the French countryside headed to Belgium and ultimately beyond that to the Netherlands?

London was almost exactly how I expected it to be, almost to the point of irony.  The city was exceptionally well-kept and the infrastructure was clear and effective.  Blocky, black cabs buzzed through every vein of the city seemingly with frequency than private cars.  Hailing one from almost any point was easy and unfortunately for our pocketbooks we relied on them heavily.  At one point we purchased an Oyster card determined to master the renowned underground train system.  That plan was quickly usurped by our ignorance when we spent fifty pounds purchasing a week long access to bus and tram only to realize that the tram was not in fact The Tube as we tried to pass through the turn style and failed.  Not to be outdone we resolved to take a bus and quickly proceeded to get lost and an add hour to ultimately what was a hike to the British Museum.

The were many men wearing neatly tailored suits that whizzed by not in sports cars but on bicycles were striking to me.  Speaking of bicycles, the traffic in London is down right harrowing.  Shout out to the fellow I saw languidly peddling down the thoroughfare one hand on the bars, the other ushering food into his mouth.  He gave me a look over as a crimson double decker bus roared around him and he continued on unconcerned.  Swerving and going around other vehicles of all sorts seems to be a key component of navigating the narrow streets of London-town.  Combine this with the fact that they drive on the side of the street that opposes the driving norms of most every other country trying not to get run over takes more conscious effort than usual.

Its typical that the first time you travel a place you do the tourist circuit.  You tour the sites and get it all out of the way.  Here in Europe that's a little more difficult due to the fact that these legendary cities are teeming, even cobbled, with history.  I usually prefer my second visit to a location after I've spent the first familiarizing myself and playing tourist.  It's a relief, in a way, to get the admiring of beautiful spots out of the way, pass through the sensory overload and begin to tune into the pulse of the city you're in.  Since we've got a full plate this trip I doubt that will happen this venture so it feels like I've been buzzing with confused excitement non-stop since we arrived a week ago so I'll beg you to understand if my current thoughts are fuzzy and slightly sleep deprived.



I bring all that up to say that seeing Big Ben in person and hearing his song was delightful and made my heart happy.  Seeing Westminster Abbey and leaving a kiss for the memorial of Lord Byron made me more deeply connected to the human experience.  It's nothing short of sobering to stand under arches ten centuries old or to meander over the bones that once escorted great minds.  I don't think you can judge a trip like this by one key moment,  Maybe I just haven't yet had that moment, or more likely they're all overwhelming wonderful, sometimes solemn and profound minutes that merge into one fantastic experience.  Traveling is a greatly existential experience and I'd even argue it's an art form in and of itself.  Travel is about touching the Earth like Buddha.  It as much about feeling and traveling through the present moment as it is about passing through the halls and monuments built for our use and perusal within an infrastructure far greater than any one person.

I suppose, if I had to choose one of the things I enjoyed most in London it would be dining at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant succinctly titled Ramsay and even more so watching the production of the Phantom of the Opera on the West End.  I suppose that's two things.  The show is a staple and I can see why.  Although I already knew most of it's songs by heart I had never seen the story unfold and I fell deeply in love with it.

Ultimately, London was simultaneously eerily familiar while being nothing at all like the United States.  I found myself envious of their infrastructure full of intention and ease.  The whole place seemed pervaded by an impenetrable force of dry humor and common sense.  At times that was refreshing, other times it felt stuffy and slightly disingenuous.  Overall, I really enjoyed my time there.  It was a hive of culture, art, and prosperity which the British are rightly quite proud of.  I enjoyed spectating their methods in action as much as I enjoyed browsing their art collections and monuments to history, work, legacy and sacrifice.  I think America could learn a thing or two from our ritualistic friends across the Pond.

Crossing the Chunnel was a breeze and I'll write more soon about the city I found on the other side.  If you want to see video of my travel check out my YouTube channel - Runic Rigel


 London Vlog Day 1


Thursday, June 9, 2016

How to Learn Any Language Fast, Easily and for Free - Great Tips for Travelers




Are you or have you ever been about to head out of the country on a trip and wanted to learn a new language to help you on your adventure?  Learning some basics of a new language is a great way to make allies out of locals, new friends and of course for your trip to go much, much smoother.

But learning a new language is far from easy.  If it were everyone would be doing it.  And if you've tried it you know rote memorization simply doesn't work.  It's extremely difficult to retain information that way especially if you are no longer a child, teen or young adult.  Those of us out of our twenties have it a little rougher because our brains have a more difficult time integrating a new form of communication into one we've already established.

If you've turned to YouTube and the Internet you've probably also figured out there are a lot of videos and websites out there looking to make money off of your attempt to learn a new language.  You seriously don't have to spend any or much money to learn a language these days.  If you haven't gotten to that level of frustration great!  This should save you some time.  If you're feeling lost I'm glad you've found this page and this video.

I started out learning French by teaching myself using the strategies I outline in this video.  When I returned to college as a non-traditional student last year I placed in French 102 (instead of 101) but since I was self-taught I opted to start out at 101.  I've learned a lot over the past year and a half about how to teach yourself on a budget (or with no budget but zero dollars!)

Check out this video if you are looking for a quick way to build a solid foundation that will allow you to begin to comprehend, understand and even speak a little bit of a language in a way that you will actually retain information.  I don't claim that you'll be speaking fluently in a matter of weeks but I do think these methods are a great way to start especially if you're on a time crunch.

Good luck!

By the way, if you're new to my blog or YouTube channel please subscribe!  I would love to get to know you.  I do a lot of various content but the consistent features are Travel, Veganism, Sex, Culture and Relationships.  See you there!


Monday, May 16, 2016

How To: iZombie Edible Brain Noodles Recipe

So these past two weeks I have been super busy with end of term and of course finals meaning I was only able to get one video up a week instead of two.  This was just a fun idea I had while using my new vegetable spiralizer  Viola!  Brain noodles.


I was actually really pleased with how these turned out!  It was quick, easy (a little messy) and if you aren't a fan of the show, guess what?  They're still a blast to make.  This would be super fun to do with kids and of course great for Halloween.  I hope you guys enjoy it!  (Video below.)


All you need is a spiralizer, watermelon and grenadine!  The best part about this gory treat is that it's actually just fruit so it's healthy and it's vegan!  So, that means it's great for people with dietary restrictions - and as far as party snacks go, not terrible for you.  Check it out!  Braaaaaains.



Monday, April 25, 2016

Lemonade by Beyoncé - Turning Shit into Life

I haven't gotten to watch all of Queen Bey's Lemonade yet, but that woman makes me proud to be a woman and proud to be from Htown. I've read a lot of the lyrics from her album. It's freeing and emotional and I'm glad she's sharing her pain. I admire her for turning her life into an art form.

The reality is that right now in history we are evolving and transcending and re-evaluating our roles as they relate to gender, sexuality and power. It's part of the process, it's part of the human condition and it's healthy.

We're trying to figure out what monogamy is when people don't force us to stay in it and when it's no longer about land or title. We're figure out where to draw our own boundaries and how to love without control.

I myself have had a few romantic upheavals in my time. Those of you that know me know that well enough. I think a lot about the concepts of loyalty and unconditional love that my grandfather taught me. Yet, his was a different time, his wife never worked. So how do I take his concepts as a Marine and one of the best men I've ever known and apply that to me, a feminine on the exterior, masculine on the interior woman in a world that doesn't have the same values or methods as someone I know to be "good?"

In school I just read the Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera and these ideals have been coming up more prominently and rapidly in my mind as of late, especially as Jason and I discuss our growing commitment to one another. If the relationship we have is a rooting plant, like all plants and great trees, it grew out of shit and detritus into something complex and alive.

I'm watching my artistic heroes die and the boot heel of the American economy press harder on our backs and I'm thinking more and more about perspectives and what it means to be a living creature on this little ball of blue and green that we're killing softly.

There's a prominent kitsch that our lives have been shrink wrapped in and sold wholesale. I reject that fate. I do by best to rage against it each and every day. Some days I do this more quietly than others. Some days I do it solemnly, others with a laugh and disbelieving shake of my head. I wonder how this can be life while not even really knowing what the hell life is.

When I see a mainstream artist like Beyoncé do something like Lemonade or David Bowie wish us farewell in the end I feel privileged to watch their struggle through art. I honor the fact Beyoncé shared her pain and her own turmoil with us. She let us watch her grow right up through the topsoil of decaying matter and passed on lifeforms. It makes me reflect on my own life and the powerful potential in finding an unapologetic way of being yourself. I become aware of the limitless authority in finding a way to love that self with a broken, dimensional beauty that no physical exterior could ever tell.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Chained to Student Debt to Be Financially Independent | War is Peace



It's hard to believe that in a month my first year of college will be behind me.  Last Summer, I left the  banking job I had had for almost three years to pursue the life of a non-traditional student.  Things weren't going well in my position as the Retail Loan Processor there.  The job was high stress, management was at a stage where it kept changing hands and the boss that was assigned to me knew little more about my job than my original boss.  My first boss, who's authority at the bank was treacherously phased out over time, had made the position at the bank much more human, much more livable.

The difference between the first woman who oversaw my work and the second is that my original boss was a kind, personable woman that was confident enough in her position to defer to the Vice President I worked with on a daily basis.  When she was in doubt regarding as to which processes were most efficient to complete our work we shared an element of trust that always allowed us to over come challenges as they arose.  My new boss knew almost nothing about the documentation that I spent about eighty percent of my time producing.  However, unlike the management prior, she still felt confident and validated in usurping and impeding that process.  Once the other two processors at the bank caught onto her disregard (or indifference at best) to the experience of myself and the Vice President, a woman who had been at the bank for twenty years, it was all over.  My work life went from stressful to untenable in a matter of months.

It wasn't just the end of my time at the bank that had got me thinking about my future as a pencil pusher.  I am the creative sort and my primary passion has always been writing, self-expression and I guess, essentially, that means art.  I'm fascinated by the human experience, although what that even means is open to interpretation.  I myself couldn't tell you exactly what I mean.  The entire thing is a process.  Right?

My adult life had been in tumult since before it began.  I was a young woman that emerged from my at seventeen.  As a rattled victim of long-term child abuse with post-traumatic stress disorder I became an emancipated minor and entered the work force.  Although I would have graduated from High School one semester later I opted to get my general education diploma (GED) and start working right away.  At that point I already had an apartment of my own and bills to pay.  Granted, my communication skills weren't the greatest at this point.  I had lived the majority of my life in deference and terror towards authority figures.  I had a hard time vocalizing the fact my homework was being neglected because I was working full-time and going to class.  When I was granted with the choice to end up on the streets and cling desperately to a High School diploma I chose a different manner of survival instead.

Things evened out very gradually over handfuls of years.  I worked my way up from fast food to accounting.  Somehow, in my early twenties, I landed a job in the Investor Accounting department of a Goldman Sachs subsidiary during the housing crash.  I filed mortgage insurance claims upon foreclosure.  This was during the economic crisis when the housing bubble popped so business was booming.  As foreclosures abounded and the housing market devoured itself my company began to implode.  In hindsight, this was inevitable.  However, as a young twenty something I remember being good at filing claims but unsure of what the long term implications of my work were.  I began to slowly become aware of the way corporate America alienated it's workers by compartmentalizing their responsibilities.

In some ways it was no different from where I started out as a "sandwich artist" at Subway.  When someone ordered a sandwich we would scurry to the production line and one person would cut the bread and place the meat and cheese on it before passing it down to the vegetable person and finally to condiments and the cashier.  Subway had found it was more efficient and sanitary to pass the sandwich along to compose it instead of employees cycling down the line back and forth from one sandwich  and customer to the next.  The end product for the Subway customer was a delicious sandwich.  At the mortgage servicing company I was only part of the long assembly line of people that would touch a subprime loan that had ultimately gone into default.

I spent my days pouring over the history of loans from their festive origination.  I would comb through pictures of home appraisals after the living space had been abandoned.  We found everything from hoards of name brand clothing to dead cats and dogs that had been relegated to their fate like dusty Nikes or television sets.  My job was to prove we had done everything we could to keep the person in their home.  I scoured our system call logs and story after story unfolded of people ill with cancer, dying or just impoverished.  Their homes were slipping from their hands and I was making sure we composed a story that painted us at their side, as their advocate.  I allocated fees, specified the process of bankruptcy and checked the periods each state allowed (or didn't) for the borrower to potentially repossess their home.  It always struck me, those terms, borrower, investor, processor.  No one had a face, we were all letters and numbers relegated to equations.

I had to report the adjusting rates of the mortgages too.  I would read the interest rate histories, cringing, as I watched the rates jettison sometimes from eight percent interest to sixteen.  These loans were high risk but the borrower was approved anyway with a pat on the back, a handshake and what they thought was the embodiment of the American Dream handed over in the form of a mortgage. The homeowner would try feebly to feed the monster consuming their income.  The foreclosure would always inevitably come after the rate increased month by month or year by year.  Subtly, each finger was pried away from the little piece of paper that represented the purported ownership of property and a home.

In the end, if I had done my job, the claim would be paid to some varying degree and the investor would be reimbursed for their legal troubles and for their investment.  Somehow, the borrower would still end up owing a plethora of fees and debts.  The investor took back the property to market it once more and the process would start again when the mortgage changed hands.  When I started with the loan servicing company I had originally been expected to file four claims daily.  After three years that number had doubled and then tripled.  At one point I was so crushed under my workload that I smiled to myself, left my cubicle and vacated the ten story building that was a hive of mortgaging intricacies and modern business.  A day later I returned at the request of my supervisors and started again.  The files on my desk were inches thick.  Several a day.  Did each one represent the upheaval of a life?  Of a family?  Probably.

Some days protesters rallied outside of the building.  Some of us gathered at the windows and stared down from a view stories up within our hive at ACORN and their enraged members.  I was just a broke kid in my early twenties trying to rise above the stigma of child abuse.  I was just doing my job.  A company wide e-mail was sent out by the CEO that day vehemently admonishing us for going to the windows to peer out at the company's adversaries.  It was unprofessional supposedly.  I read the electronic letter and smirked at the idea of trying to control a ten story building full of working, tax paying adults as though they were children that should be quelled of their inherent curiosity.  I was beginning to despise big business.

When the government bailed out the car companies and banks that had torn the economy apart I was outraged.  I would have rather lost my job and been bailed out as an individual.  The reasoning given, of course, was that unemployment would have skyrocketed.  Yet, as an employee of the toppling industry I welcomed the demise of my employer.  I had seen an ugly side of the work force.  One that dehumanized not only its employers but the consumers it relied upon to survive.  I wanted it to end.  Ultimately, it ended anyway.  The mortgage servicing company I worked for is no more.  It liquidated all of the subprime mortgages in its portfolio and ceased to be.  They outsourced all of our jobs to India.  I slipped out the door towards the end as they started sending my co-workers to India to train our replacements.  That's when I made up my mind to go back to school as soon as I could.

As soon as I could turned out to be later than I thought.  The first time I tried to go back to college I enrolled at a community college in Houston, Texas.  Although I lived five minutes from the school, miraculously, I wasn't zoned as a resident which meant I had to pay double to attend.  There was a vote that would have zoned my neighborhood into the system but the wealthy neighborhood of plantation homes and mansions across the freeway rallied against it in opposition to the few dollars it would increase their taxes each year.  Their children were going to private institutions and they had no desire to contribute to perceived education handouts to those of that lived near the industrial parks and mostly Hispanic neighborhoods.  I was furious, but unable to come up with an alternative, I went to the school willing to pay double.  It wasn't meant to be.  I attended for a month and was making A's before I was dropped from my classes after the financial aid office failed to process my government loans properly.  The infrastructure there was terrible and losing my ability to go to school was a disaster.

I went to live on my aunt's futon.  Then, chasing a long-distance relationship that would ultimately fail, I ended up in the Midwest.  Once again I ended up working for the banking industry.  Another three years went by before the opportunity to go back to school opened in earnest.  Now, as I've said, I'm about to complete my first year of college at the University of Wisconsin.  I'd like to say that it's equivocally been the best decision of my life and I'm assured of the next step in my journey and ultimately my career.

But you can already guess what I'm going to say, can't you?  With the coming election the cost of college education is being criticized.  It's playing a rather large role in campaigning.  After this first year alone, I already have over ten thousand dollars of shiny new debt in my life.  For consideration, my vehicle was ten thousand dollars when I bought it.  On my banking salary it took me six years to pay it off.  As I face celebrating the completion of my first year of college there's a debate waging in my head over well... wages.

I am coming into a college with quite a different life experience from the rest of my peers.  Honestly, I adore college life.  There are many departments devoted to helping you succeed.  You can get healthcare for your mental or physical state.  I love pouring over the works of brilliant thinkers and scientists.  Do I feel like my worldview has broadened?  Do I feel more intelligent?  Absolutement.  I'm learning another language.  I feel my writing has improved.  I'm creating more content than ever.  I feel inspired.  I suppose the question is can you put a price on something like that?

Teachers will tell you no and they're absolutely right.  Can you put a price on love or the human experience?  I'd say no.  Yet, at the end of the day we all need to get paid for our efforts and services in order to survive.  So should I, like the parents that opposed the college zoning refuse to contribute to society because I for instance, have no children?  Should education only be socialized up to grade twelve?  If education is really so important than why aren't we more heavily invested in it as a society and a community?  I'm not just talking about academia either.  Where are the socialized vocational schools or courses in High School preparing us for more than structural obeisance?  If credit is going to rule someones ability to get a job or a home why aren't we talking about it and teaching our youths how to balance a checkbook?  As a banker and now a non-traditional college student I have many questions about the state of our educational system but that could be another topic entirely.

What it really comes down to ultimately is that my education is going to cost me approximately fifty thousand for a four year degree.  If I come out of college making relatively the same wage I did as a respectable desk jokey it stands to reason that if it takes me six years to pay off ten grand I could be paying for my education for at least the next thirty years.  This is to say nothing about pursuing a graduate degree or doctorate.

As a thirty year old woman looking to education to become more financially self-sufficient in pursuit of a career in earnest, I ask you, what sense does it make to pursue a debt that could strangle and enslave me until retirement or beyond?  Has my chance to learn and grow in this society through the pursuit of education already come and gone?  And it is it fair for a student, new to the world, to enter into our workforce and society with this kind of debt already shackling their feet or collaring their throats?

What's more terrifying yet is this.  Last year or so, when I paid my taxes apparently the state of Wisconsin overcompensated me in my refund due to no fault of my own.  They demanded back a few hundred dollars.  At the time my vehicle wasn't paid off and so I was living paycheck to paycheck.  Their solution was to deduct this money in two installments directly from my pay.  If I hadn't had the help of a close friend I would have been unable to make rent.  I would have potentially faced homelessness on the whim of an errant government.  The government took my wage and I had no say.  I was helpless.

When you take out government loans as I have had to do in order to pursue my education the reality is that once you are done pursuing your education (be it indefinitely or because of graduation) the government can begin garnishing your wages.  Which means, if you are in debt to the government you are potentially enslaved by them.  You are potentially taking a pay cut for thirty years because you wanted to become an educated member of society.  So it seems to me, if you're going to college, you better be damn sure you're coming out the other side with the ability to nab a job that will pay you a wage to live and then some.  Otherwise the wage increase you can expect from a degree will be long-term neutralized by the purchase of the degree at best.  Worst case scenario you'll be so far in debt you won't be self-sustainable at all.

That begs the question though, what about all of the students working as baristas and retail cashiers?  How are they going to pay back their debts to the government?  Do they not deserve to pursue their education even if they can't immediately turn it into a viable position at the desk of some corporation with a ten story building?  It isn't as black and white as all of that.  I would argue we need artists and free thinkers in our society more than ever.  Simultaneously, the biggest conservative advocates of reducing the government's footprint on our lives will diminish free education as a handout and allow the governments exploitation of our nations students as they attempt to avert poverty.

Regardless, as I ponder my next year of college this debate occurring inside of me is as real as it is valid  not just for me but for students all across this country.  Is this worth it?  Is this ethical?  What point does the pursuit of self-sufficiency serve if you become shackled to banks and the government or the very society you're attempting to change, perhaps, even before you enter it?

As I look over my loan statements I am reminded of my days, tucked into a cubicle watching the interest rates of home borrowers soar from their grasps.  I think back to my days of High School as I considered how to survive and educate myself.  I still have medical bills from those uninsured days at eighteen that haunt my abysmal credit score to these days, well into my late twenties.

I'm reminded of learning about feudal societies built on class structures, indentured servitude and slavery.  I was taught for the longest time that these archaic methods were outdated, cruel and as I was fortunate to grow up in a land of liberty where the pursuit of happiness is sacred and freedom is guaranteed.  Yet, as my debts close in around me for maintaining my education and health I can't help but wonder if feudalism hasn't migrated across time and sea to wear the guise of capitalist democracy.  What's worse is I wonder where we would be headed if I had never been able to learn those cautionary tales of history at all.

The freedom we are consuming to this day is a watered down version of the concept.  It does a disservice to the very word.  Capitalism has robbed us of our right to health, to education and our mobility within our society and the world.  Corrupt politicians have aided this process over time like a bartender topping off the bottles of vodka with water.  We have been fed for so long a substitute for what we seek that one concentrated of drop of true independence feels intoxication and we are told that that feeling, in and of itself is a privilege that comes with a price tag instead of unalienable right.

Some day soon, students will have to find a way to educate their selves and protest the educational system and requisites for jobs without feeding a toxic infrastructure.  One day soon we will have to find a way to progress the human race without letting our intellectualism and skills feed those who would broker our bodies, time, abilities and desires.  By playing on a board clearly tilted to our disadvantage we some how concede that the game is fair and that the victory of our oppressors is valid.  We already have to trade our bodies for coins in order to maintain our bodies and the bodies of our children.  We pay insurance intermediaries to survive.  The only thing I can think of that is as equally tragic and disgusting as putting a monetary cost on one's body is stamping a price tag on the human experience and the dimensions of the mind.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

The Physical Effects of Trauma On The Brain

Oz - "You see, I never had a family of my own...
so I guess I just wanted to give the citizens of Oz everything."

Elphaba - "So you lied to them."

Oz - "Elphaba!
Where I come from we believe all sorts of things that aren't true.
We call it... history.
A man's called a traitor or a liberator
A rich man's a thief or philanthropist
Is one a crusader?  Or ruthless invader?
It's all in which label is able to persist
There are precious few at ease, with moral ambiguities
So we act as though they don't exist."

- Wicked the Musical


There are cycles that proliferate themselves and these are the hardest to break.  The older I get the more that I begin to understand there is science behind the cyclic patterns of trauma.  By educating myself, I have to believe that I can save myself.

"People abused as children show reduced brain volume in regions governing emotion, learning and memory.  Deficits that make them more vulnerable to relapse and relapses of greater severity."
-Bill Hickaway, June 2014, "Brain Retains Signs of Childhood Trauma," Yale News
Art titled, "Anxiety Attack" source listed below

According to a 2014 study done by the Yale School of Medicine child abuse has scientifically proven long-term effects on cognition and brain function that persist far past adolescence and into adulthood.  There are several factors that impact the severity of this including whether or not the trauma was a single instance or if the abuse was frequent/long-term (chronic).  As a survivor of chronic child abuse who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2002 I am all too aware of the way one's brain becomes less of a systematic processing center and more of an intangible maelstrom of concepts, timelines, survival and the abstract.  When living with the residual effects of child abuse it's extremely easy to become isolated in what can feel like an intangible mental cycle.  Sometimes, we repeat past mistakes without genuinely even realizing what we are doing until the repercussions are indisputable.

The cold truth is that people who have suffered from abuse and neglect as children have brains that developed differently.  Our developmental process occurred differently than those who were consistently taught to bond with others through skin on skin contact, reassurance and all of the other protective learning experiences our caretakers should give.   These experiences that our parents or caregivers are supposed to provide have more than sentimental value.  They teach us interaction and nurture our capacity for survival.  From the moment an infant cries in order to seek a response and they receive it their brains are developing methods of survival that involve reaching out and having their needs (both physical and mental) met.  Abused children are often times denied these fundamental exchanges early on.  The results are staggering and long-term.

Did you know that people exposed to long-term abuse and bullying as children age faster on a cellular level?  According to a study done by the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience of Duke University where DNA samples were taken from thousands of children being exposed to or victims of violence at a young age these kinds of trauma actually expedite the aging process on a cellular level.  The study's lead author Idan Shalev is quoted as saying, "Those kids are actually older than they're supposed to be."  Shalev continued on to tell LiveScience that these subjects were already aging prematurely and would be at risk for a premature death.  To reach this conclusion the scientists of Duke University looked to a strand of DNA called telomeres.  These strands can act as a molecular clock of sorts when they are monitored for vigor by length.  Through the process of cell division (as we age) the telomeres that protect the genes of our chromosomes grow shorter.  The study consistently showed that children between ages 5 and 10 that had been exposed to abuse had telomeres that had shortened much faster.  This is likely due to the inflammation caused by chronic stress.

Stress is the hard line to the heart of the issue.  We are discovering more and more each day that constant duress has overwhelming effects on development, cognitive ability and physical health.  Though many people associate their childhood and adolescence as a time they might refer to as "the good all days" spent with little obligation and therefore the least amount of stress they may experience in their lifetime;  a victim of childhood abuse is not so fortunate.  The developmental years of a child abuse victim can be fraught with constant panic and the overwhelming demand to adapt in order to survive.  The years that should have involved learning to interact through positive reinforcement, prepare for adulthood and safely discover or test boundaries are spent instead anticipating at any moment the need to fight or fly.  These years of learning are consumed instead by recovering mentally and physically from the infliction of trauma.  

"At a neural level, uncertainty and inaction is counter-instinctual.  We are hard wired to work out and respond to threats to our survival as quickly as possible.  That hard wiring is in the limbic system of our brain.  It's home to the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal access which releases adrenaline in response to a perceived threat.  It prepares you for violent physical action.  Most of us know this as fight or flight."

-Dr. Sean Richardson, "Mental Toughness:  Think Differently About Your World," Tedx Talks, 2011

Fight or flight response is designed as a defense mechanism for the occasional event in which our lives or the lives of our loved ones may be in danger.  Every living creature strives to minimize risks to the survival of themselves.  We are trained to mitigate situations that might hazard the proliferation of our species.  Arguably, if you are constantly exposed to risk you are being ineffectual to that end.  

When your fight or flight response is activated there are some very real physical effects.  Most obviously your heart rate increases as almost thirty hormones are released into your blood stream.  Your muscles smooth over in anticipation for physical exertion and to allow more oxygen into your bloodstream and lungs.  Veins in your skin quite skillfully constrict, sometimes causing your skin to chill, in order to more effectively distribute blood supply.  Your immune system and digestion momentarily slow way down to focus your body's energy towards your muscles that will tense and energize with the new attention your body is giving.  In a nutshell, your body effectually becomes a super computer capable of task managing it's resources by anticipating what you need most at that moment.

This organic, intuitive choreography happens in an instant but this is not a level of homeostasis that can long be maintained.  When activated long-term or with constant repetition the effects on the body are monstrously grueling, as we are learning.  Take a look at this image below of a CT scan done on two different three year old children.  The child on the right suffered from severe sensory deprivation and neglect.  Their brain is significantly smaller than average and has abnormal cortex development.


If neglect can cause such augmentation in brain development so early on then what effects might hyper-stimulation of the flight or fight response portend?  In referencing the studies of Dr. Bruce Perry M.D, Ph. D from 2000 and 2009 we begin to see that constant anxiety inflicted by chronic child abuse has many over-arching effects on brain development.  This is so much the case that chronic stimulation of these parts of the brain can cause a persistent fear state that can "wear out" other parts of the brain such as the hippocampus which is involved in cognition and memory.  This brings me back to my initial point about the long-term impairment abuse can have on an adult victim's memory.

"Chronic activation of the neuronal pathways involved in the fear response can create permanent memories that shape the child's perception of and response to the environment.  While this adaptation may be necessary for survival in a hostile world, it can become a way of life that is difficult to change, even if the environment improves."

-Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2009, "Understanding the Effects of Maltreatment on the Brain Development" 

This means that fear becomes the rule instead of the exception.  When the need to analyze situations for danger becomes habitual early on out of necessity the way a person interacts with the people and the world around them is altered  --- possibly for the remainder of their lives.  This is extremely important to bear in mind when interacting with victims of abuse.  Studies from the Child Trauma Academy elaborate to say that behaviorally many times abuse victims develop the need for what is called hyper-arousal or perhaps more relateably referred to as hyper-vigilance.  This is the process wherein over-exposure to trauma sensitizes the pathways of the victim's brain to the fear response.  Over time it begins to triggers the fear response without conscious thought.  The brain develops so that is constantly alert and consumed by searching for non-verbal cues or environmental threats.  This can impede a child's ability to learn and eventually an adult's ability to learn or focus on tasks at hand.  

One can become dissociated with verbal cues actually stated when due to hyper-vigilance the "listener" is actually making deductions on implications and body language.  As someone diagnosed with hyper-vigilance I can tell you there is a fine line I walk where at times I take in everything around me while other times I'm so exhausted trying to process all the information I've taken in that even the most obvious of signals don't register.  As you can imagine, this can greatly impair someone's ability to take in and respond to fresh information or environmental change.  Though a person is attempting to assess a threat in order to prevent it by consuming too much information and over-processing it they may actually be preventing themselves from doing just that.

So to recap what do we know about the real, physical effects of abuse on brain development, physical health and memory retention?

  • Brain volume in memory retention areas are physically decreased, subsequently increasing likelihood for abuse and substance abuse relapse
  • Victims of childhood abuse and violence typically age faster on a cellular level making them more likely to experience health issues and premature death
  • Experiencing chronic duress early on alters fundamental cognitive and physical development to the point the physical brain can actually grow to be small or abnormal
  • Chronic duress can lead to atrophy in the body and brain that persists long after childhood
  • Victims of abuse and anxiety can interact with people and their environments by being constantly on guard for threats to the point that they can exhaust their ability to interact with the world in "real time" and the hormones are physically altered

So, we get it.  There are some dire physical effects that are sustained by chronic stress and the impact of severe abuse in the developmental stages of a human life.  However, that is not my only point.   Imagine if you can, a life wherein you have maintained survival by being vigilant and alert in order to respond to physical and mental trauma that is almost constant.  In the later years of your life this stage of development, that significantly constructed the entire first two decades, becomes something that is not easily approachable, significant or relative to others.  Instead of being able to reminisce about the mostly happy early stages of your life with your peers you feel the need instead to redirect conversations like these or remove yourself from them entirely.  Imagine trying to soften or entirely black out memories from the first two decades of your life in order to avoid a cognitive response that will inflict anxiety in an instant.  Deadening your capacity to remember painful events becomes a necessary method in which to adjust and function.  The repercussions of this can be fruitful but they can also be devastating.

To give you some back history if you don't already have it I was the victim of child abuse for fifteen years and, as I said, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder at the age of sixteen.  I was hospitalized in the ER twice during High School because my anxiety was so severe that it had caused gastrointestinal problems that resulted in my stomach being coated and treated with medication the first visit.  The second time was so severe I required an IV for a couple of hours and was given medication intravenously as well as more than one prescription for nausea and acid reflux.   

Most recently, in the past year I was diagnosed again with an anxiety disorder after suffering a major depressive episode and put on anxiety medication I have to take twice daily.  I will be seeing an endocrinologist in January for continual hormonal issues that I am currently on a prescription for after several blood tests and examinations. I have had a plant-based diet for many years in order to counter the gastrointestinal issues I experienced early on.  I was originally told I would be on stomach medication for the remainder of my life and may even have to have my stomach removed if the problems persisted.  To summarize I have battled with the physical and mental effects of chronic mental, physical and sexual abuse for my entire life.

When there is an affliction to our cognitive abilities it's easy to write this kind of pestilence off as abstract and hypothetical in nature.  When someone loses an appendage it's easy for us to see, become horrified and empathize with that physical loss.  When someone suffers mentally those wounds and ailments are much more difficult to not only relate to but acknowledge as real.  With the exponential advancement of not only technology but science we are beginning to understand that our emotions and mental states have far reaching effects on our physical well-being that go beyond elusive, silly metaphysical connotations.  

Likewise, as a survivor of trauma and abuse I have never been comfortable being looked at as someone with a mental illness or disability of any kind.  Not only does such a moniker come with public criticism but an internal evaluation of self as well.  Society as a whole seems readily willing to gloss over or overlook completely those that aren't easily defined by their mental impediments but still struggle to live with them.  There are the sane and not sane.  We see a man on the corner talking to himself collecting garbage and we're quick to write them off as an insane lost cause.  Is there no modicum of sanity or anything else in between on some sliding scale of sorts?   If not how can we vary level of treatments?  How can we learn to treat ourselves?

The good news is not only can we seek help but we can make efforts to treat ourselves.  In almost every study I've referenced here the thought was that the effects of abuse (with great effort) were reversible.  Just as the brain can acclimate to or learn to anticipate stress it can un-adapt.  It is very easy to feel at war with external factors that trigger a neurological response.  It's easy to tell ourselves that the response is not chemical or physical but that we inherently lack some kind of emotional component all together that would allow us to improve.  I argue that with great, great effort and long-term consistency we can improve and change.  Part of that process is acknowledging the physical augmentation that must be undone.  The ether of anxiety, doubt and pain can be parted when a structure of solid physical habits is built from within.  The pain I find myself cycling through is symptomatic of behaviors ingrained so deeply that they have actually become physical in nature.  I have developed differently and instead of pretending I haven't I am going to have to work with this fact.  I can not ignore a dimension of myself and simultaneously improve upon it.

It's a very sobering moment to realize that your own mind may be working against you and enabling your abusers to harm you.  If you have been designed since childhood to endure pain instead of fly because there was a time you could not fly or fight the door has been left open for pain to be inflicted to a degree that should never be permitted.  The association with love and pain becomes intermingled in a way that is unhealthy.  When you are able to soften the blows of your abusers you unconsciously begin doing half their work for them.  You enable the cycle unwittingly and conclusions or solutions that may be obvious to others come very slowly if they ever come at all.  Once someone inclined to abuse finds someone physically inclined to being abused the effects can be cyclic and tumultuous.  It's easier for abuse victims with these physical cognitive impairments to quite literally forget, excuse or dull the memories of being harmed in order to proliferate and nurture the good times even if they are far more infrequent or even just as frequent as the abusive episodes.  Things that a developmentally healthy person might have a hard time ever forgetting are easy for a person with a history of abuse to romanticize, excuse away or validate.

By revising history, and being in a constant state in which you are struggling to survive you can miss brightly colored red flags all together.  There is quite a lot of danger in subjecting yourself to a new trauma when you haven't even healed from old wounds.  The effects can be devastating even deadly on a truly depressed person who is so lost by their own mind literally urging them to react.  So desperate to do something a depressed person's reactions can be viciously harmful to others and even themselves.

After almost twenty nine years of struggling with these issues it is apparent to me that earnest, physical action is needed in order to combat depression, anxiety and the long-term damage that chronic abuse, anxiety and depression can cause.  I thought because I was able to work a full-time office job despite my constantly pounding heart that I had overcome my past.  My past and the abuse that riddled the majority of it "was old news" that I didn't want to burden anyone else with.  Yet, I keep making mistakes, each one leaving me more battered than the last despite my struggles to do exactly the opposite!  Why?  The conclusion that I've come to is that I am physically hardwired to suffer.  This has been my existence for almost three decades now and I've become so accustom to it that I literally can not tell when I should fight or fly.  I literally can not tell what pain is necessary, what is avoidable, and what is absolutely unacceptable.  In truth, it's hard for me to tell at all until I am literally so incapacitated that I at times can not function or when I can move it is only to reach out to self-medicate and self-harm.  I shouldn't need trauma to alert me to run, that defeats the purpose of having fight or flight to avoid the trauma entirely.

So what can I or anyone like me do?  Here is my opinion and my conclusion.

There are always going to be external factors that may endanger us or compromise our emotional and mental stability to varying degrees.  The only control we have over these factors is how well we avoid them or how well we adapt to them when they can not be avoided.    That means the work begins on an internal level.  We have to rewire our minds instead of rewriting history into a version that's more easily able to handle.  We have to face the ugly crevices of reality no matter how big or small and truly adapt to them instead of creating an adaptation of what's real and a false sense of security.

I have begun to realize that my fight is not with the people that harmed me, not with life's injustice or impermanence but with my control over myself.  I have to learn what should have been instinctual and reaffirmed within the first minutes of my life.  I have to learn that it's okay to look out for myself and not suffer.  There are many ways to begin rewiring myself on a physical level.

  • Exercise
  • Meditation
  • Compassionate affirmation
  • Regular sleep
  • Avoiding substances that aggravate depression and anxiety like caffeine or alcohol
  • Socializing with friends and loved ones in a safe neutral environment
  • Using grounding techniques to rewire the brain from racing thoughts to the present
  • Medication and treatment from a doctor as necessary
  • Being conscious of red flags and willing to acknowledge them
These aren't assumptions these are methods that are grounded in medical science.

Living with the effects of chronic abuse and anxiety can be excruciating.  I have days that I literally would rather be unconscious than feel my heart thudding uncontrollably and my mind racing to the point I am panicking and don't know how to stop it.  I get angry at myself for making cyclic mistakes and I get beyond frustrated that I was not able to see those mistakes coming.  There are days I tear myself apart or cry on the bathroom floor and feel isolated from everything around me.  There are days I'm terrified that the wounds are too deep, that the abuse went on too long and I am doomed to a life of anxiety and loneliness.  There are days I feel hatred must be my footholds and others I'm exhausted by own frustration.  There are days I feel isolated because my physical appearance does not match the mutilated self-image that I have internally.  There have been many days like that in part because I was unaware the self-proliferating cycle was consuming my energy in order to spin on like a water wheel.

It is my feeling and opinion that by becoming aware of the physical causation of anxiety, depression and cyclic abuse that we can take responsibility for and then break the patterns causing us pain.  We can rewire our minds so that each day is not an internal battle for happiness.  Those battles should be the exception, not the rule.  I believe that we can achieve tranquility through active acknowledgement of the mental and emotional wounds and then through treatment of them.  I truly believe that I can overcome the habitual pain by devoting to the idea of recovery and by treating my mental wounds with the same care and understanding I would approach anything physical.

I am no stranger to revised history.  When I was extracted from my home with deep-tissue wounds at the age of fifteen my mother tried to tell people they were self-inflicted.  Years later she has apologized profusely at times and pretended utterly as though nothing occurred at all even though she has since divorced my step-father after the abuse climaxed and I was removed.  The ironic thing is it isn't what happened that keeps us apart now it's her inability to completely accept what happened.  It has made it so that a relationship between mother and daughter is untenable perhaps forever.  Even now, you would think a person like myself would be so wary to life's snares and cruelty but at times I find myself forgiving all to easily the pain inflicted upon me to the point I let myself be very deeply wounded by the people I let close.  I don't pretend I have all of the answers but I do hope that on my seemingly constant quest for recovery, truth and real happiness that I can share my findings and help someone other than myself.

There is a saying that, "History is written by the victors."  This quote is attributed to great politicians like Winston Churchill, Napoleon Bonaparte and Niccolò Machiavelli.  I implore you to not the let the victor continue to be the trauma.  I implore you to not rewrite your history however ugly you may find it but to face it with bravery, compassion and ownership.  The future is yours to compose.  You can not feel loved truly or avoid the feeling of isolation if you do not embrace the truth and allow others to embrace your truth scars and all whether they be self-inflicted or brutally received.  We must refuse to settle or turn a blind eye to the pain inside of us because in allowing ourselves to hurt when we interact we share that hurt.  When we allow ourselves to keep hurting we proliferate and spin the wheel.  Instead, with work, we can bring to the table a desire to heal, receive love and ultimately experience internal happiness.  This isn't just my wish and the unrelenting goal I have for myself it's my desire for anyone struggling with this.  It's even my desire for the people that have hurt me, some of whom I still love.  No one will ever be able to rebuild you if you are not willing to renovate yourself instead of living in a dilapidated shell, condemned and falling apart.

I leave you with this final thought.

"There is no single, eternal and immutable "truth" about past events and their meaning.  The unending quest of historians for understanding the past - that is revisionism - that is what makes history vital and meaningful."

-Historian James McPhereson, Pulitzer Prize Winner

Revising history is considered part of the scholarly process.  History is often times revised not to corrupt the truth but to tell it.  With research stereotypes are undone.  With the work of scientists and historians the lies of politicians are unearthed and a more apt perspective is restored.  That's right, considering our past can not only be cathartic but we can learn about truth instead of letting outside sources foster misinformation.  The effects of physical abuse, depression and anxiety are real but with effort and a thirst for knowledge and truth we can revise who we are.  We can become more genuine, more healthy and maybe even make history instead of being ruled by it.

Copyright 2014, Ginger Rogers

References:

Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2009, "Understanding the Effects of Maltreatment on Brain Development," Series, Issue Briefs


Alice Park, April 2012, "How Bullying and Abuse May Age Children Prematurely," Time Magazine

Stephanie Pappas, April 2012, "Bullying, Child Abuse Hastens Aging in Kids," Live Science

Dr. Sean Richardson, November 2011, "Mental Toughness:  Think Differently About Your World," TedX Talks Victoria

Julia Layton, September 2005, "How Fear Works," How Stuff Works, Life Science

Anxiety Attack Artwork

Additional Reading Material:




Monday, March 21, 2016

Super Easy Vegan Chicken and Waffles

Making this video I have spelled waffle - WAGGLES countless times.  Waggles should be a thing.



Check it out!  No real recipe required.  The video is super quick and easy.  A fun way to add some variety to your vegan spread!


Friday, March 18, 2016

My Trip to Minneapolis - Vegan Donuts, Pizza and a Butcher Shop!



So I had an amazing weekend last weekend hitting the Twin Cities.  I was most excited to stop by one of the first Vegan Butcher Shops in the U.S.  I purchased a few of their items to sample and I must tell you there were incredible!  I maybe relocating to the Cities sometime in the future but until then I will be pining for the amazing products found at the Herbivorous Butcher.

I did a video of my trip and a small review on my haul.  If you'd like to try these amazing products they also recently just started shipping a vegan starter pack which (is a little pricey) but full of their amazing vegan "meat" items.  You have to check it out!  I believe they'll be expanding shipping items more in the future.

Needless to say, this is a wonderful step for the vegan community.  It makes finding fresh, tasty meat substitutes while supporting a local (or at least domestic) small business super easy!  They're products are to die for but - best part - no one had to die!  I highly encourage you to check out their shop at:




If you're not opposed to vlogs and you'd like a more irreverent peek into my weekend in the Cities (featuring some delectable vegan donuts that I purchased at Glam Doll Donuts) check out my vlog of the weekend below.



Thanks so much for reading and watching.  
Please like share and subscribe to keep up with all of my vegan and travel vlogs!