Well, that was weird, right? That thing that happened in Chapter One? It wasn’t a flashback – those came later. It was more of an “EMDR Mountain Moment.” I dictated that funky-poem-acid-trippy thing into my phone on September 1st, 2018. These Mountain Moments started to happen whenever my brain was bilaterally stimulated...such as when hiking...which you’ll learn about in Chapter Three.
But before I get lost in my love of neurology, let’s go back to my bio. Let’s get back on track.
Who am I? Where did I come from?
In my early days of recovery, I was a self-employed hairstylist and a cocktail waitress for El Paso restaurant in Scottsdale. I was a salesman to the core…with a vagina. Yup, I was in She-Sales. I’d hustle restaurant strangers into becoming salon-chair clients. I had two strategies for monster tips: (a) convince every male patron you might want to go home with him (but don’t) and (b) convince every female patron you’re her undercover ally; an emotionally detached bestie; a cheerleader; an advocate (and follow through).
As soon as I sobered up and stopped eating out of dumpsters, I used all my money to suck up as much CBT as possible (CBT stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). I quit sales because it didn’t feel “honest.” I started working at the local YMCA and a small, church bookstore for extra cash. I sold Bibles even though I wasn’t a Christian…nor a believer in God…and had regular identity crisis. Eventually, I cut my cost of living to less than $18,000 per year. I lived with my equally poor roommates in Phoenix, used a drug-infested laundry mat, and only saw movies when Jeff and Billy were buying. #ripbillyloveyoubro.
My extreme frugality allowed to me to take out a $20,000 student loan, sign up for one college dance class to justify the lending (I have an extraordinarily sensitive conscience), and hire the best psych professionals in Scottsdale. Cash pay only. It was financially brutal, and totally worth it. #goschulteitsyourbirthday.
Aside from using a sponsor, friends, a therapist, a nutritionist, and Effexor to get my feet on the ground, I became obsessed with exploring alternative 12-Step programs. By 2008, I’d delved into some inner-child work and CoDependents Anonymous. In the early 2010’s I discovered Al-Anon and Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. And finally, in mid 2017, I fell into SLAA on accident. I opened a non-profit called Studio164 with a few friends, and someone requested an SLAA meeting. Since it didn’t exist, I started one. For fun. ‘Cause why not? #accidentalmiracle.
Despite all this self-determination, despite my obsession with “fixing that one thing I couldn’t seem to find,” despite leaving a cult-y religion and reading bajillions of books and watching katrillions of documentaries by scientists and artists alike, let me just say this: EMDR was so effective that it put my self-help accolades to shame. The invention of EMDR is nothing short of a modern-day miracle. When it comes to healing and transcending past pain, I’d never experienced such unwavering clarity or permanence.
This book - the entire thing - is about what happened after EMDR. Once the memories returned. It’s about remembering who I am, where I come from, how I survived, and what I love. It’s about relearning to feel my body, enjoy the present, grieve the past, create a future, and express myself. So, thank you for listening. Thank you for reading. Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for being a part of my journey. Truly, I mean it. #sappybutreal.
Anyhoo, I eventually went to college. When I got to University, I loved it. I got government grants and used my hairdressing salary to pay for those too-god-damn expensive books. I refused my folks money…I didn’t know why, but it felt dirty to me. Strings and hooks and weird unspoken agreements. So I cut them off. I cut them off in the same way parents typically cut children off. Cold turkey. No announcement. Don’t ask, don’t tell. And it was awkward, but right. I rejected their loaded dollars unless I was short on cash for therapy. I stopped seeing the doctors my dad had chosen for me. I stopped visiting my mother because it was hard...and sad...and made me grieve the loss of a mom I never had in the first place.
Once there, at Arizona State, I immersed myself in a sea of social and behavioral sciences, covering topics like gender fluidity, the psychology of religion, cults, group-think, social comparison theory, the Stanford prison experiment, and a wee bit of marketing. I ate up sociological theory and childhood development. I was obsessed with cultural histories, tyrannical “happenstance”, equality, and art. Anonymous recovery programs brought me back to life, but a love of learning gave me a reason to live.
I was interested in criminology, but never pursued it…the program looked long and scientific and “not-fun.” My dream job – back when I was 29 – was to become a college professor…but I’d of settled for adjunct faculty or substitute social studies teacher, to be honest. I hold a pretty low bar for myself. Embarrassing low. #notsuicidal. I was willing to shop at Good Will forever if it meant I could study social psychology for the rest of my life. But after getting admitted to an interdisciplinary Masters program, after tasting the delicacies of epistemology and digital art, after feeling empowered and capable and autonomously successful, and after getting my wedding photography business off the ground, I crashed.
I crashed hard.
Really, really, hard.
You see, once I graduated with my BA, I got married. Oh, and by the way, my husband is the most amazing man I’ve ever met. Fifty points for Bobby.
I got married. That’s what almost did me in…but it didn’t. It was the great trigger I never understood.
I got married, and all my dreams came true. I got married and we had dogs and a house and a car for each of us to drive. I got married and…I got sick. Really sick. Peculiarly sick. My whole body ached with what I now suspect was somatic illness and idiopathic pain. My symptoms were real, my body was ill, but my blood work was fine. This is called “PTSD.”
I know, the way I said “PTSD” was kind of sarcastically condescending...but I was a dunce to have missed it.
Before last month (August 2018), my muscles were tense as rocks. They’d spasm. I had TMJ. Endocrinological and gynecological problems galore. My hormones were outta wack. Chronic fatigue, PMDD, vaginismus, absent periods, basement cortisol levels, and no and testosterone. I wondered if I was perimenopausal…at 29! But the cause – as health professionals now understand and should have suggested – was trauma. Yup, trauma stored in the body. Just ask Google. #forrealsyo.
Believe it or not, I withstood these “mystery illnesses” for over six years. I accommodated a smaller and smaller life each season. By the end, I’d quit photographing weddings and teaching aerobics. I stopped making art and eating anything that had gluten or dairy or bad juju in it. The compulsivity was getting worse...until I met Karen...and did EMDR. #karensbirthdaynow.
It only took two months of EMDR for my physical symptoms to clear up. Two fucking months! That’s it! That’s eight weeks! That’s nothing! I didn’t know what was being treated, exactly, but I knew I was getting better. My hypochondriac obsessions shrunk down to zero. By month five, some of my sexual aversion had started to wane. Intercourse was still painful, but not shameful...and this was a huge victory. By month eight, I no longer felt the empathic pain of my younger brother’s life struggles. I stopped wondering if he was depressed or anxious or doomed to fail as I’d been. By month nine, I stopped believing I was responsible for the suffering of the entire universe…or factory farmed animals…or babies in Africa...and felt completely comfortable dismissing the philosophy of original sin. And at the end, the very end, I remembered.
Flashbacks. An impulsive call to my brothers. Fuck, did I worry them? They’re gonna think I’m crazy. They don’t know what I know. They haven’t done the healing. Yikes. More flashbacks. The Meadows in Wickenberg. They can’t treat me. I’m too much to handle. More flashbacks. Copper Springs in Avondale. Alright, cool. Stabilized. Transfer to LA. Hey guys, I’m Rachel. Here we are. Working on integration. Welcome to my blog. Let’s Get Better Together. #wink.
Three years ago, if you’d have told me that people “store their issues in their tissues” or that “the body keeps score,” I’d’ve punched you in the face for being densely imbecilic. #wedontusetheRword. I’d of thought you were some sort of hippy-dippy, yogafied nut-job using mushrooms to self-actualize or “cure” your apparently undiagnosed mental illness. And if you’d’ve had a degree I admired, I would have assumed you were just making shit up for a chance to bill my unreasonably expensive health insurance.
As my father used to say, I categorized wholistic doctors as “quacks.” That’s what he would have wanted – my father. He raised us to be skeptical of everything he disliked, and blindly swallow his abuse disguised as altruism. Maybe it was unintentional. I mean, I don’t really believe it was unintentional. I’m just saying that to be nice. Because, dude, come on – I’m an outrageously nice person...
...But let’s be real: he’s a sadist psychopath. So the abuse was probably on purpose.
I’m using this time in California to write a book....obviously. My entire life was reframed in an instant, and uncovering the true narrative I deserve to understand is going to take a little bit of time. My hope is that writing will help integrate the parts of myself I’ve previously abandoned. The brain is so awesomely extraordinary that it can black out entire years of our lives to protect us. Survival. It’s a survival adaptation that kept me (and many like me) alive. I’m grateful for my “amnesia.” I needed to forget to be strong enough to eventually remember. And when the Universe knew the time was ripe, EMDR helped me open what’d been locked up for years. Here in Cali, I have journals and art and conversations with other survivors. I’m becoming one whole person. I don’t feel like a child stuck in an adult body anymore. I feel like an adult who has answers to her life-long identity issues. #seriousvictory
On another, more judgmentally pretentious note, there are some seriously nutty people here.. I mean Fuucckkeedd Upppp. And I’m not claiming to be the most balanced block in the Jenga tower, but living in looney bins the last few weeks has been challenging. Why? Because - as we all know - I’m pretty fuckin’ normal. I know everyone in treatments thinks this about themselves, everyone wants to be the exception to the rule...but the doctors agree with me. The keep telling me it’s clear I’ve “done a lot of work.” Sometimes I suspect the peer-staff members pity me for using a mental institution as a refuge to figure out my shit...but then again, they say that I’m courageous for going to any extreme to heal. Plus, the professionals here get paid loads of money. Like, loads. So they sort of have to be nice to you. And I’m a sucker for flattery.
On the upside, I’m an eternal optimist. I’m finding the perks. Here’s what I’ve realized: Listening to people’s unhinged personalities is quite inspiring. When I look at my fellow patients with compassion, I see my old self – my teenaged self. A cut-up, self-harming, secretive vacuum for pain. And although I’m often frustrated by my house-mates’ lack of insight, lack of solutions, lack of a step-by-step recipe for growing themselves up, I feel deeply grateful to have escaped the ingrained reality issues that continue to dampen the quality of their lives.
Reality issues; identity issues; getting lost in existentialism; confusing yourself with a role; wondering if you’re real; an incessant need to be mirrored or attached to something that’s solid and guaranteed; an obsession with the eternal; self-doubt; an inability to identify your emotions unless they’re extreme; bi-polar; whatever. It’s hard to understand unless you’ve been there.
I’ve been there. I know. I get you, Bro. I get you, Girl. We’re in this together.
Some of my readers will probably be closeted sadists - “accidental” predators - unconsciously addicted to harming people with diminished power. I think that’s Ok. If they keep reading - if they finish to the end - I’ll assume they want to get better....at least a little bit...sort of...probably...actually, I have no idea. But I’m choosing to believe it, even if I’m wrong, because the idea of social progress increases my quality of life.
Other readers, however, will be people like me. They unknowingly make themselves prey - “accidentally” attracting sadists - unconsciously addicted to feeling victimized. I suspect we all endured the same abuse - blocked-out childhood sexual abuse - but handled it differently. We adapted by becoming the predators that devoured us or the prey that struggled to escape. We got hooked on wrestling. We’ve disassociated too much, too long. We’re blocked off from ourselves. We either became Russell Brands or Rachel Currys. Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde, but usually both. #sadistsanddumbbitchesunite. #wereonthesameteam. #forgivenessisreal.
Now, concerning the above statements, I’m not a fuckin’ professional. I can’t 100% “guarantee” that what I just said is true. Technically, I haven’t done the research. And I’m wrong all the time. But from attending SLAA meetings, I think what I assume to be correct is correct...or at least a good guess. Just give me some points.
Back to my California adventures...back to my Hotel California (such a lovely place, such a lovely face). Being in this treatment center is both painful and joyous at the same time. I never know when my hand will want to write, my fingers will need to type, or my heart will draw a picture of itself…and…color it with my non-toxic, staff-approved paints. I never know when my body will insist on stretching. I never know when listening to these peoples’ tangled up lives is gonna help me untangle mine. But I know one thing for sure: I’m going to keep track of every single bit of it. I’m going to put it in this word document and publish a raw, inedited, grammatically incorrect piece of art.
Literary critics may probably call it garbage. It’s going to be messy and rebellious and colorful and politically incorrect. But I don’t give a shit. I’m just gonna be Me. I’m just gonna spread Love and Compassion. Because for the first time in my entire life, I’m proud of myself. And I know I can do it. And sharing is my Superpower.