FEAR is not just name of an awesome punk band..........

I have anxiety. Simple. Millions of people do. Millions of people are worse off than I am. Millions of people have cancer, one of my oldest and dearest friend's sons died at 13, my best friend of 15 years has a son with severe autism who tries to hurt himself and others on a regular basis, and I have anxiety, a lot of it.... 

I can remember a time when I didn't have anxiety. Call it my halcyon period. I was about 5 when it all changed. The first time I remember paralyzing fear was the week before I entered Kindergarten. My family was involved in a car accident. We had just gone to Sonic, one of the only local fast food places in the late 1970's in our area. We were out for a leisurely drive; when B-A-M we were t-boned by a car driven by hippies. They say no one remembers an event the same way, and that the imprint of the event sears itself into our brain in the way we perceive it, and not necessarily the way it happened. My dad and I have very different recollections of the event, and my mom was injured in the accident and doesn't remember anything at all. 

So here is my version of events. It was late summer 1978, and in the 70's no one cared where the kids were in the car. I was standing in the front seat between my parents eating french fries when the accident happened. I was thrown somehow from the front seat to the backseat. My mom flew forward and hit the steel dashboard of the car. When her head came back she was bleeding from her nose and mouth. My dad had jumped out of the car and ran to check on my mom. Simultaneously a beautiful young woman with long blonde hair opened the back door of the drivers side of the car. She had a soft  lilting voice and in a sing-song manner said very clearly to me, "I'm sorry we killed your mommy." At that moment I believed my mom was dead. I remember her hippy eyes were huge and she reached her hand out to me as if to take me by the hand and out of the car. The man with her pulled her away and I remember her outstretched hand getting further and further from the car. Emergency vehicles arrived and my dad was talking to people and no one talked to me. I was in the car and my mom was silently bleeding in the front seat inches from me quiet...she was after all dead.

what my mind sees

In what seemed to be hours a nice lady took me to her house and I watched my mom and dad get into an ambulance. No one told me where either of them were going and no one said anything about my mom being obviously dead. The lady was nice she had a traditional house with a piano and gave me cookies. I sat in her formal living room for days in my 5 year old head. Where was my dad? Would I ever see my mom's body again? Would they clean the blood off her face? Where was my dad? Who were these people with the cookies and piano? Where was my daddy? .........I wanted my daddy. 

Fear, panic, paranoia; whatever you want to call it set in for the first time. I was too scared and numb to cry. How could I live without my mom? Where was my daddy? NEVER would he let me down. Was he gone too? Had something happened to him too? Where was he? Surely he hadn't abandoned me with the cookie lady. 

Days later in my mind my dad walked through the cookie ladies door. I ran to him and he picked me up, thanked the lady and carried me outside to my uncle's car. Unbelievably to me there sat in the passenger seat my mom! She was ALIVE! She had massive bruises on her face and bandages on her head, but she was talking and alive. She seemed happy to see me. 

Years later I would be diagnosed with a myriad of anxiety disorders, but this one has the distinct honor of being the first......PTSD.

I wasn't in Vietnam or the Gulf War, but my head is forever filled with landmines and traps of my own making, I started building these walls at 5, and now at 41 they are  insurmountably high in most places.

The Pennsylvania School of Psychiatry website says this about PTSD.

(https://www.med.upenn.edu/ctsa/ptsd_symptoms.html)

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a pathological anxiety disorder resulting after exposure to a traumatic event. Current literature estimates that 8% of the U.S. population meets the criteria for PTSD and while PTSD cases commonly involve combat or assault experiences, there is a wide range of events capable of triggering PTSD symptoms. These events include car accidents, kidnappings, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and any other traumatic experience where an individual experienced or witnessed an event that involved death or the threat of physical harm.

For example, should a car accident occur, PTSD could result in the drivers, the passengers, or a witness; yet, the development of PTSD in one individual does not imply the development of PTSD in others involved in the incident. How one responds to an event is dependent on a variety of factors that lie outside the traumatic experience itself.

Common Symptoms:

 Intrusion: Recurrent recollections of the event

Dreams, intrusive memories, and exaggerated emotional and physical reactions to events that remind person of trauma

Numbing: Emotional distancing from surrounding people and events

Depression, loss of interest in activities, reduced ability to feel emotions (particularly emotions of intimacy, tenderness, or sexuality), irritability, hopelessness

Avoidance: Fear and avoidance behavior

Fear and avoidance of people, places, thoughts, or activities associated with the trauma, development of anxiety disorders (GAD, panic, specific and social phobias)

Arousal: Agitated state of constant wakefulness and alertness

Hypervigilance, sleep disturbances, difficulty concentrating

PTSD is characterized by 4 primary symptoms: Take, for example, somebody who witnesses a major car accident on a highway by their home. Over the following week, the individual begins to avoid driving on that highway and over the next month, avoids driving all together - either as a driver or a passenger. He/she may become irritable or angry while watching high-speed car chase scenes or avoid conversations about driving; yet, despite the apparent discomfort, the individual may refuse to discuss his/her fear. Moreover, although the witness is unwilling to discuss the fear or the traumatic event itself, he/she may still be haunted by the memory of the accident with segments of the event on “constant replay” in his/her mind.

Young children do not experience the same reliving of the experience as adults. The progression of PTSD in young children may initially involve dreams about the traumatic event, however, these dreams frequently transform into more generalized nightmares about monsters or different threatening situations where they or another person is in danger. It is more difficult for children to express their sentiments verbally. Therefore, it is necessary for parents or teachers or other adult observers to recognize behavioral changes such as a decreased interest in activity or an altered sense of the future (i.e. the child now believing that he/she will no longer live to become an adult). Other signs of childhood PTSD may occur in the form of repetitive play if the child begins to recreate the incident with toys or may occur through the emergence of physical symptoms such as headaches or stomach aches.

So....Here I sit 36 years later writing about the impetus of my doom, The only thing I have come to count on is that anxiety will always be there lurking waiting to strike, and anxiety is no friend to me.

Oh.....one more thing in my dad's version of the event he was gone less than 2 hours, but to me it seemed an eternity. He also remembers the hippy girl, but didn't hear her words as he was focused on helping my mom. 

And one last thing...the only people I can ever count on are my mom and dad. I love them more than I can express and I am sincerely lucky that they are both still with me. They have a difficult time at times accepting that I am not 'normal', and that at times I am ruled by my anxiety, but that's okay. They do their best, and they love me. What more could I really ask for?

For more information on PTSD.......

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) - An organization with the National Institute of health dedicated to mental health research:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml

Meanwhile I just ignored Midgard......

I have been reading and researching English/British history since the 4th grade. Kind of a long time for a specific obsession in my case, yet one that for me has direct and precise parameters. In my world  English history was not worth studying until the Norman Conquest of 1066. I have spent hundreds of hours organizing and reorganizing and coveting and obtaining books on all the monarchs of England/Britain since the Conquest. (I still need 2, Henry I, and James II) My single minded obsession was changed earlier this year thanks to this guy. Ragnar Lothbrok or Lodbrok; depending on your source. This is obviously the actor Travis Fimmel in an idealized vision of the possibly historical warrior on the History Channel's series ''The Vikings"

Ragnar was a badass. Did he exist? Maybe, Maybe not. Most sources state that he was an amalgamation of several Norse raiders and warriors. What is interesting to me is that Ragnar has been mentioned in several sagas and medieval source material  including the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. An abstract from Princeton University states the following about his life:

"The namesake and subject of “Ragnar’s Saga”, and one of the most popular Viking heroes among the Norse themselves, Ragnar was a great Viking commander and the scourge of France and England. A perennial seeker after the Danish throne, he was briefly ‘king’ of both Denmark and a large part of Sweden. A colorful figure, he claimed to be descended from Odin, was linked to two famous shieldmaidens,Lathgertha in the Gesta Danorum, and Queen Aslaug according to the Völsungasaga.

He told people he always sought greater adventures for fear that his (possibly adoptive) sons who included such notable Vikings as Björn Ironside and Ivar the Boneless would eclipse him in fame and honor. Ragnar raided France many times, sing the rivers as highways for his fleets of longships. By remaining on the move, he cleverly avoided battles with large concentrations of heavy Frankish cavalry, while maximizing his advantages of mobility and the general climate of fear of Viking unpredictability.

 His most notable raid was probably the raid upon Paris in 845 AD, which was spared from burning only by the payment of 7,000 lbs of silver as danegeld by Charles the Bald. To court his second wife, the Swedish princess Thora, Ragnar traveled to Sweden and quelled an infestation of venomous snakes, famously wearing the hairy breeches whereby he gained his nickname. He continued the series of successful raids against France throughout the mid 9th century, and fought numerous civil wars in Denmark, until his luck ran out at last in Britain. After being shipwrecked on the English coast during a freak storm, he was captured by Anglian king Ælla of Northumbria and put to death in an infamous manner by being thrown into a pit of vipers."

What is not in dispute is the invasion of the Danes in 865 CE, by the presumed sons of Ragnar; Ivar the Boneless, Ubbe Ragnarsson, and Halfdan Ragnarsson who led an invasion against the East Anglians around the modern City of York and were successful at putting the area under the rule of the Danelaw for several decades.

The Danes carried with them the Raven Banner and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the following for the year 878; 

"And in the winter of this same year the brother of Ivar and Halfdan landed in Wessex, in Devonshire, with 23 ships, and there was he slain, and 800 men with him, and 40 of his army. There also was taken the war-flag (guðfani), which they called "Raven".

A depiction of the Raven Banner on the famed Bayeux Tapestry

While trying to research some non-fiction works on the Danish Invasion and the event leading to the Conquest I was recommended by some kind folks on my Facebook History Pages to check out Bernard Cornwell's, The Saxon Series. I read the first book The Last Kingdom and was very impressed. The story is essentially that of a young English nobleman captured and later feted by the Danes for his valor. He then has to choose between his life with the Danes, who he has come to love and admire and his old life among the English. The book has as minor characters the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, and chronicles the rise of a young King Alfred the Great. 

I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series, as well as expanding my book collection to include more pre-Conquest history. 

Elizabeth Bathory, Blood Countess or Super Freak?

Elizabeth Bathory has been of interest to me since I saw an episode of  "In search of....." on a Saturday morning at some point in the late '70's early '80's. I like many others just got creeped out by the introductory music for the series:  

                       

At this point I am not even certain the Countess got her own episode. I think her story may have been linked to that of the ''real'' basis for Dracula, the Wallachian Prince, Vlad Tepes. I remember the ever creepy Leonard Nimoy visiting a hall of portraits  resplendent  with pictures of Elizabeth, Vlad, and a couple of unfortunate children with fur covering their faces. I digress.....

The information regarding Elizabeth (Erzsebet) Bathory is somewhat scanty. The Encyclopedia Britannica offers the following entry regarding her life and supposed criminal activities written by Richard Pallardy:

"Elizabeth Báthory, Hungarian Erzsébet Báthory   (born Aug. 7, 1560, Nyírbátor, Hung.—found dead Aug. 21, 1614, Castle C̆achtice, C̆achtice, Hung. [now in Slovakia]), Hungarian countess who purportedly tortured and murdered hundreds of young women in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Báthory was born into prominent Protestant nobility in Hungary. Her family controlled Transylvania, and her uncle, Stephen Báthory, was king of Poland. She was raised at the family castle in Ecséd, Hung. In 1575 Báthory married Count Ferencz Nádasdy, a member of another powerful Hungarian family, and subsequently moved to Castle C̆achtice, a wedding gift from the Nádasdy family. From 1585 to 1595, Báthory bore four children.

After Nádasdy’s death in 1604, rumours of Báthory’s cruelty began to surface. Though previous accounts of the murder of peasant women had apparently been ignored, the claims in 1609 that she had slain women from noble families attracted attention. Her cousin, György Thurzó, count palatine of Hungary, was ordered by Matthias, then king of Hungary, to investigate. The count palatine determined, after taking depositions from people living in the area surrounding her estate, that Báthory had tortured and killed more than 600 girls with the assistance of her servants. On Dec. 30, 1609, Báthory and her servants were arrested. The servants were put on trial in 1611, and three were executed. Although never tried, Báthory was confined to her chambers at Castle C̆achtice. She remained there until she died.

While documents from Báthory’s trial supported the accusations made against her, modern scholarship has questioned the veracity of the allegations. Báthory was a powerful woman, made more so by her control of Nádasdy’s holdings after his death. The fact that a large debt owed by Matthias to Báthory was canceled by her family in exchange for permitting them to manage her captivity suggests that the acts attributed to her were politically motivated slander that allowed relatives to appropriate her lands. 
Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "Elizabeth Bathory", accessed June 12, 2013,http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1489418/Elizabeth-Bathory.

Recently a lot of novelizations, movies and documentations concerning Elizabeth have been released. Here is an example from the British Docementary Series on Lady Killers.

                    

I have been reading a novel based on dual timelines on concerning a 20th century descendant of Elizabeth Bathory who had fled the communist ruled Hungary in the 1950's and is living in 1980's New York City, and a timeline dealing with the life and crimes of his ancestress the Blood Countess.........   The Blood Countess by Andrei Codrescu

So far the novel has held my interest. It includes a lot of sex, debauchery, and torture....Great for the 40 year Goth Lady! I am looking forward to finishing it.

In doing the research for this post I ran into all kinds of references to Elizabeth everything from Black Metal Bands, to apologetic accounts of her life. There are numerous books about her most are fictional, and maybe a few have landed in the ever-growing Amazon cart. 

She should have kept them closed, or conversely stayed on vacation.

Earlier this year I read the Belinda Carlisle biography. Click here for the book.  This was my response.

I love the Go-Go's, who doesn't? I also love punk rock and reading about both the participants in the subculture and about the art and music it spawned. Although I realized that Belinda Carlisle left her punk rock roots many decades ago I kind of hoped she would have kept some of that punk rock credibility and honesty. This memoir is about Belinda and her decades long dance with cocaine and excess. She lied, scammed, cheated, and was a downright shitty human. Her child was always a secondary consideration in the book, as was her husband. Her pronouncements that the relationship, ''while unconventional'', works for them got to be really old. The book was interesting for the first third maybe, and then ceased to hold my attention. I wanted to finish as quickly as possible.

Issues I had that could have been addressed were manifold. The thing that perplexed me the most was the lack of detail she paid to any relationships other than the one she had with cocaine. How about how she really felt about the fellow members of the Go-Go's, how they grew from girls to women, her family of origin.....did she never interact with them after she became famous, her biological dad....did she talk to him again ever?

Instead I got lunches with Deepak Chopra, let's buy Prada, move to the south of France, wash our dirty feet in five star hotels in India.........

I love music and biography in general. In this case I wish I knew less of Belinda, or maybe it's that I want to know more about her feelings; not a glossy, I was an addict pity party commentary. I think these people who life seems to hand out the golden ticket to, always seem to wallow in the dirt of their own making. We all had shitty childhoods to some extent, you went on to make millions and snort cocaine, and all the others work in factories making plastic key-chains listening to your albums maybe hoping to have one small weekend getaway to some fantastical place you visit on a regular basis. If you are handed a golden ticket don't waste it. Belinda, unfortunately seems to have wasted hers to some extent.

Where is the Vampire Lestat when you need him?

My first foray into the world of modern Young Adult Fiction was much the same as most other 30 something women at the dawn of the 21st century, through the loved/dreaded Twilight series. I was repulsed by the character of Bella Swan, yet I read all 4 of the damned novels. I liked them enough to try to read another series The Vampire Diaries. (I small confession here; I watched the first episode of the Television Adaptation and was taken in...I blame the presence of Ian Sumerhalder.) I made it through the first book, which was actually a double threat featuring books 1 & 2 of the series. It was the absolute worst thing I have ever read. I barely made it through. I willed myself to finish. After that experience I was a little afraid to read another YA title.

I somehow managed to give Beautiful Creatures a try. I'm about 65% in. I confess that I really liked the book at first. I liked it a little less the more I read, but I began liking it again last night. I am fickle like that. Much more mercurial than I would like to be.

Essentially I don't care about the world of YA fiction, and I am perplexed why some women prefer to read this genre. I guess I don't crave the teenage riot anymore. The adult world is an interesting place, even if it slightly less populated with supernatural creatures. Although let me introduce you to Lestat; he's a much more mature vampire, and he doesn't sparkle annoyingly.

Maybe it is because my 40th birthday is fast approaching, but I think I'll leave the YA novels for the YA's of the world. Interestingly enough as a YA myself I remember reading The Stand, Interview With A Vampire, Rosemary's Baby, and Harvest Home. Back in the day it was just called horror and there was no age designation. The quality of the work seemed better, and while maybe I wasn't protected from the vileness of profanity and the evilness of teenage sex in the written form, I survived.