I am a survivor of multiple forms of abuse. Between two sets of parents and step-parents, I was taught the wonderful lessons of physical assault, emotional punishment, and marginalization.
It was a mental branding that affected my teenage and adult years. Even now, anything that personally happens equates to me not only taking it personally, but also feeling that the whole conflagration was caused by me in one way or the other. Even when someone else bullied me, it would take a while4 for me to stop thinking I brought it upon myself.
It’s hard. It really is. And when people get mad at me, even today, I feel like I went five rounds of a three-round fight with Evander Holyfield. I just want to crawl under a rock and stay there until I develop signs of healthy moss.
I’ve found some respite from these mental demons in later life. Camera trips to who-knows-where and photographing something. Anything.
Travel to the harness track and put $20 on the horse with the goofiest name.
Go to a yard sale and buy something and discover its history.
That’s what I did last week. I hit a yard sale in Saratoga County; walked away with an old porcelain telephone pole insulator – you know, those glass blobs that are usually wrapped in telephone wires and sit atop phone poles. It was right there, I couldn’t resist it. Yeah, you saw what I did there.
I plan big, personal getaways. Trips for me, me and only me, because I’m fully convinced that no one would ever want to join me on such an odyssey. For example, see my current Union Pacific 4014 “Big Boy” photo endeavor next month.
I try to find something in my life that will keep me from just sitting in a corner and hating myself for the rest of the day. Something. Anything. And it’s not easy.
This morning, I woke up from one of those horrible moments. A dream where my stepfather – who in life mercilessly beat me and minimized me while my mother used the mantra “He’s only beating you because he cares about you” – returned and threatened to take me to the other side of reality, to spend the rest of time with him and all his favorite punches and taunts.
I woke up with my heart racing faster than a Devo drum track.
I think about that. Dreams are where your mind recalibrates and catalogs your memories while you rest. But apparently my mind suddenly found the “Stepfather” file and decided it needed a review. Thanks a pantload, mind.
I should not feel so emotionally pulverized. But this is where I am at this moment.
I’ll get through it. I have to. “Not getting through it” is not an acceptable alternative.
But it IS how I feel right now. Completely overwhelmed and in emotional turmoil.
I’ll just need to take my cameras for a walk. Or go see a film this weekend.
Or maybe do something with this porcelain telephone pole insulator I bought last week.
I just need to do something.
I can’t live in ennui.
Chuck The Writer 
In Scotland, a little ennui is called ennui wee.
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i’m sorry for all you’ve had to endure and continue to carry with you, it is not your fault and never was, but knowing that logically does not stop you from feeling like it was. we all carry little cassette tapes in our head that are triggered by who knows what, and they drop in and play the old tunes and scripts. it takes a lot of time and energy to keep them at bay, but every so often they play without us asking – be well, you deserve to be well.
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โm sorry for all youโve had to endure and continue to carry with you, it is not your fault and never was, but knowing that logically does not stop you from feeling like it was. we all carry little cassette tapes in our head that are triggered by who knows what, and they drop in and play the old tunes and scripts. it takes a lot of time and energy to keep them at bay, but every so often they play without us asking โ be well, you deserve to be well.
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