Tag Archives: monster

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Qia and the monsters

Qia is three. She is scared.

“Don’t be scared or go to your room.”

Qia wants help. She is scared of the monster, FEAR, the giant monster, but her father won’t listen. She sniffles and tries, but she can’t stop crying. She goes to her room, because her father has turned his back. Her mother is drawing. They are busy. They don’t like it when she is scared.

FEAR is enormous and pushes into the room with her. She cries harder in her room with the door closed. No one can hear her now except FEAR. FEAR is large and has horrible drippy teeth and too many arms and keeps swatting at her. Qia gives up and lets FEAR swat her. She sits on the bed with her knees up and puts her head on her arms.

FEAR rages around her room.

After a while Qia is tired of crying. She lifts her head off her arms.

FEAR is smaller. Still bigger than her father, bigger than her mother, but just standing and looking at her. FEAR looks tired too.

Qia pats the bed beside her. FEAR hesitates and looks scared. Qia waits. FEAR shuffles over and sits beside her on the bed.

The room is very quiet. Qia finds a scrap of tissue and blows her nose. She looks sideways at FEAR.

FEAR’s head is down and FEAR seems to be crying. Qia reaches out and takes FEAR’s paw. One of the paws. There are a lot.

FEAR holds her hand tightly and then leans against her. Qia wiggles over a bit more to give FEAR room. FEAR sighs and then snuggles down onto the bed, massive drippy toothy head in Qia’s lap.

Qia strokes FEAR’s fur. It is very soft and dark purple.

FEAR is the first monster that Qia makes friends with. There are many more.

_________________

I was thinking about this story even before the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bugbear.

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In the dark

I choose to dwell in the dark with the monsters.

I came here because I wanted to understand how people could be monsters. People turn in to monsters sometimes. Not the crazy people or the serial killers: just normal people. They have enormous fights in their families. They get drunk or use drugs. They kill themselves with cigarettes. They sit unmoving in front of the television. They fight family or close friends. Families sue each other over the parent’s will. They fight over the stuff or over mother or over who will take care of father. They disown each other. They say “I only let nice people in my life.” That leaves me out. And I don’t want anything to do with anyone who says that. That is monstrous. Do they turn the other cheek? Do they love their neighbor as themselves? No. They are monsters.

I kept studying the monsters and studying them, until I found my own. I rescued mine from a deep hole. The monsters were babies. They were filthy and frightened and crying and abandoned. I washed them and diapered them and fed them and wrapped them in blankets. They stared at me, sullen. They had no idea how to respond to being cared for. I had to learn to love them. I loved them right away, even though they were monsters. I cared for them and they grew up, loved, happy, adults.

And then I see the monsters in other people. People hide their monsters, stuff them in dungeons, neglect them, deny them, scream at them. The monsters realize that I can see them and they start crying. “Help us! Please! Let us out! We are cold! We are hungry! We are neglected!” I learn not to talk to the monsters until the person is gone. The person may never talk to me again if I acknowledge the monster. They think I am the monster. I’ve reminded them of theirs or named them! Most people hate it. I learn, slowly and painfully, that I can only talk to the monsters after their people leave. The monsters hang around. They tell me their stories. They tell me their misery. I hold them while they cry, heads in my lap, howling and breaking things. But eventually they have to return to their person, to their jail, to their suffering.

I like the monsters better than the people. Some people wear the monsters on the outside. Veterans, almost always. To keep people away. They come to clinic and try to scare me. This is very very difficult because I like the monsters. I am delighted to meet the monsters. This is startling and the veteran promptly calms down. I am not afraid. I like the people who wear their monsters on the outside: they are not hiding them. It’s the ones who hide and abuse and torture their monsters: I do not trust those people. And I feel huge grief and sorrow, pity for their monsters. I can’t fix them. The people must each turn to their own monsters. Let them come to consciousness. Face them, comfort them and at last, love them. And this is hard. It is very hard. It is a life time of work. It is emotional maturity. It has nothing to do with educational level. It is hard work worth doing.

I choose to dwell in the dark with the monsters. Because they need me most of all.

Blessings.

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W is for Window

There are two Kitchen Window pen and ink drawings, then reproduced in a limited edition: this is Kitchen Window II.

My mother Helen Burling Ottaway always had a wonderfully chaotic garden inside and outside. Kitchen Window is a pen and ink drawing that she then did a limited edition of copies, numbered and signed. She had many dual drawings and etchings. One would be realistic and the second…. maybe the second is what she saw.

ATOZBLOGGINGCHALLENGE2022 #art #Women artists #Helen Burling Ottaway #ATOZCHALLENGE #Christine Robbins Ottaway #APRILATOZ

For more information about the #AtoZChallenge, check out this link.

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One must go through the water.

One must go through the water.

One might choose not
avoid
there are ways to avoid feelings

Another one might choose not

I let go
and fall
and the water closes over my head
and I let myself sink
all the way down

even
if I am over
a deep trench

once down
once deep

I open my eyes
and let my breath out
and let the deep rush in

I don’t know why
people avoid this place
it is dangerous
but so beautiful
the darkness
with beings that glow

some attack
of course

but I too am a monster
bare my fangs
and receive respect
or fear

or friendship

I am very safe here
it is so familiar
in the deep

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Neither am I

you are so beautiful
I love you so much
and I see you

so clearly

I look at you
I wish
you could see me

you see the darkness
the bear
you carry with you
and project
on me

you hold the bear
at a distance
you see it
all the time
in other people

when the bear comes
I hold open my arms
and welcome it
and I don’t yell

the bear roars
with dripping teeth
tries to terrify me

and I reach for it

me too
I say
come meet
my monsters

all my monsters
anger fear grief
shame
come out

the bear
stares at them

they hold out
their arms

the bear bows
his head
and we surround him
and welcome him
and love him

the bear cries

because you don’t love him

the bear cries
and cries and cries

we hold the bear
and cuddle him
and feed him
and try to warm him
and do the best we can

but we are not you

you come towards me
seeing the bear
fortified by my monsters
you attack

and my monsters hide
and hide your bear

and you stand
sword ready
to split us apart

confused
where is the bear?

you are sure
you see a bear
but it is gone
and I am a little girl

the naked sword is raised
the gun is loaded
you and weapons ready

no bear

you lower the gun
the sword
and make excuses
and leave

and the bear
hugs us all
thanks us

as you leave
the bear walks faster
nearly a shambling run
and dissolves into you

we wave
my monsters and I
we wave goodbye again
send love
to you and your bear

Over the Rhine: All of My Favorite People are Broken, credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/31683793@N07/collections/72157628647320299/

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: myopic.

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Fuzzy Poet Doctor and the small child

I think I finally understand what I have been doing in clinic all these years. And not just in clinic. As a theory it explains both why patients, nurses, hospital staff and specialists really really like me and my fellow Family Practice doctors, particularly the males, and the administrators, really really do NOT like me.

I am on a plane flying to Michigan a few weeks ago. Double masked. N95 with another mask over it. Sigh.

A friend keeps saying that he can see into me. He can, but he can see thoughts. Not feelings. I am wondering if I see feelings. But I see the stuffed feelings particularly, the ones that people keep hidden. They are like clouds.

And then I think, oh.

I automatically scan any new person for their small child. The inner small child, who is often damaged and hidden. The small child is hidden under those stuffed feelings, which I think of as monsters. In Ride Forth, I am writing about pulling every monster feeling that I can find stuffed out and letting myself feel them. And that people do not like seeing me like that. Their monsters attack me!

Except that the monsters don’t attack. The monsters come to me and say, “Please, please, help me. I want out. The small child needs to heal.” The monsters lie their monstrous heads in my lap and weep.

Now WHY would I develop this skill? That is weird.

I develop it because my parents both drink. The myth in the family is that it was my father. But my mother’s diaries and also her stories make it clear that she drank heavily too. I think they were both alcoholics. And she told two stories about me trying to get someone to get out of bed to give me food as a toddler. As jokes. But it is not a joke. I have food insecurity. At every meal, I think of the next one and whether there is food available. My daughter has it too….. epigenetics.

I think that the only way I could love my parents was to have compassion for them. Once you see another person’s damaged small child, then how can you not feel compassion for them?

With patients I learned to be very very delicate and gentle about asking about the cloud. Just gently. Sometimes people open up on the first visit. Sometimes they shut tight like a clam and I back off. Sometimes they return the next visit or the 3rd or the 8th or after a couple years… and say, “You asked me about this.”

It’s nonverbal communication. The reason why I take the WHOLE history MYSELF at the first visit is for the nonverbal communication. When the person doesn’t want to answer a question, veers away from a topic, switches subjects: there is my cloud. That is where the hurt is. That is where the pain is.

The first cracks in the United States medical system collapse are appearing. Not doctors quitting, not nurses, but medical assistants. Here is an article about how clinics all over can’t hire medical assistants. Because there are tons of jobs, employers are offering more money, why would you do a job where you may well be exposed to covid-19 if you can do something else? And make as much money or more….

The cracks will widen. Ironically doctors are doing what I have done for the last ten years: “rooming” the patients themselves. Ha, ha, good may come out of it, after the disaster. Which is getting worse fast. If people don’t put their masks on and don’t social distance and don’t get vaccinated, I predict more deaths in the US this winter then last winter. Sigh. And in the US we will run out of medical assistants, doctors and nurses.

It is ok to gently ask a patient about that cloud. It is not polite to “see” it in a Family Medicine colleague or and administrator. I can’t “not see” it. I can’t turn it off. However, on the plane my behavior changed even before I could put all of this into words. The words are that I have to be as gentle with everyone as I am with patients.

And the trip felt so odd. I was putting this into effect before I had words. That is how my intuition works. But everyone, absolutely everyone, was kind to me on the trip. A Chicago policeman helped me in the train station and was super kind. It was weird, weird, weird, with bells on. It took me a few more days to be able to put it into words.

Problem intuited, after 60 years of study. Implementation of solution proceeds immediately. Logical brain struggling to catch up, but results satisfactory long before logical brain gets a handle on it.

Pretty weird, eh? I think so. My doctor said that an episode of Big Bang Theory could be written just by following me around for a day. I think it was both saying that I am smart AND that I have no social skills. But I have implemented the social skills program already. She’s just upset that I gave her justifiable hell two visits ago and also…. I do hide my brain. Because sometimes colleagues are jealous.

But maybe they should not be jealous. Maybe they can learn it too. Maybe I can teach. Maybe….

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Free fall

I feel safest with the fallen

Everyone falls
No one is good

I am afraid
Of the people who
pretend to be good

the fallen
don’t pretend

We fell down down down
like an eternity
like it would never end

We were bad
depressed drunk addicted
liars cowards thieves

We held our arms out
There was nothing to stop us
Free fall

All we could do
was pray

We prayed
As best we could
With all our hearts
If we had no words

Falling angels
Caught us

Helped us
Claw our way back

Some people fall
Are still falling
Fall forever

Are they crazy
Or do they choose
To stay with the angels?

The people who say
They are good

We look at them

We know they haven’t fallen

They are lying to us
They are lying to themselves
They are lying to the Beloved
They want to be good
They want what they say to be true

But it isn’t

I meet the eyes of another fallen
Knowledge

I can see the memory
Of infinite free fall
In their eyes.

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love poem to the monsters under my bed

I am trying to wrap my mind around an aspect of Adverse Childhood Experience Scores. Ace scores.

Raised in war or chaos or an addiction household or a crazy household, kids do their best to survive and thrive. I acknowledge that first. “You survived your terrible and terrifying childhood. You are amazing. You have crisis wiring in your brain. You had to wire that way in order to survive.”

And what does that mean? High alert, high adrenaline, high cortisol, reactive. One veteran says that the military loved him being able to go from zero to 60 instantly.

“Yes, and how is that serving you now?” I ask. “Do you want to change it?”

“No.” he says.

“Why not?” I say.

“Because I know I can protect myself.”

He can protect himself, as I can too. But being on the alert for a crisis, being good in a crisis, being able to fire up like a volcano, is that what I want and is that what he wants? If not, how do we change it?

I think of it as being able to see monsters. Other people’s monsters. My crisis childhood wiring is to pay attention to the non-verbal communication: what people do not what people say. The body language, the tone of voice, what the person is not saying in words, when someone is being polite but the body language is a shut down, a rejection, a dismissal, posturing, aggressive, they don’t like me no matter what the words are, belittling. But if I or my high ACE score patients respond to the body language and emotional feeling, we have named the monster. And the person is being “polite” and will not admit to the monstrous feelings. Those feelings are unconscious or at least the person does not want to admit if they are at all conscious.

In clinic I have learned to dance with the monstrous feelings. I don’t always succeed, but I keep leveling up. It’s a matter of delicacy, inviting the person to admit the monstrous. Some do, some don’t, some don’t the first time or second or third, but the fourth time the monsters are brought out. And they aren’t monstrous feelings after all. They are normal. All I do then is listen and say that the feeling sounds normal for what is happening. It’s like letting off a steam valve.

So how do I and my high ACE score folks learn to do this in social settings as well? When someone is talking to me with a monstrous feeling, meanly, I challenge it. Because I am not afraid of that monstrous feeling. But I have then broken a social contract and the person will like me even less then they already did. And maybe that monstrous feeling is not really about me at all. It’s about their own current life events and the feelings that they try not to feel, are ashamed of, are afraid of. It’s not polite of me to challenge that feeling in a social setting, I am not this person’s doctor or therapist and they didn’t ask me. It’s hard because I feel so sorry for the monstrous feeling and for the person feeling it. I am moving to compassion and love for that feeling rather than taking it as directed at me, taking it personally.

That is my intention. We will see how well it goes.

A naturopath told me to have the intention to release old grief. It’s not old grief though. It’s ongoing grief. Grief for all of the monstrous feelings that swirl around daily and the monsters that are not loved. Most people try to ignore them. I don’t. I love them, because someone has to and because they are so lonely and sad. They are crying. Don’t you hear them? That’s what love is, when you can love your own monstrous feelings and other people’s too.

And our own are the hardest.

ACE study: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/acestudy/index.html

I took the photograph in the Ape Caves, the lava tube at Mount St. Helen’s.

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Tickle me, dear

One of my favorite halloween and nonsense poems ever is The Lugubrious Whing-Whang by James Whitcomb Riley.

I don’t remember the first two stanzas very well. I think that someone, my mother, my father or my maternal grandfather, would read it to me starting with the third stanza. I loved the sounds and the mystery of the rhymes from very young. When we are very young, many words are mysterious. At some point I gathered that the Whing-Whang was a monster and was imaginary, but to a small child it’s hard to tell what is real and what is not. And then there is Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and the Great Pumpkin and religion and what is one to believe?

The rhyme o’ The Raggedy Man’s ‘at’s best
Is Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs,–
‘Cause that-un’s the strangest of all o’ the rest,
An’ the worst to learn, an’ the last one guessed,
An’ the funniest one, an’ the foolishest.–
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!

I don’t know what in the world it means–
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!–
An’ nen when I _tell_ him I don’t, he leans
Like he was a-grindin’ on some machines
An’ says: Ef I _don’t_, w’y, I don’t know _beans!_
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!–

Out on the margin of Moonshine Land,
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!
Out where the Whing-Whang loves to stand,
Writing his name with his tail in the sand,
And swiping it out with his oogerish hand;
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!

Is it the gibber of Gungs or Keeks?
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!
Or what _is_ the sound that the Whing-Whang seeks?–
Crouching low by the winding creeks
And holding his breath for weeks and weeks!
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!

Aroint him the wraithest of wraithly things!
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!
‘Tis a fair Whing-Whangess, with phosphor rings
And bridal-jewels of fangs and stings;
And she sits and as sadly and softly sings
As the mildewed whir of her own dead wings,–
Tickle me, Dear,
Tickle me here,
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!

I love the idea of lonesome ribs, longing to be tickled. And the Whing-Whang is a monster or something lonely and frightening, but he too longs for love, even with fangs and stings. He longs for a monster to love him, even with mildewed and dead wings. Aren’t we all afraid that we are monsters and that we cannot be truly loved?

I took the photo in 2006, our family summer cabin from the early 1940s in Ontario, Canada.
Also published on everything2.com.