In 1982 I saw a capable man and wrestler surrounded by cheaply dressed racist white college boys. He looked pretty panicked. I'm glad I was dissociated and thought he was playing.

Same summer I got surrounded by different white rednecks in a parking garage. No o.e got touched. O got rescued but ill tell you standing with a college boxer and a wrestler surrounded by five rednecks in a parking garage isn't real comfortable. Fortunately I was dissociated.

I confess. As a novice martial artist, learning no contact sport karate, I wasn't very fond of being monkey in the middle. It meant being surrounded and attacked on cue by one or two of the circle. I always cheated by identifying the ones sempai was most likely to choose to attack me and deciding to attack one of them no matter who attacked me. It worked well enough. I always felt anxiety about that scenario though.

In the late nineties my ptsd dad had a stroke. I had to grapple for real so no one got hit or hurt. It wore me down and cost me plenty.

Around that time I tried to get help from everyone including county mental health services and the police. One day ptsd dad was trying ro pull me into the house as I was trying to escape. Along comes Barney Fife, officer of the law, because I'd called for a civil assist. Barney is fluttering his hand over his sidearm scaring me bad, because I knew if he drew daddy would jump at him because that's what you do and he'd shoot daddy because that's also what you do. So I had to spring first and hope he'd hesitate to shoot a woman and control his weapon. I knew how. I just had to be fast. I'm glad I was dissociated from all that.

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So recently, in sunny Colorado, through no fault of my own, I got surrounded by two cops and some nasty little nurses and techs and a charge nurse known as "that dried up old cnut" by the local dyslexics.

I swallowed more pills than a responsible pimp would give me, not that I've ever known an actual pimp, but you know what I mean. I still remember making my body very relaxed and using words to show my contempt, while making sure the one responsible cop had no reason to jump me. I didnt want the creepy one to get to touch me. No one touched me.

The hard part was knowing I could rush reaponsible cop and get control of his weapon away from him. Not get control. But get control away from him. Do you understand? They were hoping to scare me and I was scared of toXic pharaceuticals. I value my brain. I wanted to scare them too and they werent people to me at that moment. I was fighting myself.

I did well. I swallowed the pills then I made myself stay awake and alert as I could be.

Ive gotten lots of "validation" that psychiatric hospitals attract the saddest portion of humanity. It was just sickening how their little rat eyes glittered at the thought of taking down someone's Mom. Makes me wonder what their moms are like. The charge nurse was trying to be intentionally threatening and dramatic. It made me glad for the first time ever that one of my lovers had been tortured in captivity. He was a handsome man. He was smart and strong. Gentle and tender. He loved Charlie Chaplin. Bertoldt Brecht. Its easy to be superior when you know you are attractive and educated intelligent and were raised with money. You can detach from B grade movie scenarios put on by shoddy people and let your sympathy and compassion, your pity for all humanity, control the impulse to fight. But it has to be real pity and compassion. You have to really feel it.

And then you have to let your true compassion co exist with your tolerance of knowing about other peoples lives. Maybe this reflects my childhood more than anything else but I think if I can bear the consciousness of what shti life must be like for those people, I wont unconsciously provoke attack by them.

If im honest with myself, in deep crisis I told strangers about my life as I see it. Rich working class, gifted relatives, cultural enrichment up the wazoo, college of my choice, single stay at home mother, of a dream kid with a dream job and a dream girl with her own dream job, then single washout with an ex who paid for me to live in boulder county no quid for the quo. Ive got the luck of the Irish.

Im ready to stop bellyaching about my trauma. I mean, if I sacrificed a lamb for every healing professional Ive met and thought, "Oh dear, hes more ****ed up than I am and im the one with the noose on" I could feed us all kabob all night long. Thats what I should be thinking about instead of worryong about "omg is it true then that the fat nurse is harmful to her patients". The ones who antagonise the psychologist by announcing their godtedness and materially optomal childhood, yeah. Lucky they dodnt kick in my teeth and say I jumped the gun since my récords say I turned myself in for thinking about it.

And now, since I have flashbacks of being surrounded, I have this opportunity to clean up a lot of trauma. I'm going for moksha.

Maybe this will he a good thread. If I find some dopamine in a back cupboard of my brain.