Peace Cross

 *TRIGGER WARNING - CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE*

It's been over 6 years since I told the story of finding out about some of my childhood abuse.

Everything came back up again when my aunt died of unknown causes at 51. My mother and I flew down to Texas to look through her things as my uncle was remarrying and my mother was the last of that family line. My aunt had been in and out of mental institutions since she was 7, and being an artist, did a lot of therapy paintings and other art mediums. We went to a storage locker to look through her art and came across the therapy work and it was amazing and terrifying. Some paintings were just a blur of colors while others showed a scene. I got progressively sicker to my stomach looking at them. Though none showed abuse, many were what I'd call the moment before being abused. Two immobilized me the most. One was a little blonde girl, naked from the waist up, looking back horrified at a hand reaching for her. The other showed a naked little girl sitting cross legged on the floor with an adult sitting on a bed nearby. I told my mother, "Those are me." She wouldn't believe it and said, "No. These were about her. Not you." I wouldn't let up and said, "She was brunette as a child...not blonde...I was blonde! And the other painting it's me on the floor, the leg is grandmother's and that's her cigarette!". We stopped talking because it was too much to take in. A day later we were looking at photography my aunt had done and I came across a self portrait of her topless. In my head I heard myself talking like a little girl saying, "She's bad.". I stood up in a huge panic attack and screamed at my mother, "I want out of this fucking house and state right now!!!". We didn't speak of it again until we waited for our flight back. My mother said, "No filter. Don't overthink it. What do you think happened?" I said, "Something happened in the bathtub." My mother said, "Fuck!". My mother doesn't speak like that. She said, "My mother used to wash us too far..." I felt my vagina tense at hearing this and said, "I know she did that to me."

I feel there is more and actually hope my mind never remembers. This is what happened at the airport that same day. After having the full impact that what I feared my entire life was real, I told my mother I needed to walk around. I came across a little craft sale in the airport and found this purple cross. I wanted a pink one but this was the only color so I bought it. I was still Evangelical Christian at this time, so this was my visual prayer to a God that never cared about me, to please give me some peace. 

We had my aunt's art shipped to use and I took a large bulk of it, but not the pictures that (I believed) were of me. A lot of the pictures were swirling colors and some looked like a rough galaxy. One was of a baby in utero with a monster screaming at it; my mother said this was one my aunt painted cursing her birth. Even in the pictures of just colors and no recognizable shapes, you saw violence and pain. My husband hated them but didn't stop me from putting them up in our bedroom. Yes, looking back this was an insane choice, but I wasn't well or thinking rationally. 

Around this time the terror dreams started. I'd had nightmares my entire life, but these were horrific. I used to say Steven King could take writing tips from me as what lived in my brain was so much worse than anything he'd written. It's been decades and I can still see many of these when I close my eyes. They'd wake me in the middle of the night and I'd lay there motionless as if to move meant it would come true. I was living on 3-4 hours of sporadic sleep a night and scared to sleep at all for fear it would happen again. Looking back between work and being a mother, I don't know how I survived. My husband would spend the entire weekend working on his race car so quite literally everything was on me. The only time to myself was my dreams and they were debilitating me. 

Somewhere in here is when all the medications began. Everything from some run of the mill Zoloft to a low dose antipsychotic, Seroquel, in hopes of getting me to sleep. I have an extremely sensitive system, and the side effects were taking me out. The last one I took before recently was Effexor. Trying to go off it was one of the most painful and horrible experiences I've had with modern medicine. I was getting "brain zaps" which feel like someone shoved something electric in your head and turned it on. Painful beyond words. I had to keep completely still, not even a breeze through a window, as everything hurt. The doctor shrugged her shoulders and said there was nothing she could do. I was in an online group for people trying to detox from it and one man said, "this is worse than going off heroin...And I used to be a heroin addict". It was only this year that it was discovered my body can't handle serotonin modulation, so these medications that have saved so many, were all going to make me sick. I'm now on Wellbutrin, which I don't think does anything, but it appeases insurance to allow me to continue ketamine treatments, and it doesn't make me sick (except at high doses....it's all still an experiment). 

My aunt's trauma processing paintings are gone. I believe my mother gave the worst of them to NAM (National Alliance on Mental Illness). I told my husband I felt they were demonic and to get rid of them and he couldn't get them into the bonfire pit quickly enough. They aren't really gone as they are alive and kicking in my head. 

After leaving Christianity I wanted dump anything associated with it. I found the purple peace cross in a box of things I labeled "shit I can't deal with" from when I was moving out of my husband's as he texted me incessantly "Are you gone? Are you gone? Are you gone?". I was so frazzled I threw anything I saw in a box and ran out the door. I was going to a friend's house and for some reason thought it would be funny to plant it there. I did and this became a game amongst friends to keep passing it around like hot potato...only hidden. When I see it now I laugh and enjoy the group shenanigans with it. But way in back the story remains of that night I got it

Reflections - The Garden & The Well

Guest Post by Amber Schurr

Shared on Raw Bleach with the author's permission

The Well and the Garden- Reflections on suffering, resilience, and the nature of good and evil
I finished watching East of Eden last night, and I woke this morning with a heaviness I couldn’t quite explain. I’m not even sure I liked the story. It was dark, disturbing, and profoundly sad. And yet, beneath all that darkness, there was something beautiful. Something that left me wrestling with questions about human nature, the wounds we carry, and the choices that shape who we become. How is it that two people can endure similar suffering and emerge so differently? Why does pain seem to deepen the compassion of one person while hardening the heart of another? Are we born with some innate capacity for resilience, or is it something we develop through the love, protection, and experiences we encounter along the way? And what happens to those who never receive that love? I keep returning to the character of Cathy. A woman capable of extraordinary cruelty, who abandoned her newborn twins and seemed to move through life without remorse, attachment, or any genuine belief in goodness. To her, kindness was merely manipulation dressed in more acceptable clothing. Love was a weakness, generosity a transaction, and vulnerability something to exploit. But I wonder whether her inability to recognize goodness in others began with her inability to recognize innocence in herself. There was once a five-year-old girl in a cave. A child who experienced something terrible, something she could neither understand nor deserve. And perhaps, somewhere in the aftermath, she began constructing a world in which innocence didn’t exist. Because to believe in innocence would mean acknowledging her own. And to acknowledge her own would mean confronting the terrible truth that someone had harmed a child who deserved nothing but protection. Perhaps it was easier to believe that everyone was evil. What struck me most was the possibility that, near the end of her life, Cathy finally encountered something she could not explain away. She witnessed genuine love between her sons, their love for their father, and a depth of grief that could not be manipulated or dismissed. For perhaps the first time, she saw goodness that existed without an ulterior motive. And in witnessing that goodness, she was forced to confront the possibility that she had been wrong about humanity. And perhaps about herself. The image of her finally embracing that frightened little girl, offering comfort to the child she had spent a lifetime refusing to acknowledge, was profoundly moving. It made me wonder how much of our lives we spend defending ourselves against wounds we have never truly allowed ourselves to feel. I think of despair as a deep, cold, dark well. Some of us seem to begin our lives in a garden, surrounded by enough love and reassurance to believe we are worthy of both. We may stumble into the well throughout our lives, but we carry with us the knowledge that the garden exists. We know what sunlight feels like. We believe there is a way back. Others seem to begin at the bottom. They grow up believing something is inherently wrong with them. That their darkest thoughts are their truest selves. That love is conditional, goodness is fleeting, and peace is something other people deserve. And so they climb. They claw at the walls of that well, searching for something to hold on to, exhausted by the effort of reaching a place others seem to inhabit so effortlessly. And what they hope for, perhaps more than anything, is that someone will notice. Someone will look down into the darkness and lower a ladder. But not everyone has that person. Perhaps this is why Lee’s presence in East of Eden moved me so deeply. He couldn’t undo the abandonment or erase the suffering. But he offered something that might be among the most powerful forces in a human life: steady, unconditional care. He became a kind of ladder for a family that might otherwise have remained lost. And I wonder how many lives have been changed, or even saved, by someone who simply refused to look away. Still, the questions remain. Where does our bitterness go? Our resentment? Our anger at the injustices we have endured? Do we absorb it, allowing it to reinforce the belief that we are undeserving? Do we project it onto others, perpetuating the very suffering that wounded us? Or do we somehow learn to separate what happened to us from who we are? Perhaps the answer is not as simple as choosing goodness over evil. Perhaps our capacity to choose is shaped, in part, by how much love we’ve known, how safe we’ve felt, and whether anyone ever taught us that we were worth saving. But I don’t believe our wounds must become our destiny. And maybe that is what I found beautiful beneath the darkness of East of Eden. Not the promise that suffering makes us stronger, or that everyone who falls will find their way out. But the possibility that even after a lifetime spent believing in darkness, we might encounter something that changes what we believe is true. That goodness can be genuine. That vulnerability is not weakness. That what happened to us is not necessarily who we are. And that somewhere above the cold stone walls of the well, the garden still exists.

December is coming

It's a terrible fall morning where it's cold, damp, and the clouds are floating by ominously in a depressing grey sky. Perfect description of how autumn feels for me. I don't get excited about pumpkin spice or the leaves changing colors as I know December is coming. It starts in mid-September when summer is over, and Target puts the Christmas decorations out. My stomach clenches and I try to shove down the emotions coming up. The holidays aren't a happy time for me as they bring up decades of anxiety, loss, and sadness. Each year I ask myself what I can do to get through them and yet it remains just as painful. What I'm feeling is different this time as it's not just the holidays, but what December itself was last year. 

I wrote that the ground had disappeared the day before I tried to kill myself. Saying I tried isn't fully true, as I didn't have a plan in place, and instead spent an entire night wailing alone to a computer screen that I wanted it done, I couldn't take another second, I hated myself and my life and didn't want to be here. It was the winter solstice, the darkest night of the year, and the irony isn't lost on me. I'd hoped to fly to Mexico so I wouldn't have to see the happy people and their pictures and hope and all I didn't have. My unemployment ran out earlier that week so not only would I not be internationally traveling, but I also didn't know how I was going to survive. I was terrified. 

I'm still so terrified. 2 months without ketamine, and though not a mood booster or antidepressant, it's been shown to at least stabilize me enough to where I don't dive headfirst off a bridge onto the highway. The scream sobbing is back and it's everything in me to get through social interactions without tears. I can make it through a performance and somehow switch off my mind once I'm on stage, but most drives home I can barely see through the tears. I'm on medication, extra for panic attacks, seeing a psychiatrist, going back to ketamine after 2 months off, writing daily, and I hate every second of it. "You have to keep trying!" Hey Pollyana, I actually don't have to keep trying. I can end it at any moment. 

There is only one Christmas I can think of where I felt happiness. I wanted a Barbie swimming pool more than anything and with all the Christmas gifts of red and green there was a large shiny gold one for me. I sat by the tree and prayed every night for it while also apologizing to God for begging for this when other kids got nothing. There is a picture of me tearing it open with a huge smile on my face. I think what made me happiest wasn't the gift itself but the gold wrapping paper, different than the others, for just a second I was special and wanted. There is a Japanese practice called Kintsugi where when a bowl breaks the cracks are filled with gold, with the belief that the repair isn't hidden and makes it more beautiful. There is no gold coming and I feel broken beyond repair. Some things aren't repairable and no one actually wants a patched together old bowl.

The feelings of last December are looming large and I can't shove them down. Winter solstice is 66 days away and the thought of it is making me nauseous. There is nothing to look forward to and so much dread. I'm not sure how much effort I have left in me. 

Three Years

Three years and I think about it every day. It's been three years and there hasn't been a single day where some part of this didn't enter my mind. I'm ashamed to write that. I've gone over every text, email, and memory as if I was trying to solve a murder. Trying to understand what happened became its own obsession, although I don't know if I truly wanted the truth. My mind ruminated over this and every trauma I've ever had to the point of nearly killing me.

I recently read, "rumination is the mind trying to solve the unsolvable". The inability to turn it off is debilitating and exhausting. I've asked myself repeatedly, "Why can't you let it go?" I initially thought it was because to fully accept that it's gone, and really was never real, would be to give up the only love I ever had, even though he never loved me. The pain of admitting I am on the back end of my life and never had someone that fully loved, accepted, and cared for me, is devastating. 

My thought system became entrenched in it. Was any of it real? Why would he treat me that way if he loved me? Why did I stay? Why did I go back? Why did this take me under? In yoga they talk about Samskara: a groove or rut in your mind that you are stuck in. They become vrittis which are the constant patterns and fluctuations of the mind. We do yoga to calm the vrittis but my mind is never calm. My yoga training taught me that you're in control of what you want to feel but also that we cannot get through until we're ready to get rid of it. There's the catch. And I have a well-grooved thought pattern of "you will always be sad and have bad things happen". Six months of ketamine treatment brought me back to the land of the living but I'm also having to survive my thinking. 

It's extraordinarily difficult to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it, because from the outside the solution looks painfully obvious. From the inside the solution looks obvious too. That's the fucking horror of it. I've told myself thousands of times what to do. There isn't some missing piece of information that would suddenly make me realize this is hurting me. I know. I live in the shame of it right alongside the thoughts. 

I had a moment recently where it occurred to me that it wasn't just letting go of this relationship. It was the underlying belief I'd formed that by finally getting love all my past pain and hurt would be redeemed. I'd get a happy ending. I'd get the moment I watched everyone else get as I stood on the sidelines smiling yet crumbling inside. This felt like getting what I wanted but thought would never happen was actually within my reach. It was so close and yet I couldn't quite grasp it. This love would bring me salvation and deliverance if I could only find a way. 

I thought of the scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Elsa is reaching for the Grail, she's so close, Indiana holds out his hand to her but instead she keeps reaching for the Grail and falls into the abyss. Then Indiana comes into the same situation, and you see the fire in his eyes for how much he wants it. His father extends his hand, but the grail is so all consuming and it appears to him within reach if he just tried a little harder. He has literally watched someone die doing what he's doing and it's not enough to stop him from reaching for it. Because it's so close. This wasn't simply a bad relationship but rather cumulative trauma landing in a life that wasn't secure and stable. 

In the yoga sutras it says that if we don't calm the vrittis, and release attachment, then your identity will take on the fluctuations of your mind. My mind is an exhausting and dark place that I have truly spent decades trying to change. It's not that I lack insight. I've known I have to let go. I've always known. I just don't know how.

Ending It

Author's note: this subject is heavy. What I'm writing is my experience and opinions. This isn't advice.

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. I cringed when I read the words but looked it up anyway to see what they would say about it.

Here is what they said:

- The 2024–2026 triennial theme, “Changing the Narrative on Suicide”, aims to shift from silence, stigma, and misunderstanding to openness, empathy, and support. It encourages:
- Open, honest conversations about suicide and suicidal behavior.
- Challenging harmful myths and reducing stigma.
Systemic change through public policy prioritizing mental health, evidence-based strategies, and improved access to care.
- The slogan for 2026 is “Start the Conversation”, urging individuals, communities, organizations, and governments to engage in dialogue that fosters understanding and support.

I was pleasantly surprised. Being honest, speaking up, telling the truth of what happened to me is what a large portion of my writing is about. I know my experience isn't unique, but I also know it's not openly spoken about. In just the US over 48,000 people died by suicide last year. Did you think that number was high? I did. And it's because this has barely been part of the conversation.

I've been suicidal since I was 6 years old. I can't remember a day where the thought didn't come into my head at one point. And I never told anyone. I'd written it in my diary, which my mother read, and she said, "don't do that". I tried to tell a friend when I was a teenager and she said, "It's just looking for attention and a call for help." Yeah, it is a call for help. They aren't looking for attention; they are trying to find a way to stay alive if they are telling you. I would not even bring it up in therapy as I feared being committed. I've also realized recently that it wasn't just the thought "I should end it" but there was micro planning involved. I'd be on a nice hike and look over the edge when I got to the top and think "I should jump". If I got narcotics for some pain or injury, I'd wonder how many it would take to OD. I'd brush knives up and down my inner arm to see what it felt like. 

I almost killed myself last year in December as the night rolled into the winter solstice. I'm surprised the neighbors didn't hear my wails and sobs as I typed into the darkness to a robot. Even thinking about it chokes me up as I recall how much pain I was in. If there had been an instantaneous way to do it, I fully believe I'd be dead. Now after 6 months of ketamine treatment, I'm still sad and hopeless, but I'm back in the land of the living. 

It's humiliating that people know. I am so raw and most everything said to me hits me sideways. Having people say some really thoughtless shit just adds salt to already agonizing pain. It's hard to see a way out of always being seen as that person. I have a lifetime of being the strong, resilient, and tenacious one. Now I feel like there is a scar across my face saying all that happened and now this is all I am. Yet I still believe that in sharing this, in opening my wounds and weaknesses for all to see, that it is the key to saving others. 

I won't put a cherry on top of this. Some of us won't make it. Can you release the stigma? Can I? Can any of us?

You're not getting a ring

 "Just so you know, you're not getting a ring."

It was close to Christmas and he randomly told me he wasn't proposing. I hadn't even considered this and didn't understand why he felt he needed to say it. I nodding in understanding and he said so sincerely, "but I would marry you....". The words hung in the air. Multiple concerning incidents had happened at this point, I didn't feel safe to be myself, yet suddenly this carrot was dangling in front of me...and I wanted it. Though I didn't actually believe this was possible or real. 

Rings are a difficult subject for me. When my ex husband proposed to me he didn't even ask me to marry him. He asked what I wanted for Christmas and I said, "an engagement ring". He wasn't making much and had bought a $99 ring. The diamond was barely a chip, likely something that fell off while cutting a big beautiful one, but the ring was dainty Instead of getting down on one knee he handed me the box and stood across the room biting his lip. No words about loving me. But I had the ring. It was cute and still more than I ever thought I'd get. I proudly showed friends and one said snarkily, "Wow! It's so big!" and everyone laughed. I held back tears and smiled. The thought of getting a huge ring, something I wanted, something to show off, was beyond what I could fathom. No special band, no sizing, this was it. I was being mocked and laughed at but I still felt like I was somebody to finally have someone that wanted to be with me. The tiny diamond fell out at a Christmas Eve church service and all my past trauma said, "of course". 

We had a trip to Las Vegas planned for New Year's Eve. He again announces, "Just so you know...you won't be getting a ring. Just want to make sure you understand that." Again, had zero expectations but now this need to say this to me each time was getting to me. I even had a fantasy that he was saying it again to surprise me. That night he was not winning at his gambling, and me feeling like if he couldn't win and be happy then everything would be ruined. I started putting my own money into slot machines. More than I'd ever spent as I typically gave myself a $20 limit and I was putting hundreds in. Money I didn't have. I didn't care about me winning. I just wanted him to be happy and to have this New Year's Eve moment I wanted so desperately. It felt like everything was slipping through my hands. I was drunk and high and by the time we got back to the room I'd crumbled to the bed sobbing "I tried....I tried so hard...". He didn't talk to me the entire flight home. No ring. 

Our first and only Valentine's Day came, and things were shaky. Another statement about me not getting a ring. Then a Facebook post saying how much he loved me and how happy he was to be with me, but it also included terrible pictures of me. A picture of my ass from behind crawling up the stairs drunk. One picture was me about to have surgery with no makeup, a hairnet and mask on, and hospital gown. Here were these words I'd wanted my whole life yet I also felt I was being made fun of. I ever so carefully asked, "Hey...why did you post those pictures?" after thanking him profusely for the post. He said, "Oh I just grabbed some pics." We had a ridiculous amount of pictures together. My Facebook page alone had so many pictures. It was purposeful, and I knew it, yet here were those words that I'd never heard and longed for my whole life. 

Days after Valentine's Day, where the day after we had a massive fight about my concerns over his feelings for his ex-wife who he never shut up about, I had a big gig days later where my mentor had given me a performance challenge that was a stretch goal to say the least. And I nailed it. I came back to his place excited, happy, and proud of myself. Giving myself credit and being happy with myself isn't something that happens for me. It was a big deal in my little life. He congratulated me and as I was going to the kitchen he says that a friend of his just got engaged and they'd been together less than we had. I said that's nice and went into the kitchen to pour a wine. I come back out and he brings up one of my best friends getting engaged. I again smile and nod, but now I'm seeing I am not giving him the response he wants. He reiterates again how they've been together less than us, and now my friend was engaged too and did I hear him say all this. I said, "What are you trying to say?" He changed subjects but my personal win was no longer part of the conversation. I didn't understand it. It felt like he was trying to hurt me and upset me. Another thing to stuff down.

One thing is for sure...I didn't get a ring.

Intermittent Reinforcement

"Intermittent reinforcement is the unpredictable cycle of affection, attention, or relief mixed with cruelty, rejection, or withdrawal. Because the good moments arrive inconsistently, the brain becomes fixated on earning their return, strengthening the trauma bond."

After a 24 year relationship, 22 years of it married, and 6 years of horrific dating experiences, I'd given up on any chance of love and was mostly numb to it all. I'd gotten a girlfriend because men had been so awful and I thought I'd just try something else. She was married in an open relationship where he also had a girlfriend. We were adorable together with my pink hair and her light blue hair, but there was never an emotional connection. I quickly learned I wasn't as bisexual as I wanted to be but went along with it because I didn't know what else to do. 

We met through Facebook where we had mutual friends and he'd been watching me. There was a lot in common so when he saw I was in Los Angeles, one of his favorite cities, seeing Ghost, one of his favorite bands, he decided to message me. Over the top charming but in an easy going way. I looked at his picture, and not my type, but I thought why not. We had a call the next day when I flew home and though initially were going to meet that Saturday decided we couldn't wait another second and planned a date for the next night. I don't recall the conversation, but he knew how to play it up and I bought it. Kissed me barely 15 minutes into the date and would later imply I was a slut because I'd kissed back. We made out in my car in the middle of the street and it felt wonderful and romantic. I thought driving home could this possibly be the miracle I didn't think would happen?

Our second date was two days later. We had sex and it was terribly embarrassing as I started bleeding profusely. I was mortified. Yet he said he loved me. He made some bizarre statement about how if the first time you have sex is awkward it means it's going to be a great relationship. I smiled and nodded while thinking this was weird, and yet here was finally a man that seemed to care. Went to his house the next day to hang by the pool and he said, "Should we do a life event on Facebook?" I had no idea what that even meant as I came onto there married. He said, "put that we are in a relationship". I froze. It hadn't been a week. Red flags and sirens were going off in my head yet here appeared to be someone that wanted to be with me. I wouldn't be the sad alone one anymore. The one no one wanted. The one no one would stay with. The one everyone fucked and walked away from. It was right there so I said yes. The post blew up, as I'd never done this and he noted it but didn't seem to believe my explanation. 

It all became a whirlwind of things I'd never done, and it felt like a lot, but he had very firm things he felt had to be done in a relationship and I just went along with it. A joint Google calendar was created so we knew everything the other was doing. I had access to his garage and house. He brought toiletries to keep at my house. I was seeing him every day with him saying each time how he loved me. I was called beautiful and pretty lady and all the things my husband never said. I told a friend that I was scared I was being love bombed and she said, "Or maybe it's true love and he loves you!" I wanted it so desperately.

My cat had been eating my hair and chomped off a huge piece leaving me with a layer barely two inches long. We needed to cut my hair shorter, which I hated, to make it look blended and allow it to grow back. My hairdresser had been taking classes for extension and needed a model where the process would be for free and you buy the hair. I decided to do it and was so excited to have long hair again where I'd feel like I looked nice. I gushed about it for weeks. I was thrilled with the extensions and was sure he'd like me more and be even more attracted to me. He said they looked nice but I didn't get the compliments I'd hoped for. A few days later while driving after dinner he turns to me and says, "You know I like women with short hair." I gulped. I felt nauseated. I was holding back tears and stared at him. He then says incredulously, "Why are you acting this way? It's just an opinion." We'd been together 5 weeks at this point.

This was the start of the intermittent reinforcement that continued the entirety of the relationship and many times after. It wasn't not thinking before he talked. It was rather calculated and cruel. Many times I'd see a smirk on his face when I started crying after what he'd said. But then days later the compliments, the I love you's, and we are perfect for each other came back and I stuffed down the pain. I didn't see hope for anything else.

That pattern didn’t end when the relationship did. My brain still returns to every contradiction, every tender moment beside every calculated cruelty. trying to make it all add up, still trying to solve what was designed to be unsolvable. From the outside, it may look like an inability to let go; from inside a trauma bond, it is a brain still trying to resolve the confusion that created it.