Loss of Life

This is the first part of a series of articles about my life as a survivor of domestic abuse. I want to share my story but writing it takes a lot out of me emotionally. Therefore I will be submiting in segements. My hope is to show the stages in which my abuse happened so that even one person out there can understand how and why this happens to women. The stigma that the abused suffer is just another blow.

Black-haired Jane

When you smiled at me that night with that fox's face I believed that you were the man who truly understood me. I believed you were a man. It was your wit and easy smile that lured me in. All these years later people still ask what I saw in you and its taken me all of these years to sort through the dust and remember that. I was very young and I was searching for something I didn't even know I sought. I wanted to belong, to be secure, to be loved by a man who didn't want my body or my sex or just to be seen with me. I was attracted to the fact that you were confident in yourself and that you didn't seem to notice my breasts or my youth. You spoke to my eyes and seemed to appreciate the intellect that I prided so much in myself. The people around you seemed to appreciate you and I never thought that just under that calm facade lay a beast, waiting to strike...



When I married you it seemed no one was happy. It made it easy for you to villanize the people closest to me and push them from my life. They didn't understand our love and if they didn't love you, I shouldn't love them. The ones who loved me most and tried the hardest to make me see the truth were the first on the chopping block. I easily fell in line with your plans to dominate my life. I believed myself to be a strong and worldly woman, I could never do something I didn't want to do. You decided we would move away from the bad influences in my life and I was the farthest I had ever been away from my family and friends. My loved ones were out of the picture, all that was left was the two of us. My ideals were slowly being stripped away, my deepest most heartfelt beliefs; belittled, crushed, maimed and eventually, lost. As the months passed you took many things from me, even the little things were deeply felt but I was so lost and scared and now isolated from the people who cared for me I simply gave in. You burned my "inapropriate" clothes, threw out my makeup; you took my books. I was forbidden to read my writings to anyone but you.



I became pregnant.



Children added a whole new demention to my loneliness. I was so broken that being a mother to them was something I was incapable of. Knowing I was a bad mother further pushed me into depression. You had become distant and cold and your rules were absolute. Visits with my family were limited when I was able to go. I had a set time to see them and when I was there I was so anxious and worried about going over my time my stomach would do backflips and I would always leave early. They worried about me because they could see the damage this life was doing to me. I was pale with dark circles under my eyes, my hair was falling out, I was severely overweight, unkempt, I had unexplained bleeding episodes, blood from my nose, blood up from my throat. I was slowly dying and the instinct to save myself had long since abandoned me.



Eventually there was pushing when things didn't go your way. You would roughly shove me in arguments. Into walls, over furniture, onto the floor, once down a flight of stairs. "It's not like I hit you". But, you did, didn't you? Day after day, week after week, year after year, I became a worthless nothing. I was stupid, naive, ugly, a bad mother, a worthless wife. I was crumbling.



...



Eventually, I got away. That's a story for another time but know there is always hope.



People often say things of abused woman like "She deserves that treatement if she chooses to stay". I hope to show them that NO ONE chooses a life like mine was. Abuse is almost always a systematic breakdown of one's true self. Your self-preservation instincts are ground down, your self-confidence is stripped away. You are left in a place you could never had imagined you would be. No one meets a man and thinks to themself "Wow, he's completely insane and hateful towards me. It's love!"

About the Murder of Steve McNair . . .

Quite a while back, an upper-middle-age black gentleman (I'd put him close to 60) and I were chatting at the office about the Michael Vick case, shortly after that story first broke. At one point during the conversation, he stopped, looked around, lowered his voice, leaned toward me, and said in earnest,

"When you get out of the ghetto, you've GOT to leave the ghetto behind."

The statement rocked me, but not for a race-relations reason. I thought his statement profound because the idea behind it is universal.

Regardless of what one tries to bail, one must actually bail if he wants it truly and forever changed. Whether it's an abusive relationship, a drug addiction, being poor, co-dependency, alcohol, or even just a toxic group of friends, one can't dabble in the past and still get out.

I couldn't help but recall this conversation, and the getting out means leaving it behind concept, when I read about the murder of Steve McNair. I'm not trying to equate the horror of actively participating in a dog fighting ring to being the victim of murder. I'm trying to say that when someone "makes good," once he's achieved the fame and the money, he has to be even more vigilant in his personal dealings than before the good fortune (or just rewards for hard work) arrived because fame and money often cause things to spin completely out of control.

Michael Vick lost his empathy and his freedom. Steve McNair lost his marriage vow and his life.

~Riot.Jane

And You Thought YOUR Room/Office-mates Are Jackasses!

I'm not really sure who's the bigger jackass on this one . . .

The person who's ignoring the need to clean up after themselves or the one who wrote this note, the likes of which we've ALL had the urge to write at some point . . .

The phrase "Let's call him Frank" has just entered my personal vocabulary as a snarky statement on unhygienic matters such as this.

Here's a hint for SkyNet.

As always, click through for the original, larger version.

~Riot.Jane

I am full of unmitigated rage!

I am full of unmitigated rage at this very moment! If I am told by one more fucking medical professional that proper CPAP compliance is 100% effective in treating obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), I might just smack him.

I sleep for crap. I have moderate OSA. This means that, untreated, I stop breathing 30-50 times per hour while sleeping. My personal numbers indicate that I stop breathing roughly every minute and a half. (That means that my brain stem wakes me, almost to consciousness, roughly every third minute, so that I can breath.) This means that my REM onset is dramatically delayed, and, if it occurs at all, it occurs during an earlier stage of sleep than it should and is not as effective as it is in everyone else. As a result, I constantly display the mental and physical symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation.

Consider all of that for a few moments before I continue. Untreated, I wake up, just to the brink of consciousness, once every third minute the entire time I try to sleep.

I talk in my sleep because my REM isn't occurring during the correct phase of sleep. I walked in my sleep as a child. I'm not 100% sure I don't still do so occasionally. As a child, every morning began with my mother dragging me out of the bed, with me screaming and crying and begging to stay in the bed. My friends, family, and partners have known for years that I'm a "Ripley van Winkle" because when I'm not sleeping, I'm a temper-laden ass-kicking Tasmanian Devil. I was unsuccessfully treated for depression (through both talk and pharmacological therapy) for years before I swore both off.

Saying that "I've never had a good night's sleep in my life" is an epic failure in describing the magnitude of what I've dealt with on a daily basis ever since I can remember. Even with CPAP therapy, today, I have to allow 10 hours for sleep, that means 11 for wind-down and wake-up. Approaching 40, I'm beginning to develop health problems that I am positive are provoked by my physiological inability to sleep. I'm petrified of dying from an apnea-induced heart attack like so many untreated men in their 50s do.

I've quit college twice because of falling asleep at the wheel. I've been the only person "laid off" of jobs. I was publicly demoted from my only leadership position. I'm the smartest person I know, and the hardest worker I've ever seen, but the lack of the degree I can't manage to get, my unreliability at getting to the fucking office on time, and my emotional instability (read: temper) have crippled my career advancement.

I've had two general-anesthesia surgeries to complete three procedures on my nose, septum, and sinuses. These surgeries made my CPAP more effective, but it hasn't fixed me yet. All of my mental and physical sleep-deprivation symptoms are improved, but not gone.

The fact that I've even been diagnosed with OSA is odd because it's unusual in women. The fact that I'm overweight doesn't help because weight loss supposedly treats OSA almost as well as CPAP compliance does. The medical people don't seem to want to understand that I struggled with this daily as a child, not to mention when I was 5'6" and 120 lbs. They just keep saying, "Lose weight." I've been trying, but it's damned difficult when a lack of quality sleep leaves you constantly sluggish.

I can't seem to make any of the doctors, except one single pulmonologist who I honestly think doesn't know what to do with me, understand that if I'm a female with OSA, maybe something else is odd? Maybe? Only the pulmonologist will admit that OSA isn't 100% effective, but he has no answers. Oh, and a sleep technologist (puts the squid bits on your head during a sleep study, of which I've had 6) admitted it, too, but she's not a doctor, so she can't treat me. Oh, and my boyfriend doesn't believe it anymore, because he's seen me snore and apnea while I was wearing my mask.

And again today, I get told by an ENT surgeon who can do the surgeries (pulling tongue base forward, uvulectomy, etc.) that "CPAP is 100% effective when the patient is compliant."

Check it: My goddamned boyfriend is a medical professional, and he says that I am the most compliant patient he has ever seen. Whether it's taking antibiotics on schedule and to completion, performing painful wound cleanings at home, going to follow-up visits "when I feel fine," or anything else, my mindset is this: Why pay these people a ton of money to tap their education and experience just to ignore their guidance? What's the likelihood they're going to do their jobs (healing me) effectively if I don't do my part?

Just like everything else medical, I do what I'm supposed to do with my CPAP. I clean my equipment. I replace comsumables when needed. I pack it carefully and take it out of town on road trips, like a pet. I take it in for calibration every so often. I wear it every single time I sleep, even for a short nap. I do all of these things hoping against hope that somehow, after almost 10 years of compliance, it will give me the Holy Grail which I seek -- A.Good.Night's. Sleep.

And again, today, the backhanded "It's your own fault."

So, I hereby scream from the rooftop of The Jane Project, to every single person in the entire medical establishment who will look me in the face and tell me that the fault is mine, that I must somehow be non-compliant:

Fuck you.

I have this daydream where I win the lottery, the big lottery, and I have billions of dollars to play with. I will then track back every single medical professional who has ever said "CPAP is 100% effective when the patient is compliant," or some derivative of that statement, and pay them to sit on the left side of a conference room.

On the right side of the conference room, I seat the three medical professionals that have admitted to me that CPAP is only 99% effective when the patient is compliant.

Then I stand in front of them all and say, "You, on the left, go try and accomplish anything (anything!) with 11 hours a day taken from you, and the other 13 full of Benadryl. Just for a weekend. I dare you. See how I feel, learn what I deal with every.single.day. Remember that that's what I deal with every day when I know for a fucking fact that I do everything any of you has ever said to me. Then, all of you, hook me up to whatever you want, and watch me sleep. Watch my compliance. Listen to me. See what happens. See what I can't tell you. Listen to the man who's slept beside me more times than I can count, listening to me breath for more hours than anyone should have to. Listen to him, because he knows more than you do about me. Then, all of you, leave your preconceptions about what the textbooks say at the door and fucking fix me, and the rest of my money is split amongst you with an extra share going to the three on the right for actually knowing what they were talking about and for believing me."

Thank you all for listening.

~Riot.Jane

The Nature of Jesus and the Point of Christianity

Something that's bugged me on and off for a few years now is a theological question upon which I'd like to receive Jane input . . .

What is the appropriate name/label for someone who generally believes in the teachings of Jesus and tries his best to follow them, but who cannot for the life of himself buy into the physics of the literal Resurrection? Someone who can't bring themselves to believe in the joint divinity/humanity of Jesus, and who thinks the Holy Ghost concept is strictly symbolic?

Since the early followers of Jesus were simply Jews who followed an eccentric Gallilean preacher and the Gnostics (an early Christian sect) thought that God's divinity shone within us all, is it possible to have a modern interpretation of Christianity that does not involve the divinity of or the literal physical resurrection of Jesus?

I've asked this question of intelligent people over the years who are well-educated in at least one Christian denomination (some in several). The interesting answers I've received over the years include:

I don't know what to call him, but he's not Christian. Jesus is nothing if not the Son of God.

An apostle.

The whole point to being a Christian is that your path to Salvation is given, not earned. To profess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus was born in the flesh died on the Cross and, most importantly, rose from the dead to ascend to Heaven to take the right seat next to the Father is Salvation. No man may enter Heaven but by accepting Christ as their Savior, and any other interpretation is disinformation.

We'd probably call him an Episcopalian. ;-) Seriously, such a person technically still wouldn't be any sort of Christian. Belief in the Resurrection of Christ as a historical event is an entry requirement. He'd be closer to some Jewish splinters than a Christian of any sort. If you want big-tent Christianity as a warm fuzzy blanket of humanism and optional belief in the tricky bits, go US Episcopalian, not Anglican.

A secular theological scholar.

Anyone interpreting the teachings of Jesus and the rest of the Bible as simply some sort of New Age-y handbook of how to be a good person or some Ghandi-esqu guru instruction manual about being nice to your fellow man is dramatically misinterpreting the larger point of the Bible. There is no Salvation without the Resurrection. They go hand-in-hand.

An agnostic.

There's always been a healthy amount of room in certain parts of the Church for people who don't eat the dogma right up without a side of crow. I firmly believe that God loves nothing more than a doubter, and it's documented all throughout the Old and New Testaments -- from Job to Doubting Thomas. This is probably where we inherited our very human need to say, "I told you so!"

The very nature of Christianity involves the fact that no other religion has a "risen" Saviour. It is not a "works" based message -- You can't do anything to Save yourself. Only faith in Jesus Christ, who, through the power of God, was raised from the dead, can you be Saved.

I believe there is a higher power that we mere mortals will never understand, but if such power exists, why would it care whether we worship it or not? I do know darn well that whether I am happy / sad / rich / poor has nothing
to do with God.

As you can see, there's a dramatic variance among American Christians (not all do to sectarianism) as to the answer to the root of my above question:

Is it possible to have a modern interpretation of Christianity that does not involve the divinity of or the literal physical resurrection of Jesus?

I'd welcome your interpretations, thoughts, comments, and discussion.

~Riot.Jane

Hair Coloring & a Likely New Use for Chapstick

My current psychology is evident in my hair. It grows longer and then I hack it off with seasonal frequency. Every few months or so I color my hair from a drugstore box of dye. I'm an old pro at dying my own hair, short or long, having done it with varying frequency since I was 14. Some years I'd do it every four-to-six weeks for root touch-ups, other years it would be dramatic color changes every few months.

In high school, my friends called me "Jane of the rainbow hair" because I had below-the-shoulder hair and wouldn't always focus on full-coverage during dramatic color changes. I called my sometimes four-color streaking "trailer highlights." Eventually I cut it all off and died the stubble platinum blonde. I bust out laughing now when I think of it.

Today I colored my hair again. Since I was going darker instead of lighter, I knew I was going to have to circle my hairline and cover my ears with Vaseline so that my skin wouldn't stain. My main irritation with using Vaseline is that it's a bitch to wash off -- I sometimes have to resort to dishwashing liquid to cut through it if I use too much (and I usually use too much because I've seen other women who stained their skin, and it just looks nasty). Needless to say, my face, ears, and neck do not respond well to dishwashing liquid.

The other irritation about using Vaseline is that, when I try to put it around my ears and the sides/back of my neck (i.e. places I can't see), it's difficult to get the Vaseline right up to the hairline and not on the hair. I've screwed it up both ways in the past -- I've had both lines of skin staining and lines of undyed hair around my hairline. Neither is great, but at least I can dye my hair again to fix the undyed hair.

When I bought my box of dye this time, I saw a new product. Called +Repelle, it bills itself as a product that keeps skin-staining from occurring and is very easy to wash off. It was in a small tube, and the instructions were straightforward: Apply it around your hairline and on your ears, color your hair, and wash it off when you wash out the dye. The cost? $5.00 @ CVS. I bought it.

The +Repelle worked as advertised: Easy to apply, easy to wash off, no skin staining.

While I was applying the +Repelle, the idea that it applied like a soft Chapstick occurred to me. That makes sense -- Vaseline, Chapstick, and +Repelle are made of the same sort of stuff (as far as my hair-coloring needs go). I'll use the rest of the stick of +Repelle, and after it's gone, I'll try normal Chapstick heated in a glass of hot water.

After all, a stick of Chapstick is a lot cheaper than +Repelle. :-)

I'm really proud of this find, and I'd love to know about yours. Do you have any tricks, tips, or alternate uses for common items?

~Riot.Jane

ADMINISTRATION NOTE: The Jane Project does not agree with or participate in blogola. Brand names listed in any post are for clarity and information only and should not be considered editorial endorsement.

Woman "Not Guilty" should Son Rise from the Dead

Baltimore, MD -- A former religious cult member has agreed to an unheard-of plea deal: She has plead guilty and will testify against four others in the starving death of her 1-year-old son but reserves the right to rescind her plea if her son rises from the dead.

Ria Ramkissoon, 22, a native of Trinidad, is the prime witness in the Maryland's case against Queen Antoinette, 40, who purportedly lead the now-disbanded One Mind Ministries religious cult out of a Baltimore row house. Prosecutors allege that Antoinette instructed cult members, including Ramkissoon, to deny the child, Javon Thompson, food and water as punishment for the child not saying "Amen."

Prosecutors allege that Antoinette, believing that Ramkissoon would be weak and feed the child or give him water, instructed Javon be given to another cult member who followed her food-and-water-denial instructions. After the eventual death of the child, the cult members prayed over the body and the mother danced around it. When that didn't succeed in raising the child from the dead, two cult members purchased a wheeled suitcase in which to carry the child. Ramkissoon's attorney said that the cult believed that the child could be raised from the dead at a later date if they could carry the body with them. The cult moved to Philadelphia and asked a men they'd befriended there to store their luggage, and police found the body in a shed behind the man's house.

Javon's father, Robert Thompson, did not attend the plea agreement hearing due to illness, and is reported to have been incarcerated at the time of Javon's birth. Court documents indicate that Ramkissoon joined One Mind Ministries after Javon's birth. Ramkissoon left her parent's home with her 7-month old son, joined the cult, and moved into their house at the age of 19 because (according to her attorney) she didn't want to work or go to school but wanted to raise her son full-time, in Christianity, and the cult offered her this opportunity. At the time that Ramkissoon joined the cult, it had approximately a dozen members. Reportedly within the cult, cell 'phones and discussion of one's family were banned and marijuana smoking was common.

Prosecutors are charging Antoinette and three other cult members with child abuse resulting in death and first-degree murder. In a March 30 hearing, Ramkissoon plead guilty to the first charge (abuse/death) and agreed that she will testify truthfully against the other four. Should this occur, the prosecutor's office will recommend sentencing comprised of release from jail, a suspended 20-year sentence, five years probation requiring mental health assistance (including "deprogramming" treatment with a specialist in cult behavior). Sentencing is currently sheduled for August 11.

A prosecutor's office spokeswoman said that, regarding the child rising from the dead, the fine print of the plea agreement states, "This would need to be a Jesus-like resurrection. It cannot be a reincarnation in another object or animal."

"She [Ramkissoon] certainly recognizes that her omissions caused the death of her son," Ramkissoon's attorney said. "To this day, she believes it was God's will and he will be resurrected and this will all take care of itself. She realizes if she's wrong, then everyone has to take responsibility ... and if she's wrong, then she's a failure as a mother and the worst thing imaginable has happened. I don't think that, mentally, she's ready to accept that."

Ramkissoon's attorney also said,

"On one level, she certainly is competent to stand trial, because she does recognize that as far as her legal entanglements are concerned, this is a grand-slam resolution for her. On the other hand, she's still brainwashed, she's still delusional as far as the teachings and influence of this cult, and she certainly is going to benefit with professional help and deprogramming."

The current disposition of the four other charged cult members: (Leader) Antoinette, Trevia Williams, and Marcus Cobbs are currently incarcerated without bail. Steven Bynum is, for some reason, free on his own recognizance.

Source documents available for review.

~Riot.Jane