Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself (Again)

Photo of Eric Jennings by David Lisak for The Bristelcone Project

I write poetry, much of it experimental. I also sometimes write personal essays. I’ve been working on an experimental memoir for the last year or so with a focus on my experiences as a survivor of childhood sexual victimization. It’s part poetry collection, part flash memoir and part whatever the fuck I feel like.

Here’s the thing (my thing): I lived a large portion of my life in silence and denial and that, more than the actual abuse, is the root cause of my CPTSD. Have you heard of it? Most people are familiar with PTSD, not so much with the C, which stands for Complex. What makes it complex is that it arises from ongoing and/or repeated trauma as opposed to a single traumatic event. It also is frequently misdiagnosed.

In my case, I was diagnosed with various depressive and anxiety disorders, which led me to believe I had an innate propensity for those mental states. In other words, I believed I was born that way. Further, I believed I inherited ‘bad genes’ from both of my parents.

I know now that what I actually inherited was the legacy of multi-generational child abuse. I was ultimately hospitalized for suicidal ideation, not because I had a ‘disorder’ but because I had been living with untreated injuries.

I began my recovery at the age of 40. I didn’t tell anyone the full story of what was done to me until I was 52. I am now 61 and struggling through a belated adolescence.

I have written paragraphs like these many times during the last two decades, a few of them for public consumption, mostly for myself. I’ve had several blogs and I used to write personal essays related to my yoga practice (I used to own a hot yoga studio). I have kept journals off and on throughout my life. Most of what I’ve written has been deleted because I have a compulsion to do that. I have a history of throwing things away so that I can start whatever it was all over again.

The words on this page will likely be replaced, sooner or later. I will erase them and say some of the same things in a slightly different way.

I self-published two poetry books in an attempt to preserve some of my writing. In addition to my memoir, I am collecting poems for a third book. I am putting some of each here on this Medium publication.

I find this a challenging forum in which to exist, which is why I disappear for long stretches between bouts of writing. I’ve been looking for alternative writing communities and haven’t found one that suits me. So, this is me saying I’m back and I will be posting again. Thanks for reading.