anxiety – The Trailer Park MFA

Healing Trauma Through, Well, Clothes

Sometimes you’ve known something all along but just didn’t understand it. I’ve always told myself I hate clothes. I dress from a place of frustration and even resentment. I hate shopping for clothes. I hate trying on clothes. I hate buying clothes. I hate wearing clothes. And because my body has so often felt unsafeContinue reading “Healing Trauma Through, Well, Clothes”

The First Steps of Exposure Therapy

View of a woman's tennis shoes walking down a boardwalk

The men who attacked me were trying to make me small. They wanted to keep me quiet. I was a reminder to them that strength knows no gender, and neither does intelligence. Regardless of their race, orientation, age, and class, they all shared a contempt for women. They resented any woman they perceived as “withholding”Continue reading “The First Steps of Exposure Therapy”

Exposure Therapy

I was an exposure therapy skeptic. What I knew of exposure therapy came from abusers. More than one had justified their abuse by claiming it was helping me “face my fears” or “making me tougher.” This is nonsense. Such inhumane behavior will only make someone’s fear less manageable, even potentially debilitating. Research shows fear andContinue reading “Exposure Therapy”

What Are You So Afraid of?

If I’m being honest? Well, everything. Let’s start with coconuts. If you’ve never spared a thought for what can fall out of trees and kill you, maybe you should. In 1777, a woman in the Cook Islands was killed by a falling coconut. In 1952, a coconut murdered an infant. In 1966, a perfectly innocentContinue reading “What Are You So Afraid of?”

Taking That First Step

You don’t want to go in there. You know something’s waiting for you in those woods, but you’d rather not find out what. The trailhead is always there. But you walk right by it, again and again. And again. You don’t want to go in there. You don’t know if there’s even another side forContinue reading “Taking That First Step”

Nine Ways to Cope When You’re Stuck Inside

I’ve been at this for four years and counting. In early 2016, a medical provider ordered me to stop all work, and I was put on extended medical leave without pay. A few months later, my boss and I called it quits. After all, it was my second medical leave in six months. So IContinue reading “Nine Ways to Cope When You’re Stuck Inside”

Life and Death

I apologize for being MIA the last week and a half. Things have been happening. Those of you who have been following me for a while know that I have chronic migraines. I developed migraines shortly after the first assault I survived at age 12, and they became chronic shortly after the last assault atContinue reading “Life and Death”

My Breakdown in a Bus Depot

And then I went to New York. If you have been asleep, New York will slap you out of it. I boarded the Q47 bus and watched the sunrise from the bus window, mentally reviewing Manhattan’s grid of streets and the carefully plotted route that would take me to the Hotel Chelsea for a nightContinue reading “My Breakdown in a Bus Depot”

A Bangkok Wedding

PiLee and PiChai’s wedding that year was a sumptuous affair. From wealthy European investors to Thai pop stars, Bangkok’s high society drifted into the downtown hotel and gathered around the pools in dazzling gowns and tuxes. PiLee’s lacy designer gown was form-fitting and flattering. PiChai’s father, a lifelong advisor to King Bhumibol, toasted the coupleContinue reading “A Bangkok Wedding”

How Chronic Illness Made Me a Champion Worrywart

I worry about everything. Barometric pressure. Fluorescent lights. Hormones. My bedtime. You name it, I can fret over it. So move over, Muhammad Ali: I’m the Greatest! I can worry anyone into the ground. Try me. Here is a short list of things that worry me on a regular basis. Each one has knocked meContinue reading “How Chronic Illness Made Me a Champion Worrywart”