The therapy I engaged in at the John Bradshaw Center for five-to-six hours a day, seven days a week, for eight weeks focused almost exclusively on remembering and healing childhood trauma. The idea was that we all come from dysfunctional families that caused us pain. If we don’t remember and relive these traumas in a safe setting we will continue to be in emotional pain and, perhaps worse, risk passing all this dysfunction to the next generation, becoming part of the “poisonous pedagogy.” Aphorisms like, “if you don’t work it out you will act it out” and “the only way out is through” were bantered about like gospel. Continue reading “I don’t have an inner child.”
This thing isn’t going to write itself.
The muse makes her appearance at 6 am.
Daily.
But here’s the rub. I am not a morning person. I am only up at this godforsaken hour because the Chihuahua refuses to acclimate from Eastern time to Pacific Daylight Time. Haley gets up each day precisely at six, jumps joyfully on my head and announces, in her own Chihuahua way, that the day has dawned. Dutifully, and because having a Chihuahua banging at your head is not that pleasant, I get up at six to feed and walk her. The muse is also awakened by the 8-lb monster, and it is during those tweams–the fleeting moments between dreaming and waking when you are finishing up a most delicious dream–that she fills my creative mind with the most brilliant of writing insights. Alliteration abounds and cadence croons. Continue reading “This thing isn’t going to write itself.”
Memoir of a mental patient blog
Two months ago my husband and I packed our Hyundai sedan with the essentials: my husband’s guitar, his ukulele, his big-ass amp, our Chihuahua Haley, a five-day supply of Haley’s organic homemade (by me) perfectly balanced nutrition-packed food, her favorite toys and water bowl, a customized-for-a-Chihuahua baby stroller (don’t judge), a thermos of frozen broccoli (healthy Chihuahua snacks), and every comforter and blanket we own stacked high over the back seat area so said Chihuahua would have a 360 view of the open road. Continue reading “Memoir of a mental patient blog”
Nancy Cook Writes 