Super-Fast Morning Thought

I am sitting down for a brief minute here to post on this very busy morning to try and break a habit I have gotten into lately of not posting first thing in the morning.

I've been busy in the A.M. of late so I have skipped the early morning post I usually have been doing at the beginning of each day...then last night I realized I did not like the precedent that has started so I'm taking a moment to post that I intend to get back to posting at the start of each new day.

So this is " A New Beginning's Post" #1....

PHOTO: Kathy Tomson

Moan-Day, Moan-Day...

Sore Body Parts? Uh...YEP! Which one's you ask....the answer without exaggeration is: It seems to me like pretty much all of 'em, mate! It it really does, too...

I have used the description that I feel as if I have fallen out of a tree before and today is most certainly a "Fell out of a tree" kinda day. Knees, numb feet, ankles, elbows, back, neck, hands, wrist, thighs...you name it...sore, swollen, generally a big bummer, really.

As crazy as it may seem though, since this is more the "norm" for me in life then the exception...it isn't that big of a deal in the bigger picture of things. But it has me thinking about something else though that is a huge concern for me these days...My daughter Chelsea and her back injury.

Unfortunately, Chels has back damage just like her father. We aren't exactly sure about the origin of her trouble but it is more then likely the result of some inherited physical pre-conditions like narrowing of the spine and weakened disks, tendons and bone structure leading to to the tendency to give out on her when she least expects it.

I am really concerned for her not just because I am her Dad but as someone who has lived with this I understand the debilitating pain that never seems to lesson or go away. I am innately familiar with the way one's mind begins to betray them, to trick and manipulate you into thinking it's OK when it isn't. It can be a shock...it can turn you completely inside out emotionally.

That is why the support of the people who love you is the most important weapon in the fight against this kind of pain and disability. That is why I am here to support her. To let her know that she is loved and cared for.

I just absolutely hate to see her dealing with this and in her late 29's as well. It is around the same age I started  to really have trouble as well and I too had a young (read toddlers!) children and was a single father part of that time. It breaks my heart really when I see and hear of her experiences the exact same things that I did oh so many years ago. What is the possible purpose in this one must wonder?      

Ultimately we never will know but accepting what it is will be the first step toward managing one's life while being held to the fire of pain and disability.      

Pic by KT                                                                                                                                                                                    

Attitude: High Altitude FLYER MAN

Oh Man I have been getting up and moving WAAAAY to early in the morning...even for this guy! I was helping a friend early today (like 4:30a early!)  and I just sat down really for the first time at nearly 11a. I really feel pretty crappy physically, if truth be told. But somehow I feel really optimistic about things as well...that my friends is a significant change from past attitudes for me.


I do as a rule these days look on the "bright-side" of things almost automatically. Sure I can still be cynical and no one would mistake me for naive but at the same time I now like to give people and life...a fighting CHANCE. Tough, hard, difficult does not in any shape or form mean the same as impossible...no way. If anything, overcoming hardship...rising to the occasion is the "sweetener" or "spice" of life...making it feel much more rewarding then it even actually is sometimes. That my friend is a bonus in this rough and tumble life we live and it costs but a mere change in attitude.


Not sure if I heard this somewhere or am just making this up... though I suspect I've heard it somewhere but anyway: They say a change in one's attitude leads directly to a corresponding change in ones ALTITUDE. In other words if you choose to think positively it will take you to a much "higher" (read: BETTER) place for exactly the same cost in effort. It 'tis corny, yes but in my experience it holds quite true. Perhaps because I am an extreme example...always thinking negatively, so dark, cynical and sarcastically that it just SEEMS like a drastic change...but frankly it is real and it is drastic if you ask me.


So that dear reader is my (positive) nugget of thought for the day! Let the power of positive attitude take you to a much higher PLACE today!

A Re-Visit: "Storm Sets In My Eye"

Ah yes another re-post this evening. And an appropriate titled one at that since we are at this very moment getting some serious thunderstorms.


This post, like the previous re-posts is one that I deem significant because it deals specifically with an important element of my life of healing and recovery. So shall we weather the storm together this evening? I think we shall...


"Storm Sets In My Eyes"

Have you ever felt like everything was cool, there weren't really any major negatives going on in your life yet it still felt like it was raining inside?

That's me today: Look into my eyes and you'll notice that it's raining in here...OK, I can hear everyone say it now "Thom's lost his mind for sure this time! What does he mean, it's raining inside?!".

Just that...it feels a bit stormy inside of me today, unpredictable, vague...things seem a bit uncertain: just like a rainstorm.

Rainstorms are funny things because they can be both a positive and negative experience...often simultaneously. To a drought stricken area a severe thunderstorm that does some property damage to some houses/businesses yet brings crop saving rain is both a positive and negative. It is up to the folks involved to decide for themselves which way to think and feel about that. usually based on whether they have personally suffered a positive or negative side effect of the storm.

So I feel unsettled inside..why? Am I in trouble and just don't know it yet? Or am I just going through the normal emotional ups/downs that people go through everyday of their lives.

When I first sobered up, situations like this...not understanding or being used to HAVING feelings/emotions used to really mess me up. I had always just drank or doped instead of dealing with my feelings. Take that stuff away and I was totally lost...I didn't know how to feel or how to act like a human being anymore. I had been a PRETENDER for so long...

Slowly but surely, as I stayed sober longer and longer...I sought to follow certain spiritual principles in life and I've spoken of them here before: Humility, service to others, honesty. Getting beaten down, nearly to death had convinced me without reservation that I could not figure this out on my own. I needed help, any help I could get and right now!

So people who cared about me and therapists at the hospital pointed me to support groups where I could meet others who were going through similar things. And those were the folks who told me how they had stayed sober following those certain spiritual principles. They began to show me how by their example...

I have always considered my true spiritual journey, the one that has recently lead me to accept Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior has having begun right then and there, the day I stopped fighting and surrendered to the fact that I could NOT do this on my own, that I needed help. Even though it took nearly 5 years to get to that point where I committed my life to GOD.

Where am I going with this? Well as I spent more and more time clean/sober I did begin to get used to having feelings again. It sounds corny but it's true: I was getting to know myself, really for the first time in my life! And I was in my mid 40's! It was often a very awkward process and in all honesty it can still feel somewhat awkward today some times...

It was a slow often heart wrenching process...I had a great deal of physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual wreckage to clear up and deal with. There were MANY times along the way that I wanted to just quit, that it seemed impossible to me that I could do this. That is when I first started to pray, though I didn't really know who I was praying to...I just called him GOD and left it at that. And the funny thing is I found enough peace, strength and energy to persevere...

It just took time, time sharing my uncertainties, fears, anger, doubts and such with friends who cared about me. It took time going through the list of my character defects to identify those things that were really impacting me negatively. It took time sharing those defects with another trusted friend then going back to the folks that I hurt and doing my very honest best to make amends for the damage I had done.

As I continued through this process and this process continues to this day...my life started to come together. it made more sense...I slowly but surely learned that some days, like today for example I may not always feel super wonderful inside, even though there aren't any OBVIOUS issues going on in my life.

That of course doesn't mean that perhaps there is something I have overlooked. Because even though I try to stay connected to where my thoughts/feelings are at...I definitely can miss stuff. That is another area where I rely on prayer and meditation to help me center and focus myself. I often just pray for perspective to understand what GOD's will is for me today. It's really that simple...

And for me, this process has worked. I have no idea if it would work for anyone else on the planet and I'm not suggesting or telling anyone to "Do What I do And What I say". No....no way. But I do think and believe that there is something of value for every living soul in having an active spiritual life and connection with your Creator. That is simply my opinion.

All I can really talk about is what has worked for me and countless others that I see and speak with every day. It really is a cool thing because I used to think it was all BULLSHIT. I used to think ANY spiritual thing was MAN MADE and therefore FLAWED.

All I can honestly say today is that I found that to be untrue. Do those things, those negative things like hypocrisy exist in Christianity...certainly, but they are NOT the norm like I thought they were and I've had my BS detector out and running since I started this spiritual journey..haha!

So after all that...why is it raining inside Thom this morning? I believe it is a normal, subtle meloncholy feeling I get once in awhile as a result of staying in the present and dealing with life on life's terms. I have people in my life today that I am concerned about. Yes, I worry about the choices they make, they are hurting themselves and I want to help them.

Yet I can't live their life for them and I certainly cannot make them do things don't want to do. Nor do I want to do that...I have my hands full with my own life.

The bottom line is I'm sad and concerned. And instead of suppressing those emotions I let the out aand I feel their full effect. And yes...it makes things a bit gloomy inside BUT...and this is a big BUT:

Today I don't interpret those rainy days inside as a negative thing that will hurt me...no, it just is my way of knowing that I care about my friends. I care and also realize that alone, I am powerless to help them but I believe there is HOPE today, for anyone no matter what their deal is. If there was HOPE for me, in my most desperate place at that most desperate time...well there is hope I believe for ANYONE!

Un-Endurable Sorrow Re-Visited (A Re-Post)

Aaahhh y`es, We are re-posting again this evening. This little ditty is from December of 2011. It is an example of me using the blog to vent and piece together some hurtful feelings. One of the many unexpected uses for Shell Shock Serenade...


So Here is: "An Un-Endurable Sorrow That Is Me"                                            


Relationships just hurt too much sometimes....And because they do, it is really hard for me to ever truly consider them a worthwhile entity in the end. I often think I truly am better off alone, completely by myself...at least when I hurt myself, I know I mean it and nobody is bullsh*tting or lying to me about it...I know people mean well but it never ceases to amaze me how often those same people who are the ones who should care about you more then any other will in the end hurt you the most. But hey...we forgive them...for they know not what they do.


I've hurt so deeply and so often in this raggedy assed existence called life that I have no more tears to donate to the soil of this lost planet of SOULS...shattered hearts cannot be pieced back together when they are already in a million pieces...sometimes you just have to sweep the "SOUL Shards"...the remnants of them under the rug and persevere with but a fraction of a Heart.

That is not to say I blame anyone for the way that I feel...I do not blame anyone but myself because I understand now that I earned all of this...it is but my CROSS to bear. And bear it I shall....


Straight up the rugged rocky stone path that twists and turns in tight spirals as it ascends the mountaintop that represents my life, in it's entirety...my own personal Golgotha. All that remains this day is dried blood on the rocks that once held THAT CROSS in it's sway...

A human wind chime spins and sputters while twisting in it's time..it mutters it's haunting dirge through-out all time and tests the metal of all men's SOULS...


On that dark and dangerous hill-top, the WATCH-MAN sees only me and you, my friend...he notices the tear-stained cheeks and blood-shot eyes and HE and only HE pines for the remnants of our collectively shattered HEARTS...Ahh YES, they are to be the main course at this BEGGARS BANQUET...where I am again the honored GUEST.

Live...and Write & Learn!

I thought I would actually try and write something new this afternoon. I could get used to pulling up a file and pasting it in for the days allotment of posts....er, not really. And I do think it's interesting (even for me!) for other readers to see where I came from.


It is amazing how much I learn about myself when I read these posts. Writing Shell Shock started out as a lark really but it has become a critical part of my daily recovery and now life. It serves me well on several levels...it allows me to vent out the stuff bothering me, It helps me sort through the issues from the past and there is just some thing good and healthy about keeping a daily journal and let's face it...


That essentially is what this IS...a living, breathing diary, kept live and in real time, shared with the world for accountability. It has really helped me open up and be ruthlessly honest with yourself (and others). It allows other readers to comment and I count tell you how helpful that is as well. I have learned so much from the comments and they have come from such a diverse background of individuals literally from all over the world but mainly in the US, Canada and the UK.


It sure makes the world smaller and a lot more of an intimate place...I really love that aspect of the Internet anyway. 


It has been another super hot and humid day here in S Michigan and I need to feed and exercise so that is exactly what I am going to do. We'll catch up with you all a bit later....Ciao Baby!


Photo: Kathy Tomson

Another R-P: Could You Forgive Your Rapist?

Another significant blog post from the past is this one, from 5 May 2011 titled: "Could You Forgive Your Rapist?" I think it does the best job explaining the complexities of forgiveness when it comes to rape...it was a life changer for me....


Let the rain come...


I often think poetically. I'll watch the rain come in over the lake and I can close my eyes and just see it wash right over me. And carry off all my pain and sorrow. I see rain almost like the personification of forgiveness...When I asked the Lord forgiveness of my sins, that is exactly how I felt. Like a torrent of cleansing rain just washed right over me...it was almost physical in it's intensity.



Forgiveness is a hard one for me. It's hard. Fellow blogger Sunny at Sunny Sings The Blues has recently been posting a series on forgiveness and frankly it has been really hard for me to read. Not because it was bad...oh no, far from it. It is because so much of it is true and hit's very close to home for me.


As long as I have been in recovery from alcoholism/addiction, I have had to deal with the guilt and responsibility for my actions during my drinking and drugging days. I made a lot of mistakes. I hurt a lot of people, pretty much every single person who ever cared about me at one time or another. And I hurt some of them to the point that I figured they would never forgive me or have anything to do with me again, sober or not.


So I have always been on that end of things. I was the one who was wrong, who screwed up and needed forgiveness. Even though I'm not really posting about this today, I will say that in almost five years sober I have been able to make amends to most of those folks. And by my continued sobriety and honest attempts at reconciliation, have re-built most of those relationships I had once destroyed. But as I was starting to mention, I really hadn't any real experience with the other side of forgiveness, nor was I sure that I really wanted to...


I have mentioned before here in Shell Shock Serenade that as a young, pre-teen aged boy I was sexually assaulted by three grown men..Yea, I was raped. There isn't any real soft or less intense way of saying it. RAPE...it pretty much means one thing and I think we are all horrified by the specter of what that word represents.


I have recovered and healed in a lot of different ways after many years of repressing the memory of what had happened to me on that day. I have been able to talk about it, work through some of the anger and begin the healing process. As I have learned to live a more spiritual life in recovery, that too has helped me put the events of that day in a more proper perspective. But no matter...it's still rape...and it still really hurts to the very core of one's soul.


Now I know that what happened to me was NOT my fault. Though I still have nightmares sometimes and can feel really weird about things, my life is really pretty good. I also realize now that I suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and that intensified what I was trying to deal with. Knowing now that I suffer from PTSD has helped me understand what went on with me all those years and helps me focus today on recovering and healing from Rape as well as Addiction. But the one thing I have not been able to even get remotely close to doing is forgive the animals that did this to me.


I don't know why but the subject of forgiveness has always hovered over me like I somehow owe it to those bastards. I don't know why I even think about it but I do. It's like I can't help myself. Most of my therapists have down played this "need" I seem to sub-consciously have to forgive, saying if it happens then it happens. They reassure me that I don't really have to forgive them to heal. But deep down it seems to me like I do...and I don't f**king want to forgive them!


So I have lived in this haunted limbo between anger/hate and forgiveness for some time now and the one thing that I do know with certainty is I CANNOT STAY HERE! I have to move in one direction or the other because it is eating me alive. And came from that place and it's no picnic either, let me tell you!


Basically what I have done lately is tucked that dilemma as far away as I can in my sub-conscious and hope/pray nothing disturbs it because I don't want to deal with it. Not a very healthy way to go about it, I confess but I don't know what else to do. I just don't feel prepared to venture down THAT road...the road to forgiveness. So I ignore the whole mess and basically my life moved rather pleasantly along the River Of Denial until I started reading Sunny's blog posts on Forgiveness! Gee thanks a lot, Sunny! (Just kidding of course)


I did realize that I couldn't run from that subject forever, that sooner or later it would have to be dealt with. But how do you even start to deal with something like this? I suppose there is never a "good" time to start. So you just put one foot in front of the other and begin to move forward if you can. But how? How do I even begin to think about such a thing as forgiveness when it wasn't all that long ago that I daily wished those three men dead. 

My only thought is to turn my face towards God. Because on my own I will NOT be able to handle this.I can also turn to some of my friends. Though it is an awkward subject to talk about, especially with my friends who are men, they do care about me. And they want me to find some solace and some peace from this nightmare that has been tormenting me now for over 35 years.

So I sit here this evening and ponder this road that stretches out in front of me. The prospect of "going there" with this is a frightening one but deep down I know that it is a journey that must be taken. I don't think I will ever be completely at peace if I harbor that kind of hate and anger in my heart. It's just that at this particular moment I can't picture me letting go of it all. I cannot picture me feeling forgiveness. Something inside of me will have to change drastically...and I know that I am not capable of making that change on my own. Merely thinking about this right now terrifies me...it is going to be a long, hard journey home.

WHY...Repost?

Yesterday I re-posted a piece from May of 2011 call Requiem Of Failure: My Old Me. As I stated in the beginning of that post, re-posting is not something that I have done a lot of here on Shell Shock Serenade. For one reason is that I never really had any issue coming up with something to write so I didn't need to use old posts as "filler". 


The second main reason was that this blog is supposed to follow my daily life, not keep going back over it. But I think It is helpful to post these little bits from the past because they give perspective to whats happening today. It helps to understand the past when you are trying to understand the present...I know, written by a true history guy!

Re-post: Requiem Of Failure: My Old ME

I didn't use to re-Post old work but I have realized that some of those old post really represent what I was and who I am today...they define ME. So I am re-posting another one of those posts that I feel truly define's me and I think this one fits the bill. So here we go with a bit of:




 Requiem of Failure: My Old Me


Requiem for the old me...

To be so full of resentment, just churning, so full of anger it was transforming itself to hate. I was a remnant of a human being. More animal then man, simply existing, operating solely by survival instinct to do just that and only that:survive from one miserable day to the next. That wasn't living, it was existing and there is a huge difference. I was so hurt, so afraid, so fearful of...everything that nothing made sense. I could see nothing but pain, heartbreak and a bitter, horrific ending to my life. I begged God to kill me yet nothing happened and he was to blame. It was God's fault...

I was like the earth if it was inverted on it's axis...no balance, chaos and ruin of all known fact. I knew nothing any more. The only human emotional behavior left to me was to RAGE...and I did so exceedingly well in solitude and silence. I was silent suicide...

I can hardly accept that I was like that. I can no longer relate and I have very little left except a sliver of intellectual connection to that difficult period in my life.

Bitter, resentful, mistrusting, angry, suspicious, a liar, undependable, selfish, self-centered, a user of people, a cheat, a poser, the faker I hated myself for all of that. I just did...funny too but I kept so much of that inside of myself that even people I was close to had no idea. Sure, they might have sensed this or that, hey even I hadn't a clue how much trouble I was in, deep inside of myself.

All the emotional, spiritual and psychological troubles lead to a major breakdown in my physical condition. Poor nutrition, lousy health habits and getting little to no sleep. Combine those facts with my substance abuse, several decades of drinking and drug taking, I was a time bomb just itching to explode.

I did not realize the extent of what was happening to me but I do recall sensing trouble. And that was what it was like, I had a nudge, a whisper from now where informing me of of a catastrophe. My reaction to that nudge was to literally cultivate chaos. And so I did....I cultivated chaos right up to the moment I tried to end my life...and failed.

Most of us have experienced failure in our lives. And most folks have felt down, perhaps a bit depressed. I can't even begin to describe how it felt to make the decision to die. Plan it, accept it and carry out the plan. Only to come to in a strange place and suddenly realize that I had failed....I had never felt so low. I had failed at failure!

How does one fail at failure?! I recall that I just laid there, restrained to my hospital bed and cried, more like a wail yet no tears really came...I was completely spent, depleted of all my humanness. It was then, that I just quit. I stopped fighting and I admitted defeat. I will say that I did NOT feel better at the time. I actually recall that I felt nothing at all. I simply had no other choice that day to give up and give in. I was finished fighting, making excuses and arguing about it. I had failed at failure...I fucked up a suicide and lived to tell about it.

One odd detail I remember shortly after I awakened from that coma and was able to use my hands. Reaching to my face, my cheeks and all the way around to my ears I noticed this sticky, itchy substance, it was a mess. I had no mirror, I could not then see what was. When I was helped to the bathroom the first time, accompanied as I was for those first few days I saw it was a blackish, grey sticky substance.

I mentioned it to my nurse, still oblivious. She mentioned that when the ambulance drivers brought me in, they told the doctors and nurses at the hospital that when they first got to me, I had duct tape over my mouth. My heart sank and I remembered putting duct tape over my mouth before I laid down so I wouldn't vomit back up all the drugs I had just ingested...

I went crazy, screaming trying to scratch that shit off of me...needless to say I got a magic shot and woke up later back in my bed, restrained.

When I was a teenager I wanted to be an individual, free to do what I wanted to do. And I did, I did what pleased me all of my life. I rarely thought about consequences so I certainly reaped what I had sown.

I was King all right, I was the King Of Pain, the Emperor Of Failure, all powerful Ruler of Chaos and Heartache. That was me and this was all I had left.Needless to say at the end of my old life I had no hint of a clue that things were about to change...But they were!

Born To...Be GRATEFUL

I feel so incredibly grateful at this moment for the people I have been privileged to know and have relationships with in my life today. I never knew the value of relationships: Friendship, Family, Partner (girlfriend/boyfriend, spouse), Co-Worker, Therapists/Professional, my Recovery Friends....and it goes on and on. 


I pushed people away from me in years past and I did this for a variety of reasons...I didn't want to be accountable or have to explain myself, I was far too embarrassed to be myself and have people discover who I really was. I felt like Sham, a phony and if I got close to people they could see that as well as my SHAME....it was like they would know I was raped and I would be labeled undesirable. I was so sure of this because I had ALREADY thought of MYSELF as undesirable...it was so incredibly SAD how much I disliked me! 


I felt like trash, dirty and I was equally convinced I was a (BORN) loser as well. Yet deep down I cared so much about people, I valued them, pulled for them...I really did and it made the SELFISH choices I made about my life so difficult because selfish WAS NOT who I really was supposed to be.


So I avoided people...I drank mostly alone for the last several years of my drinking because I drank to oblivion each and every night and that was too embarrassing to have to hold back or explain. 


I love my friends...the people who accept me as I am. It starts with K-Sue but hardly ends there. I just started realizing this morning HOW much those people truly mean to me!


Pic: Kathy Tomson