This was a very up-and-down week for me. It started on Great note!– Eating my vegan, gluten free meal prep (saved me soooo much time). Lots of salads and greens and after acupuncture last week, and jump rope on pavement this weekend,  I woke up for the FIRST TIME in a LONG TIME without knee pain. 

So the week was starting good; When I took this picture– eating delicious vegan breakfast, relaxing in the cool morning weather on campus, watching the trees change.  Then it all went to crap!

My critical theory of trauma professor said she had a “treat” for us after so many weeks of HEAVY READING: A movie day! I was excited.

I thought of middle-school movie-days when a substitute would come in, the projector would come out and as the lights lowered, so di anxiety and school-brain could shut off as we got to watch Ghostbusters or some other 80s treat. So I oiled up my face with vitamin E, extra shiny like my mother used to do. Grabbed my vegan breakfast, got to campus an hour early. Excited..

Then the movie started to play!

I began crying watching a child being sexually abused, then it got worse from there… and then MUCH MUCH worse. And when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it surprisingly somehow Did!

I was consumed in constant crying and horror as the protagonist journeyed through abuse, to self-abuser, victim to self-victimizer. Then the climax is too disturbing, triggering and traumatizing for me to mention here.

Then she let us out of the class with no debrief or dissemination.  I broke down outside of class. I found what I thought was a quiet place to cry. Then it became uncontrollable and I wailed. A security guard came over to help,  I said I would be alright.  Two classmates found me and consoled me. They said they had to dissociate during the film.  One said she’s so traumatized from contact with such material leading into her doctorate program that now she’s numb.

The movie is Mysterious Skin.

Caution be warned if you decide to look at it, it’s not for the faint at heart. Trigger warning Child sexual assault, graphic sex, sexual violence, rape, blood and violence.

I don’t know how the professor thought this would be a “treat?” I was completely emotionally unprepared and too wide open (expecting a good fun time). I didn’t get into the right frame of mind beforehand and was psychologically vulnerable. I no longer trust her. 

Many people contacted me behind the scenes, men & women disturbed and disgusted.  It took 5 days for me to muster enough to write her urging her to issue trigger warnings if she plans to show this again. (Professionally I believe it was unethical for her to display such graphic material and release us into the world with no support. It would have been easy for her to show half one day, then discuss and half the next week). As a cert. Clinical Hypnotherapist it is in my training to NEVER have a client triggered without enough time in the session to help them release.

I got a B+ on the midterm. Prof says I wrote about what I THOUGHT Stoute was saying… not what she actually said.  I asked for office hours for her to show me where Stoute wasn’t being disingenuous calling the piece “black rage.”

This week for the first time I had to skim the readings. One class gave us 144 pages to read.  Like REALLY?? Then I had other readings too? The algorithm learned I was a student and introduced me to Google Notebook LM.  (I put that 144 pages right in there and made a podcast and got the gist of what it was about).  It’s a book on complex PTSD so I definitely want to read it in full. (Just, later… when I have more free- time)

I caught up in the readings last week which put me behind for this week in one class. TA says I have one last opportunity to hand in late work. I explained it’s because I’m really taking my time to read each page and understand. Doesn’t seem to matter. A part of me wonders if I should just forget about grades and just take my time to understand the material because there are two competing agendas going on; satisfying benchmarks and deliverables and my own enrichment, knowledge base and betterment.

Do I forgo good grades to take the time to ACTUALLY READ??

My school let’s a prestigious school in the area experiment on us. We have one of the best medical programs and hospitals in the country, and they’ve partnered with a local school of acupuncture and 5 sessions are built into our tuition. So Yes! I had acupuncture again this weekend and the acupuncturist said kidneys are connected to knees (I told her about my kidney diagnosis).

Baybeeeee when I got up off of that table I felt like Jack be Nimble! Ready to jump over candlesticks: Legs felt INSTANTLY BETTER…

There really is TRUTH in Eastern Medicine

So overall it was an up and down week which ended on a good note.

I discovered the power of studying in the library alongside others studying and my school has SOOOOO much money that the library has different themed study rooms

• Eating & lounging
• Group studying
• Video conferencing
• Standing desks
• Quiet
• Suppperrrr pin-drop quiet
• Cubicles
• And more I haven’t discovered yet!

Undergrad at a typical college was NOTHING like this…