Soul Sailing

Reflecting on nine years of adventure that I never knew were with bipolar disorder

[soulsailing]

Status Update

Dissertation: Proposed

Vaccination: Completed

Qualification Studies: Initializing

Therapeutic Interventions: Productive

Sense of Self: Heightened

Motivation Level: Enhanced

Cumulative Life Experience: Integrating

Energetic Centers: Aligning

Heart Light: Activating

Pathway: Clear

Interpretation: Fun

Limitations: None Detected

Future: All Systems Engaged :)

[soulsailing]

Manu-fracture Me

I get my feelings from a factory

they say it’s safer than the natural me

taking drugs to stay sober

I have manufactured emotions

and I’ll never know my own truth anymore

they say my energy has a chemical imbalance,

when I see the situations and cycles that flip me like a switch

lock me in a room and let me fester in a worsened wound

no therapy or decency

inject me with an array of manipulations

a delicate system forced under a pen

open my legs and veins to let the prescriptions in

asked to trade my kidney, liver, thyroid, lymphatic system, metabolism, blood sugar, sleep cycle, stomach, skin - no negotiation

if I ask questions I am non-compliant and deserved to be punished for hesitaion

help without hands, believing in me, they wouldn’t take a chance

treating the symptom to worsen the cause, always ask what but never why,

the medical oppressionals hit you where it hurts and leave you dry

Remember, pills are the laziest treatment a healer could provide.

asked for hugs got drugs instead

asked for sleep and got taken out of bed

I needed a healer not a drug dealer

to permanently damage my head

[soulsailing]

I get my feelings from a factory.

Il ne m'a resté que mon corp, en je n'ai plus que ça, je n'ai que mon âme. Pas mal de n'avoir que mes rêves parce qu'elles sont mon cadeau. Les médecins disent que j'ai une imbalance chimique mais je sais bien que c'est une manque de justice et un surplus de persistance, de peur, de sensibilité aux énergies, des yeux qui voient entre impasses, qui me rende moins calm et stable et qui me pousse hors du corps. La vérité se couche en silence, elle dors dans une monde sans questions, et elle se réveille toute seule tout au coup chaque ans à cause d'une breve association mentale - un son, un mot méchant, une question politique, une date. Mais, sans doute, il ya a des inverses. Il y a des réponses aux priers oubliés en moments beaux. Il y a des contracts signés en âme sans papier. Il y a des entrances aux risques avec confidence. Il y a des pertes que je ne veux plus. Il y a des amours incroyables qui m'emmènent aux joie. Il y a des dieux et de la musique et de la magie, en qui je trop crois, ils disent. Ils me font acheter mes sentiments d'une usine, elles sont illégales en moi quand elles sont sans limitations.

I only had my body left, I only have that, I only have my soul. Not bad to have only my dreams because they are my gift. The doctors say that I have a chemical imbalance but I know very well that it is a lack of justice and a surplus of persistence, of fear, of sensitivity to the energies, of the eyes which see between dead ends, which makes me less calm and stable and who pushes me out of my body. The truth lies down in silence, it sleeps in a world without questions, and it suddenly wakes up all alone every year from a brief mental association - a sound, a nasty word, a political question, a date. But, undoubtedly, there are inverses. There are answers to prayers forgotten in beautiful times. There are contracts signed in soul without paper. There are entrances to risks with confidence. There are losses that I no longer want. There are incredible loves that take me to joy. There are gods and music and magic, in which I believe too much, they say. They make me buy my feelings from a factory, they are illegal in me when they are unrestricted.

[soulsailing]

A basis for delusions

So when I was going through manic psychosis, I felt that I was physically transforming due to the phsyical symptoms like sudden drastic weight loss, tremors, shaking, and feeling like i was being raped by a ghost or that my vagina was turning inside out. I thought maybe I’m becoming involuntarily transgender because my family is cursed and that my transgender cousin was taken by the same aliens that are taking me to mutilate me and take me to Mars. Because my name is Caroline and I’m “down to Mars,” according to Outkast anyway.

But the whole time for weeks I thought that my concerned and stressed friends and the voices in my head at the height of psychosis were trying to pass me through the veil into the next world where my body was being created. I thought that the twitching in my eyebrows and all over my body were these spirits trying to trace over my form to recreate it in the next realm. I thought my friends were stressed that I would move and mess up something and that I’d be missing an essential organ or that my hands and face would be jacked up. They told me why don’t I write or draw to ease my racing thoughts, but when I opened my notebook I found decade old math equations and drawings of my own body parts. I thought that my friend was offering to do my make up and help me take a bath so that she could trace my features and send the info on to the other side / aliens. I thought that the “angels are aliens” and that it was like the rapture, we’d all be moving on soon because of covid and global warming but instead of passing on we’d be moving to Andromeda. I thought that I was always being asked questions to gather information and prepare my next form.

But the thing is when I was in Paris after being attacked I remember wanting a new body. I thought about going to a “body shop” but realized in English that’s a car shop. I can’t get a new human vehicle in this world. So 8 years later, this is how my brain processed those ideas. Delusions do have a basis in reality, just one that you’ve experienced alone.

[soulsailing]

Fuck mental healthcare.

When I was taken to the hospital, I asked for an alternative healer. I wanted to recover without medication. I have not been off medication since. I have no idea what I’m like. Western medicine is not holistic and is destructive. How can you detox from trauma?

[soulsailing]

I don’t care how hard it is.

I don’t care how hard it is to manage without prescriptions. I want to try. This isn’t the help I wanted. I would have gotten better faster without it. I’ve gotten through hard things alone before.

[soulsailing]

I deserve to suffer, apparently.

If someone has chronic bronchitis, no one forces them on cough medicine even if they can't work full-time because of it for months. Cough syrup suppresses cough and wouldn't cure the fact that I was living in a rat-infested apartment because that's all I could afford as a grad student.

Now, I have bipolar, and I can't safely get off the meds I was forced on. I could have been helped getting to sleep like I asked instead of being got out of bed to go to the ER by colleagues who never even had a real conversation with me in my life. Apparently I’m supposed to be grateful because I “couldn’t function” at work for a few weeks. Oh no, never that. How dare I need a break during a pandemic.

My life is a hell because of what I went through in the hospitals. I am constantly conflicted. I have gained 10lbs from seroquel and have skin rash from Lamictal. But that’s ok, because I’m such a burden, I deserve to suffer.

I have hate and rage for how I was treated. You can't medicate my pain. You cannot. I will always feel it. I will always have my instincts which tell me to run as far away as I can from this so called "mental health professionals." I've felt better talking to men at bus stops than I did to anyone trained in psychology.

[soulsailing]

I want my body back.

[soulsailing]

Vein Rape

Who really gives a fuck about feeling happy on psychiatric drugs? They don’t make me “feel better,” they just help prevent me having a crisis. Which honestly, I think surviving sexual assaults is a perfectly fine reason to have a crisis and need help from human beings but apparently none of them are capable of helping. So here I am, poisoning myself because thats’ the best care I can get in this society.

Every pill I swallow is destroying my body slowly. Oh sure, I might have made some progress in my career or blah blah blah. I want my body back. I want my bodily autonomy. If I wanted drugs to heal, I would have asked for them.

Vein rape. Brain rape. And I can’t get off of it without consent of the rapist.

And the worst thing is I have no idea who in my life I can go to who doesn’t think I deserve this. Who actually believes in me more than in the doctors. I just feel so hopeless and I’m supposed to put my faith in pills more than my own ability to heal. All of these people just want to control me.

[soulsailing]

Flashbacks to hospital assault

Remember people holding onto each limb in the air and injecting me with drugs in the mental hospital. Pinning my arms behind my back to the ground and spreading my legs and injecting drugs into my thigh. Blacking out. Happening all over again. Declaring me “not a threat” at 60lbs and unaware of my location because I kicked one of the men on my feet in the balls.

Feel like I’m a criminal for needing help. Fuck me if I ever need help again. Apparently I deserve to be hit when I’m down by the “mental healthcare professionals.”

And worst of all people think I’m “so brave for getting help” when actually I didn’t get help, I got hurt, and I really wish they believed in themselves as valid helpers when I’m not ok, so that I could feel fucking safe in this world.

[soulsailing]

My pain’s not in my veins...

Anyone else feel that no one has ever been there for you at your lowest? I don’t know how or why I need to be treated for an illness that is mostly my emotions or my subconscious responses to trauma. No one was there for me then or now. My emotions are valid and real, and I don’t need a drug to heal. I don’t “feel better.” I feel worse after getting help. I was abused and apparently I deserve to be hit when I’m down, and medicated into functioning in a world that doesn’t give a shit about me.

[soulsailing]

Psychotic Prayers

An alarm for when you are loosing to something in your brain, when the poles are pulling apart. My own rosary.

I had a prayer for when the icicle dripping up from the north pole to mars became too thin. I thought that the ice dripped over a rope of my roommate’s braid. I though that fairy tales were in her braids, because she was a fairy tale writer. I thought the fairies might live in these long braids and would drip into my mind’s meadows. A darkness that sews the divine, the mortal, and everything twisted in between to either blue or green.

My Lithuanian teacher’s friend Agnes lives in Estonia, close enough to the top of the world. I thought if I prayed to Aunt Agnes she could help me. I prayed for ice packs, ice facts, ice vax... to ice over the slitting world, to find out the facts about the children imprisoned on the boarded as I was imprisoned myself, and the covid vaccine.. I feared that I had been tested for the vaccine by aliens when I was sexually violated in the hospital in Jiujiang, about 5 hrs from Wuhan the same week the pandemic hit, this week 7 years ago. 

I also sputtered out the pen name of my Icelandic friend, flörbláur már (might have spelled it wrong. It means purple blackbird and I imagined that he was a beautiful glowing purple butterfly fluttering down from the Arctic to help me. He is a person who sends love to me.

I also listened to a lot of Dance Gavin Dance in the pandemic and love the song Chocolate Jackelope, so I’d think of my boss’s taxedemied Jackelope in the office and think, jacke-nope... and then, hope, it was like taking a detour in my mind’s highway.

Anyway, that’s all for tonight. This is why I believed when I learned I’m bipolar. Studying the slavery in the Arctic by the Soviets during George Floyd’s death and aftermath was really unsettling to know how much slavery affected this planet in time and space. Also seeing the world come together in outrage over attacking an innocent man at his chest made me realize that the attacks I survived alone were unacceptable too, but that I never trust anyone enough to be open about my pain. It also seemed that my pain was being addressed on a global scale, which led to the grandiose sensibility. 

The only person who ever dried a tear of mine is named Joshua. He arrived in my life over and over again on the NYC streets and at shows, and I walked into him hugging people in the Lower East Side when I prayed for help. He’s the reason I know how love and healing feels. And I thought he was a real angel in psychosis. I prayed to him. and in the first hospital, when I met the first person outside of my room, he said his name was Joshua and I jumped into his arms thinking that it was Josh’s spirit in an older man’s body on our way to heaven. and the man said in reply to my words, that I “let a lot of people into heaven,” with the words I said. He went on to sexually harass me. He wanted to train me to be an exotic dancer. The vulnerability in his eyes turned quickly to a haughty and evil gaze. Well, those were terrifying days. Where were the so-called mental healthcare professionals when I was in their “care?” 

[soulsailing]

Kraujos istorija / Blood Story

Čia yra mano feministės dienoraṧtis. Aš prisimenu kai keliavau Kinijoje, prie Lí Upės. Kadangi mano studentai tikrino egzaminus, atostogavau į kalnus, tik aš. Visas kitas anglu kalbos mokytojas mieste turėjo darbą kaip kasdien, bet aš buvau laisva, todėl aš nenorėčiau būti namie. Tebebuvau Kinijoje, todėl norėčiau žiūrėti daugiau. Vieną vakarą, kada keliavau Europoje, mielas vyras autobuse sakė kad man reikia važiuoti į Guilin kalnus, jeigu aš būčiau kada nors Kinijoje, nes jie yra gražiausia ir įdomiausia kalnai pasaulyje. Aš prisimenu, kad keliavau su traukiniu iš Jiujiang į Guilin per septynioliką valandas! Kaip ilgai! Radau valtį kelionę ir susitikau jauną moterį. Vakare, radau bendrabučius ir po to, radau lovą. Tikrai, lova ir valtis yra viena žodis kinų kalboje - įdomu! Kadangi miegovau su žmonėmis, susitikau jaunus kinus žmones. Mes buvome apie dešimt. Kalbėjome angliškai ir kiniškai, sakome kad mes norėtume ateiti į miestą rytą, per visus dvylikas mylias!

Rytą, pusryčiaujome kartu ir aš prasidėjau su dvi jaunais vyrais. Gatvėje, žiūrėjau į gražų vabaliukų, kaip aš niekada nežiūrėjau pasaulyje! Kokios spalvos! Klausėmės upę, žiūrėjome į aukštų ir apvalų kalnus. Ėjome per upę ir prieš mažus kaimus. Vakare, upė tekėjo greičiau negu diena. Mes negalėjome keliauti per upę, nei būti mieste naktį. Mums reikėjo miegoti kaime, lauke pagal lietų ir mėnulio. Miegojome lauke mokykloje. Nebuvo restoranu kaime, todėl mes ėjome pas seną moterį ir mes davome jai pinigų. Ji virė didelę puodą sriubos. Mokykloje, per naktį, man reikėjo tualeto, bet radau tris didelių ir baugus vabalas! Radau akmens, ir po to radau kraują. Nežinojau, apie tris minutes, iš kur kraujos atėjo. Kai žiūrėjau į mėnulį, žinojau, kad buvo tik aš, nei vyrai, nei gyvūnai su žaizdais, bet moteris sveika, rami, laisva! Aš prisimenu visas senas svarbas istorijas knyguose apie didelius karus pasaulyje, apie svarbus ir stiprus vyrus, bet aš buvau panaši, ir ramesnis ir laimingesnis pamėnulyje! Laimėti yra turėti šypsotį naktyje, kada nežmonės negali nežiurėti, ir būti negėda. Rytą, žinojau, kad vaikai žiūrės į kraują ir manės apie drakonų, ir žmonės tikrai nežino sveikatos ir istorijos moterų.

Here is my feminist blog. I remember traveling in China, by the Lí River. Because my students checked the exams, I was on vacation in the mountains, just me. Every other English teacher in town had a job like every day, but I was free so I wouldn’t want to be home. I was still in China, so I would love to see more. One evening when I was traveling in Europe, a cute man on the bus said I would need to ride to the Guilin Mountains if I were ever in China because they are the most beautiful and interesting mountains in the world. I remember traveling by train from Jiujiang to Guilin in seventeen hours! How long! I found a boat trip and met a young woman. In the evening, I found dorms and after that, found a bed. Sure, bed and boat are one word in Chinese - interesting! Because I slept with people, I met young Chinese people. We were about ten. We spoke English and Chinese, we say we would like to come to town in the morning, all twelve miles!

In the morning, we had breakfast together and I started with two young men. On the street, I looked at beautiful beetles like I had never looked at in the world! What color! We listened to the river, looked at the high and round mountains. We walked across the river and in front of small villages. In the evening, the river flowed faster than the day. We couldn’t travel across the river or be in town at night. We needed to sleep in the countryside, outdoors under the rain and the moon. We slept outside at school. There was no restaurant in the village, so we went to the old woman and we gave her the money. She cooked a large pot of soup. At school, overnight, I needed a toilet, but I found three large and scary beetles! I found a stone, and then I found blood. I didn’t know for about three minutes where the blood came from. When I looked at the moon, I knew it was just me, neither men nor animals with wounds, but the woman was healthy, calm, free! I remember all the old important stories in books about the big wars in the world, about important and strong men, but I was similar, and calmer and happier on the hill! Winning is to have a smile at night when people can’t ignore it and not be ashamed. In the morning, I knew the kids would look at the blood and think about the dragons, and people really don’t know the health and history of women.

[soulsailing]

Sexual harassment in confinement

Has anyone else been sexually harassed in a mental hospital? Spent over a week with a man who kept asking for lap dances and to take me home to train me as his exotic dancer in his basement. The staff wrote in their notes that I am “scared of men.” They said if I can’t handle one man I can stay in a room with 15 men, some who are violent offenders. I spent the whole time cowering and had to be hid in under a desk because of rape threats. No way was I going to recover in that place.

Before I met that man I would wake up to my body struggling in the air with someone on each limb, injecting drugs into my thigh and passing out, over and over again. I had no one to talk to. At intake I asked to talk with a doctor but they wouldn’t let me. I had no idea I had a mental illness. I knew I had a physical illness and might be dying because I couldn’t stop shaking. I thought I might have been sold to black market hospital to be organ harvested. I was never informed that I could make a phone call and my family had no way of calling me. I’ve never felt that my mind or body mattered less than in getting mental healthcare. 

[soulsailing]

Why I didn’t get help sooner

trigger warning for sexual assault

When I moved to Paris in 2012, I was having a hard time getting adjusted. I couldn’t call my parents because they didn’t have internet. But I called my childhood friend and she told me to stop being so scared to talk to the guys in the streets who’d approach me. I was nervous that my accents would reveal how vulnerable I was. I knew no one. School didn’t start for a week. I hadn’t spoken to anyone for a week. I went to the dorm kitchen to make my first real meal. I could feel a cold coming on. I decided to make a nice vegetable soup, because I was a vegetarian. I started talking to a man from Magreb in French. It was my first French conversation outside of a classroom. He invited me to have tea while our food simmered. He locked the door behind me. I asked him to open it, and he did. I became uncomfortable and went back to check my soup. He was talking fast and I kept saying “uh huh” but I didn’t catch it all. I was not really interested. Suddenly he touched my hair, and said in English, “You are a very beautiful woman.” I was wearing sweats and a turtleneck sweater. I said thanks and piled dishes and knives onto the cutting board, the board onto the boiling pot, and left the room to eat alone. I wanted to eat in the kitchen, but not after that. I was walking away when I saw him exit. He was quite far away. Then I heard him running. He grabbed me from behind and squeezed my boobs and kept groping me while laughing. I was frozen and couldn’t defend myself without dropping boiling soup and knives on my shoe-less feet. I stood in disbelief and said, “excuse me” in the meekest way imaginable trying to sound angry when in fact I was terrified. I opened my door, put my food down, and climbed into the corner of the bed. 

I sat there for hours. I didn’t look at anything or listen to music because I didn’t want to feel. I was numb. I did not cry. I did not move. The curtains were orange, the windows had bars, the room was small like a jail cell.. No one in all of Europe knew me. No one from home asked about me. I didn’t know what to say or who to call. No one at home could help me on another continent. No one at home knew how to survive in France. My parents would always say that I am too smart to be assaulted. I felt stupid. I realized that telling my family might make them encourage me to come home, but I wanted to start my life as a traveler. And I had a $10,000 scholarship to study as part of my own school abroad, Columbia University. I was the first in my family to go to college, and this was the only college I applied to. I had no other options. If I quit school in Paris, it would be the same as dropping out. I thought of going to the police or hospital, but I just had bruises. I didn’t want to speak French about it. I heard stories of women not being believed in France because groping might not seem like a crime there.

I tried to imagine myself out of my body. I thought to myself that if I had a male body, this would never have happened to me. I thought that I would like to be alive, but in a new body, one that looks the same but doesn’t hurt. I thought of going to a body shop, but realized that body shops are things for cars, not humans. I didn’t know but those dark days were my first days as bipolar. Hardly could sleep or eat until school started. Didn’t have anyone to talk to. And when I went out one day, I saw the man laughing with the security guards, and I felt hopeless that I could go to anyone. I told myself, pretend it didn’t happen and keep going. I realized that he wanted me to feel unsafe in school. I realized that not being in school or in France because of this would be letting him win. I continued in spite of the attack. Last year I had manic bipolar I psychosis. I feared I was turning into a man and also that a new body was being created for me. I know these concerns stemmed from that event.

[soulsailing]

Entering Ireland

I remember the first day I entered Ireland. It was about 9 years ago last week. I flew with a friend and a friend of a friend from Paris to Dublin. I was approaching the passport check when I noticed the signs. In huge letters, arranged in ways I’d never seen before, in any language. It was nothing like French, Spanish, German, English.. any language nearby. i mBaile Átha Cliath. I had no idea how the m could stand like that in front of the B. And I realized I had no idea what kind of place I was entering. It was not some mere neighbor of England, there was something powerful underneath and up above the signs. So I asked myself in wonder and a bit of fear, “What kind of place is this?” I didn’t expect an answer, but inside my mind came a thunderous reply, “This is your last place.” “Uh,...” “You’ll go no further.” “In...in this life?” Like a review of the message, it continued. “In this life, you will go no further. This is your last place.” And like a phone in my head it hung up, and my friends beckoned to me, “Are you coming?” I looked ahead and ran up to the gate, my first step in a lifelong adventure.

The passport checker asked what I was doing. “I’m here for vacation.” “To Ireland, in February? You’re mad!” And that’s how I entered Dublin and started off to a fun night. Compared to my companions I was fearless. I walked up to the Ukranian man with a badge of the hostel who asked us to follow him down an alley. An old man told us to keep our wits about us, but we told him we’re from NYC and Paris and he said not to worry! My friends said they felt weird about following the man. I had already been assaulted in Paris and survived about a month ago and felt that nothing could phase me. We went into a pub to talk about it, and the waitress assured us that she’d help us find a safe place for the night, even her own place if we needed it. Eventually though I convinced my friends to just go down the creepy road to the hostel we booked. And that was the first of my many magical nights in Dublin, and now half of my dreams are in Irish.

[soulsailing]

My travel diary, 8 years late with trigger warnings

Trigger warning for sexual assault and exploitation

I want to unpack what I experienced as a first time teacher.

In spring 2014, I taught in Jiujiang, Jiangxi, China at Jiangxi Jiugiang Jinan school. My boss, James Ja, touched sexual images of me with other men in the hospital in front of me for an “extra medical exam” prior to my first day of teaching. He said, “It’s beautiful what machines can show us,” and caressed images of my naked chest. I feared for my life as he was the only person who spoke English and I was locked in a dark medical room with him and four other men. It was also terrifying that this happened in the hospital, a place where one would go in emergencies. He then asked me to follow him to a van. I felt my legs turn to jello. I looked down the alley and saw a gray, dead body. I felt the instinct to run, but realized that I will die if I run. I had already gone days without food due to the long train travel and no food. I feared for the two hour ride that I had been human trafficked, until he led me back to my room that I had left my belongings in.

I realized that I had no escape from James. I had been planning to start my travel journal and tumblr blog that night about starting my time in China. Instead, in terror and tears, I realized I can’t contact any loved ones, or anyone. I fumbled for on my internet-less source of music, and listened to my favorite band I See Stars, who were my age and inspired by my first favorite band, Chiodos. Even if I could contact my family, I didn’t know what to say. I was ashamed and felt I’d be blamed. I realized that my family don’t have the compassion to embrace me at the level I’ve been hurt at. I realized with friends I won’t feel better either. I realized I’ll never feel better, but as I listened to the music I realized that I felt better right there, when I let the music envelop me. I prayed that I live long enough to see them live again, as they often toured and put on the best shows. It took every drop of strength in me to show up to work the next morning to teach my first class in my life, to start my first real job.

James kept my medical, employment, visa records and even my original diploma with him. His eyes were glazed over with cataracts, his voice slow and emotionless. My contract stated that I would live in the Foreign Experts Building, so I was shocked to find myself alone in an apartment building. It also promised a bicycle and view of mountains, which was not the case either. I had no access to the internet or international phone calls for weeks. 

After teaching for several days and adjusting to finding food, I made a phone call to my CIEE host in Shanghi to report the incident and request being relocated to a different school. My request was denied, and I was told that I misunderstood the incident due to culture shock. Having survived a previous sexual assault overseas, I was well aware that what he did was wrong, and that I was trapped. I could not break my contract unless I paid $10,000, and there were videos of me signing the contract. I slept with my passport and money under my pillow every night, and listened to I See Stars each morning and night, along with other bands, because I had nothing else to come home to.

The apartment was for a whole family, but it was just me. The living room floor was scattered with papers dating back to the 1980s and 90s, under a broken TV and lamp. There were two papers in my bedroom written by the last teacher, which would have been encouraging if they matched my reality. One paper stated that James was such a kind man and wonderful to work with, would take care of me. I knew this wasn’t true for me. I blamed myself for him treating me in a sexualized way, and simultaneously I didn’t trust the writer. The other note stated the name of an English teacher at “Number 1 Middle School” with a phone number. When I finally felt a routine developing with teaching three weeks in, I found the courage to call the number. That was the first time I talked with Fran Wan, who became my best friend and survivor mate, even though she lived 2 hrs away, 1 hour by foot, she was my closest English speaking contact.

I prayed so often listening to music, and two years later I met them the night I moved to NYC and the guitarist asked me to write him letters. That was the first time I opened up about this, and the only reason that I felt that the universe was there for me when I prayed alone in the dark. The last show I saw live before the pandemic was theirs and it was called the Light in the Darkness tour. And well, last year, I tried to confront my trauma head on and make sense of it, but this led me into manic psychosis, and I was once again sexually harassed and abused in a hospital and feared for my life for weeks, trapped in mental institutions without access to a phone or internet. I see that I’m in a trauma cycle, and I’m looking for the deeper message, and trying to find strength in sharing my story, which I rarely do.