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When I wrote my beyond-rave review of The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma , by Bessel van der Kolk, I purposely omitted some personal reaction and connections I had to the book. Here they are. Moving forward with my own healing On the list of physical issues that can result from trauma, fibromyalgia is one of the most common -- along with depression, anxiety, stomach issues, and chronic fatigue. I've long ignored the connection between my past experiences and fibromyalgia, but now I feel ready to take it on. After resisting this for years, I want to try EMDR , for its potential to reduce my fibromyalgia symptoms. When I made this decision, I thought it might be futile, as I assumed I wouldn't be able to find a practitioner. To my surprise, there are many, not far away! Not in our town or region, but in the closest more populous area. That's about three hours away, but doable. (Funny how a three-hour drive now seems like no big deal! It ...

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma is famous among trauma survivors and the professionals who treat them. I can say without hyperbole or exaggeration that it's one of the most fascinating and meaningful books I've ever read. The Body Keeps the Score is divided into two parts. The first part of the book examines the brain's and body's physical response to trauma. There are essentially two kinds of trauma: the sustained, multiple traumas of childhood abuse and neglect, and adult trauma from a specific event. Many people, of course, survive multiple traumas, as both children and adults. For me, this part of the book was absolutely revelatory. Bessel van der Kolk explains the neuroscience of trauma -- and the many scientific studies and clinical observations that have led to this understanding -- in clear, plain language, using lots of analogies and examples. I am not a fast reader, and I struggle with poor concentration from fibromya...

A few posts ago , I mentioned having a PTSD episode, and being open about it, in a group setting. That post seems to have resonated with a lot of people. In that same spirit, I'm sharing this. * * * * I attended a week-long labour education event, part of the CLC's Winter School. Many different courses take place at the same time, each five days long; you're with the same people all week. My group was seven people from my own local, plus three other locals from our union, about 20 people in total. Our classroom was a very supportive environment, full of compassion and support, plus a lot of humour and fun. Three days in, we finished our morning check-in, and the facilitator said: We're going to try something new. Find a partner, and one of you will be blindfolded. That's all I heard. At the word blindfold , my head started roaring. I thought, I'll just wait til she's finished, then I'll say something to the facilitator privately. But as the facilitator c...

"I find it really difficult to ask for help." I've heard many people say this. I don't know if I ever said this myself, but as a teen and then young adult, I definitely tried never to ask for help, and seldom would allow myself to accept any. When I needed help of any kind -- physical, financial, emotional -- I would feel uncomfortable and deeply indebted, for relatively small actions. In New York City, where, like millions of New Yorkers, I didn't own a car, if someone gave me a ride home, I would thank them profusely. Years later, living in Mississauga, I offered people rides home all the time, and realized it was not that big a deal. The same goes for being asked to stay for dinner, or being offered a cup of tea or a glass of wine in someone's home. A simple act of friendship or kindness, especially from someone I didn't know very well, seemed like Such A Big Deal. This is certainly one area where our world makes it more difficult for men. Asking for he...

January is a time for fresh starts and new beginnings. But our best intentions can come back to bite us. How many of us have made grand plans in January, only to see them disappear by February? Change is hard – and personal habits are the hardest to change of all. A trick that I've found helpful is to create "SMART" goals. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Action-Oriented, Realistic, and Timely. SMART goals are: Specific: What do you want to accomplish? "I want to eat healthier" is general and vague. That makes it difficult to achieve. "I want to eat more vegetables" is a bit better. "I will eat one serving of vegetables with dinner, three days per week" is even more specific – which makes it more achievable. Measurable: How will you measure your progress? Track your progress in a journal, on a spreadsheet, or find an app for your phone. Action-Oriented: What actions will you take to work towards your goal? What will y...

This holiday season, give a gift that entertains, educates, and informs – all for free. I am happy to announce – back by popular demand – another season of " Give Library ". Your favourite library branch has beautifully packaged library cards ready for you to pick up. Vancouver Island Regional Library (VIRL) cards are good at all 39 branches, from Sooke to Masset, from Tofino to Quadra Island. The card gives you access to millions of books, eBooks, audiobooks, streaming movies, digital music, video games, and magazines and newspapers from around the world. They make great stocking stuffers. Your library can help you with your holiday preparations in so many ways. Tired of the same old recipes? Wondering how to make Christmas dinner in your Instant Pot? Need a new gluten-free baking challenge? Cookbooks are among the most popular of all library materials. Looking for craft or design ideas? Your library has the best kept secret of the DIY and crafting world: the Hobbies and Cra...

I avoided the Kavanaugh hearings as long as I could. I used to take a special interest whenever survivors go public. I'd read everything I could, write letters to newspapers, speak out on social media. Send a note of support to the woman. Find the sisterhood, share the pain. This hurt, but it helped, too. I think most people who have publicly shared private pain will attest to that: it hurts and it helps. I'm unwilling to do so any longer, or at least I'm unwilling to do it right now. I avoided all of it. I put my head in the sand. But it found me anyway, as my entire Facebook feed filled with news stories, personal essays, memes, and outrage. I could have avoided Facebook, but that felt like punishing myself. I saved them all. I planned to do one long wmtc post with all the reaction. I found the time, but not the will. I started having PTSD symptoms again. Or I should say, I started remembering them, because apparently I have them a lot but I'm not aware of it. Really,...

First of all, I do not apologize. I have nothing to apologize for. No one should apologize for having an unpopular opinion, or an opinion that the majority finds offensive. Second, I said nothing disrespectful to veterans. My utter lack of respect -- my undying contempt -- is for rulers whose policies send humans into unnecessary armed conflict. Those rulers pay lip-service to "supporting" troops, while their policies ensure more humans will suffer from the effects of war. If you're joining us in progress, here's what you missed.  Before the election, I took all my personal social media offline. We knew that the opposition would dedicate vast resources to digging up or fabricating anything they could use against NDP candidates. For some reason, no one directed me to remove wmtc links from the Wayback Machine (i.e., internet archives). This proved to be a grave error. A right-wing political hack who masquerades as a journalist received excerpts from some old wmtc posts...

I recently attended the CUPE Ontario Library Workers Conference, which has become a highlight of my year since I first attended (and was elected to the organizing committee) in 2015. It has eclipsed and replaced the OLA Superconference as the most relevant and enjoyable must-attend conference in my schedule. When I first got my librarian degree, I was very excited about attending my first "OLA" (as it's always called). But I quickly learned that the sessions are a crap-shoot, sometimes relevant but often obvious and dull. There's also a great deal of boosterism by OLA and the member libraries. For the difference between the two conferences, for OLA, think employers and libraries , for CUPE Ontario, think  labour and library workers . In recent years, our Library Workers Conference has focused on precarious work and health and safety issues, two themes that are inextricably linked. This year's conference was called "Sex, Drugs & Bed Bugs," a light ...

I don't usually write about a book while I'm still under its spell, but there are always exceptions. John Green's Turtles All the Way Down  is an exceptional book. One reason Green's writing is so powerful is that he conjures both the specific and the universal at the same time. The Fault in Our Stars , for example, is about two teens who have cancer, and how they fall in love and have a relationship, even with the awareness of their own looming mortality. The Fault in Our Stars  is also about how we all love, even with the awareness of our own mortality always looming, be it far or near. We humans must love and be loved, and we must lose our loves, and they us. That is the paradox of homo sapiens sapiens , the animal who knows it knows.  TFIOS  is about nothing less than the human condition. Green masters both of these, at the same time, and wraps it in an accessible package that is easy to read, to understand, and to love. The specific lives are vibrant ...

As part of my continuing efforts to post here rather than -- or at least in addition to -- Facebook, here are some thoughts on the latest horrific massacre in the US, the country music festival in Las Vegas. First, the inevitability of recurrence. When hearing about mass shootings in the United States, the worst part -- the most tragic, the most outrageous part -- is the certainty of knowing that nothing will change. That it will happen again, and again, and again. A solution is known, of course. We won't end the culture of violence that permeates the US, but we can end access to large numbers of deadly weapons. The fact that the vice grip of a deadly special interest group outweighs the basic human rights of life and safety speaks volumes about the US political system. The congressmembers and senators who are bought and paid for by the NRA can never wash the blood off their hands. Second, the true body count. Allan and I were talking about what it might have been like to be there...

On April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, two teenagers from Littleton, Colorado, marched into Columbine High School with explosives and automatic weapons. Their plan to blow up the entire school failed -- only because their homemade bombs did not explode -- so they walked around the school shooting people. They killed 12 students and one teacher, wounded 24 others, and unleashed untold mental suffering on their entire community, before killing themselves. I very clearly remember hearing about this, and just as clearly remember thinking that the Klebold and Harris families had suffered the worst tragedy of all. What could be worse than your child dying in a school shooting? To me, the answer is all too obvious: knowing your child took the lives of other children. I remember, too, feeling so sad and discouraged when some Columbine parents refused to allow Klebold and Harris to be memorialized along with the other victims, insisting the memorials acknowledge 13 dead, not 15. When...

I recently had a very positive experience with anti-anxiety medication, and realized I should share it here. I've written many times about the wonders of modern medicine for treating depression and anxiety, and the life-changing, relationship-saving, and quite possibly life-saving effects of using the right medication. While these drugs may be sometimes prescribed unnecessarily, I believe they are under used -- that many more people could be helped by these meds, if their own biases didn't stand in the way, and if everyone had equal access to healthcare. My mega-wrap-up of my perspective is here: in defense of drugs: anti-depressant medication saves and improves lives . * * * * I've had a prescription for an as-needed anti-anxiety medication for many, many years. In the past, I used them very infrequently, less than once a month, and sometimes only a few times a year. Two years ago, I had a sharp uptick in anxiety, and realized I should be taking the meds more often. When ...

This is a run-don't-walk review. Fans of Bruce Springsteen: run to find a copy of The Boss' memoirs, Born to Run . This book was seven years in the making, and (like Chrissie Hynde's and Patti Smith's memoirs) written by the artist himself. It is by turns hilarious and heart-wrenching, poignant and gripping, and always profoundly insightful and a joy to read. Springsteen is an intellectual -- a man of great intelligence who, for better and worse, lives in his own head, analyzing and at times over-analyzing the world around him and his own reactions to it. Because of this, he brings a powerful self-awareness to his life story -- an ability to articulate where his art comes from, and how his personal pitfalls have affected the most important relationships in his life. Born to Run is also noteworthy for what it is not. It's not a tell-all or an exposé; readers looking for dirt will be disappointed. Springsteen protects his closest friends from exposure, and when it c...

The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is an outstanding book -- meticulously researched, but written in a compelling, accessible style, and with great humanity and compassion. Author David J. Morris unearths the social and cultural history of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the fourth most common psychiatric disorder in the US. He surveys the potential treatments. He explores the role of social justice in our understanding of PTSD. But above all, Morris confronts the meaning of trauma, in society and in his own life. Morris was a U.S. Marine stationed in Iraq. After narrowly escaping death, he returned home questioning everything he thought he knew -- and eventually having to face the reality of his own trauma. Morris' dual role as both researcher and subject give this book a unique power as history, social science, and personal essay. People have known for centuries, for millennia, that traumatic events produce after-effects, but different cultures ...