Vacation, Stress, PTSD

Vacation! That one time of year where we can relax, unwind, not think about work, responsibilities, the office atmospheres and take a break. In theory, that's how it works. In reality, the hyper vigilance does not shut down. The nightmares do not stop. The tremors and muscle jerks continue along with the insomnia, nausea and feeling you are in the wrong body or the wrong mind. Unfortunately for PTSD survivors (and I hate that word also). We are not surviving, we are enduring, at the mercy of our flight and fight system and at mercy from a brain that will not hang onto memories long enough to process, but tortures us on a daily basis with flashes and glimpses of what was, and what could be again.

For me, it is the exhaustion. The every day battle that common people never face. I get up in the morning and I am exhausted, not rested, not thrilled to have to get out of bed at 0500 hours to face another day. I hurt. Every single muscle hurts. The shoulders, neck and back are the worst and my legs feel as if I am walking through jello. So where most people feel refreshed, I haven't slept, or had nightmares or woke up crying. Shower, have coffee and run out the door. Go to work where I will put in a 9 to 10 hour day dealing with interruptions, inter office politics, and office bullies. But on the positive side are the clients, my staff and a few decent people that talk me off the ledge every once in a while.

I do not handle stupidity well, or bullies, or laziness and nothing raises my hackles more than someone who can complete a job for a client, but chooses not to. So I breathe. Count to ten. Kill them in my mind and let it go.

Dependent upon the day, I come home, feed the dogs, hang out with them for an hour, eat dinner and watch some TV with la spouse. Other days, I go straight to bed. Last weekend I went to bed Friday night and would up Monday morning.

Now it is vacations. No schedules. I plan on writing....a lot. And so far have managed to pull off what I have promised. Yesterday was a great day. Wrote in the morning, shopped in the afternoon and then entertained 6 friends and laughed, told stories and generally had a pleasant day.

Watched a movie, read a little bit and went to bed. And laid awake until 0500 hours. My mind would not shut down. I would read, nod off and think great, but no. Ten minutes later I am staring at the ceiling again. I tend to get a lot of books read this way, but unfortunately the headaches and fog I am left with means that today will be way less productive. I may get in 2000 words of a novel I am working on, or I may crash the rest of the day.

I eat well, I exercise, I quit drinking coffee before 1000, but regardless my brain has a mind of it's own. After the brain surgery, I did not sleep for five months. I cat napped, but that was it. I thought I would lose my mind. I have never recovered from that state, and I don't think I ever will.

We lost a person to PTSD two weekends ago. For him seeing the incedent that wouldn't leave his mind, was the last thing he could endure. Five years later, no longer being able to deal with the pain, physical and mental, he succeeded in killing himself.  This is the path for some PTSD survivors.

A month before that, we lost three police officers to a psychopath with a shotgun. Three good men, who were loved, had families and had a vision of leaving the world a better place.

Triggers all around. And now, here in Gimli, the most serene place in the world, I write horrific things. I write about demons and human nature and the evil that men and women, do. Because it helps me keep my own demons in check. And because I know that whatever I write, the truth is always a million times worse.

Now, if I could just sleep like a normal person..........

You're So Vain, You Probably Think This Post is About You

Here is a hypothetical situation: You have a meeting with a co-worker and they want to know why you aren't doing all their paperwork required for their project. You tell them it wasn't your position to do so as you do not have all the information; they do.

The meeting goes quickly downhill from there. You hold your ground. You are blunt and point out some facts. They back pedal and tell you about client service.  You know they do not really care about client service after witnessing less than stellar incidents first hand, but then you realise if they consider themselves the only client, then they are bang on. It is all about client service; them being the client and all about their service that is owed to them.

So how do you deal with a co-worker that refuses to do their part of the work, when everyone else is? How do you deal with someone who prefers that all paperwork be done by the clerical staff, even though it is their responsibility? How do you deal with someone who refuses to sign anything lest they be held accountable and responsible? How do you deal with someone who will underhandedly, insight workplace bad morale by rumour mongering and giving out false information?

I know all workplaces have someone like this. And I know all workplaces have a large turnover in staff because of things like this.


Snakes In Suits Robert D. Hare: Many (psychopaths) come across as having excellent oral communication skills. In many cases, these skills are more apparent than real because of their readiness to jump right into a conversation without the social inhibitions that hamper most people. They make use of the fact that for many people the content of the message is less important than the way it is delivered. A confident, aggressive delivery style, often larded with jargon, cliches and flowery phrases, makes up for lack of substance and sincerity in their interactions with others.


I see this all the time; the one trick pony that uses the same excuses and lauds the same argument as to why deadlines are not being met, why work is not completed, why the basic effort is not happening, yet at the same time espouses a team player attitude.

And the clincher is, people fall for it, over and over, and over again. I have seen grown, intelligent men fall all over themselves thinking that this time, Lucy Van Pelt will not take away the football, only to see them land on their assets....again.

It is shameful, disturbing, and it makes my blood boil. The only way to handle someone like this is to confront them in a group, document everything that happens, and cover your backside. Follow HR rules. Get rid of these people that create poisonous workplace environments and deal with it.

Sitting back and saying nothing does not work.

Celebrating Women Horror Writers Challenge Results

So how many took the challenge and read the last six pieces to see which ones were written by women? We had lots of discussion in Kindle Horror Books and on various pages; heard some mention they were all written by 'chicks'; others said they honestly could not tell. But, what I found most interesting is no one jumped in with both fangs and said 'Hey, I think this one is a women because XYZ and this one is a male because of 123'.

I did have one person question whether the pieces were written for the article, which I thought was a damn good question. No they weren't. These were all existing pieces of work. Otherwise we (I) could have skewed the results.

I find that interesting. I posted this article on my wall in FB, on Google +, others shared it on their walls and groups and ......nada.......

Why? Too afraid to take a guess and be wrong? Not interested? Have no opinion? I certainly heard a lot of opinions as to why women could not write horror. Nothing scientific, no empirical data, nothing concrete or anything that said women cannot write horror because they ______  (fill in the blank). But a lot of spouting off to say men were better. And I find that odd.

More men than women write horror, absolutely. More men also fail miserably at it than women. I read well over 300 books a year, all horror. Most are male authors, and most books lack several things:

1. Editing: most of the time I will grit my teeth and highlight the errors in a book. If I feel generous, I will contact the author and tell him of his mistakes. Most of the time it is appreciated. Sometimes it isn't. And then I wonder, if you go to all that trouble to write, to conceive a baby of little black and white words, marks and squiggles on the page, to lose sleep over plot, theme, idea, journey, etc and then throw that child into the market without being properly dressed, what the hell were you thinking? I have heard male authors say 'I know this isn't edited, but here it is and please pay me $2.99 for it'. Arrogance? Laziness? Ineptitude? Or do they simply think their work is strong enough to go out without editing?
2. A consistent, or varying pace: it's either all action and plot with no down time, or it is one grand soliloquy after another. Just the other day I read a piece and I think I must have skimmed more than three quarters of it because I was bored to tears.
3. No likeable characters: there is no one to root for; no one to cheer on. No one to feel sad about if they get killed. Yes jerks exist. I get it. Bad neighbourhoods exist. People of both genders being assholes exist. But if I lived in a world like that, I would seriously have to hide the sharp objects. There is not one person who is completely evil. Not one person who has no redeeming qualities or character or something that can make a reader want something better for that person. Can you imagine if Ira Levin wrote Rosemary's Baby and she was a whining, cursing, nagging, shrew of a harpy who smoked, ate with her mouth hanging open and and scratched her private parts in public. The novel would have gone nowhere. Now, bad people in books can be completely evil, absolutely, but your main character better have something going for them or you lose the reader.
4. Making the female characters too weak: biggest pet peeve of the movie The Shining was Shelley Duvall's character taken from being a strong female who had a mind of her own, to a screaming, flailing, simpering mess of a one dimensional character. The screaming, the flailing, oh wait in this scene you flail, and then scream. Really? Yes writing is difficult, and writing another gender even more so, but while the end of the world is crashing down around your ears, your last thought, as a female, as you are being chased by vampires through a New York subway system, is not to stop running and have sex. Sorry. Plot Hole. Ginormous plot hole. Or if a woman has just given birth and  then is invited to spend the weekend on a secluded, un-escapable cannibal island, I am positive she would say no.  But apparently one male author thought this was plausible.Then there was the police officer who was in uniform while her long, blonde cascading hair fell down her back. Again. Nope, ain't gonna happen. 

The other thing that happened was a lot of posts bashing Women in Horror Month. Bashing the logo, bashing women, bashing women writers. Just a whole lot of angry comments, and again, I found that.....typical.

I work in a male dominated field, and in a male dominated sub field. I hear it. The snide comments. The off hand remarks. The 'oh we were only joking' put downs. And I think to myself, we really have not evolved all that far as a species here in North America.

I raised my kids to be people, not gender specific roles. I taught them respect for one another and instilled in them a need to question. If someone tells you, you cannot do this because of your gender, ask them why. My boys played with Barbies, and no, they are not gay. My daughter was the first girl in Manitoba to join the Boy Scouts because she hated what the Girl Guides did. And my kids are very well adjusted, normal, kind, loving adults.

So what started out as a simple question grew into so much more.......and by the way, entries 1,2 and 4 were women writers.