Weekend

1. Went on hilly 12-mile bike ride -- first ride of the season!
2. Felt sick. Rested. Felt better.
3. Had ears irrigated at doctor's office (yay for wax-free ears!!)
4. Bought and wore a $10 bikini
5. Played with dogs at animal shelter
6. Read a kick-ass interview with Robert Wright
7. Watched The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, an old favorite
8. Listened to the thunder of a faraway fireworks show
9. Fed quarters into the hungry machine while T vacuumed his truck
10. Tended a healing sunburn
    

Still sick

This morning I woke up exhausted. I went to bed last night between eight and nine and still had a hard time getting up with my alarm at 7:30. I don't know if it's a lingering reaction to the chickpeas I ate (and was allergic to) on Tuesday, or anxiety about memories of the trial, or something else entirely. Figuring out why I'm constantly sick is just another guessing game.

Something was different this morning, though, because I got pretty upset about feeling under the weather and not knowing what I can do to help myself feel better. It reminded me of how I felt just after I was raped, in those first months, when my body was going in all kinds of directions it had never gone before. Unfamiliar, out of control, and helpless. This morning I had quite a good cry.

What was I thinking about while I cried? I was thinking about how difficult it is to keep being strong. I went back for the trial last year, alone. I had to be very, very strong. Three years ago I moved to a new town and needed to settle in, find a job, and make friends -- while coping with having just been raped. I was stuck in a soul-sucking relationship then, too, that after a year I was finally strong enough to leave. I have to be strong every time I go see a doctor or go to work. I feel like I'm constantly fielding neverending demands on my very limited reserve of energy.

Being strong is a habit. What choice did I have, growing up with a self-absorbed mother and an unavailable father? I learned to take care of myself the best way I could. I found a way to live without the things my child self desperately needed: parents to nurture me, to listen, to encourage, to make me feel loved. I was strong. I kept going.

Days like today I don't want to be strong. I want someone else to be strong for me.

When men have breasts

When men have breasts, women will bear the children and men will breastfeed them. Womenfolk will endure nine months of pregnancy, followed by the excruciating pains of labor, delivery, and postpartum recovery; the men will breastfeed their offspring for up to four years. When men have breasts, they will provide more than just half a child's genetic material. They will be responsible for nourishing their children once they have left the womb. Men will subject themselves to breast pumps, public feedings, sore nipples, and milk stains. Without the men, the children will not be fed. Without the women, the children could not be born. This strikes me as an equitable division of labor.

Dear FOX

I am a stalwart House, M.D. fan. I have seen every episode of Seasons One through Five. In fact, I've watched Seasons One through Three so many times I can recite lines along with the actors. House is my go-to show; it's what I watch when I need to unwind after a tough day. House is what I watch when I'm staying home, exhausted from an anxiety attack. I can't get enough of House.

It is in this spirit of sincere appreciation that I'm writing to suggest you consider a spin-off series: House, Dipl. Ac.

Imagine: Gregory House and his team work feverishly to diagnose and treat their patients using ACUPUNCTURE!! House and his team use phrases like "patterns of disharmony," "twelve primary channels," and "eight extraordinary pathways" instead of "bradycardia," "insulin-secreting tumor," or "immunoglobulin A deficiency." They wear baggy hemp pants and tie-dyed t-shirts instead of slacks and white lab coats; the opening credits scroll by to the dulcet tones of Yanni rather than Massive Attack. Of course, they'd have to trade in their MRIs and ultrasounds for a box of needles, and the writers should probably retool some of the characters -- for example, is House the acupuncturist addicted to vicodin? or stevia-sweetened yerba mate? -- but otherwise the premise would be the same. Medical practitioners saving lives while living theirs. Spellbinding. Dramatic. Sexy. A surefire hit.

Resources for survivors and supporters of survivors

• Aftershock: Confronting Trauma in a Violent World, a Guide for Activists and Their Allies by Pattrice Jones
• After Silence: Rape & My Journey Back by Nancy Venable Raine
• Thriving in the Wake of Trauma: A Multicultural Guide by Thelma Bryant-Davis
• Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Herman
• The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help by Jackson Katz
  

Celiac Disease interview with Peter Green

Peter Green, M.D. is the author of Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic and one of the world's foremost Celiac Disease researchers. Listen to his recent interview with the People's Pharmacy here.

Violence in Mauritania

An American national who has spent the past several years living and working in Nouakchott as an aid worker was murdered yesterday in a kidnapping attempt gone awry. (See here and here.) T told me about it over dinner last night, and after many bad dreams, I read some articles for myself this morning.

The news really shook me up. My first thought: that could have been me. I was abducted; I was threatened with death; I knew exactly how easy it would be for them to kill me and leave my body decomposing under the hot Saharan sun. I was reminded at every turn, "We're lucky this isn't a murder investigation."

Yeah, lucky. That's me. I was only abducted, beaten, threatened with a tire iron and a screwdriver, raped multiple times, and abandoned in the desert. I sure dodged a bullet there.

Other people have also talked about the bizarre use of the word 'lucky' around rape survivors. On to other topics.

Coverage of yesterday's murder seems to inevitably bring up the murder of four French tourists in 2007 (almost exactly in the same place I was raped, I might add). Conspicuously absent is any mention of the heinous sex crimes committed against foreign women over the past few years. Why is there silence? Are female victims not as important? Or is rape just not as serious as murder?

References to the US Embassy always elicit a sharp response in me, because I worked so closely with them during the trial, and have personal relationships with many of the people who undoubtedly are involved in the aftermath of this crime.

Then there's the horrible, horrible fact that an aid worker was targeted. A man who elected to live in a country and culture far removed from his own in order to help improve the opportunities afforded to local people. That, of all the foreigners living in Nouakchott, such a selfless, well-meaning individual was victimized. The same thing happened to me, and I am at a loss to understand it.

One bright spot in this tragedy, for me, is that I don't feel jealous of the man who was murdered. When news of a PCV murdered in Benin spread last March, I envied the finality her attackers afforded her. She didn't have to pick herself up and dust herself off after they left her. She didn't have to figure out how to live with trauma, with the knowledge that human beings could do something so awful to someone. It ended for her, right there. And I wished I was her. I wished the men who raped me had killed me when they finished, so I wouldn't have had to spend the past three years living with the pain.

But this murder makes me glad I lived. The criminal investigator who escorted me back for the trial said, facetiously, "When I investigate a murder we often don't have a good witness because the best witness is dead. The good thing about a rape case is that we have your eyewitness testimony to rely on." The trial last year was something of a farce, but regardless of the political and legal shenanigans, I confronted one of the men who attacked me. Traumatic though it was, I spoke publicly against his crime. That is something the aid worker from Nouakchott will never be able to do.

Thanks especially to ME and Ender for helping me process.