9/11

World Trade Center North Tower
haydenplanetarium.org

Hello Everyone:

From the photograph, you can probably guess what I'm going to talk about.  Today is the twelfth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.  It is also a reminder of a rather black period in my life that, despite my efforts to blot it out of my mind, it refuses to go away.  The summer of 2001 I was experiencing a very bad break with the verbally abusive ex.  You would think, "great finally getting away from such a horrible person," but when you're in an abusive relationship your whole thinking gets turned around.  You start to internalize all the verbal abuse and believe that this is who you are.  Disassociating yourself from is incredibly difficult from an emotional point of view.  You become so enmeshed with that person, you think "if I just keep my head down, don't argue, do as I'm told, it'll be good."  Once I got out of that relationship, it took a very long time to get rid of the victim mind-set.  I tried therapy but, truthfully, after my mom called the therapist to find out what was being said, it lost its taste.  To this day I still I have a difficult time trusting therapists and therapeutic situations.

Also during that black period, my dad passed away from a alcohol and smoking related heart attack.  My dad smoked and drank for years.  Yes, he was an addict that refused to get help.  He was arrested and served time in county jail for drunk driving and vehicular assault.  Why he drank and smoked I'll never know.  I suppose I don't want to know, at least not now.  It wouldn't do any good any way.  I can't encourage him to go to rehab an 12-step meetings.  In Al-Anon, a 12-step group for the families of alcoholics and addicts, they say you can't make a person get help, they have to want it.  He simply didn't want it.  They also tell you that an addict-alcoholic has to hit rock bottom before they ask for help, even if it means death.  Need I say more.  I found him slumped over on the sofa, ice cold.  The funeral was two-days later.  In the Jewish tradition, you bury the dead immediately out of respect to the soul.  Even the mourning experience was chaotic because the ex somehow got into his head that he was going to be arrested for my dad's "murder."  I felt completely overwhelmed by the whole experience.  To this day, I refuse to go to the cemetery on the anniversary of is death because it's just too painful.

Getting back to 9/11.  The moment of the first attack, I was in the gym working out.  I had just started my second semester of college and I was trying to adjust to my new living situation.  In the workout room, CNN was on the television and I saw flame and smoke shooting out of the towers.  My first thought was "Oh a high-rise fire."  Then as I was driving to school, I was listening to the local public broadcasting radio station and that's when the situation became clear.  I remember sitting in my French class that morning and watching all the police cars patrol outside.  Eventually, the entire campus shut down for the day and everyone was sent home.  I was watching the news and that's when I saw a familiar face on television.  It was a photograph of a former co-worker who was on one of the planes that hit the towers with his husband and daughter.  Sad things come in threes.  I think I reached my limit at that point.  The rest of that period remains a blur.

It's taken me years to recover and regain my sense of equilibrium.  Now that Yom Kippur is looming, perhaps it's a good time to renew my faith and trust in my higher power and put my life into his/her hands.  My higher power is a loving, good hearted one who looks out for me.  This is the type of higher power that I can feel comfortable talking to on a daily basis.  A higher period that will not let me fall into the black again.

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