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I had really been dreading this morning’s appointment with the psychologist who I had originally contacted via an insurance company referral to diagnose my mental health condition. On my first and only previous visit, the conversation around my future care seemed to take a turn away from the diagnostic agenda I had and more toward…
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My first appointment with my new potential diagnostician ended up being more disappointing than I had anticipated, but this is always the case. Prior to my first visit with a new person, I always fantasize beforehand about how the appointment will transpire. I imagine a noticeable connection that will bud into a deep understanding of…
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Life at 54 and crazy is like driving at night with a dirty windshield, one headlight, and your horn beeping intermittently when you’re at your worst. This condition is so fucking embarrassing. Running around, head still fucked like I’m in my 20s, but way too old to still be behaving like I do. I really…
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When I find myself in my most troubled times, it is difficult to see any solutions that are not final. I navigate through swirling storms of briefly visualized scenarios, the debris from their destruction flying past me, always threatening me with the dream of demise, but never granting it, though my will strains epically against…
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For a person to be unafraid and to stand for what he believes, he must know what it is he believes and having a structured framework from which to operate makes remembering your values much easier. I don’t need rules or threats to keep myself in line. I already know what I think is right…
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Envision who you want to be and exercise the characteristics you associate with that person. What you do consistently becomes habit, which becomes second nature and eventually, it’s just what you do. After defeating my father, I felt very strong, like no one could ever dominate me again, but in the background, a low, grumbling…
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We all have a collection. Every one of us, be we sane or deranged, has a collection of things we do. We piece together our collections throughout our lives as we discover new things that work and old things that don’t anymore, fresh perspectives and new leases, illuminating ideas and black-as-night insights. As we collect,…
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Minutes drag on like weeks while I watch each boulder as it seems to fall for hours before finally crashing into the existing mound’s apex, each grain the impetus for another silent avalanche inside the glass borders of the tiny fourth dimension I keep on my nightstand so that I have something rational to look…
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I have never submitted by choice, nor will I ever. This obstinance has been both an extremely valuable, powerful survival and adaptation trait and, by default and absolute necessity, the source of my strict, steadfast, and involuntary adherence to an uncompromising personal code of ethics, and the greatest single, unceasing, never-yielding contributor to so many…
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When we communicate with others, it is very easy to assume that they understand what we are saying, exactly as we mean it, but the truth is that there is almost always a tremendous disparity between our intent and the message received. Even though every word in every language has a specific and, typically, unchanging…
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I have spent my entire life trying to mitigate the effects of this possession by rage, but there has never been any respite. I have destroyed or decimated every relationship I have had. Every attempt at therapy and recovery over the last thirty odd years has ended in failure and I have been pulling my…
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We are like batteries. We leave our houses and spend the day depleting our personal resources until we can’t anymore. Then we return home to recharge by having dinner, relaxing, and restoring our selves. My bedroom is like a charging station. I visualize it as a capsulized living quarter, in which I experience my journey…
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Having hope is hard. Sometimes, perhaps most times, hope is as insubstantial as the breeze for those lost souls who cannot find it. It beckons like truth, promising better, but delivering nothing but lies. In the face of abject hopelessness, which is the state of most of my days, I find that looking forward to…
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When I try to sleep, I hear spiders walking. They come armed with a poison that clouds my perception and blurs the distinctions between help and hate. They inject their venom into me and I wake with a vileness in my heart that cannot be quelled. Anger is a seething, burning presence that feels less…
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I love the night and the sensory underload that settles over my world when it is dark and cool and the good people are tucked away in their places. Like a blanket thrown over kids on a bed, the darkness slowly floats down over me as the evening’s activity gradually wanes to its apparent Nullpunktsenergie. …
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One of the greatest areas of strength in managing our recovery journeys lies in creating, cultivating, and effectively utilizing a robust support network. Unfortunately, the reality of including others in our recovery efforts includes limitations that don’t exist in the ideal visualization of those networks. The ideal version of recovery would likely include a therapist…
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Educational Abuse. The systemic brainwashing of America’s populace over the previous 250+ years has really come to light in recent memory. The profound impact that the realization of this fact is having on rational individuals is truly an existential catastrophe. We thought WE were good. We were taught WE are good. The US educational…
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I became me through a series of unfortunate events. Like so many others, my innocence was taken advantage of in many of the ways that a kid can be victimized. I have coined an “apronym” to describe, or categorize, the specific combination of abuse I suffered: S exual P hysical R eligious E motional E…
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I’ll give you the bad news first. I am no guru, sage, or wise man. I am just a guy. A guy who was a victim for a considerable portion of his childhood. I am a man who is a survivor. Survival. This is at the heart of all we are. It is our survival experience that shapes who…
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Retributory Onslaught does not have a crest or shield, a logo or a brand. Retributory Onslaught is simply what is already in you. It is your will to rise above the pain. It is your drive to be better than what shaped you. It is your promise to abandon the horrors you have known and…
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We are warriors. If you have made it this far, you are virtually indestructible, but why are you here? It’s probably because, like me, a heavy heart has been the greatest of your burdens for as long as you can remember. If so, let me be the first to welcome you to The Retributory Onslaught. …
the unfathomable misery of being 