This is a story about irrational fear. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the label for it.

In 1995, my life changed drastically through an incident of big rocks being thrown through the front window of my apartment. My bed was in the other room. I did not realize at first what had happened. All of a sudden loud voices and noises caused me to be fearful. It wasn’t until later that the diagnosis came.

My friend Eric had warned me that he had grown a beard. At Logan Airport, returning from Oregon, his beard scared me. Actually it was an episode of terror.  It was hard to equate 20 years of friendship with this reaction.

There are many types of treatment. One treatment that I tried was Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is a rhythmic set of eye movements, which are thought to accelerate the processing of trauma. This was used in a Learning Connection Class with a trained professional. Although some in the class got relief from this, it did not seem to work for me.

Another treatment is Thought Field Therapy. It is about tapping certain areas of the body in a pattern.  It is like a sophisticated acupressure.  While in counseling, I was introduced to this. Trying this was not a problem, but believing in it was. It just seemed silly. The pressure points were different than acupressure. On the Internet you can find two versions of this technique. You often have flashbacks of the trauma event.

Thankfully, my case was different. The fear causes all kinds of bad reactions. It can lead to episodes of anger, depression and much more. Often it is impossible to deal with it.

There are many treatments, but my experience has led me to only 3. The 3rd treatment is called Trauma Relief Unlimited. This was created by Brown University.

In 2001 the Providence Journal published an article on this process. At the time a grant was providing it for free. Work prevented me from trying it. Many years later with little work and a few dollars, I tried it. After a complete session, the irrational fear was gone. No more jumping at bus brakes, horns, sudden noises, etc. The treatment is very simple. In fact, looking at what it entailed, I thought, you have got to be joking.

This is a left brain creative therapy. You draw specific areas with colored markers on a paper. Now you are asking how that could possibly help you.  It is because trauma imprints on the brain. The creative process erases the trauma from the brain. So you do an evaluation and then one or more treatments. It healed my trauma. Check out Trauma Relief Unlimited web site and see if you want to try it. The success rate is high, but no guarantees are given.

It used to be a good slice of the pie.  Do you remember the days of Pell, Pastore and John Chaffee? When the State budget was tight, all of a sudden federal funds were there. Today, it is a different story. Sometimes the city or business has to find it’s own answer to this problem.

Ripta is one example of this situation. Over the years the federal money would be there and then it would be eliminated. On October 4, 2010 Ripta introduced new hybrid buses and hybrid trolleys. They are powered by clean diesel hybrid electrical propulsion systems, that reduce emissions, save fuel, and are smoother and quieter than conventional buses or trolleys.

They run off gas and batteries. This not only reduces air pollution, but noise pollution as well, which improves the environment for Rhode Islanders.

The new trolleys were manufactured by Gillig bus in partnership with Cable Car Classics. The price tag was $696,959.50. Federal Transit Administration grants funded the base cost of the trolley, while the American Recovery & Investment Act covered the incremental cost of the hybrid Propulsion system.

A 20 percent local match was provided by State General Obligation Bonds. The buses were funded by various Federal Transit Administration Grants, Rhode Island Bonds and ARIA funds as stated above. Each bus costs $625,085. They found a good slice of the pie.

Pawtucket found a different approach to deal with the loss of federal funds. Pawtucket has a plan to redesign downtown.  This involves reconnecting historic turnpikes that lead in and out of the city and revamp roads to better accommodate bikes and pedestrians. It will have a mass transit hub on Exchange St.

A greener downtown, improved parking and modifying  zoning to encourage economic development should bring in more people. The original turnpike roads were designed when Pawtucket was a center of commerce and it provided a link to Providence, Boston, and New York.  Part of this work is a RI Department of Transporation project.

After a few phone calls Pawtucket Planning called me.  Barney Heath gave me the funding Information. $80,000 grant from Statewide Planning, $20,000 divided between the Pawtucket Foundation and city of Pawtucket Community Development Block Grant.

It all started when I was two –years old when my dad died. He was 37. Nightmares were a common occurrence for quite some time. At that time there wasn’t much awareness of depression. At nine-years old my brother Michael passed away.

While my mother was in a nursing home, the word depression entered my life. My whole family has depression. It is truly a world of sadness, to be depressed. To me it comes down to holding onto losses that were never grieved. The more I held onto the losses, the worse it got.

Therapy was not a topic that of discussion in my family. Family, feelings or depression were rarely talked about.

So I drank to relieve the reality of dealing with the loss. In 1986, I suffered a nervous breakdown because of wanting a relationship to work that never should have started. My counselor, Meredith, saved my life. Just about all issues were looked at. My thoughts led me to believe that the healing and work was enough.

After moving to Oregon and back here, a second breakdown happened, once again. Again Meredith was a great help. I was still drinking. She mentioned three times about looking at my drinking. It wasn’t until the fourth lecture from Kathleen that the reality of drinking set in.

Kathleen got up near my face and asked if I wanted to be like this for the rest of my life? I said no. Not realizing what an effect that decision would have on my life.

My spirit is so much lighter because of that one decision. The weight is off my shoulders. Meredith was always spiritual. That was what I wanted.

My life became a world of nature and sobriety as a spiritual practice. Prayer and acceptance of loss transformed from darkness to light. Today my depression still exists in a minimal form. With the healing came spiritual gifts.

Helping people has a become way of life. The door to healing that I didn’t know existed, opened. Life became a wonderful experience.

This was my observation of the third hearing on homelessness that took place on February 8th.

There was an alarming e-mail sent from Senator Nick Kettle. Let me quote the e-mail for all to see. “I need as many tea party supporters there for this one. Get there early to fill up the room before the homeless folks. Help me ask why this homeless person has better clothes than I?”

“I need some support when myself and Senator’s Maher and Pinga raise the tough questions to end this dog and pony show…of Chairman Tassonni’s.”

Well Senator Kettle…I won’t use the cliché…is the pot calling the Kettle black…where were your tea baggers?  Where was your “support” in the trenches?  Again categorization homelessness!

One thing, Senator Kettle, don’t wish for things you don’t want.  Supposed it was your family in dire straits?  Is homelessness like the Westminster Dog Show?  Is this the Kentucky Derby, or dogs and ponies?   Homeless individuals deserve more respect, than what they’ve been categorized as.  Also, Senator Kettle…You claim that the e-mail was written in “frustration!!!!!  Aren’t we all frustrated, in our walks in everyday life?

As far your attire, if you want to be GQ, a lot of generous contributions from those in your representative districts and others, go and stand in line with those less fortunate! At least their trying not to look as if they’re less dignified.

As far as your apology, it didn’t seem it was sincere when John Joyce asked you about it… for the public record. It seemed as if you were trying to get out of the hole you dug. Which to me, after many years of viewing RI politics, RI politics and their promises to Rhode Islanders are halfhearted and insincere.

We’ve got to get away from the Rhode Island political mentality and truly look at what should be…. vested interests that give back.

I know that each session starts out with a prayer, that both houses begins their sessions with hopes of doing the right thing and helping every where they can.

But what you did, Senator Kettle, was sadly uncalled for, inappropriate, and all you dogs and ponies… you have a vote, November ’12.

Again, I commend Senator John Tassoni, Senator Fogarty, for their vigilance and commend John Joyce for his calling for Senator Kettle for an apology, which should have been sincere.  I commend the usual voices for the less fortunate.  I don’t need to mention their names.

I also want to make sure there’s a prayer for the family of Lisa Jones and two children, who has suffered and still is, along with so many.

She tearfully told her story, which hit home to me. Single mom and resorting to shelters and outreach, I was in tears, along with others, wondered how Senator Kettle thought?  That was his decision. God willing how that goes. As he matures, he’ll learn!

One passing thought… I prefer coffee to tea… Tea?  Let’s dump in the water at Waterplace Park, coffee… to keep ourselves focused and aware of the types who aimlessly categorizes people… claiming frustration & boils down to outright callousness….

Thank you..

In the 1970’s the homeless shelters were born in the Roger Williams projects.

One, George Mitchell, cleaned the buildings. I remember helping my father clean these apartments set aside for the homeless who migrated to RI looking for a better life, unlike today’s homeless people who are mostly addicts, who are like the children of Israel, hoisted in the wilderness (of addiction).

Hoisted in the smoke of deception created by the people of another country, to enslave the people, to give them pleasure that will cause them give up or sell their very soul, for just one more piece of ‘crack’.

Unlike the people who migrated here for a better life, they gave up the ability to move forward in life. Through the system, they gave birth to a new social order of homelessness, by taking over the system, not to pay into it, but take from the very purpose for it, to better their lives.

These addicts did better their lives, the system supports their lives as addiction, by allowing them tax payer money in the form of SSI, welfare and all other programs that were intended for those who truly wanted a better life, however they did get a better life (of addiction), paid for by the Federal and State government.

They buy no food, the church does, they buy no clothes, and various groups donate clothes. If you have all this, you have a better life, even if it is a life of addiction. Their only responsibility is to find the next drug dealer.

So who has a better life, the addict or the homeless person who became homeless because of the economy, inflated rents, greedy realtors or because of a corrupt system?
When will you help the real homeless person? Those who stand on the sidelines, deep in the shadows of these users of drugs, being advertly destroyed in this chemical war from another country.

So tell me America, How will you end homelessness in America?

On Valentine’s Day, President Obama released the fiscal budget for 2012; that following Thursday, he announced plans to radically expand 500 MHz broadband services into
rural areas. It is Marketing and Promotion 101 to understand that the choice of timing of these announcements lets the reception of the news be controlled.

In this case, a decision was made to announce the planned cuts on what can only be termed as a national day of distraction. That alone should be enough to make you sit up and start paying attention.

All of the cuts and freezes, over $400 billion of them, are coming from the lower 10% of the budget. In other words, the part of the National Budget that most effects the states and you and me. Mind you, the mandatory spending for programs such as Social Security has to remain.

The $637 billion for Defense, which is discretionary spending, is not only untouched, but specifically exempted from any future cuts or freezes.

Noise is made about the tremendous savings in war costs that will serve as the Defense savings after the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Left out of this statement is that several months ago we committed to radically increase our presence in Asia and the surrounding waters.

It would not be a war, but a policing presence that I almost guarantee will surpass Iraq war costs in no short order.

Cutting funding to the states for such programs as health assistance, heating assistance and other social programs hits the poorest and the elderly the hardest.

Cutting this support means that the unemployed, who will be in need of assistance as they wait patiently for the jobs that no one expects to see for another two years; will not have the help to bridge that gap.

More and more people are going to be placed in positions where they need assistance: from food, to shelter to healthcare.

Don’t blame it all on Obama and the Democrats. The Republicans would like to see even more money cut from these programs.

Blame it on the apathy of the nation who doesn’t care enough to be bothered to learn what is going on before it is too late to do anything about it.

Trying to resolve an economy’s debt woes by penalizing its citizens worsens both the society and the economy. Continuing to preserve the divide between the nation and the 3% of people and companies who make a profit off of everyone else’s suffering cannot continue.

Letting the working parts of the country rot while feeding the military machine is not going to do it either.

The only difference between pre-revolution Egypt and us is our Mubaraks remain in the shadows and are never seen. However, you can tell where they are in the dark from the sound of the coins jingling in their pockets.

Hi my name is Mary, Keisha, Dee, Rena or maybe I’m someone you just passed on the street or in the mall or even someone YOU may work with. I am an adult woman that is finding it hard to understand why I am crying myself to sleep hungry every night in such a well-run institution like Crossroads.

I found myself without a safe and warm, or even at times, a comfortable place to lay my head for the night with the blessing of a full belly and sometimes the desperately needed basic human comfort of sisterly companionship.

The reasons why I find myself at Crossroads Woman’s Shelter, is at present of little importance to my small story. It could be an addiction, a physical or mental handicap, and an abusive relationship that sent me running into the welcoming arms of an allegedly safe harbor like Crossroads.

It could simply be that I can no longer hold on with every fiber of my being and with my fingernails to my home. I may even have been working as many hours and just as hard as you do at times. I simply need a place to take a breather for myself with some semblance of my human dignity, some lost part of woman-hood that I sorely miss.

The first thing I did after finding myself homeless was get angry with everyone including myself for “letting” this happen. Then I cried, yes my sisters and my brothers, my mother and fathers, I will still cry at times, when no one can see me to judge me or laugh at me. Because my loves, this can and yes, it does happen to even the “Normal People.” The second thing I did was wander into 160 Broad Street, Providence. I was told they would help, well let us please….

Now I as well as you most likely have heard of Crossroads from the media, or from passing by it on Broad Street, or maybe even from someone at some intersection somewhere in our once great city of Providence, holding a sign gently pleading for spare change and yes my loves, I myself might even have casually ignored someone like me in the past too. My point is we all know of Crossroads. Don’t we?

Well, I feel the need to tell you that there is such a great and incomprehensibly injustice at Crossroads, that my very soul is torn over just shutting up and going again tonight without the basic human need for a hot meal to help me sleep and sometimes to help keep the nightmares away for just a few hours while not making any waves. Or just listening to the screaming Banshee inside of every woman that cries out to help those wronged or who are just left behind…

So please bear with me my dears, as I try to calm down and let you judge for yourselves if any Rhode Islander, nay any human woman deserves to hear the phase… “Sorry, but you simply fell between the crack of an overloaded system” or “(no apology here) There is no budget to feed you or the other 5 women.”  Or what I was told today Wednesday, February 2, 2011 by an Administrative leader at Crossroads, that has hurt me to my very core of my soul, that has made me doubt why I should keep on fighting for my future… “We are only obligated to feed the women at Crossroads women’s shelter, we will not feed the 5 to 10 women at the shelter…”

When asked to please explain this, that same great and powerful man behind the curtain of Crossroads and in the weekly meeting in the Common Room. “We are only contractually obligated to feed the women at the Crossroads women’s, not our guests at the overflow shelter.”

With that statement the subject as well as my hopes and prayers that he and the truly great and hardworking staff members at Crossroads will quickly fix this “oversight” was dropped, like a heavy undesirable burden.

I simply was dismissed without as much as a second thought. This administrative leader was more concerned over homeless men “bothering” him over not having enough RIPTIKS, than just a few women-just two pregnant women, a few senior citizens and myself going hungry again at “his” shelter.

Please understand I am not whining. I am not stating that Crossroads is a bad place, far from it, factually. From the tireless dedication of your case workers and the psychiatric and medical staff, our brilliant instructions and hope given to me by the Crossroads vocational department from the never-ending patience of the front desk staff and the discipline and quiet strength of our security and safety officers, along with the dependable, professional efficient elegance of our janitorial staff, members of Crossroads can never be at fault here.

No, I simply am trying to understand why and how I am expected to get back to being myself and get over this setback in my life, when the trust and faith in my fellow Rhode Islanders is shattered every evening that I end up hungry, scared and alone in the dark without the longed for and much anticipated blessing of just a simple hot meal; when I am told that my going without is “justifiable” due to a depleted or mismanaged budget? How would you handle this, my loves?

I have witnessed nightly over the last few weeks, with great confusion, bewilderment and yes, my dears, with the persistent nagging pains of sorrow and hunger, the fact that men who live in The Tower (a boarding house styled housing complex, the very same men who have the opportunity to prepare their own food and eat in their rooms) above the Crossroads women’s shelter are walking around and over my new mat on the floor of the cafeteria to receive a nice, hot and at times plentiful evening meal to take back to their rooms; while I and just a few other women in need around them go hungry… again.

There is a budget for these men, but not for just few women sleeping on the cold hard floor?

But I am told it is just the way things are done here in the bowels of the great Crossroads machine. Just learn to live with it, girl. Don’t make waves they will punish us all, if you do. Just live with it, sister… we’re just homeless, it’s expected by the rest of our great society. Just find some other way to feed yourself. Just don’t worry about it nothing can be done …

Is this common practice? Is this all the great and all-powerful Crossroads can or is willing to offer me, for any other young woman? For a sister, a daughter, an aunt a niece, a friend, a woman of God, a mother, an urban earth goddess, a grandmother, or even a great grandmother; is a forced feeling of being undeserving? Of being unequal to men whom are traveling in the same troubled waters as I am?

Can you please help us to get just a well needed and greatly appreciated simple evening meal, before the lights are turned out sobs start anew? Can you please sleep on it tonight while I cry myself into an exhausted depressed submission, again the evening? Can you think of what I have to whisper to you please? Can you live with this?
Truly, thank you for listening to this, this small unimportant story of mine…

Good night, my loves…