From Behind the Other Chair, Volume Three: The Therapist Roars

By Claran d’Orr

From a traumatized psyche pours the therapeutic poetry of a licensed marriage and family therapist. As a trauma survivor herself, author Claran dOrr speaks to the hearts of those affected by mental illness in From Behind the Other Chair, her gesture of peace and healing. This is the third of three consecutive, autobiographical volumes of poetry. They begin with the present, flowing backward in time to the original severe traumas she experienced of commitments to a mental ward and jail sentences to the mental health unit of a correctional facility.

Poetry is her therapy. By telling her tragic story, she hopes to touch the soul of others with the tenderness of a fellow wounded spirit. Her poetry reaches into the depths of the nightmares of the mentally afflicted who are locked in a prison of their own making. Because she could neither defend herself nor comprehend what was happening to her, her world became surreal and horrific as she spun into a madness she could not control.

In From Behind the Other Chair, she speaks to the awful damage she endured and her response to the baffling and dangerous conditions surrounding her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475956214

Claran d’Orr

Claran d’Orr is a licensed marriage and family therapist struggling to find coping skills for episodic bouts of mental illness. This is her third volume of poetry.

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Copyright © 2008, 2012 by Claran d’Orr.

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-5620-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-5622-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-5621-4 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 04/03/2013

Contents

Introduction:

Close Contact

Extravaganza

From a Herd Unnamed

Specter From A Giant Tree

In Homage to the Golden Realm

To Come of Age in a Warring World

An Act of Compliance

The Little Cracked Shell

Obedience Training

Ghost-Lover

Peeled Grapes in Vodka

Lingering Offstage

Blue Horse Prancing

A Toast to the Fear of Falling

Once Upon a Jigsaw Night

A Most Rigorous Covalence

The Eve of the Mutton-Fat Shaman

The Butterfly Effect

Reductio Ad Absurdum

Platinum Child

The Transformation of the Smallest Transparent Moth

Always and Never In the Backyard of Absolutes

The Elegance of Instrumental Insight:

Mirrors for the Clouds Absent of Nothing Blue

The Queen of All She Beholds

A Thought of Us Unstained

The Whiplash of Choice

The Day the Smiles Died

You Asked of Me a Poem…

Within a River of Wings:

The Tallest Tape Measurer

Furious Trees

Armless Shoulders

To Foil the Despoiler

Sometime In the Reign of Pygmalion

Critical Mass

A Granular Kind of Snow

Speaking Like a River

An Alias for Pain

A Dead Ringer for the Enchanter

In Forlorn Salute

A Fragment Dangling

Bring In The Clowns

Composed With No Thesaurus

Détente

The Recycle Bin

The Uniqueness of Identical Quarks

Dilettante

Smiles Through Tears

Why Pigs Fly

The Flight Home of the Rainbow-Crystal Sleigh

Tanglefoot fLies

In Hues of Amber and Azure

The Game with a Ball with a Mind of Its Own

Catnip and Yo-Yo’s

Macramé

Strewn as Jewels Somewhere Warm

All Things Feral and Untamed

Like the Yolk the Egg

Central Casting

Renegade Tractors

You’re Still You

Lovingly dedicated to my father Robert and grandmother Clara,

The two pivotal presences from the Great Beyond

Who have been my eternal guidance and inspiration.

I salute you across the diaphanous demarcation of Always.

Original Artwork by Kathleen Lee Daxon

My special thanks to James of the WingMakers Materials

For the use of his exquisite poems and artwork.

And to Mark Hempel,

Webmaster, WingMakers.com and Sumbola.com,

For his patient mentorship and superb guidance.

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Foreword

A society that leaves its weakest, most disabled and elderly citizens abandoned, stranded and helpless is a culture doomed to extinction. Witness the fall of Rome, where the elite spent all available currency on vicious, deadly games, while ignoring the plight of the poor and destitute. Eventually, the disenfranchised will rise against the ruling cabal through a bloody and devastating, for all concerned, revolution. Country after country has experienced this plight, and yet, we seem never to learn history’s lessons.

The seeds of discontent are being sown in the USA at this very moment. Never before has the populace been more discontented with their elected officials. One national trauma has followed another, from banking crises and automobile bailouts, to environmental disasters and colossal weather conditions. It is an era of a nation in severe internal trauma, skating on the edge of a full-blown depression, both financially and emotionally.

But, for the wealthiest among us, it is business as usual. They use the tragedies of others to enrich their already-bloated hoards. A leading multi-billionaire, for example, has advised the super-rich to disperse their riches among the needy, but at the same time, he has invested heavily in Monsanto, a mega-corporation dedicated to gaining control of the entire seed industry and substituting its genetically modified seeds. Our scientists have warned us of the ensuing debacle, as in India, where farmers are committing suicide because of GM crop failures.

Thus, there must be a paradigm change, if this country is going to survive. We must be our brother’s keepers, or the disenchantment of the bottom half of society will become viral, infecting the national mood with hostility and resentment. These are the precursors of violence toward the government and the gigantic global corporations who feed poison to the third world countries, polluting them with insecticides and fungicides that weaken their immune systems even further.

Then, we proceed to push vaccines on them, as a humanitarian gesture, even when another famous multi-billionaire has stated publicly that population reduction (genocide) is the hidden agenda. And the world turns a blind eye, reeling in hopelessness, as the global billionaires bludgeon them with dollars and promises. How have we become such a nation of cowards? We pretend that it does not concern us; it is someone else’s problem to address.

We began as a nation of revolutionaries, dedicated to the concepts of personal freedom and free will, and look what we have become—a patchwork of states cowering beneath the Patriot Act and the IRS, unable to generate a united front on any issue that oppresses us. Learned helplessness… we have accepted it as the new normal. Is this really our only path to a devastated future we do not want? Have we no say in our own destiny? Has our self-determination been co-opted by those to whom we have given power and clout?

The plight of the mentally ill is simply a microcosm of what is happening worldwide. Yet, it is from the grassroots that meaningful change occurs. We must decide what we really stand for, not what we spout from campaign podiums. Do we believe in justice and freedom for all? Then, let us start with the most deprived among us; let us help those in desperate need, those who will die without assistance. Is this not what is really important, in the overall picture? How can humanity survive without compassion for those who cannot help themselves?

The countries of the Middle East are living this paradigm change, at a horrendous price to their populations. They have made it their priority to bring about change at any cost; this is how frantic they are. Watching your family starve to death, be beaten severely for no reason or die of preventable diseases will take you to this state of desperation. And so, it has begun, in the destitute regions of the world.

We must awaken and pay attention. The world is changing in ways never predicted. If we do not have our finger on the pulse of the world, we cannot claim the title of World Leader. I urge all of you to find a way to participate. World change is not a spectator sport; turn on your television to see the proof. And then, turn it off and get to work.

As a therapist, I would appeal to your heart’s conscience to make a place in this world for the least among us. Generosity and compassion are what will make these shifts tolerable, and they will occur. You can choose to take this opportunity to live according to your higher self, or you may decide to ride the wave and see what is the outcome. Either way, the world must reform itself, or it will writhe in its own self-destructive and tragic demise.

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Introduction:

The introductory poem for Volume Three is one of the earliest compositions I wrote for him, when I thought he was a fantasy, my Dream Lover, my Man with the Blurred Face, my Soul Mate and my dearest lifelong desire.

And from this all else flowed. I believe it is the finest tribute to him I could compose. Even after all these years, it moves me to my core being to read it and experience the renewal of the intense commitment of this poem.

These poems relive my process, my attempts to focus on the positive while reliving and resolving the traumas of the previous years. How can one understand the total loss of one’s fundamental rights? And how does one find any confidence in one’s ability to distinguish between real, unreal and surreal? Am I really as crazy as they say I am, in continual need of supervision? How can this be?

For over 67 years I have been a solid, contributing member of society, accomplishing one of the most difficult professions possible. I, who have faced eyeball to eyeball, gang leaders, sociopaths and murderers and have an impeccable, award-winning reputation, now have the nonexistent credibility of the most severely deranged? In the blink of an eye I have become totally un-credible and in-credible. How will I ever process the enormity of this?

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a condition rarely discussed in depth. It is known to be a response to acute and chronic trauma, and the symptoms vary with the individual and the severity of the situation. One can be killed by trauma, even when the wounds to the body were not fatal. It is the holistic response by the psyche to the most awful injuries endurable by the human being. The damage is incalculable and persistent, often lasting years after the event(s).

At the very time when the mentally dis-eased need support, they are shunned by a society who views them as unworthy of human discourse or compassion. The stigma is so pervasive that anyone who is viewed as different becomes subject to the Black Chicken syndrome; what was once considered merely eccentric has now become a full-blown diagnosis demanding treatment by the mental health community. This can be viewed as originating primarily with psychiatrists and the insurance giants, who both see this as an opportunity to profit from the misery of their fellow man.

The addition of new diagnoses to the DMS has exploded in the last two decades. My personal favorite is the classification of Internet Addiction. What the treatment for this malady is, I cannot begin to imagine. One can be guaranteed a creative diagnosis, if one attends a session with a psychiatrist or psychologist, and once this is written, it becomes impossible to escape. Forever branded as mentally handicapped/gravely disabled. This is particularly sad in the case of children, who are being labeled in droves and forced to take dangerous medications; we do not know the long-term effects of these drugs. It is possible that we are stunting their intellectual and imaginative processes, thus tainting their potential and futures with an incredibly assaultive intrusion.

Please visit my website at frombehindtheotherchair.com

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Close Contact

Where have all the myladons gone?

Has no one noticed their silent, vaporous departure?

Will the slightest imprint remain of their destiny on this earth?

Would humankind blink, knowing of their extinction?

Once upon a time

I would have been afraid of you,

the magnet to my psyche,

entranced and drunken-heady with the ecstasy

of your image in a hidden mirror

reflecting parallel spirits gliding blithely

alongside one another, unaware.

I should have known your power,

sensed your beautiful intensity and fled.

Whispers of echoes of betrayal

would have left me bruised, heart-bleeding,

frightened to be exposed bare-souled

to your loving, intimate scrutiny.

I would have sought a refuge within myself,

a corner inviolate and dark,

preferring hemorrhaging of the spirit

to the risk of unveiling your indifference.

You may render me raw and vulnerable,

gazing into the core of my existence

or find me unworthy of your tender-visional

ministrations and blazing intellect.

When I took your proffered hand in mine,

it was a gesture of unconditional trust,

not lightly considered nor ill-examined,

containing layers within layers of hope.

I recognize you once more, unafraid,

sensing Who You Are, the essential you.