PANIC IS A SIGNAL

 PANIC IS A SIGNAL

July 14, 2023 

 

"Panic is the signal that something is going on in your life that needs attention."

Elvin Semrad, Psychoanalytic psychiatrist.

                       ANXIETY                               

 

DREAM:  I Am Hanging On For Dear Life, (February 17, 1990. Five months after my memory returned.)  

I cannot remember most of this dream, but two images remain. One is of a shark. The shark has come up  from down under, and I am petting it. 

The other is of an elevator, and I have to walk someplace that is very scary and I am afraid I will fall off. In fact, I do lose my balance and fall partially and am hanging on for dear life - I call for help and a girl comes and helps me. 

I wake up terrified. 

 

This dream meant nothing to me when I had it five months after my memory returned. It only recently became clear when I visited Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, to see the Diego Rivera Exhibit. I got on an elevator to go down one floor to access the show.The elevator was encased in glass so I could see out. I panicked and noticed I was terrified of the space I had to step over to enter the elevator. I was able to do it, but realized something was wrong as I held tightly to the hand rail for the ride down one floor. 

I had totally forgotten I was terrified of stepping onto elevators, especially ones with an open view, as I hadn't been on one for years. This one reminded me of the elevators in the twelve floor Republic building in downtown Denver that I had to ride to get to my dentist's office in the 1950s. These four elevators were open air metal cages, and you could see  all of them as they traveled up and down. I was terrified of them and was particularly afraid to ride down, preferring to walk the twelve stories. Another time, in San Francisco at the Hyatt Hotel, I had to ride a glass elevator that rose up on the outside of the building giving a view of the city. At the end of the evening, I was too terrified to take the elevator down, and instead rode on the freight elevator with the help of staff. However, I never equated these feeling with a past trauma.   

When recently reading over my dreams, I came across the one listed above, and a memory returned. During my kidnapping I was not only photographed for pedophile magazines, but was featured in a movie and they had embarked on another one when I was found in the police raid. I learned these were one hour "B" movies that were made in a week.

The new memory went like this: I am lying on a platform and being hoisted up to the top of a warehouse where I must step off the platform onto a kind of balcony. The platform I am on swings and is not stable, and there is open air between me and the balcony which I must step over. Then, I had to repeat the ride to come down. 

This memory made no sense, until I realized the producers probably didn't want to spend money on a staircase so I could walk up. If there is any truth in this memory, it could certainly explain why I have trouble stepping into an elevator, and particularly on one where you can see out.  

The dream suggests that I fell and had to be rescued. The thought makes me anxious. The shark suggests one of my predators. 

 

   Hanging on for dear life.

 

 

 I sent out two more query letters this week.

Brian DeFiore of Defiore and Company says his tastes are eclectic and in the category of non-fiction he is is interested in memoir from writers with "good storytelling talent." He asks for a brief description of the book, information about me that will make readers take notice, and the "level of creativity, confidence and precision in the prose" that will make him want to read several hundred pages." I like his picture.

Elias Altman of Massie and McQuilkian is interested in "memoirs featuring psychological insights, by people who have really lived." I think I fall into these categories.

 

  

My favorite Diego Rivera Painting at Crystal Bridges exhibit. 

 

Onward and Upward.