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A Clash Of Personalities


In the very late 1990s, I was renting the basement of my parents' fifth American home (they do move a lot!) while I sorted out my post-Bachelor's Degree plans. I'd been accepted to Grad School to earn a Master's Degree in Literature, but I needed to find a place to live in Worcester, Massachusetts. I woke up one morning in late June, certain I'd find my apartment that day. The University phoned me about 30 minutes later to ask me if I was interested in seeing a newly-available apartment 2 blocks from the English Department, and 3 blocks from center campus. I said I'd see it before lunch, as it was less than an hour's drive from my parents' house.

Apartment 1A turned out to be a fairly roomy ground-floor apartment facing the street; it had ridiculously high ceilings (either 9' or 10' high) and a minimum of 2 windows per room. That summer morning, it appeared to be light and lovely and, best of all for a cash-strapped grad student, I could afford the rent on a T.A.'s stipend.

Originally, the structure had been built as a three-storey "triple decker" apartment building with a single staircase serving all three floors. However, someone had built an extension toward the back of the lot, doubling the size of the building, with a second front door and an independent staircase. Someone else had further sub-divided the interiors to create additional, smaller apartments out of adjacent rooms from both parts of the structure; instead of 2 apartments on each level, there were now three. My apartment door was the only ground-level apartment which opened onto the first staircase; 1B and 1C opened onto the second staircase. Both sections of the building had front doors that opened onto a single pathway which was at right-angles to the street.

One peculiar effect of the extensive remodeling was that there was one enclosed narrow porch which also opened onto the pathway, right next to the 2 steps down to the pavement. The only way onto the 3' x 9' porch from inside the building was from my apartment's dead-bolted "back" door, located in my bedroom. I used the porch to store my garbage and recycling, as it was so close to the road, and the door from the porch to the street had sliding bolts at the top and bottom which could only be operated from inside the porch. Every time I went to class, I had to go out of the apartment's entrance in my living room, proceed out the front door, walk along the path past my own back door, and then step onto the sidewalk.

Inside the building, there were many odd room arrangements. For example, there was a door off of the kitchen which looked like it should lead to a pantry; however, it was a windowless bathroom about 4 feet wide and 12 feet long. It resembled a converted hallway and (thanks to the internal subdividing) it was underneath the door to 2B: the second storey's middle apartment.

In my bathroom, the sink and wall-mounted mirror were immediately next to the door on the left wall, then there was the chimney for 1B's fireplace, then the toilet, a three-foot by four-foot open space (the laundry drying rack took up half of this area) and the four-foot square shower at the end. The light fixture and extractor fan was close to the shower, above the laundry rack. Those of you who have read my early childhood narrative "My Parents' First House" will know that I was traumatized by bathrooms at an early age; I didn't like the bathroom in this new apartment at all, but I convinced myself that it was my childhood fears playing up, and that I only had to tolerate the inconvenient layout for a couple of years, then I'd leave. I made myself believe that there was nothing in the bathroom, and that the "trapped" feeling was a result of the lack of windows.

After I had moved in, I discovered that leaving the blinds open in my living room meant that everyone over 3' tall who walked along the sidewalk looked in my windows. I closed the louvered blinds, and left them closed for weeks at a time for a sense of privacy. This may have contributed to my depression, as did being a day's travel away from my fiancée. I only felt depressed when I was in the apartment, but a more general sense of gloom began to set in, incrementally building to a dread of returning home. While the rooms still looked spacious, bright, and airy, I had the peculiar sensation that the apartment was trying hard to look that way in spite of the heavy atmosphere which seemed to be pouring very slowly out of the bathroom and into the rest of the apartment.

I had lived in 1A for about 8 months when the tapping in the kitchen began. It was late at night, and I was on the sofa watching a movie, with the kitchen doorway behind my right shoulder. The rhythm was a simple 9 beats, as though drummed out on a wooden surface using alternating fingers in an impatient manner: 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and-5. I stopped the movie and thought, "What the hell was that noise? Did it come from my bathroom or my kitchen?"


The first and last beats seemed more pronounced than the others, but I couldn't tell if it was because they really were louder or because each had been preceded or followed by a very still silence.

I got up from the sofa, walked deliberately to the middle of the kitchen, and pulled the cord to turn on the light. I don't know what I expected to find, but it was only my slightly-untidy kitchen. I started to look around for a possible rodent invader. As I looked toward the cabinets and sink, there was a 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and-5 tapping on the refrigerator's door to my left.

I turned slowly toward the fridge, scrutinized the assorted bills and postcards magnetized to it, then I looked down the gap between the left side of the fridge and the wall. There was nothing but ugly linoleum. The sound resumed with a wooden resonance: 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and-5. I could tell It was now coming from the baker's rack to the right of the fridge because of the toaster oven's clattering accompaniment to the last few wooden beats. I moved to my right, and started to look around on the baker's rack to see if I could see what was making the noise. I slid open one of the wooden drawers seeking a simple explanation, hoping I'd misinterpreted the source of the sound. As the first drawer contained no likely candidates loitering in the cutlery, I slid it shut and put my hand on the second drawer, when the metal stove top behind me reverberated to the now-irritating rhythm: 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and-5.

I tiptoed hesitantly toward the stove, feeling like the idiot character in a horror movie who won't listen to the audience's warnings to leave. There was a pan on the stove top, but it was empty. Likewise, the teakettle yielded no clues. The pilot light was on, and there was no scent of a natural gas leak. This search had become more exasperating than enlightening, so I decided I was going to leave the kitchen light on and return to the living room.

As I straightened up and faced the living room doorway, the metal sink behind me tapped out 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and-5.

I spun around, determined to catch the pest in the act! I peered over the rim of the sink, trying to identify the cause of the rhythm, when something used as much energy as it could muster to kick the metal side of my stove: BANG!

The SECOND thought which ran through my head was, "I think it wanted to frighten me." Because this thought was still trying organize itself into a coherent, analytical statement, it had no chance whatsoever of catching up with my adrenaline-fueled verbal indignation as I lost my temper. I try very, very hard to be a patient person, because when I am angry, my attitude is that "the nuclear option" is a fine starting point and that anything left standing within the blast radius is a valid target.

I recall that my reaction began with "How DARE you..." I know that my tirade included casting aspersions upon the moral character of the entity, speculations about the cheap promiscuity of the entity's mother, indicating where within its own anatomy the entity should place its hand in order to tap its rhythm next, and my opinion of spirits who wanted to haunt my apartment without even pretending to be helpful. I informed it that it was haunting a sadly-decrepit tenement building in a poor neighborhood, that the heyday of Worcester's economy had occurred about 110 years earlier, and that those conditions meant that I was shouting at the supernatural equivalent of dry rot fungus. I had gone into the kitchen because I had thought it was in need of help, not that it was engaged in a feeble attempt to scare me. Even with the help of the depressed atmosphere, no invisible appliance-tapping absurdity was going to make me feel afraid in my apartment, and I wanted it gone. I included several profanity-laden instructions as to how it was to remove itself, suggested that it try to locate its dignity, and issued dire warnings of the measures I would take if it resurfaced while I was still residing there.

Not surprisingly, it left. It took most of the oppressive atmosphere with it.

I've been told by family, by friends, and -on one notable occasion- by a stranger, that for 5'6" and 140 lbs, I can be terrifying. This is not a character trait I like, as it can take hours (sometimes days) for me to regain my composure; I prefer to be a happy, enthusiastic, and pleasant person. When I'm outraged, I focus very intently on the cause, throw my internal filters to the "off" position, spin up the dynamo on my vocabulary, crank my volume, picture what I'm about to do to the person (or group of people) in front of me, feel crackling ice-cold fury crawl up my spine, and let rip. The fact that I've done this on more than one occasion to living people and to otherwise-terrifying guard dogs, without retaliation from anyone, would suggest that the level of anger I can achieve -when justified- is effective. This encounter suggests that it may be effective in surprising otherworldly entities, too.

About two months after this event, I was leaving my living room and entering my darkened bedroom. The streetlights outside were casting shadows of tree branches against the closed shades, but there was a very solid, dark shadow on the pull-down shade on the door which led to the enclosed porch. The shadow was just under 6' tall and it appeared to be the outline of a man of stocky build wearing a pork-pie hat (Art Carney wore one in "The Honeymooners," for those of you whose memories go back that far; everyone else will need google). For the shadow to be where it was, the individual casting it would have needed to be standing on the porch, looking at the locked door. That would have meant breaking in via the external door (releasing the two unreachable sliding bolts), then simply standing there waiting to be noticed. I'd been reading, so the noise of an intruder would have alerted me immediately. I was irritated by the shadow's loitering on the porch, so I began with the slow voice I reserve for the hard-of-thinking: "I explained this very clearly last time, you half-wit," and I snapped open the rolling blind. No one was there. I was bemused by my inability to see a manifestation of whoever had been casting the visible shadow, but I continued to inform it that "banished" meant the entirety of the apartment, including the screened-in porch. Just because there was a locked door, it did not mean it was allowed to loiter outside. After a prolonged stream of invective at the incompetent attempt to locate a loophole in my previous instructions, I explained that it had all the intelligence of a brick, but none of the usefulness, and that I was banishing it to the fires of hell for haunting me when I was preparing a lesson on Shakespeare's "Henry V," Act I. At that time, I had begun some serious soul-searching about my slow drift into agnosticism, but this entity had really pissed me off, so taking refuge in my religious upbringing and compelling it to suffer in hellfire had seemed like a reasonable reaction; now, I wonder if damning it to hell (should such a location exist) was over-reacting a little. On the plus side, either it did as I instructed or it huddled away and waited another two years for me to move out.

As always, I welcome opinions, thoughts, and questions; I'll respond to the best of my ability.


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The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, Bibliothecarius, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

Macknorton (5 stories) (646 posts)
4 years ago (2017-06-30)
Meganpixiejan; if I may interject here, apologies Biblio. I seriously doubt ANYONE actually gets possessed against their will, if we are talking "horror-movie" type possesion here...

Am I correct in thinking you one of those with the belief that random people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, (and in this case with the "wrong" personal viewpoint on whether "God" exists or not) get instantly possessed on a whim by an evil spirit?

Just wondering...😕


Bibliothecarius (8 stories) (1065 posts)
4 years ago (2017-06-30)

I'm presuming that "IDC" means "I don't care," though I'm usually loathe to rely upon the peculiar abbreviations that teens employ in lieu of communication. Again, this is a point that should be cleared up by the explanation of your thinking in response to my earlier questions.

I would be remiss if I did not point out that "phase" is a state of being or a step in a process (it is derived from "phasis" the Greek word for "appearance"). The homophone "faze," which means to surprise or to disconcert someone, is derived from from Old English fēsian.

Bibliothecarius (8 stories) (1065 posts)
4 years ago (2017-06-30)

After I asked you the questions in my prior post, I re-read your comment. Are you under the impression that Atheists (people who adamantly have no belief in God/Gods) and Agnostics (people who are open to the possibility of a divine entity/power, but not convinced) must also be people who do not believe in the existence of anything beyond normal human existence?
--If "yes," where in the world did you get an idea like that from?
--If "no," then this will be clarified by your response to my previous message.

Bibliothecarius (8 stories) (1065 posts)
4 years ago (2017-06-30)
Greetings, MPG.

What, exactly, prompted your question?

Atheists & Agnostics are as susceptible to assault by human beings as everyone else; why would a supernatural assault be any different?

That said, is there some coherent cause-and-effect sequence between believing in a God or Gods and potential for interaction with spirits, ghosts, elementals, genii loci, psychokinetic poltergeist phenomena, precognitive warnings, post-cognitive visions, guardian spirits, and assorted fae/fairy entities?

I am sincerely curious to know your reasoning.
meganpixiejan (5 posts)
4 years ago (2017-06-30)
I wonder if Atheists & Agnostics get possessed? Saying that you don't believe in them just makes them want to scare you more...
IDC if it doesn't phase you
valkricry (47 stories) (3163 posts) mod
4 years ago (2017-04-26)
You're welcome. I always think it better to ask if you're unsure about something. I can tell you, if you are ever really uncomfortable with a particular site using your stuff (even if it is fully credited) you are within your rights to contact the site's owner and ask for removal. Bottom line, it is YOUR stuff and you should have some control over what is done with it.
Nephylim (10 stories) (78 posts)
4 years ago (2017-04-26)
Hi Val,

Thanks for responding. I don't mind that my posts are shared at all. If my experiences can help someone else out there, I say go for it. I was more concerned that YGS posts get lumped in with what is clearly very badly written fiction (not that my writing skills are great 😊)

It sort of detracts from the account.

valkricry (47 stories) (3163 posts) mod
4 years ago (2017-04-26)
The stories used are completely cited (gives credit to author and a url to where found). Although not our preferred method of sharing YGS (Go RSS feed!) it isn't plagiarism.
Nephylim (10 stories) (78 posts)
4 years ago (2017-04-26)
Hi all,

Sorry to jump in here. I came across one of my posts from YGS on another website:


Is this allowed?

Bibliothecarius (8 stories) (1065 posts)
4 years ago (2017-04-26)
Greetings, Martin, and thanks for letting me know.

I wasn't sure what could be done because I ran into the same dead links Val found; they are listed as inactive sites on the "" search engine. Additionally, I couldn't find an owner/operator in my brief search.

I was pretty sure it was more a nuisance than anything else, but I thought I should present the information to you and to the Mods to determine the course of action.

Martin (601 posts) mod
4 years ago (2017-04-25)
Bibliothecarius, I would say sites like these are just part of spammers networks trying to fool Google with dummy auto generated content taken in part from other sites in order to promote a final site with links where they sell something. It's just spam stuff and won't make sense for human visitors, you won't find ways to contact them either, they're probably hosted in some small country, they come and go, not really worth anyone's time. Bookmark it if you want and check back in a few months, I'm sure it'll be gone.
Tweed (29 stories) (2362 posts)
4 years ago (2017-04-24)
Is it just me or does the woman on the header of this one
Http:// look like Amy Schumer? Irony or what?!

Nice find Biblio! Odd websites, like Val, I'm struggling to find a purpose for them. 😕
Bibliothecarius (8 stories) (1065 posts)
4 years ago (2017-04-24)
Thanks, Val;

I was running into the same dead ends, but I didn't have time to dig deeper, as Grades are due for the end of the Quarter...

valkricry (47 stories) (3163 posts) mod
4 years ago (2017-04-24)
Martin will be better able than I to decide if this actually falls under the umbrella of plagiarism, as they do not use entire stories or even full paragraphs. As you said, it seems to be single sentence stealing.
The sites do not make any sense.
1) I did not find any contact info. How is one to order a paper?
2) What little they have about why you should use their service is fraught with misspellings, typos, and numerous other syntax errors.
3) Many of the links appear to be 'dead'. At least when I tried them.
I'm really not sure what to make of it other than they appear to be nonsense.
Bibliothecarius (8 stories) (1065 posts)
4 years ago (2017-04-24)
Attn: Martin & Mods.

This site seems to be ripping off single-sentence YGS entries, also:

Again, this one has the YGS disclaimer on it: "Real Ghost Stories from United Kingdom - Page 1 - Your Ghost... Real Ghost Stories from United Kingdom - Page 1 - Your source for real ghost stories. Submit your paranormal experience!"

I really *HATE* stupid people.
Bibliothecarius (8 stories) (1065 posts)
4 years ago (2017-04-24)
ATTN: Martin & Mods:

Garbled sections of YGS postings are appearing on including a part of "My Parents' Second House" (#23732). They are also appearing on, including the hilariously-bad plagiarism of the subject heading, "Real Ghost Stories from United Kingdom... Real Ghost Stories from United Kingdom - Page 1 - Your source for real ghost stories. Submit your paranormal experience!"

These websites purport to be run by "Essay Writing Experts" offering help with High School, College, and Thesis post-grad level work. I haven't gotten a lock on where the hosting is, etc., but that's because it's school in the morning and I should get enough sleep to prevent my temper from waking up before my brain does.

Thanks for looking into this;
Manafon1 (5 stories) (687 posts)
4 years ago (2017-01-31)
Biblio--I did notice that the person who reposted your narrative has no place to leave comments even though you ask for just that in your account!

On my three accounts that were put up on the True Ghost Stories From Around The World blog, I state in each one that I look forward to hearing the thoughts of the "YGS community." One would think that would thrown up a few question marks to the blog's readership.

On a completely different note, one of my narratives that was put up on that blog (Childhood Paranormal Odds And Sods Part One) was re-blogged by a member of that site who goes by the handle "fidolize". My account there finds itself, literally, surrounded by multiple video clips and still images of women kissing women! My account is now out in the great wide world. I think it's safe to say my story now has stories to tell 😆.
Bibliothecarius (8 stories) (1065 posts)
4 years ago (2017-01-31)
Fergie: responding to the current topic is hardly "hijacking" the conversation thread when the issue at hand is theft of intellectual property and the violation of copyright law (per the contractual obligations in joining the forum). I have no objection to your response to Manafon here, as it was a convenient, sensible way to group the posts together.

Thanks, Manafon, for your vigilance too, but I have to be honest: I saw that Ladydarke was looking at some plagiarized materials, so I did a spot-check of my narratives. This is the one that makes NO SENSE to steal, as I clearly invite discussion at the end of the events, and the plagiarist included that line. There is nowhere for anyone to comment or to reply upon the other site!

Tweed, thanks for the clarification. I did some additional checking, and the Won-Hee Lee of SUNY Albany is a woman who -given the nature of her research into light wave/particles- probably is not a member of the history department, and her name has been misleadingly attached to the documentation on the website registration.

Oh, well.
Best, Biblio.
Tweed (29 stories) (2362 posts)
5 years ago (2017-01-30)
Well this sucks. 😐

Biblio, I might be able to clear up the Florida connection. A few years ago the company who host my website switched from Florida based servers to some other location (don't remember where but it wasn't Florida, I think it's Chicago or Texas) I don't know why but a lot of website hosting/servers seem to be based in Florida. To confuse matters further the company I'm with aren't based in Florida and never have been, I believe the founder is in Canada, but the support staff are dotted all over the place.

I snooped about using the Florida IP you came across and I found it also linked to 'Tim Owens', who used to be in a band called Judas Priest. His website is registered by 'Wild West Domains' (Scottsdale Arizona based company), in conjunction with another company called 'Web Skinz', Florida based web design and hosting company in Orlando. I know Orlando isn't in Miami but IPs can be a bit 'general' sometimes.

Compare that with a search on my own website, which turns up a Texan IP address (I don't live in Texas and never have), plus some register notes about Qubec, Canada, never lived there either, and a Chicago address to confuse things even more. There's no personally identifiable info about me, only that of the company the site is hosted by and the location of the company founder/registrar. This would also apply to the Tim Owens domain. All info IP and street addresses supplied are that of his web hosting company and registrar.

It seems highly likely this Wonhee originates from Korea, I just don't know if the domain tracking is all that useful. 😕 As there's no contact info on his site, you could run some of those emails through some searches and if any of them seem like his, he'd probably crap himself and remove them if you dropped him a line. Alternatively contact the hosting company.

I suggest we all include a no reproduction disclaimer at the end of submissions. Unfortunately it seems stating the obvious is required for a lot of people. Either that or they do it out of apathy.
Fergie (40 stories) (1159 posts)
5 years ago (2017-01-30)
Manafon, thanks for the info. Nobody asked my permission to post my story on their site. I see no credit is given to me, or YGS.

I apologize for hijacking your page, Biblio. 😐
Bibliothecarius (8 stories) (1065 posts)
5 years ago (2017-01-30)
Manafon (& MODS!),
Thanks for the additional info! In addition to the stories you found, it took me just a few moments on "" to find:
1) "A Ghost Named 'David'" By Beanboy34, Date: 2016-12-27,
2) "Warned By The Dead" By AUSTRIA, Date: 2016-12-28,
3) "Her Bloody Handprint" By AUSTRIA, Date: 2016-12-28,
4) "Metallic Shadow Person?" By Jessicqqqq, Date: 2016-12-28,
5) "Unexplainable Noises" By kentucky_believer, Date: 2016-12-29,
6) "The Basement" By Kest, Date: 2016-12-27,
Manafon1 (5 stories) (687 posts)
5 years ago (2017-01-30)
Biblio--Your intensive research into websites and blogs reposting stories from YGS without permission got me wondering if any of mine have been. Well, I found a blog that not only has reposted three of my accounts but numerous other accounts from YGS. Including one from a YGS mod.

The blog in question is on tumblr and is called True Ghost Stories From Around The World. I could find absolutely no mention of any of the YGS members whose accounts have been reposted (many posted again by other users of this site elsewhere) or YGS itself.

Here are just a few of the stories reposted without any credit on this blog just this month:
Grandma Drowned The Boogeyman
He Was A Ghost, At First
Guidance From Beyond The Veil
My Dad Returned!
My Nights With Mr. Bad
My Little Emile, The Ghostly Girlfriend
He Likes Junk Yard War
And my three accounts:
Childhood Paranormal Odds And Sods Parts One and Two
And The Open Door Of A Ouija Board.

I only skimmed the surface with this blog but it asks for people to submit their paranormal encounters and all of the above accounts are presented as if they were submitted to the blog exclusively. If it's any consolation, the YGS accounts have received a lot of positive feedback on this blog 😕.
Bibliothecarius (8 stories) (1065 posts)
5 years ago (2017-01-30)
ATTN., Martin & Mods.

There is no contact information on the "" page on which my stolen narrative appears (, nor is there a link to provide this information on the homepage ( The only attribution to my account is "Bibliothecarius" without **any** mention of YGS. At least the individual who took the story about my Grandad bothered to include the complete citation of the YGS page.

The "" search ( indicates that the owner of this site, Wonhee Lee, is in/from South Korea. Wonhee Lee's phone number, according to his kkara site ( is +82.1085472180. [I think that the "+" is the indicator that the next two digits are the country code, so anyone calling him from South Korea wouldn't need to add those.] On one of his other listed registrations (, there are indications either that he's bouncing signals from stateside IP servers, or he's actually lived in Florida (IP Address: IP Geolocation: US United States, Florida, Miami) and has held -or does hold- a position (possibly a Student or Grad Student) at "Department of History, University at Albany" --zip code 12222 (CNSE-SUNY Albany) -- where his e-mail address is/or was "wlee3 [at]" though he's still using the IP address in Florida (

According to, Wonhee Lee is also listed as "Won-hee Lee" and -in the Western style- "Lee Won-hee." They indicate that he owns the 22 websites on this list:

The following data (once again from "") may be of use to Martin in tracking down why exists:

*Registrar Info
--Name: Dotname Korea Corp
--Referral URL:

--Expires On: 2016-12-22
--Registered On: ----
--Updated On: 2016-12-21


Registrant Contact Information:
--Name: Wonhee Lee
--Organization: ----
--Address: 8-1, Ssangmicheon-ro 73beon-gil, Yeonje-gu 658-18
--City: ----
--Postal Code: 47590
--Country: KR
--Phone: +82.510000000
--Email: aksixnine [at]

Administrative Contact Information:
--Name: Wonhee Lee
--Organization: -----
--City: ----
--Postal Code: 47590
--Country: KR
--Phone: +82.510000000
--Email: aksixnine [at]

Technical Contact Information:
--Name: Wonhee Lee
--Organization: ----
--City: ----
--Postal Code: 47590
--Country: KR
--Phone: +82.510000000
--Email: aksixnine [at]

Information Updated: 2016-12-24 09:08:59

"" also includes the less-than-reassuring datum:
*Site Status
--Status: Inactive

"" has a list of the DNS history here:

The "" Diagnostics search revealed:

*PING ( 56 (84) bytes of data.
--- ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 4000ms

Traceroute to (, 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 ip-10-0-0-14.ec2.internal ( 0.366 ms 0.395 ms 0.392 ms
2 ( 15. 676 ms 16. 992 ms 15. 665 ms
3 ( 13. 351 ms 13. 279 ms ( 19. 679 ms
4 ( 12. 183 ms ( 22. 536 ms 22. 532 ms
5 ( 20. 929 ms ( 12. 862 ms ( 21. 725 ms
6 ( 20. 064 ms ( 20. 992 ms ( 12. 019 ms
7 ( 0.640 ms ( 0.641 ms ( 22. 021 ms
8 ( 1.585 ms ( 4.295 ms ( 1.859 ms
9 ( 18. 093 ms ( 23. 341 ms ( 2.913 ms
10 ( 2.060 ms ( 1.483 ms ( 1.578 ms
11 * * *
12 ( 76. 269 ms ( 90. 426 ms 90. 440 ms
13 ( 69. 782 ms ( 69. 757 ms ( 69. 823 ms
14 ( 77. 015 ms 77. 097 ms 77. 063 ms
15 ( 69. 521 ms 69. 467 ms 69. 486 ms
16 ( 70. 697 ms 71. 776 ms 71. 788 ms
17 ( 70. 347 ms ( 70. 266 ms ( 69. 510 ms
18 ( 67. 675 ms 67. 685 ms 66. 951 ms
19 ( 215. 718 ms ( 209. 532 ms ( 210. 557 ms
20 ( 212. 082 ms ( 214. 904 ms ( 209. 694 ms
21 ( 213. 115 ms * ( 199. 954 ms
22 * ( 222. 034 ms ( 205. 387 ms
23 ( 216. 903 ms ( 214. 761 ms ( 215. 419 ms
24 * * *
25 ( 222. 150 ms 221. 274 ms 221. 633 ms
26 ( 206. 857 ms 209. 969 ms 204. 912 ms
27 ( 217. 442 ms 216. 151 ms 217. 756 ms
28 * * *
29 * * *
30 * * *


I think I may have gone a little overboard tracking this individual down, as I've also run across individuals with the same name running a department at Hyundai and a Dental Practice, but the one listed as being at SUNY Albany has research on the scattering of light waves being presented at a SPIE conference (The International Society for Optics and Photonics: tomorrow (Monday, 30 January, 2017; 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM) in The Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA:

Remotely sensing pressure inside microchannels using light scattering in Scotch tape
Paper 10074-59
Time: 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Author (s): KyungDuk Kim, Hyeonseung Yu, Joon-Young Koh, Jung H. Shin, Won-Hee Lee, YongKeun Park, KAIST (Korea, Republic of)
We propose a simple method to measure the pressure inside a deformable microchannel using light scattering in an opaque Scotch tape. When a coherent laser beam passes through the channel and the Scotch tape, the speckle patterns are formed by light scattering in Scotch tape. The resultant speckle patterns are highly sensitive to the minute change of the wavefront due to the randomness of scattering layer. By measuring the speckle patterns, the deformation of the channel associated with the internal pressure change is effectively measured. We demonstrate that with a proper calibration, internal pressure can be remotely sensed with a resolution of 0.1 kPa within 0 - 3 kPa.

Well, if I have gone overboard, it's because I got annoyed. When I get irritated, I start researching. Once I've started, it's rather difficult to stop! I know I'm getting obsessive when my endeavors remind me of an apocryphal Neil Gaiman quote: "Rule Number One: Don't f*** with librarians."

I think I'll stop, now.
Miracles51031 (38 stories) (4981 posts) mod
5 years ago (2017-01-07)
Biblio - I just reread your profile, a habit I have lol, and want to say thank you 😊
Bibliothecarius (8 stories) (1065 posts)
5 years ago (2016-11-15)
Wow, Tweed & Ladydarke, we're turning this experience into our own little group-therapy session for energy sensitives. To ensure that we're not reprimanded by the Mods (who tend to be lenient, anyway) I am finding this very helpful.

Just a note on telekinesis, first, as ladydarke suggested I try it. As a teen, I used to sit in church (a modern building with centralized air conditioning) and make the candle flame on one end of the altar remain stationary, then switch sides so that the other one would be still. The neat part was that they were submitted to roughly equal air currents in a sealed room when I did this. I never could get both to sit still at the same time; they were too far apart for me to focus on them simultaneously.

I would, respectfully, like to correct (perhaps "adjust" is a better word) the potential for a miscommunication. I understand what you mean by the sentence, "Like you, I lack a strong sense of self-identity" because I have been wracked by self-doubt most of my life (thanks, mum!), but most of the energetic shielding, the chameleon body language, the showman in public, etc., were all extensions (even exaggerations) of me. Underneath all of that, there is a core of self-knowledge that I've shielded for decades. I'm constantly learning, questioning, and adapting -which is good- but right at the root of it all is a very quiet, determined voice repeating the statement that has provided me with the resolve to endure everything that has happened in my life: "I shall not yield." I had to make compromises to survive my childhood, and I'm trying to forgive my self for having compromised too much on occasion, or having extended forgiveness too often, but there was always a boundary -somewhere- which I refused to cross: this far and no further. I know when I'm getting close to that point, because I start to get quiet. (Yet another fandom: David Tennant's tenure as The Doctor. Enthusiastic, chaotic, brilliant, curious, and if you're out of line, he'll give you a warning --but only one. He doesn't yield, either.)

"Granted it can be hard to have so tumultuous a mind, but it can also be amazing to think and feel so poignantly - and that, Biblio, is something I suspect you can relate to." Yes! There's joy in that rush of thinking faster than everyone else in the room, especially when you're listening to someone who does not yet know you. I had to have surgery on my gums (healthy teeth, but I'd been brushing the gums away, too!). The surgeon was explaining slowly and carefully the nature of the procedure, when I gave him a parallel example and asked a question. He looked a bit affronted, then said, "Oh, you've researched this process?" as though that would account for it. I told him the truth, "No, I was listening to your explanation, I extrapolated forwards from the data you'd provided, and generated the analogy to ensure I understood correctly what you were going to say next." He was flummoxed. "Don't worry," I reassured him, "I teach English; I think faster than everyone else for a living." He still looked troubled, but there wasn't much I could do for him at that point. Nice fellow, though.

"Is it hard for you to give it up, the quicksilver thoughts, the mind capable of processing so much so quickly? Is it a relief to still the whirlwind, be able to pause long enough to find and savor feelings? It seems a devil's bargain, and you must be torn over the need to choose and swap." Recently, I've discovered that my mind is capable of continuing to operate as it did in the past, though below the threshold of consciousness. I'll look at a situation, an arrangement, or a location, and I'll discover that I've already got the solution in my head; I just needed to take the time to notice. I will admit, though, that two things surprised me more than the other effects: 1) I sometimes cry at songs I've loved for ages or that I find particularly poignant ("Skyfall" by Adele was the first one I reacted to, though I'd listened to it about 100 times before); 2) having emotions **all the time** is a pain in the arse. (I've even been reprimanded for something I said while my conscious mind was focused on NOT losing my temper.) I'm headed into middle age, and I'm still trying to sort out the emotional swings everyone else deals with in their early-to-mid teens. Grrr. This is why I'll avoid the cutlery draw when I'm mad; interesting though the experiment in psionic manipulation may be, there's a logical part of my mind cautioning that the pointy end of the cutlery would be a temptation better avoided... I do miss the liberation of randomly-generated iterations of chaotic thought, but my mind was overheating my temper and causing emotional stress-fractures; I was well on the road to becoming my own worst enemy. In Ridley Scott's "Bladerunner" (from P.K.D.'s "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"), Tyrell reminds the antagonist, "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly." I had no alternatives, really, but to begin medication or to push my brain past the breaking point. I miss the rush, sometimes, but I've been discovering that my meds -essentially- slow my brain down just enough that I can still out-think most people, but they allow me to do it with focused deliberation, rather than just bulldozing them.

There's a fascinating book by Dr. Patricia Love (yes, that's her real name, Tweed!) called "The Emotional Incest Syndrome." I'm not sure I buy everything she argues for in that book, but the bulk of it certainly hangs together logically. It's about being the child who is on the receiving end of parental love/affection/companionship and/or abuse/rejection/demands. I'd recommend checking it out of the library, at any rate, to see what you think. If you want to start highlighting & adding post-it notes, you should probably buy a copy. 😁

"In regards to your energy fields centering around your torso, I had thought the same as Tweed, that you were protecting chakras. From your descriptions, I'm guessing that the chakras in your head were well-developed as you were so cerebral even as a child." Yes, I was. My mother managed to teach me the letters of the alphabet; I got a bit bored and taught myself to read by the age of three. If that's not over-developed cerebral processes, I don't know what is. "But the heart chakra in particular sounds wounded - especially if you still have trouble processing feelings. Perhaps it was that you were defending." The car accident which I mentioned as a watershed moment killed my grandmother; I had trouble with being perceived as "over-emotional" before that point, but afterward was a who new psychological landscape. "Was your throat included within the protected area?" Yes, as were my mouth & nostrils (if that's in any way relevant to Chakras); my eyes and ears, though, were vital to my defenses, so I needed to keep them relatively unshielded.

I'm sure there were other points I was going to make, but it's late and I need an early start in the morning.

Tweed (29 stories) (2362 posts)
5 years ago (2016-11-12)
Goodness me Ladydarke, I cannot express enough how sorry I am to learn of what you went through. Your comments always radiate warmth and wisdom. Whenever you comment it's seriously a breath of welcomed fresh air, I really mean that. You've always felt to me like someone who knows exactly who they are, so it's surprising to hear you talk about a lack of identity. Surely someone who can summon, not one, but two pet cats with specific (and RARE) markings must possess a strong belief and confidence in themselves. Perhaps identity is separate to this.
About ten years ago I had somewhat of an epiphany, that I didn't have to be one thing, I could be many things. Then I realised I had been many things all along. Only I was in denial and hadn't learned to intergrade all those different parts. Big time revelation and weight off my shoulders, that was. Maybe this will help you in some way too.

With regard to whether or not to get a formal diagnosis of suspected mild Autism Spectrum Disorder, I think your attitude is healthy. I would ask myself:
Is this hindering or hurting me?
Is this hindering or hurting anyone else?
If the answer to both is 'No', then it's likely not a bad thing after all.

What is it with domineering parents?
I too can relate to much of what you and Biblio describe.

My mother is difficult to explain. Due to her own harsh upbringing she developed an acute distrust of men. Like Biblio, my mother also pressured me, in subtle ways, to be her friend instead of her daughter. She used to drink heavily and, at times, became violent with me. I used to play counsellor as a teenager and well into adulthood. It took me well into my 20's to realise she'd never change and that I couldn't help her.
Her distrust of men is so deep she can't handle me, an only daughter, being in a romantic relationship. Or even having any men interested in me whatsoever. In that department I'm like a model daughter, not out of a duty to please my parents, but in how I'm naturally wired. I've always been a monogamous, 'all or nothing' gal. Never seen the appeal in flings or one night stands, it's simply not for me. But with how my mother tries to control every male interaction I have, even now, you'd think I was some kind of man eater!
Amusingly my best friend at high school was a guy who happened to be gay. Mum loved him lol!
These days we get along, but I think this is mostly because that part of my life has been invisible to her since 2008. Before then, if I had a boyfriend, she'd give me and him the cold shoulder. She wouldn't talk to me, refused to interact with me, or him, regardless of what he was like. So I removed that part of my life completely from any interactions with her. Still do to this day. It's like an elephant in the room but the elephant's more like in the attic. I knew from an early age I didn't want to be a parent, it isn't for me. With no children to consider, hiding this part of my life from her feels like the best action to take. She ain't going to change, and, surprisingly, I'm okay with that.

My father, on the other hand, gets off on offending people. It's like an addiction for him. He'll get you talking about a topic that's important to you, could be anything, he'll be listening, then, while you're mid sentence, he'll begin talking about something entirely different. It's, erugh, very manipulative and degrading. When it happens you question whether or not it actually happened. Then he gives a sly smile, like 'yeah, I just did that'. As an adult I learned he does this to everyone.
Dad's problem is validation, in doing this he's testing whether or not I, or anyone else, will forgive him. Still, when you're in the moment that's little consolation. I've learned to avoid this by keeping what I say to him concise and dry or funny. Humour is a great weapon against passive aggression. If I want to get serious with Dad, and have a heart to heart, the way I go about this is saying exactly what I want to say, only with an overuse of vulgarity. The filthier my language, the more relaxed he is.

I think everyone's parents screw them up to some degree. Considering what some people survive, I think my parents are cool, for the most part. Here I've only described their shortcomings, thus painting them in a less forgiving light. But they have many compassionate traits too. I think of them as oddly strict hippies. Ooh they'd HATE me calling them strict haha, but they are!

As far as mental illness goes, I probably have some kind of depression, gawd knows I have anxiety and OCD, which flares up every now and then. In relation to how this ties in with being sensitive to paranormal stuff, I think an early instilled hypervigilance probably leads to awareness of any other number of energy fields.

I tend to think of energy as colours and shapes, each unique to a situation. Also I'm lead by my nose, utterly obsessed with smell. For some reason this ties in with energy for me. I remember on one of Biblio's earlier submissions about a wooden bust I asked what the bloody thing smelled like, I just *had* to know lol!

The cloak on my comments is intentional and your analogies and observations are correct. Thanks for understanding. 😊
ladydarke (100 posts)
5 years ago (2016-11-12)

Your post is so heartfelt, I've read it over several times now. I salute your bravery in revealing that carefully curtained-away darkness. It's never easy, not even given the anonymity of the internet, and it has been something you've been careful heretofore to talk around. Thank you for being so open.

I fit within the triumvirate as well, and I relate acutely to many of your experiences. My mother was also emotionally (and physically) abusive, and quite likely mentally ill. She also was also the primary caregiver while my father spent much of his time working. As she had been a teacher before her marriage, she home-schooled all of us kids from grades 1-3. Anytime I found a lesson difficult, the moment she became frustrated she'd start hitting me in the head with a textbook until she had vented sufficiently, then expect the lesson to progress as if the obstacle had been overcome. I was the only child who got hit, but we lived in the country with little social contact and were highly dysfunctional. We pretty much ran around like little animals receiving no guidance in regards to forming character, values, or critical thinking and no support for any of our interests. Like you, my escapism was books and the deeps of my own mind, though I also wrote and drew. Like you, I lack a strong sense of self-identity. I was additionally my mother's target child, in the psychological definition, meaning she didn't like and disfavored me, thus I received different treatment from my siblings who were not physically abused.

Add into this mix that we lived in a very old farmhouse that had an odd sigil and a name scratched onto the wall when my parents bought it, which they destroyed. That house contained something pretty malevolent, which my mother inadvertently gave permission to access her. Best as I can describe it, she came away soulless. Now, as a child, I was the one holding this entity back; it moved into the closets and unused corners of the house, and I drove it back out. Mostly it lived in the basement. My father had installed a sliding bolt lock on that door, and I would hammer the bolt with a shoe to make sure it remained tightly seated - basically keeping the thing in the basement. Sometimes I'd go down there and push it back, just to keep it in check. Fuses blew a lot, forcing my father into the basement to trip the breaker. I felt like he was being lured down there, so I'd go along to play bodyguard - man was it scary and bad down there! All this meant the entity didn't like me. As it had access to my mother, I believe it used her against me. Anyway, that house burned to the ground when I was 11 or 12, and although my parents rebuilt on the same site, the new house still had phenomena but not on the same scale. It seemed like the site had been at least partially purified in flame.

I've never really considered how this upbringing would directly result in my conception of my energy field. Perhaps my lack of self-identity and theory of mind was simply also formless and spread to my energetic self-conception.

I have never been evaluated and given an official diagnosis, but nevertheless I strongly suspect that I have mild Autism Spectrum Disorder (formerly known as Asperger's Syndrome) co-morbid with bipolar. As once one is flagged with a diagnosis it can become a burden and be nearly impossible to remove, the risk/reward ratio at this point leads me to see no benefit in seeking a formal evaluation. I am highly-functioning, have established healthy coping mechanisms, and have the support of my husband: he is my light. Granted it can be hard to have so tumultuous a mind, but it can also be amazing to think and feel so poignantly - and that, Biblio, is something I suspect you can relate to.


In regards to your energy fields centering around your torso, I had thought the same as Tweed, that you were protecting chakras. From your descriptions, I'm guessing that the chakras in your head were well-developed as you were so cerebral even as a child. But the heart chakra in particular sounds wounded - especially if you still have trouble processing feelings. Perhaps it was that you were defending. It makes Tony Stark with his arc-reactor a very fitting costume for you. >^.~< Was your throat included within the protected area?

I am sorry for everything you had to go through. It's so frustrating and angering that there are not just scars left that disable throughout life, but also the opportunities that are taken away. There's a hollow echoing void for all that could have been. All I can say is that, somewhere amid the stewing cauldron of the triumvirate factors, an extrasensory gift is witched up and you become somewhat more. Also, if and when a person can crawl out the other end, there's a level of compassion, understanding, and strength that perhaps cannot exist separately from the dark oubliettes left pitted across the psyche.

As for lifting the pain out of your shoulder: nice! It is so cool that the moment you start thinking about your energy fields, you start finding different applications for them. Keep going! Who knows what you'll come up with!

I wonder, Biblio: would the projection you do with your energy when angry actually be convertible into telekinesis? Can you bend a spoon? If you float a small object in water, can you move it around? Next time you get mad, grab a piece of cutlery!


Your memory for associative detail is spectacular. You are correct that I don't shield. I've just always felt like I wasn't meant to. The reasons are twofold 1) I feel like my vibration is supposed to be freely emitted, and 2) I feel that in a way I'm supposed to function like emergency services. Dispatch can't hang up the phone: I need to be available.

Sometimes this has repercussions, like picking up negative energies and becoming physically ill, or drawing energy vampires, or even absorbing people's negative thoughts and manifesting them, but none of it can really hurt me except on the most superficial level. It's actually been a long time since I've had any of that happen and I may no longer be susceptible. The trade-off is that when someone needs energy, they can take it. When someone needs help, they can find it.

In regards to limitation being a conception: yes, this has long been my approach to energy work. If I may use an X-Men analogy, both Professor Xavier and Jean Grey are powerful psionics. However, the difference (and this is more Marvel Comics than movies) is that Jean Grey is the only psionic in the Marvel Universe who can fly. The reason why: all the other telekinetics picture a hand moving things. You can't lift yourself, therefore they can't fly. Jean Grey doesn't picture the hand, she just moves stuff with her mind, including herself. Likewise, you'd think if wheelchair-bound Xavier would just conceive his powers differently, he could telekinetically support his weight and move his legs with his mind, thereby walking. Maybe, on a cellular level, he could even pluck his axions like guitar strings to simulate nerve signals.

It has likewise been some time since I needed to energetically clean my space, which I have always done purely through energy rather than ritual. When I did, I would think, meh, why stop with my house? I'll do a planetary cleansing. Sometimes I'd do one for all of existence. Now, I can't say I was ever able to validate that this did anything, lol! Maybe I just like imagining stuff. >^.^< My point is that I have never conceived of a limit, and yes, as you said, there is frightening potential in that.

I'll illustrate this with a cat. One time, my sister had a calendar with a kitten that I thought was really cute and I wanted one just like it. So I told my sister's as-yet-unspayed black cat every day that I wanted a kitten, and described this kitten in full detail: orange and black tortoiseshell, with a half-and-half orange and black face, and pink-and-black nose and toes. Within a couple of weeks, an orange tom showed up on our property. My sister's strictly indoor cat managed to escape for a night and came back the next morning. She bore three kittens, one of which exactly filled my order. Exactly, down to the last detail.

The kitten died suddenly from unknown causes at about one year. I was devastated and I called her back. I couldn't raise her corpse, but for months I wrote, "Come back," over and over across many pages. About six months later, a kitten that looked exactly like her appeared at my bedroom window asking to be let in. My parents didn't let me keep version 2.0 - we ended up giving her away to a good home.

Retrospectively, looking back at all this, I created a life. I overwrote the natural path of the souls of both the mother cat and kitten to do so, and I did not put in sufficient energy to sustain the kitten or to create a purpose and journey for her, hence she burnt out so quickly. She also seemed to be a fairly tortured personality, hissing, antisocial, and discontent. I summoned her soul back to that non-existent path anyway, and it's a very good thing she got away from me and was able to go on from there.

There was a time when I meddled, but I have since learned better. I work with my guides, now, and am learning to acquire the perspective of a guide and I try to follow their code. Sometimes they help me out, and sometimes I help them with their cases. Examples would be once they asked me to give a homeless man $100, and another time to intercede with a woman who was about to be involved in a domestic dispute. When I listen and take the actions I am asked to take, I don't see what the other outcome would have been. If I miss the chance, I invariably witness the outcome, or at least the immediate consequence. For instance, I saw a man sitting in a park writing and I knew I had to sit down at his table and say, "Tell me your story." I am shy and non-confrontational, so I slowed a bit while working up courage. That made me too late. On the way to his table, I rounded around this chalkboard the city had set up with slots for people to finish the sentence, "Before I die, I will..." - and I almost bumped into him. He stuck a folded paper in the chalkboard and walked quickly away. I did read it: a letter addressed to a woman but never meant to be received by her, filled with his regrets for hurting her.

Without shields, I live in a world dominated by energy and the movements of energy, yet I also pay taxes, clean the floor, and eat supper. Sometimes it's difficult to be grounded enough to manage real-world things, but the real world also has wonders like the ocean and holding hands. Handling energy beings isn't a problem for me, but dealing with flesh-and-blood people with their autonomy and inherent power is hard.

So, Tweed, care to take the mic? Do you fit the triumvirate? How do you conceive your energy field? Unlike Biblio, the energy signature in your posts feels masked: a shadowy robed figure almost like a stagehand, meant to be invisible, holding forth a bright, outgoing mask for all to see, a very private person hiding herself in plain sight. It's like a magician's redirection: what you see is what you get, as long as you're not looking over there. I suspect you tend to cloak first and thus avoid the need to raise shields: a Romulan tactic, lol. Anyway, I've never tried to see beyond the mask. If people put energy in their comments I can't help reading it along with the words, but I don't try to tune into anyone, especially if they're intentionally shielded/cloaking.

Tweed (29 stories) (2362 posts)
5 years ago (2016-11-11)
Biblio and Ladydarke,

I've just been reading your fascinating discussion about energy and a couple things jumped out. Maybe this will apply to you, maybe not, either way here goes.

1) Biblio you said your fields tend to anchor in orbits around your torso. Perhaps, given the stress you learned to endure early on, in doing so you formed a protective barrier around your vital organs. Similar to how we, and all other animals, protect themselves in a curled or huddled position when either threatened or under attack. Your fields around your torso could be a more spiritual manifestation of this. Perhaps also the chakras around this area needed/need the most protection. I'm no expert on chakras but maybe this will click with you in some way.

2) Ladydarke, I may be remembering this wrong, about a year ago someone on YGS mentioned they don't use a personal shield. For some reason I'm connecting this memory with you. If this wasn't you then what I have to say is pretty much bunk lol. But in case this was you, here goes.
You mentioned to Biblio you'd never thought of your energy as having a shape or boundary. If there's no shield then perhaps there's also no sense of boundary or even shape. No sense of form may seem kind of 'lacking' in concept on the surface, but at the same time it feels to me like it holds some pretty formidable potential in the right hands, and in the right context.
What you observed about not having any edges because you didn't conceive any got me pondering that.
Bibliothecarius (8 stories) (1065 posts)
5 years ago (2016-11-11)

Your hypothesis about the mind's reaction to traumatic events is intriguing. In my case, a car accident was a catalyst for all of the undercurrents in my family dynamic becoming more overt traits. I was subject to erratic bouts of emotional abuse by a needy, passive-aggressive mother who wanted a friend and counsellor instead of an eight-year-old son. My father was always working, mum was falling apart, and my little brother had to be shielded from the precarious reality of our home life. I was expected to be an adult, except when I was supposed to be an obedient child, but I was told to "act my age" when I was being a child, or I'd be praised for my intelligence, unless my penchant for abstract conceptualization opened up opportune targets for mockery.

The pleasant parts of my childhood were lovely; some of them involved my family, but many of them were manifestations of escapism: novels, biographies, histories, travelogues, mysteries, news, documentaries, films, etc. The only real validation I ever got from my parents was for my intellectual accomplishments which were derived from my voracious reading and my addiction to nature documentaries. However, these fact-filled pastimes caused to resentment, too (as a 10-year-old, I was told that I could play Trivial Pursuit with the family but that I could no longer answer the questions from the Children's Questions box; then they got annoyed that I could still beat them with the Adults' questions). Over time, I've gotten more comfortable with looking at my past. I had to create layers and layers of protective shielding because sufficient defenses could numb my emotions, tolerate insults, say hurtful things to my family on purpose, and -most importantly- endure them without giving in to their inane conformity. As I look at these experiences for what they were, in order to iron out the damage done to me, I've needed to sever ties with my parents. I feel a little rueful that there wasn't much of a connection with my father to lose, but my mother, on the other hand, was so controlling and manipulative that I'm still discovering whole thought processes she contaminated with her poisonous absolutism and her impossible standards.

As for the effect this had on my psyche, it's OCD (with a standard reaction formation) and ADHD with sublimated hyperactivity. My parents regularly told me to "stop fidgeting" or asked, "If everyone else can sit still, why can't you?" I managed to sublimate the hyperactivity into my thought processes: there was endless joy in maintaining five simultaneous trains of thought, switching from one to another and back again as different ideas became more interesting, and my OCD hyper-focused on each idea (of course, they accused me of having my head in the clouds). I know it can seem like a bipolar manifestation, but the agitation and chaos followed by a crash is brought about by stress and by time-consuming demands. My doctors and I have been slowing down my brain in order to pay attention to my feelings, to pay attention to other people's feelings, and to ensure that I'm not overwhelmed by the chaos generated by my standard reaction formation to OCD.

I shall not dismiss you as an internet crackpot, ladydarke, for mis-diagnosing my issues based upon one symptom. Rather, I commend you for noting that my apparently-anomalous history suggested that I had not revealed key details about my past. I don't romanticize the good memories, but I much prefer remembering them to the the slew of negative ones. I've got a decent recall for the events which occurred from the age of four onward, patchy memories of being three, and I remember having been that age and pondering events from earlier in my childhood. The sad truth is a great many of my memories are of dull, unpleasant, or tedious events, many others are painful or depressing; the happy memories are a much more productive way to explore the positive effects my childhood had on me.

Lionel Bart, who wrote "Oliver!", was interviewed for a documentary in the late 1970s or early 80s. He had recently composed a little ditty he was thinking of including in a musical, but I that program is the only place ever heard it:
"Please don't take me down Memory Lane;
I don't want to go near that place again!
I don't mind rememberin',
I just can't take the pain.
Oh, please don't take me down Memory Lane."
I know exactly how that feels. Perhaps the fragmentary nature of my identity as a child accounts for my maneuverable layers of personal energy adapting to each situation as I need them. Just a thought.

On a more positive note:
Though I've not had the opportunity to work on the energy exercise yet, I did experiment on moving my own energy fields to relieve a recurring cramp in my left shoulder. I was brushing my teeth (I'm right-handed) when I closed my eyes, focused on the pain in my left shoulder, and lifted it out. It was surprisingly effective, as it didn't return that day, and it usually requires Advil to numb it. I'm not sure if being able to shift one's own pain is normal or good, but it certainly helped on Tuesday morning, and it has given me much less trouble since then!


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