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(Written September 20, 1988)

We were in a house trailer just outside the Lindreth trading post, in northwest New Mexico. There were six of us on the hunt that year: My Dad and I; Morris - Dad's best friend, and his son Brad; Don - who owned the trailer and was to be our guide, and his son Chris.

I had watched my Dad leave to go hunting each fall since I could remember, had seen the freezer filled with venison after he returned. Hunting was the time when the men gathered together. Brad and I were 12, and this was our first time to go along, even though we weren't to carry guns.

Now as I lay in the lower bunk late at night - Brad was in the upper, the noise level from the dining room was rising. Our bedroom door was open, and light filtered down the hall, hazy with smoke. I heard cards shuffling, chairs scraping, ice tinkling in glasses, the long monotone of the joke then the raucous laughter at the bawdy punch line.

I was wide awake, thrashing around, had a knot in my stomach and a strong sensation something was not right. I hadn't known this partying was part of hunting and was not sure I wanted to be here. But I worsh

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Written October 17, 1988

I was out in the back yard shooting baskets with some of the boys from the neighborhood.  It was a crisp, sunny fall afternoon, sweatshirt weather, and I was feeling great about life.  I had finally gotten the knack of the jump shot, and was really proud of myself.

The back door open, my Dad called out, "Son, come here a minute."

I walked over to him, breathing hard from the exertion.

"Get your jacket, we're going down to the Y."

"The Y? How come?"

"I've signed you up for boxing lessons," he said, in that tone like when it was time for me to get a haircut; no more talk, this is just the way it is, just do it!"

So I said nothing and went along, puzzled.  I was 11, in the 5th grade, but I hadn't been in trouble or getting in fights or anything.  But boxing was important to my Dad, I knew that.  A ritual at our house was to watch the Gillette Friday Night at the Fights.  Dad had boxed in the Marine Corps while he was stationed in Hawaii.  But I had never particularly gotten off to the idea of getting hit; volu

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I received this question from someone who had just read my book, Freedom’s Just Another Word, where I confront some pretty bad demons from my past:

How did you overcome your fear of dealing with all the pain coming to the surface? I have not been able to conquer this fear I have of experiencing all that pain. I can talk to myself, try to reason it all out. I know this stuff is poison. If I let it all stay buried in there it is going to continue to rot my soul. I can know this in my head, but the fear is greater than my reasoning.

Here’s how I responded:
OK – that really is the essential question. The fear of dealing with all the pain coming to the surface. A very real, very pertinent question. It sort of gets back to simple concepts - “The way out is through!” “The only pain you can avoid is the pain of avoidance.” In my case, I had watched my Dad for 20 years be sober in a 12 step program, but not be willing to deal with the feelings underneath his drinking, which I strongly suspec

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I spent a lot of time walking around Houston in the middle '80s with many of the symptoms of PTSD, and didn't know it.  I was having flashbacks - of occurrences I didn't remember.  I felt like the man in the Bourne Identity with amnesia, who was getting glimpses of his past - a past he could not recall.  Sometimes it was like feeling memories - like I was somewhere else living through something.  But I had no idea what was going on, and it was terribly frustrating and confusing.

I would disassociate under stress - I would emotionally numb out, feel like I was up in a corner of the room watching events, totally apart from what was happening.  I had a sleep pattern where I would go to bed at 11 PM nice and tired, suddenly pop awake and be wide awake until 3 AM.  I had outbursts of anger that were way out of proportion to the event that might have triggered my explosion.  I had hypervigilance - I called it my "on patrol" mentality, where I was alert with all my threat detectors going off - but not sure why.  I had an exaggerated startle response - slip up behind me and poke me in the ribs and I was like someone jolted with elec

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A good friend emailed me a while back and asked about my experience of the "inner child" on my road to healing. My inner child, who I called Little Danny, was an integral part of the book I had written, "Freedom's Just Another Word." My friend wondered if my experience of that inner child had changed over the years, or if that child was still a part of me in some ways. Here's how I characterized it:

My sponsor in one of the 12 step programs several times said that when a person goes through a traumatic event, the ego freezes at the age the person was when the trauma took place. Pretty psychological, but it certainly felt like what I experienced. It was the essence of Little Danny. Either an 8 year old, a 14 year old or a 17 year old, the ages of my major traumas. And my process was releasing that old frozen ego and allowing myself to mature like I didn't do at the time, yet also honoring Little Danny. I learned after a while that my abandonment fears are resident within him, and I have to get him to "buy in" to things I am doing, or he rebels, digs in his heels, and says "like hell you will!" I vividly remember driving north from Houston to do a sweat lodge to relea...... [ Read the rest of this story ]

Written August 5, 1990

All I really wanted to say was "I'm sorry."

I had said some hurtful things to my Father. But he had been dead for three years. How do make amends after they're gone? It wasn't perfect, not like him being there, but I was talking to him anyway. Just making up a conversation in my mind, inside my spirit. And answering for him - what I thought he would say. No, that's not quite true. Some of the things my Dad had said to me, but I could not hear them at the time, or at least, could not receive his words.

My Dad had owned 5 acres of land in the country outside Tulsa that he was planting in pecan trees. We had been out there one time, with me clearing trees and brush while he grafted pecan trees. While we were resting, he'd been telling me stories about the good old days, like he always did. I told him that with any other adult male I would get up and leave if the stories got too much, and so I would with him. God, how that must have hurt.

And now I felt bad about it. I imagined us now out at that land once aga...... [ Read the rest of this story ]