• All Digitocracy
• AXS
• Brain, Child
• Honeysuckle
• Marie Claire
• Meat for Tea
• Sniff & Barkens
• Suburban Life
• Tablet
• Time Out New York
• The Establishment
• The Fix
• The Forward
• Woman’s Day

Not bad, eh? Let’s all raise the bar in 2017. I’m game. In other news, I stepped down from web design to keep writing full-time without having to lose sleep to keep up, I’ve been cured of Hepatitis C thanks to Obamacare, and deepened existing friendships while welcoming new ones. To stay positive in a year with a terrifying political landscape, I have begun a gratitude jar. I write something good that happened on a piece of paper on every single day and drop it into the jar. At the end of the year, I will be able to see 365 days with happiness in them — no matter what happens in the world at large.

And now, I must get back to work. I am adding the final touches to my 124th article for the The Fix, the largest addiction and recovery website. Thank you to my amazing writing mentor Susan Shapiro, American Society of Journalists & Authors, the amazing and supportive members in my weekly writing workshop, my wonderful editors and clients, and all of the amazing women in my private Facebook writing groups.

Here’s to a year of “YES”!

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Facebook suggested I friend him. I guess our social networks overlapped. I guided the mouse toward his photo, and the little pointed hand hovered over his face. Fear and anger swelled up but curiosity won out and I clicked “Add Friend.” He accepted within minutes. Stunned, I wondered if he had forgotten raping me, or if he thought I had.

At 13, I was a lonely upper-middle-class Jewish nerd living on Long Island, in search of a tougher persona. He was part of an edgy crowd that hung out in a parking lot behind the school, sprawling over the cement steps like bored cats on a sofa. It was 1973, and the boys wore black leather jackets, smoked Marlboros and stashed pints of Tango and Thunderbird in their back pockets. One afternoon, making sure my long brown hair covered the blemish on my cheek, I went over and said, “Hi.”

That was really all it took. A few offered nods. One of the girls asked if I wanted to come out with them that night to the cemetery.

“Isn’t that spooky?” I whispered.

She laughed. Her voice had a ring of confidence mine never did, so I went, wearing — against Mom’s orders — a shimmery, low-cut shirt. As dusk fell we ambled past the wrought-iron gates, onto the lawn. The guys set down brown bags with bottles. I reached for the pint of Bacardi. Sweet rum burned my throat. With my eyes closed I was Keith Richards chugging onstage at Madison Square Garden.

“Wow, you can really drink,” he said.

I nodded with fake nonchalance, as if this were my forte instead of my first time. Two other girls wandered off with their boyfriends to make out, leaving me standing alone, feeling like a loser. I grinned in relief when one of the boys waved “c’mere,” as if to confide something. But then the boy grabbed me, clamped his hand over my mouth and threw me on the ground, shoving a knee into my hipbone. At first I thought it was a joke. Then four other guys surrounded me. I realized this had been planned.

With the other boys holding me down, he slammed on top of me.

“Is that how you like it?” he said. His breath stank of cigarettes and beer.

Another boy said, “She may have an ugly face, man, but she has a really nice body.”

I’m not sure which was sadder, that I believed my face was ugly or that I was flattered he liked my body. I tried to scream, but it came out muffled. They laughed. I gagged. They took turns. Then it was over. I pulled myself up, retrieved my pink Hanes and almost fell over getting my foot through the leg hole. I leaned against a tree for balance and tugged up my jeans, and then I started screaming.

One of them said: “Oh, man, this chick is nuts. Let’s go.” And they did.

With a child’s logic, I figured the boys thought I wasn’t a virgin because of my sexy shirt. Too ashamed to confide in my parents or older sisters, I tried to tell a teacher after class one day. I stood by her desk shifting my weight from one foot to the other. But I was afraid of being shunned at school if I reported it, so all I said was “See you tomorrow.”

From those early teen years until my mid-20s, I let boyfriends come and go like subway cars, certain that they would trick and humiliate me. If they liked me too much it scared me away. Loneliness plagued me. When I saw happy couples I wondered, How do they do that? I drank heavily, hoping to forget what had happened. But I couldn’t forget.

Thirty-eight years later, I browsed through the Facebook friends of the boy who was the first to rape me, noticing names I remembered from high school. In his recent photos were snapshots of a boy with his nose and a pretty teenage girl with long silky hair parted in the middle. He gripped a beer while his belly drooped over his jeans. I found some older photos of his wedding, him with a pretty young bride.

The first time I talked about the rape I was 26 and in a therapist’s office. “I can help you,” she said, but it wasn’t a quick fix. I was in my 40s when I met Steve. He had a troubled past too, so we fit. When I buried my face in his hair, the smell, the closeness, made me feel safe. It still does.

Now I clicked back to my rapist’s wall for a link to his wife’s profile and sent her a friend request. I decided that my revenge would be to blow up his marriage. I planned what I’d tell her if she confirmed my request. A montage of memories flooded my head until I felt so queasy I had to lie down.

But when I looked at my computer again, I saw she’d written on my wall. She posted a sideways smiley face and complimented the photos of my dog. How could I tell her? She’d done nothing to me. My rage belonged to her husband.

So I went back to his profile page and typed a private message: “I hope that night has haunted you. I was naïve and a virgin. I see you have a teenage daughter now. Better keep her safe from guys like you.”

I wanted to hate him and hurt him but realized that the only way to be free was to let it all go. When I defriended him I felt strong. The past was the past, and my mouth wasn’t covered anymore.

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The Forward

Say No to the ‘C’
Interview with author Jennifer Margulis about the risks of Caesarean sections.

A Tour of Jewish China
Interview with Israeli entrepreneur Yael Farjun who runs a travel company in China.

A Journey of Recovery From Eating Disorders
Interview with comedian-actress Stacey Prussman who does outreach at campuses to help those suffering with eating disorders.

The Fix

Directing Sarah Silverman as an Addict
Interview with Adam Salky about the comedian-turned-dramatic-actress Sarah Silverman and his movie “I Smile Back” based on the novel by Amy Koppelman.

Rape, Trauma, PTSD and Bill Cosby
A personal essay about my own experience with rape and why women are terrified to tell.

Bob Zappa on Frank, Smokes and Addiction
An interview with Frank Zappa’s younger brother about Frank’s addiction to cigarettes, which led to designing the cover and copyediting his memoir “Frankie and Bobby: Growing Up Zappa.” and becoming dear friends with Bob and his wife Diane.

Meet the Remarkable Woman Who Is Saving Afghanistan’s Heroin Addicts
Since the fall of the Taliban, the production of opium has skyrocketed. Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world’s supply and 11 percent of the population there are addicts. Laila Haidari, a former child bride, runs two addiction treatment centers and offers hope and healing to addicts in Kabul.

More 2015 Olds News

My New York Times Essay “Defriending My Rapist” became required reading for a course on Victimology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY

ASJA

I spoke on two panels at the 2015 American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) annual writing conference. The sessions included “Secrets of Interviewing Famous People” and “Use Social Media to Land Writing Gigs and Make Money.” And I have been asked back for 2016! So excited. My panel will be on Sat., May 21, 2016 2-3:30 pm at the Roosevelt Hotel. For more info visit the website: ASJA.org.

Book Expo

Spoke for Susannah Greenberg on a UPublishU panel a BEA about writers promoting themselves on social media.

Celebrity Interviews and Photo Ops

And, of course, I interviewed a ton of celebrities, attended press events, and screened a gazillion movies during 2015. Some of the standouts were Robert de Niro, Julianne Moore, Glenn Close, Lily Tomlin, Laverne Cox, Kristen Stewart, Ben Kingsley, Sam Waterston, Lorraine Bracco, Kim Basinger, Patricia Clarkson, Alex Gibney, Edward James Olmos, Nancy Spielberg, Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, Peter Sarsgaard, Amy Koppelman, Tim Blake Nelson, Shia LaBeouf, Nat Wolff, Paul Sorvino, Debi Mazar.

Websites

Created a bunch of new websites. Here are my faves:

Holly Rizzuto Palker
Juliana Neiman
Cheryl Morrison’s Docuclear

DOGS, DOGS, DOGS!
And let’s not forget the fantastic doggie fundraising events I photographed this year!!

Enjoy!!

And write to me on Facebook and tell me about your high points this year.

The post 2015 – A Year in Review appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

Wish I could blame nuclear weapons, a mutant virus or Hitler for the malformation in my Russian Jewish bloodline, but my theory is a suicide gene. That coupled with an inability to bond during difficult times. We held our sorrow separately, a silent pact—if we didn’t put words to it, nothing was awry. With a child’s vocabulary I tried to convey the dark storms in my head, but felt my efforts swept aside. “What the hell does that kid have to be depressed about?” Dad asked. Mom shushed him. I was unglued and my family found me exhausting.

But, I wasn’t the only spooked member of the herd. June 1973, my sister Jenny was fifteen, I was twelve. At dinner, Mommy said, “Please pass the peas.” As Jenny picked up the bowl I stared at her white-bandaged wrists.

“Does it hurt?” I asked softly.

She turned her head down to her plate, her lip quivered.

“A little,” she whispered.

 “Anybody want another Tab?” Mom asked. Before anyone answered, she disappeared into the kitchen.

In our Long Island home generations of ancestors marched in photo display up the foyer walls. I spent hours staring at what a perfect family we appeared to be—Ma, a bestselling self-help author, who looked like Jackie O in jeans, Dad, a radio man with Sinatra’s angular cheekbones and straight white teeth. People often said, “None of you look Jewish.” It was a backhanded compliment meaning we had nice noses and frizz-free hair.

Later that same year, 1973, I stepped on the third rail of the Long Island Railroad and nothing happened. So I stepped on it again. I was under the impression it would electrocute me instantly.

“Hey Kid.” a station worker called out. “You could get yourself killed.”

Next day in Science I asked a classmate, “Hypothetically, what would happen if I accidentally stepped on the third rail?”

“Nothing.” he said. “You’re wearing sneakers. Rubber can’t conduct electricity.”

At fifteen, in 1975, I ran away via the same train rails. Back to my native Manhattan, I’d absconded to escape despair and shake off suburbia. In Greenwich Village I found my Mardi Gras and became a street urchin. One day at West Fourth Street, I jumped a turnstile. While I fled from a cop, the subway tunnel summoned me. The iron rails promised an instant solution to loneliness—death. I looked back to see who or what I was running from. Then, magnetically pulled toward my dead heroes, Jimi and Janis, I jumped down onto the subway tracks in front of an oncoming train. Steel hurtled at me with the promise of ramming, crunching, killing. At the speed of that E train, it hit me I could be maimed and live. Existence would be far worse as an amputee. I squeezed tight against the wall. Blast of horn and screech of metal blew out my eardrums while manic swirls of grit choked off my breath. After the train passed, I followed the rails to the nearest exit and kept running.

Years later, shrinks attributed my morbidity to low levels of serotonin and poor impulse control. My dopamine receptors didn’t light up. That is, until I poured drugs and alcohol on them. Too bad Mom’s bestselling parenting books didn’t have all the answers. Both of us wished she knew what to do. I was missing the brain piece that signals enough. I might have learned to compensate for my genetic predisposition if anti-depressants had been the Tic-Tacs they are today.

In 1977, when I was seventeen, Mom’s brother Carl shot himself in the heart. He died before he fell back on his bed. Ma was angry. Words like selfish and thoughtless circled the air until she put the kibosh on that topic.

Last night, I googled my gene theory—if one family member tried to off themself were others more likely to try? The overwhelming proof shone on my monitor like a spiritual white light. I’d never known how to explain my self-destruction before. Questions regarding my suicidal tendencies seemed as cockamamie as asking me why was I allergic to cats.

At seventeen I was in a car crash. Three died and I almost did too. For years I’d prayed to God to get me the hell out of here, but clearly he’d aimed and missed. Apparently, my envy for the three dead was a peculiar response. Along with other deficiencies, I was told I lacked gratitude. Mom and Dad took me to doctors who fixed my broken bones. My reaction to this miraculous recovery was to guzzle Quaaludes, Valiums and vodka, then I laid down and waited to exit in repose. With no note it would appear accidental, nobody could ever label me selfish. But after two days I popped up again like the egg-shaped toy in a popular commercial, Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down. My response? I took to shooting up coke.

In 1983, more family woes. Dad’s sister wrapped a plastic bag around her head. Her sons were livid but relieved they found her in time. When we got the news, Dad slammed the Arts section down and said, “Jesus H. Christ.”

But it wasn’t all a grim deathwatch waiting for who was going to drop next. There were happy times. Dad worked in radio and cracked us up with on-air bloopers like the Princeton cheerleaders making a big “P” on the field. Ma framed my artwork and gave great birthday parties. At Broadway plays we all sat in orchestra seats.

I remember Ma’s soft hands against my forehead when I was sick. But more vivid is how our hard heads rammed into each other. Brutal words we couldn’t take back, scenes we could not rewind. My rebellion became predictable. I found life and everyone in it unacceptable. It wasn’t a fear of death that disturbed me, it was being stuck here endlessly spiraling down. I ached for a connection more intimate than my Washington Square dealer, but alcohol, amphetamines and acid consumed all of my trust and devotion. 

At 26, in a typical drunken haze, I wept. In my MacDougal Street apartment I cried for Jenny’s scarred wrists, poor Uncle Carl and my own failed attempts. I groped in the dark through ashtrays and bottles, dialed the phone and woke up in rehab. Too late for a do-over, I trudged through twenty years of therapy, the twelve steps and countless chocolates. I sold my first painting, opened a business, got my first dog. In 1994, I bought a one bedroom in Chelsea. By 2003 I’d paid it off. I treated Ma and Dad to dinners and orchestra seats. After years of breakups and a heart like ground chuck, I stopped picking what-was-I-thinking men and finally fell in love. Mine was a quick success story, it only took forty years.

Watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes recently, my adrenalin pumped at the thrill from bloodshed. I laughed at my continued fascination with death—bookshelves packed with true crime, OD’d rockers magnets on the fridge, prayers for the new season of Dexter to start—and the occasional urge to poke a bobby pin into the wall socket just to see what would happen.

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* * *

“Reasons to Re-Joyce” is an appealing essay written by Darin Strauss (Sunday Book Review, The New York Times, December 9, 2012). Not only did Strauss mock the hand-wringing world of whiners moaning about the death of literary fiction, he states, “The naysaying misses the fact that this has been a wildly good book year.” Oh, and by the way, you can trust Strauss has his finger on the right pulse — his most recent book, a memoir titled Half a Life, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The title of this essay is a reference to Ulysses by James Joyce. Strauss claims the novel is still relevant and a strong influence on what he calls a recent slew of “legitimate masterpieces.” Strauss also makes an excellent point that many of the doom and gloom analyses of the so-called downturn in book sales is not based on actual numbers: “It would be one thing if the naysayers were talking about a crash dive of sales figures. Sales figures carry the inarguability of math.” Instead, he argues, the public is under a barrage of nothing more than negative uniformed opinions from glass half empty talking heads. So, rejoice writers and keep writing your books. Readers are still reading.

* * *

“A Strong Author Platform Translates into Book Sales” reports DBW (Digital Book Wire, December 6, 2012). This is an article promoting the Digital Book World Conference & Expo in New York that is taking place January 15–17, 2013. No doubt the recap will offer sound advice for and analyses of the current state of digital book sales. This conference offers trade publishers hard data on today’s and tomorrow’s book biz. The conference refers to itself as “the single largest gathering of senior-level digital publishing execs anywhere.” It promises attendees access to presidents, CEOs, editors, marketers, large and small publishers, agents, authors, booksellers, librarians and techies — in other words, everyone you need to know to manage your success in the digital publishing world. Topics will include the power of social media and how to determine your best strategy from a dizzying array of platforms including Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Pinterest and YouTube. Speakers will cover how to generate media buzz, how to use search engine optimization (SEO) to rise to higher heights in Google searches and the necessity of 365-day marketing strategies to measure the success of your efforts. So, if you are one of those writers who has been reluctant to spruce up your website or blog, and take the plunge into social media conversations on Twitter and Facebook, there is so much more you can be doing to create your own writing success. Run, don’t walk, to social media marketing.

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TRYING TO ACCEPT THE SUICIDE OF A BROTHER

On February 25 my brother took his own life.

In the morning he went to his safe-deposit box to withdraw his will and his life-insurance policies so that whoever would settle his affairs would be spared as much inconvenience as possible. In the afternoon he went to the barbershop for a haircut and a shave. The stroke he had suffered 12 years before, at the age of 44, had taken from him the use of his right hand. He was no longer able to shave himself as closely as he—ever-meticulous—liked to. On the way home he stopped to say goodbye to a friend. He told her he was going on a trip. To her question, “Where?” he smiled broadly and said, “It’s a secret.” Then he limped down the hall to his own apartment.

He took off and carefully folded the new clothes he had put on just as carefully only a short time before, sat on the edge of his bed, and with his still strong left hand pulled the trigger that sent a single bullet cleanly through his heart. The coroner told us later that he had died even before he fell back upon the bed.

My brother left notes—to his sons, to his mother, to his doctor, to friends, to me. They all held caring messages of gratitude for friendship and love given over the years. In a couple he left practical instructions. In none did he leave any explanation for his final, carefully executed act. He didn’t really have to.

The reasons are not hard to find. They tumble over each other. That clot that had stopped the flow of blood to his brain for mere minutes had changed his life.

He had been able to compensate to a great degree for his physical disabilities: the paralysis of his right arm and leg. But since he had never regained fluent speech or perceptive judgment, he had been unable to resume his work as a highly successful sales executive. Nor had he been able to find another job that both satisfied his need to achieve and was within his capability.

Furthermore, the insult to his brain had also affected his personality. Within two years of the stroke, his marriage of 22 years had ended. His friends found it hard to spend an evening with him and saw him less and less often. His only brother (to whom he had become close since his illness) died, and then his father, who had in recent years become his counselor, his confidant, his best friend.

Eventually, in the hope of recapturing some of his former professional success, he moved back to California, where he had been living and working until his stroke. Now a continent away from the east coast where his parents, his sons and I lived, he had neither friends nor family nearby. His connections with both his sons ebbed and flowed. While he and they mended their relationships, they remained separated by the miles. A fall in the garage while getting his car resulted in a broken hip, surgery, and a slow, painful recovery.

And then the final blow: The small business in which he had invested the entire amount of the insurance settlement he had received after his fall was thousands of dollars in debt. Not that much money in the business world, but a hopeless sum to my brother. His lawyer advised bankruptcy. He shook his head.

My brother looked at the years yawning in front of him and saw nothing but more pain, more loneliness, more thwarted hopes. For years he had maintained an air of unflagging good spirits so that he became the wonder of all who knew him.

Whatever pain or doubt he felt, he never showed. He had tried one venture after another to become self-supporting and avoid being a burden to his aging parents, to his sons, and to me, still the “kid sister.” Every balloon he had tried to inflate had burst in his face, until he could find only one solution. And so he shot himself.

Intellectually, I believe that every one of us has absolute power over our own lives. In my mind I believe that the decision to end one’s life can be a rational act of courage and dignity. And yet I am having great trouble accepting my brother’s decision.

I feel guilty, assailing myself with regrets. If I had been closer to him, if I had called him and seen him more often, if I had offered him more money, if I had made it easier for him to fail instead of advising him so strongly against his latest business venture, if I had intervened in his marital problems, maybe he would not have taken this final desperate step.

I feel angry that he could have done this to our mother, who had already suffered the loss of her only other son and of her husband. I resent his leaving me with the impossible task of easing her burden.

I feel anguished, imagining the depths of unhappiness never openly displayed that drove him to this last step.

The wise and compassionate rabbi who conducted the memorial service for my brother spoke privately to the family. He urged us not to torture ourselves with “if only’s.” He said, “I’m not saying this to wound you, but one thing you need o realize is that no matter how much he loved you, you were all peripheral to his life. If your relationships had been central to it, he would not have left you. None of you could have given him what he needed to make his life seem worth living.”

I am trying to give my brother the respect he deserves by accepting his decision the way he would have wanted me to, by heeding his last written words not to cry over him. I hope—for the sake of the life he lived so bravely up to the very end—that I will be able to.

This article was published in a slightly different form in The New York Times, March 14, 1977

©Sally Wendkos Olds

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