"Psycho Analyze This"

"You're only as sick as your secrets"
~Author Unknown

"Psycho Analyze This"

My aversion of psychiatrist’s, psychologists, counselors, etc., started when I was about five years old. A court ordered psychiatrist had sexually molested me and threatened and to reveal a terrible secret and send my mommy to jail if I told (I still loved my mother at that time, so I kept my mouth shut); there were others who loved to “over medicate” me; some locked me up and tried their "new and innovated torture " therapy procedures on me (with my mothers signed consent of course) and many felt shock therapy was the panacea for all insanity and even hemorrhoids.

Unfortunately, the psychiatrist’s I have encountered over the years were not very “helpful” (to put it mildly). In fact, most psychiatrists I have seen couldn’t even help me across a street.

Of course I know that not all psychiatrists are bad; that is like saying “All fire trucks are red; therefore all red trucks must be fire trucks”. Despite being a mild schizophrenic passed on genetically from my mother and a complete heterodox I am a extraordinarily logical person.

I was in my late teens, early 20’s when I started to try to get help. The nightmares were worse, I had insomnia and I was becoming a danger to people I judged as “bad”. The problem is that I wouldn’t just confront them, I would beat them and hop they died.

Unfortunately, the psychiatrist’s I have encountered over the years were not very “helpful” (to put it mildly). In fact, most psychiatrists I have seen couldn’t even help me across a street.

Some kept me hanging on, claiming that they could help me; but it would take some time. I was desperate so I still came to the sessions. But, I finally found out why they kept seeing me as one of them broke down and confessed (amidst their crying and sobbing) that I had have actually been helping them deal with their own issues.

I was actually elated that someone as “screwed up” as me could make a difference and help someone; but my life was getting crazier every day and I was doing things that would eventually end me up in an asylum doped of on Thorazine. I was paying them to help me, not give out counseling sessions. I was being taken advantage of (which was normal) and it pissed me off.

I showed up to my next appointment and told the receptionist that I was no longer to be charged for my visits. Confused, she went to get the Psychiatrist who asked me “what was going on”. I simply told her she would be receiving my bill in the mail for my counseling services and walked out. I never did send her a bill and she never contacted me again.

As I got older (mid-twenties), between the drugs, alcohol and self destructive behavior I found some momentary lapses of insanity and at least made another attempt to get better. I was walking a thin line and I knew it would break, but I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready for it, especially now that I had a young step daughter to take care of. Money was tight, so I tried the free family counseling clinic, but they told me I was beyond their expertise and then they handed me a sheet with referral names of psychologists.

I was sick of “mental health” professionals and maybe I should just except that I am crazy and “get over it”. A few days later, around 3:00 am, I sat in the dark downing Vicodin and Vodka, but it was no longer numbing the pain, I needed help. I found the paper the counseling office had given me in the back seat of my car and picked the most German/Austrian name I could find (I had a thing for Sigmund Freud) and called about 9:00am to make an appointment. I had to answer a list of “screening” questions by the receptionist before I could see this lady and I guess my phone interview went well enough that I got an appointment later that afternoon.

I walked into her austere looking office, that was on Mid-Wilshire and she studied me through her tiny round gold rimmed glasses, I started to speak, but she quickly raised her hand with neatly clipped nails to shush me; her gesture was Nazi-like. I almost blurted out “Ya vol, mein Führer!” in obedience; I kept quiet and sat down in a chair across from her too neat looking desk.

She was a bit scary looking, in fact everything about her looked like the “Reich would rise again!”(It’s actually really funny if you say it out loud with a Southern accent). I fully expected to find a swastika flag hidden behind one of the boring prints of Weiner dogs that hung on her office wall or a signed picture of Hitler in her desk drawer.

Her hair was pulled back into a severe bun which matched her thin and hollow cheeked face. As I scrutinized as she was me, I noticed that she did not have lips, there was just a long slit across her face for a mouth.

I have had guns put to my head that made me feel less uncomfortable than I did sitting in front of her. I nervously shifted my position in the uncomfortable chair and a disturbing noise came from it (the chair, not me). Her expression changed slightly. I purposely changed positions several times more just to prove that it was the chair fating and not me. I was successfully able to recreate the noise. If she had real leather chairs instead of this “leatherette shit” I am sure it would have not been so “flatulent”.

“You are German!” she suddenly spoke and it was more of a accusation than a question. I nearly jumped out of my seat at her forceful tone.

“Nien” I answered her in German.

Her expression changed from stern and stoic, “You must be German, I am never wrong about these things” she announced arrogantly.

“Well Frau (what ever her name was)” I am afraid you are wrong, no one in my family is German” I replied. She has wasted fifteen minutes trying to “racial profile” me at $150.00 dollars an hour.

“Austrian!” she said proudly like she had just guessed the million dollar question.

*That is Aus-tri-an not Aus-tra-li-an, two different countries on the opposite side of the world; just a little geographical history for people who confuse the two, especially George Bush.

“Nien” I replied again.

She continued insisting that I had to have come from Germanic stock because I was a natural blonde with blue eyes and very tall (In other words I looked “Aryan”). Actually, my eyes were not exactly blue and if she was a real doctor she would have noticed that I have Heterochromia (eyes of different colors).

This was another waste of my time and I only had fifteen minutes left to tell “Hitler” about my problems. Screw it! I was out of here! As I started to gather my purse she must sensed my annoyance and blurted out the “Tell me about your childhood” cliché’ to salvage the moment.

What the hell? She had my money up front so I decided to tell her the more gruesome acts of abuse against me that I have rarely told anyone. As I spoke and told her of the torture that I suffered that could easily be compared to some of her motherland’s Nazi camp tactics, she started turning whiter (I half expected Frau Hitler to enjoy what I was saying), then a shade of green. She looked sick to her stomach and I knew she tried to interrupt to stop me. But, I wasn’t done, she need one last horror story.

I told her of how at the age of 10 I tried to cauterize my vagina shut with a hot curling iron so the skin would heal closed up and I couldn’t be raped by my step-father.

Her mouth moved, but nothing came out. So she just sat there with a look of horror on her face and said nothing.

“And that isn’t even the worse thing that has happened to me” I said flatly. “Be careful what you ask your patients to reveal; it may come back to haunt you” I smiled sweetly and started to get up.

I could see the relief on her face that I was finally leaving, but I looked at my watched and I had about 2 minutes left, so I decided to sit back down and tell her a joke; lighten the mood a bit.

“How do you tell the difference between Austrians and a Germans at a party?”

“What?” her voice was shaky and her eyes kept darting toward the door to signal me to leave or maybe she was planning her own escape?

I asked the question again “How do you tell the difference between Austrians and a Germans at a party?”

She finally shook her head indicating she didn’t know.

Snickering, I answered “After getting drunk, German’s are still sitting straight up like they have a poker up their ass and the Austrians are passed out all over the place” I laughed hysterically; even the chair was “farting” in appreciation of my joke.

Most people wouldn’t get the joke, you would have had to been around a lot of Austrians and Germans to understand it especially in a cocktail/diplomatic setting. But she was German and I though she would at least crack a smile. But, I guess there was no emotion left in her (or none to begin with).

My time was up and I stood up from the “farting” chair and said “that fart was me; I do hope it doesn’t leave a skid mark”. I was feeling quite crude and wanted her to remember me.

“This was good for me Herr Doctor, was it good for you too?” I purposefully glanced over at her “diplomas” on the wall. I already knew she wasn’t a doctor’ but wanted to taunt her.

“My bad, I forgot you didn’t go to medical school. Next week, same time?” I said cheerfully.

She started to speak but I interrupted her “We’ll leave it open, I’ll have my people call yours” and I walked toward the door.

Just as I was closing it behind me, I popped my head back in; just to put the “last nail in the coffin”.

“By the way, I’m Jewish” (not really, but it was worth the look of shock on her face).

"Life in a nutshell is not possible"

If you can summarize your life up in a "nutshell" then you have not "lived".

I was told by an "author" "friend" (I use both those terms loosely) that I have to conform to make it as an author.

I am a non conformist and that is not going to change. But, I did write this "Query Letter" thing like he told me to. So if anyone is out there listening, take away from what I write what you will, criticize me, call me a liar, or just say nothing.

I may not be a "real writer", but I have lived through a hundred lifetimes and there is a story in each one of them.

This my first "query letter" draft (I know it needs work) Suggestions are welcome.

QUERY LETTER


If you are expecting the “average” victim/survivor memoir this is not it!

Augusten Burroughs’ “Running with Scissors” would be as close as I can compare my memoir to, only more sick and twisted with criminal elements and a more perverse sense of humor.

I am a convicted felon (for a crime I did not commit) hiding from my abusive mother, her child molesting husband and incestuous child raping grandfather. On top of that, my ex-husband (who has two warrants) and ex mother in-law have tried to kill me and were trying to take my children away from me..

Did I mention that my mother and grandfather got me arrested and had my bail amount of $1,000,000 dollars (they got a corrupt judge and former neighbor to set the bail; it was later overturned due to constitutional violations). Not even rapists and murderers get that high of a bail and I did none of those things. The only offense I was guilty of was saving a family member from neglect and filing molestation charges against them (I guess it really pissed them off).

As I said at the beginning there I nothing “average” about my story and not digress, but I am probably the only person earth who had got to torture, torment, humiliate, antagonize, shame, abuse, slap, beat the shit out of one of the world’s most nefarious 9/11 terrorists! I was working as a dominatrix when he came to see me and I can guarantee what I did to him was way more painful than dying in a plane crash. (By the way, if you are interested, ask me about the late David Carradine sometime).

It gets even better…one of the many unusual things abut me is that I look more like a “movie star” than a convicted felon who at one time In fact, in the country we are now living in, most people assume that I am some famous actress from America just taking a break from all the fame. They love to take pictures of me and ask for my autograph; and I if they new the real truth of why I was in their country I would probably really become a hero. As I am sure you know people can’t get enough of the dark side of someone’s past.

It has been almost six years since we left America on March 17th, 2004 (Saint Patrick’s Day) and never set looked back. Some people may find me a coward for running and that I should have stayed and taken the consequences and gone to jail; lose my children who would have been given to my perverted ex-mother in law (who was sexually abusing them) and my husband (who is a Vietnam veteran) goes insane and kills everyone involved. “Staying was not an option and I wasn’t running from my responsibilities, I was running to them! We have finally found some peace and happiness and it is close as one can ever get a chance to have a “do over” in life.

My memoir is called Momentary Lapses of Insanity; it pretty much starts at the beginning of my wretched life with a father who bailed on me before I was born. When I met him for the first time (at age 18) he confessed that he knew I was being abused. The asshole he knew and just left me there? I didn’t know whether to kick him in the nuts or cut them off; I finally just mumbled “thanks a lot asshole” and never saw him again.

My mother’s insanity got worse as time went on, especially after she remarried and gave birth to my brother. I was about four when my mother forced me to accuse her new husband of sexual abuse (he never touched me) she coached what to say the whole way through. She became so wrapped up in her lies that she started believing them and stabbed my step-father in the back (somehow she got away with it). I felt so guilty and still do; but life got its revenge on me; the court appointed psychiatrist who was supposed to help me cope turned out to be a pedophile who loved little girls,

After the divorce to husband number two, my mother’s methods of abuse became more bizarre (she made Dr. Mangele look like a saint) she would do things like hit my brothers penis with a belt; beat my vagina until it was raw and bleeding, put hot sauce in our eyes and as I got older; she forced me to douche with bleach just in case a fugitive sperm found its way inside me,.

By the time I am age 8 or so, she disappears for a couple of weeks and marries the “quintessential devil’’ himself. Not only did I have to endure my mother’s cruel insanity; I was a being raped and sexually molested by new my step father; and later by his friend’s and even law enforcement officials.

At age eleven I decided that they had to die; it was the only way to stop them. I stood at the foot of the bed when my mother and step father slept, I aimed my mother’s .22 gun at him first and squeezed the trigger nothing happened, I kept pulling the trigger but no bullets came out. They should have died that night, but something saved them, or maybe it was saving me from becoming a murderer.

Life continued to get weirder as I finally got away from my family. At the age of 18 I was already stealing cars, running guns and drugs across the border of Mexico; working for loan sharks; you name it I did it (except murder and prostitution). At some point I was sure I would be caught and I planned to go out in a blaze of glory; “suicide by cop”. It seems that DEA agents were just too stupid or could never imagine a girl that looks like me could ever be capable of those kinds of crimes.

I kept fucking up, and in classic “text book” fashion I married into a sick and twisted family. But this time it was worth the pain because I got two children out of it that I worship and love; they gave me purpose to stop my self destructive life and become human again. I now had something that I had to protect with my life. A messy divorce followed, attempts on my life and court battles continued to try throw its worst at me, but I kept fighting.

Finally I get a break and marry a man who is a war hero and loves me and my children and will do anything to protect us. It looked like the worst was over, but life was done with me yet, which brings us back to me and my family living incognito in a country far, far away.

This is just the tip of the iceberg and I would love could go on into detail of the horrific torture, the hilarious moments (like stealing a politicians car), the unusual jobs (can you believe that I was actually a certified paramedic?), getting thrown out of towns and asking the police to bring me some toilet paper as I urinated in someone bushes, the list goes on and on.

Thank you and "may the force be with you"

D. Elysee “Elle” Johnson (part pseudonym)
elysee.johnson@gmail.com

*By the way, I do have a “free get out of jail card in my back pocket” but it involves giving up my American citizenship and I am trying to keep from doing that, for now.