Oh I could give you so many stories lol! All my childhood really. War started when I was 4 and ended when I was 12 - all my schooling in air-raid shelter as I was made to leave school at 13/14 during the holidays.- and didn't learn a thing! I sang and entertained (am a trained singer) and self-educated - however! I could get any job I wanted had 4 public service ones and 5 self-made businesses - the last was a Christian Centre (bibles books second-hand, drop-in centre etc) for 20 years started without a dollar having raised my kids having with several operations and illness.
So many war stories! we slept in a 6' Morrison shelter - 8 or 9 of us! with my aunts family who took us in after evacuation. Our hobby was collecting shrapnel after the raids, we would go out and come back with our prizes. My elder brother came back totally elated with a HUGE piece which he said he had to 'prize' out of the wooden fence because it 'whistled past my EAR'...totally oblivious to the fact he had just escaped death. But the best prizes were the shell noses that smelt of oil.
Anyway that's enough for now. It takes me ages to type but I'm determined to keep it going as long as I can. I just love my computer and spend hours studying on it.
God Bless All
Hi,
Wow. Cool in a way. And, autodidactic is a fancy word for self learners, and it is no put down to be one. It is the opposite.
What do you mean you are a trained singer? I know what I think it means.
Your abilities and your work record say one thing. You are a natural at things. Naturals are sought out even in the highest levels of research. I was introduced to one, and heard of another one. Soon I learned to recognize them.
I am a natural at research. I don't really have to work at it, rather it is who and what I am. Once though, I was in a position that was only partial research. I was asked to help out in an area that is off my normal skills and took it, because they could not find another person to do that job, due to hiring restrictions of a major recession, in 2008.
I had the precise College and experience to be a perfect fit for the job. There was a natural there though. He had not credentials. He had no degrees, and on my best day working, I was only as good as he was on probably his worst day, even if that.
Naturals, when they are allowed, are not only always impressive, they are a key to success in all endeavors. You sound like a natural business woman, and creativity the ability to sing and to perform, I think is always a part of what is in Naturals.
Here is one natural, also called by that fancy word, an autodidactic. It is Ramanujan, for you to see a person who sounds like you in that respect.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan
However, you share normally the effects of PTSD, like I and almost certainly Armoured does also. And, to handle that naturally, all it takes is one old Warrior talking to a newer Warrior and sharing the details of what they went through to be like that.
Older, in combat is relative. It is not an age thing. I have people older than I am that are younger in combat years. I also have a younger guy, that although I am catching up with him and may have passed him recently, he has always been older than me, combat wise. And, yes, I have no idea why I am still alive.
I loved your shrapnel stories. I have one in a way. Actually I have two. Almost all of my close friends are combat types, and I recognize my own, even when I don't recognize my own.
One day, this old man has a speaker. He is talking. I only saw him and did not want to talk to him, because he was in front of my then favorite airplane. I asked him some questions about it, soon he started to become upset. So, I backed off. He started to ask me some questions. Soon I started to become upset. He then backed off. I noticed this and so did he. It is what I call the PTSD dance when you and he/she have not talked to one of your own kind recently.
After we exited all the behind the chains close ups of the B-17 that he was showing me, he then picked up his microphone and started to talk to the small crowd there. We still did the PTSD dance. No one in the audience noticed there were three conversations going on, mine, his and theirs.
He pulled a piece of shrapnel out of his pocket and talked about it, to the audience. I forget how he got it, I think it hit his flak jacket and did not kill him.
When he was done people left. We were then alone, one warrior him who dropped bombs and never ever got any closure, and me who gets closure over and over again, every 90 days, with people like you, and Armoured. I knew he was in trouble. Tears, male tears only, hit his eyes when he said he never got closure, looking out into the vacancy of the world, with that shrapnel in his hands. I immediately went to work on him, and told him then how to maintain his new condition.
To get closure, you only need one battle scarred veteran of any campaign, even domestic violence, even only observing violence sometimes, to talk and share what hurts all of those who have never been hurt like that, and that is details. The details of what caused my PTSD, and then followed up by "You feel better now, and you don't know why." or if the person is not in touch with their own feelings, "Your relationships will be better now, and you won't know why."
He was probably fine after that, but I never saw him again, so I don't know, but. But everyone else that I have found with PTSD, that works on. Everyone. I have even used it in clinical situations.
However, back to the post in time. I love your stories on what you went through, as mine are similar in some ways.
And, CERN, is really this, from what I did my entire life in Science. It is the hope, not the expectation that they will see something happen to tell them a little more about "What God has actually done" Science is actually finding out, What God has done. And, yes some of us scientific types know that.
Once, I used God for an answer, that I did not have, and published that result, but felt horrible, because I did not cite my source as being God, in that data point. I would now, but then 20 years ago or so, I was too afraid knew to little, to stand up to the things that would have happened, had I said. "Oh, and by the way. I missed a data point, in that last study. I had all the ones I needed but one. I forgot to test and take data for that one, but. But by then I had a calibration on God, and I knew what He would do, so I put down that number as what He would do in that sitution. And it works and you are using that data point today."
There was no way, that I could figure out how to say that back then, but they did use that data point in my research, along with all the ones that I determined by normal experimentation.
LOVE,
...Mary Katie., .... .