Saturday, October 22, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Back from Enforced Blogging "Holiday"!!
Okay, this "not writing because I need to save my life" thing isn't working for me. My eldest daughter, the beauteous, firm Athena/Artemis like Pacifica, cracks the whip on her crazy mama while being "freshly pressed" on Wordpress TWO TIMES in the last few months. That rarely if EVER happens. But it did to my sweet baby doll, a photo-journalist of a unique sort.
Hearing this gets my writing genes frothing at their little mouths, but alas another task has been set for me. I speak of the forensic analysis of the books of my dead "child" -- ie "the house I built just before the crash" which wiped out my worldly possessions, most family relations and left me high and dry with the good sense of a gopher trying to get to a Marijuana plant in a container.
However, Pacifica said: "Now mommy, NO BLOGGING until your project is finished." Because of my mental instability and because "he who must not be named" was supposed to do the damned books and didn't and won't -- if I want to see any of the money back from what was supposed to be a 50/50 partnership, I had to go through every damned receipt from three years of a doomed but gorgeous house, my baby, my beloved. Sniffle. Funny how
Go ahead, laugh all you want. I don't blame you! But I've already got a hole in my head, and I've seen all around me the evidence that what news commentators are saying -- that the folks sliding into the upper echelons of income don't really care about seeing the rest of us fall, as long as THEY are okay. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself in one of the persons I loved most. But you see, I suppose I am an excellent example of the Fool in the Major Arcana of the Tarot.
The Fool in the Tarot Cards is represented in many ways. Many think he is a Spirit character, head lost in thought while he steps into another dimension -- others take him for a person rather like myself, who simply isn't looking where he/she is going and -- SPLAT. I used to favor the first way of thought and now I am truly not so sure, speaking now as I am to you from a puddle over a cliff. SPLAT, INDEED.
But I can't bear the way the words are backing up in me, and how they are coming from all parts of me: the political, the desperate, the philosophical, the bipolar maniac (whose mere letters to loved ones I'm somewhat annoyed with seem to burn like acid), and I don't know why. Twitter is a place I LOVE as i can shoot my little 140 character bullets in rapid fire when I'm enraged, for example with the GOP take down of Unions through the country, or the attacks on education, equal opportunity, CHOICE, and all the freedoms being stripped away from us in a 3 card Monte game where it's pretended THEY are losing freedoms.
Seriously, I am not joking. If you really think there's a whole lot of "opportunity" going on take a look at where opportunity starts -- education and equal rights. Lately it seems those educated jobs are being shipped out because the POWERS THAT BE do not give a good god-damn whether the populace is educated or not. What difference does it make in a global economy? Who cares if the country you have one of your half dozen mansions in has good security for ALL the people when you can buy your own security? Who cares about the education of the masses when you can send your kids to fine schools? Who cares about education when 'bots are waiting to take it all over??
Also, let us face this clearly: a less educated society is a more brutal, more malleable society. People become more easy to push around with words of hell and damnation and "Don't Tread on Me" -- oh puleeze. The sight of those yahoos "lockin' and loadin'" to try to scare the Prez and the populace made me sick -- victory through intimidation, morons? Aiiiieee, I am bitter, I admit it. The brighter side of bipolar will be visiting again.
Today I am depressed. We've all been reading an article about America having the most income disparity among the classes than most "civilized" countries including most of Europe. My friends, we have totally been had by our slave-meisters, the 1% who own close to 50% of the wealth. Start reading, people -- many people in the Arab nations had been wondering when we Americans would wake up to our OWN "Arab Spring"!!
They consider US, the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, to lack freedoms and opportunities, just as they do. They do not consider us "The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave". They think that we, the country WE consider a lighthouse of freedom, is arthritic, grid-locked, and freaking incapable of change. The obstinacy of the GOP re Obama's picks for judiciary, etc. have gone by without an up or down vote -- want to know why?
It has been agreed among the upper echelons of the GOP that if they hold out long enough and maybe Obama isn't elected again, they can pack the judiciary with Republicans and our hope for a Democracy where both sides are debated, and compromised will disappear, possibly forever. Our chances to recover from that for generations are slim.
We are sliding towards the military-industrial-Congressional complex that President Eisenhower warned us about. By the way -- he included "Congressional" in that speech but the word was stricken out by a minion of some sort -- however our current political machinery is just what that good gentleman warned us about. If you take a look around, today's Republicans don't even consider REAGAN, their former GOD, particularly relevant. How did THAT happen in two years?
Selfishness is a more prevalent human characteristic than I'd ever thought, no matter how many times I've read and re-read Dickens "A Christmas Carol"! I am not sanguine about our future, as the Goblins are ruining the forests and the Orcs are running the businesses and as the bumper-sticker said: "Frodo Lost the Ring."
But wait! Not again! Could it be that my President, who has pulled goodness from devastation over and over, has displayed the old magic as he stepped back and tricked the LEADERS of the Republicans like John Boehner and Eric Cantor into showing which side of the income/Class barrier they are on?
In truth the GOP is on the side of the rich, and they have grabbed huge clumps of the badly educated population and taught them that the big ol' American issues are God, Guns & Gays! So instead of a reasonable debate, we get verbal insanity, religious fervor, the threat of violence and no sense of willingness to examine another Point of View, and that's not what I grew up thinking we Americans were all about..
Written 10-06-11
Hearing this gets my writing genes frothing at their little mouths, but alas another task has been set for me. I speak of the forensic analysis of the books of my dead "child" -- ie "the house I built just before the crash" which wiped out my worldly possessions, most family relations and left me high and dry with the good sense of a gopher trying to get to a Marijuana plant in a container.
However, Pacifica said: "Now mommy, NO BLOGGING until your project is finished." Because of my mental instability and because "he who must not be named" was supposed to do the damned books and didn't and won't -- if I want to see any of the money back from what was supposed to be a 50/50 partnership, I had to go through every damned receipt from three years of a doomed but gorgeous house, my baby, my beloved. Sniffle. Funny how
Go ahead, laugh all you want. I don't blame you! But I've already got a hole in my head, and I've seen all around me the evidence that what news commentators are saying -- that the folks sliding into the upper echelons of income don't really care about seeing the rest of us fall, as long as THEY are okay. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself in one of the persons I loved most. But you see, I suppose I am an excellent example of the Fool in the Major Arcana of the Tarot.
The Fool in the Tarot Cards is represented in many ways. Many think he is a Spirit character, head lost in thought while he steps into another dimension -- others take him for a person rather like myself, who simply isn't looking where he/she is going and -- SPLAT. I used to favor the first way of thought and now I am truly not so sure, speaking now as I am to you from a puddle over a cliff. SPLAT, INDEED.
But I can't bear the way the words are backing up in me, and how they are coming from all parts of me: the political, the desperate, the philosophical, the bipolar maniac (whose mere letters to loved ones I'm somewhat annoyed with seem to burn like acid), and I don't know why. Twitter is a place I LOVE as i can shoot my little 140 character bullets in rapid fire when I'm enraged, for example with the GOP take down of Unions through the country, or the attacks on education, equal opportunity, CHOICE, and all the freedoms being stripped away from us in a 3 card Monte game where it's pretended THEY are losing freedoms.
Seriously, I am not joking. If you really think there's a whole lot of "opportunity" going on take a look at where opportunity starts -- education and equal rights. Lately it seems those educated jobs are being shipped out because the POWERS THAT BE do not give a good god-damn whether the populace is educated or not. What difference does it make in a global economy? Who cares if the country you have one of your half dozen mansions in has good security for ALL the people when you can buy your own security? Who cares about the education of the masses when you can send your kids to fine schools? Who cares about education when 'bots are waiting to take it all over??
Also, let us face this clearly: a less educated society is a more brutal, more malleable society. People become more easy to push around with words of hell and damnation and "Don't Tread on Me" -- oh puleeze. The sight of those yahoos "lockin' and loadin'" to try to scare the Prez and the populace made me sick -- victory through intimidation, morons? Aiiiieee, I am bitter, I admit it. The brighter side of bipolar will be visiting again.
Today I am depressed. We've all been reading an article about America having the most income disparity among the classes than most "civilized" countries including most of Europe. My friends, we have totally been had by our slave-meisters, the 1% who own close to 50% of the wealth. Start reading, people -- many people in the Arab nations had been wondering when we Americans would wake up to our OWN "Arab Spring"!!
They consider US, the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, to lack freedoms and opportunities, just as they do. They do not consider us "The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave". They think that we, the country WE consider a lighthouse of freedom, is arthritic, grid-locked, and freaking incapable of change. The obstinacy of the GOP re Obama's picks for judiciary, etc. have gone by without an up or down vote -- want to know why?
It has been agreed among the upper echelons of the GOP that if they hold out long enough and maybe Obama isn't elected again, they can pack the judiciary with Republicans and our hope for a Democracy where both sides are debated, and compromised will disappear, possibly forever. Our chances to recover from that for generations are slim.
We are sliding towards the military-industrial-Congressional complex that President Eisenhower warned us about. By the way -- he included "Congressional" in that speech but the word was stricken out by a minion of some sort -- however our current political machinery is just what that good gentleman warned us about. If you take a look around, today's Republicans don't even consider REAGAN, their former GOD, particularly relevant. How did THAT happen in two years?
Selfishness is a more prevalent human characteristic than I'd ever thought, no matter how many times I've read and re-read Dickens "A Christmas Carol"! I am not sanguine about our future, as the Goblins are ruining the forests and the Orcs are running the businesses and as the bumper-sticker said: "Frodo Lost the Ring."
But wait! Not again! Could it be that my President, who has pulled goodness from devastation over and over, has displayed the old magic as he stepped back and tricked the LEADERS of the Republicans like John Boehner and Eric Cantor into showing which side of the income/Class barrier they are on?
In truth the GOP is on the side of the rich, and they have grabbed huge clumps of the badly educated population and taught them that the big ol' American issues are God, Guns & Gays! So instead of a reasonable debate, we get verbal insanity, religious fervor, the threat of violence and no sense of willingness to examine another Point of View, and that's not what I grew up thinking we Americans were all about..
Written 10-06-11
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Self-Healing post Bipolar Breakdown
One of the things I've learned about living with "The Beast" from my teen-aged years on is that you never know when that sucker is going to re-claim its hold on your brain. Knowing that the stats say it only gets worse with age leaves a person always looking over one's shoulder -- but where? The enemy lies within and there are the moments where it takes everything to bear it, because one doesn't recall any other way of being nor does one anticipate relief -- ever.
As I go through the paperwork analyzing my financial fall from grace -- my dearly beloved ex left me well provided for, and my actions later -- the typical actions of a person suffering from an over-inflated idea of their abilities -- wiped out my financial security. I trusted those that for reasons of their own should not have been trusted. I did these things myself, to myself, and it is hard to own up to the fact that I am indeed my worst enemy at times.
It's not easy to go through the seemingly infinite amount of papers that shout out to me what an idiot I was, but it must be done, for there is no other way to prove that my 50/50 partner - he whose name shall not be uttered - ;-) - skipped out leaving the books undone and owing me enough money to augment what I still have and enable me to live decently for a few more years. Oh the pain, the pain -- and worse still is the crushing loss of the family ties that this project represented.
Had I but known -- when one suffers from the "empty nest syndrome' or rather when THIS one suffers, as I did so profoundly for so many years -- (bipolar adds to the festivities!), well - I found myself looking for surrogate children, as mine are a continent and an ocean away. I found some great kids, but in my eagerness to play at business with them, managed somehow to ruin my financial life.
I know some of you may recall earlier posts stating I was on the brink of foreclosure -- thanks to the loving intervention of family members, the debt was taken care of. However, I'm having to fight to get "my own" back financially, & the enormous task has me wondering every day if my brain will teeter over the brink. When the tears come for no reason, and the refrain I always carry in my head for my girls plays, I can always tell that the old brain beastie is lurking.
"oooh, oooh I'm missing you; tell me why the road turns?" by lionel ritchie for diana ross
So. Ms. Julie -- what ARE you doing to rehabilitate yourself? That's what they call it, you know, when people who have had significant psychological breaks or traumas try to re-integrate with society again - rehab, emotional rehab.
Well, I've developed a freaking healthy respect for this brain-basher of an "illness" or a "disorder" or whatever they call it -- I don't know; all I know is that IT, and not I, has been taken control and run me off the roads throughout my life starting in my teens. It distresses me that I have tears streaming down my face as I write this, for there's nothing wrong today. The sun shines, all is as it was. And yet inside there is darkness and sorrow. And I wonder -- oh my god is IT coming back?
In my beloved Marin County, when one does a free fall from plenty to indigence, there is a gracious social welfare system that treats the mentally ill. I hope we can keep these needed services available. For the first time ever I have access to a real live psychiatrist -- who validated the protocol given by my GP of 15 or so years - the wonderful flash gordon, md., healer & author of many books, the latest being "Blood, Sweat & Second Gear" -- who as author Susie Bright said, SHOULD be Surgeon General of the U.S. - he's THAT good, but instead he's treating ordinary folk like us.
So I've gotten a Psych doc, and have started making the journey -- sometimes ecstatic, sometimes excruciating -- from the bedroom that has been my cell of choice during the last several years.
Reintegration with the rest of the human race is absolutely essential for people coming back from "the twilight zone" as I like to call it, a place of muted or non-existent desire, will to live -- a life in the shadows while all about you people go about normal lives and you wonder why you can't. The very most basic current of life force is drained from you.
You wonder why it is so hard to speak to other people sometimes. Even the ring of a telephone brings with it thoughts of three years of creditors harassing me, and the sound of the doorbell is terrifying! I shake my head in wonderment at my own peculiarities. In reading further I find that social anxiety disorder is often part and parcel of this "thing" I've been born with. In the National Institute of Mental Health URL, I found a chart of the various symptoms of both ends of the bipolar scale:
And back and forth and over and over for the rest of one's life. And I can tell you first hand it is not easy, this path. Nor is it for the unfortunate family members that have to deal with you -- support groups, people! Get your support somewhere, because you will need it. It is most wearing to be around somebody who is profoundly depressed, the "identified patient" as such who might suck the life right out of the room. Save yourselves!
For my self-prescribed rehabilitation I decided that I needed a radical prescription, a big dose of other human beings! My mate Patrick has been, for almost a year, helping out at the Marinwood Farmers' Market. Soon he began selling Nana Mae Organics (apple products during the Great Recession- Depression) at this Market, about a mile away from our house.
I didn't think much of this at first -- Patrick (Asperger's, panic attacks, ADHD) picks up projects and puts them down -- besides, to do a Farmers' Market you have to be willing to -- ah -- get up early. Simply put, I could hate nothing more. A morning person I am not.
But I began to wander on down around to visit around noon as I had the sneaking suspicion I could do better at sales than Patrick, who NEVER can stay at the booth for longer than 20 minutes at a time. A little friendly competition with my sweetie got me out the door -- whatever works, say I.
And so began my now weekly forays down to the market. At first I'd wait to go down until noon -- then earlier and earlier. I go with Patrick now; we join the rest of the Vendors, and are always only slightly late, rumbling into our space around 9:10 AM to the amusement of our fellows, as we live only a mile away!
I noticed very quickly that the simple interchange between human beings is a tonic beyond almost anything a doctor can prescribe. I love sitting down there in our little makeshift booth, making change the old-fashioned way from a wooden cigar box, and for the first time in all the 26 years I've been here meeting and enjoying my neighbors while we all begin the project of neighborhood/community building here in Marinwood.
Why is that that simply the action of placing oneself in the midst of others heals? Because the primary "food" for we spirits in human bodies is the interchange of energy through the eyes and the feeling heart, and that is one of the ways we fight the Beast within -- with the sweet medicine provided by our fellow human beings.
I have a much more upbeat account of these experiences to pass onto you, but today was not a day for that kind of writing. Today was a day for acknowledging and expressing the hidden sorrow in the brain that twists life in the body/mind for more of us than you might think. One can only persist.
Have a great Sunday!
PS: I just came back from another self-prescribed dose of "medication" - a walk in the canyon by our house in order to spot bay laurel trees that seem to be infected with "sudden oak" and collecting specimens. It's so beautiful out there -- I lay in the green grass and felt the sun warm me while I watched the little girls play in the brook, as my long lost children once did. Unfortunately, my mind came with me and began to brood over my girls, but all in all, the experience served me well. My mother always told me that all that could be done was to place one foot in front of the other.
That doesn't sound very deep, but could anything be more difficult sometimes?
Ah well, my dears -- don't mind me. I'm just a wee tad bluish today.
I'll be back with a rapturous account of a splendid day at the Market!
As I go through the paperwork analyzing my financial fall from grace -- my dearly beloved ex left me well provided for, and my actions later -- the typical actions of a person suffering from an over-inflated idea of their abilities -- wiped out my financial security. I trusted those that for reasons of their own should not have been trusted. I did these things myself, to myself, and it is hard to own up to the fact that I am indeed my worst enemy at times.
It's not easy to go through the seemingly infinite amount of papers that shout out to me what an idiot I was, but it must be done, for there is no other way to prove that my 50/50 partner - he whose name shall not be uttered - ;-) - skipped out leaving the books undone and owing me enough money to augment what I still have and enable me to live decently for a few more years. Oh the pain, the pain -- and worse still is the crushing loss of the family ties that this project represented.
Had I but known -- when one suffers from the "empty nest syndrome' or rather when THIS one suffers, as I did so profoundly for so many years -- (bipolar adds to the festivities!), well - I found myself looking for surrogate children, as mine are a continent and an ocean away. I found some great kids, but in my eagerness to play at business with them, managed somehow to ruin my financial life.
I know some of you may recall earlier posts stating I was on the brink of foreclosure -- thanks to the loving intervention of family members, the debt was taken care of. However, I'm having to fight to get "my own" back financially, & the enormous task has me wondering every day if my brain will teeter over the brink. When the tears come for no reason, and the refrain I always carry in my head for my girls plays, I can always tell that the old brain beastie is lurking.
"oooh, oooh I'm missing you; tell me why the road turns?" by lionel ritchie for diana ross
So. Ms. Julie -- what ARE you doing to rehabilitate yourself? That's what they call it, you know, when people who have had significant psychological breaks or traumas try to re-integrate with society again - rehab, emotional rehab.
Well, I've developed a freaking healthy respect for this brain-basher of an "illness" or a "disorder" or whatever they call it -- I don't know; all I know is that IT, and not I, has been taken control and run me off the roads throughout my life starting in my teens. It distresses me that I have tears streaming down my face as I write this, for there's nothing wrong today. The sun shines, all is as it was. And yet inside there is darkness and sorrow. And I wonder -- oh my god is IT coming back?
In my beloved Marin County, when one does a free fall from plenty to indigence, there is a gracious social welfare system that treats the mentally ill. I hope we can keep these needed services available. For the first time ever I have access to a real live psychiatrist -- who validated the protocol given by my GP of 15 or so years - the wonderful flash gordon, md., healer & author of many books, the latest being "Blood, Sweat & Second Gear" -- who as author Susie Bright said, SHOULD be Surgeon General of the U.S. - he's THAT good, but instead he's treating ordinary folk like us.
So I've gotten a Psych doc, and have started making the journey -- sometimes ecstatic, sometimes excruciating -- from the bedroom that has been my cell of choice during the last several years.
Reintegration with the rest of the human race is absolutely essential for people coming back from "the twilight zone" as I like to call it, a place of muted or non-existent desire, will to live -- a life in the shadows while all about you people go about normal lives and you wonder why you can't. The very most basic current of life force is drained from you.
You wonder why it is so hard to speak to other people sometimes. Even the ring of a telephone brings with it thoughts of three years of creditors harassing me, and the sound of the doorbell is terrifying! I shake my head in wonderment at my own peculiarities. In reading further I find that social anxiety disorder is often part and parcel of this "thing" I've been born with. In the National Institute of Mental Health URL, I found a chart of the various symptoms of both ends of the bipolar scale:
- A long period of feeling "high," or an overly happy or outgoing mood
- Extremely irritable mood, agitation, feeling "jumpy" or "wired."
- Talking very fast, jumping from one idea to another, having racing thoughts
- Being easily distracted
- Increasing goal-directed activities, such as taking on new projects
- Being restless
- Sleeping little
- Having an unrealistic belief in one's abilities
- Behaving impulsively and taking part in a lot of pleasurable,
high-risk behaviors, such as spending sprees, impulsive sex, and impulsive business investments.
- A long period of feeling worried or empty
- Loss of interest in activities once enjoyed, including sex.
- Feeling tired or "slowed down"
- Having problems concentrating, remembering, and making decisions
- Being restless or irritable
- Changing eating, sleeping, or other habits
- Thinking of death or suicide, or attempting suicide.
And back and forth and over and over for the rest of one's life. And I can tell you first hand it is not easy, this path. Nor is it for the unfortunate family members that have to deal with you -- support groups, people! Get your support somewhere, because you will need it. It is most wearing to be around somebody who is profoundly depressed, the "identified patient" as such who might suck the life right out of the room. Save yourselves!
For my self-prescribed rehabilitation I decided that I needed a radical prescription, a big dose of other human beings! My mate Patrick has been, for almost a year, helping out at the Marinwood Farmers' Market. Soon he began selling Nana Mae Organics (apple products during the Great Recession- Depression) at this Market, about a mile away from our house.
I didn't think much of this at first -- Patrick (Asperger's, panic attacks, ADHD) picks up projects and puts them down -- besides, to do a Farmers' Market you have to be willing to -- ah -- get up early. Simply put, I could hate nothing more. A morning person I am not.
But I began to wander on down around to visit around noon as I had the sneaking suspicion I could do better at sales than Patrick, who NEVER can stay at the booth for longer than 20 minutes at a time. A little friendly competition with my sweetie got me out the door -- whatever works, say I.
And so began my now weekly forays down to the market. At first I'd wait to go down until noon -- then earlier and earlier. I go with Patrick now; we join the rest of the Vendors, and are always only slightly late, rumbling into our space around 9:10 AM to the amusement of our fellows, as we live only a mile away!
I noticed very quickly that the simple interchange between human beings is a tonic beyond almost anything a doctor can prescribe. I love sitting down there in our little makeshift booth, making change the old-fashioned way from a wooden cigar box, and for the first time in all the 26 years I've been here meeting and enjoying my neighbors while we all begin the project of neighborhood/community building here in Marinwood.
Why is that that simply the action of placing oneself in the midst of others heals? Because the primary "food" for we spirits in human bodies is the interchange of energy through the eyes and the feeling heart, and that is one of the ways we fight the Beast within -- with the sweet medicine provided by our fellow human beings.
I have a much more upbeat account of these experiences to pass onto you, but today was not a day for that kind of writing. Today was a day for acknowledging and expressing the hidden sorrow in the brain that twists life in the body/mind for more of us than you might think. One can only persist.
Have a great Sunday!
PS: I just came back from another self-prescribed dose of "medication" - a walk in the canyon by our house in order to spot bay laurel trees that seem to be infected with "sudden oak" and collecting specimens. It's so beautiful out there -- I lay in the green grass and felt the sun warm me while I watched the little girls play in the brook, as my long lost children once did. Unfortunately, my mind came with me and began to brood over my girls, but all in all, the experience served me well. My mother always told me that all that could be done was to place one foot in front of the other.
That doesn't sound very deep, but could anything be more difficult sometimes?
Ah well, my dears -- don't mind me. I'm just a wee tad bluish today.
I'll be back with a rapturous account of a splendid day at the Market!
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