What Kind of Liberal Am I?
Posted on November 24, 2010 in Quizzes
My Liberal Identity
You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.
Take the quiz at
About.com Political Humor
Dream
Posted on November 13, 2010 in Dreams
My wife and I have gone back to school and become attorneys. We chose New Bedford, Massachusetts as our home base for reasons that the dream never explains beyond “it would be a good place”. I am a criminal lawyer and I have my office in the basement of our building. The rest of the building — including a good chunk of the basement and the entire main floor — is Lynn’s space. She is a corporate lawyer.
The Death of the Internet
Posted on November 4, 2010 in Net Neutrality
The Constitution promises us that Congress shall make no law restricting freedom of speech. But there is a loophole: private corporations can. And now with the loss of the election, it is likely that Net Neutrality will fail and we will lose the Internet as we know it.
It’s simple: the corporations can curb freedom of speech by owning the stump. By owning the stump, they can say who gets to stand on it. Your and my voice will be silenced if we don’t say what they like hearing. It will be the death of the Internet.
As a disabled American, I am now sentenced to loneliness.
It was good while it lasted.
Return of the Wimpocrats
Posted on November 3, 2010 in Campaign 2010
I think Rachel Maddow said it best: Democrats, if you don’t campaign on your accomplishments, the Republicans will. Once again, however, the Wimpocrats appeared and acted as if all they had done was something to be ashamed of. And that lost them the House.
Here are the elements that did the Democrats in this time:
- They pissed on the progressives. Get it through your head, Democrats, you don’t win elections without the progressives. If they don’t like you, you lose the people who will go door to door for you and make calls. Register the case of Blanche Lincoln who would not give an inch on health care. Even when progressive leaders made up, she still would not give ground and she lost. Those who had the love of progressives won.
- Rahm Emmanuel. Good riddance. Obama and Congress LOWERED taxes, but somehow this information wasn’t getting out. Instead, everyone just wonked into the Oval Office and said nothing in their own defense. When you say nothing, the word doesn’t get out.
- Tim Kaine. We need another Howard Dean in this role.
- Harry Reid. He couldn’t keep his party in line and badly misread Joe Lieberman. Harry, please step down.
- As suggested by the first paragraph, the Democrats utterly failed to take credit for the good they had done.
- They ran scared of corporate America. They figured that there was nothing to be done about scare ads and big money. Yet here in California, Jerry Brown shellacked Meg Whitman by running a campaign that promised to put corporations in line. Maybe we understand these things better than they do elsewhere having endured the disaster that was AHnold, but the rest were utterly silent on the matter. Brown’s campaign needs to be studied and emulated elsewhere.
The Democrats got to stop being the Chicago Cubs.
Progressives, we will be back. I just hope to live to see it.
Notes on the California State DBSA Conference
Posted on October 25, 2010 in DBSA Support Groups and Conferences
Conferences bring together a variety of speakers and audiences. Numbers at this year’s California State Conference in Ontario, California, had suffered a bit from the economy, but audience involvement with the speakers was more intense than in past years or maybe I felt it more because I had recruited some of the speakers.
The strongest and most original clarion call was issued by the therapist Dr. Mary Madrigal. I recruited her to speak to remind us of those in their last days and their possibilities for comfort or abandonment. Death comes to us all. The question is what will be the quality of the time on the death bed? Will we be surrounded by caring staff or will we be left alone in a room because that same staff shrinks from us because we suffer from mental illness?
The hockey mask of Jason affects the opinions of medical professionals who supposedly have been educated in the realities of our illnesses. “Caregivers often express fear of those with mental disorders,” says Dr. Madrigal, “while dealing routinely with victims of dementia.” Statistics show that most of us are harmless, yet we may find ourselves shoved to the further reaches of the hospice where our cries of fear cannot be heard.
Dr. Madrigal told us that we will fight “not only the nearness of death, but also the judgments made against the mentally ill.” This is no way to pass on. Doctors, nurses, chaplains, and other hospice workers need to be educated on our needs. Peer specialists could make a specialty of caring for the dying and their families. The time is now to reach out for better final care for people like us,
She left us with a question to ask about our peers living their last days: “How are we going to honor their lives?”
During Friday night’s entertainment, we witnessed former DBSA director’s Peter Ashenden’s tirade against Dr. David Miklowitz due to the fact that the latter had referred to “bipolar persons” rather than “people living with bipolar disorder”. This kind of controversy reminds me of the “big enders” versus “small enders” opposition in the parliament of Lilliput. Ashenden’s focusing on terminology helped obfuscate the many positive elements of Miklowitz’s speech including the doctor’s insistence that we avoid the temptation to just take a pill and be done with it as far as healing goes. Mikowitz also emphasized the importance of personalizing information given to patients about their disorder, to allow patients to design mood charts that worked for them, and to encourage family members to get therapy themselves. All these points and more (see Lynn’s article) were lost by Ashenden when he dissed Dr. Miklowitz for the use of the term “bipolar patient”. “Don’t put a label on me!” cried Ashenden. And so he brought back a memory….
Twenty five years ago, a woman I was hanging around with at what time exploded with words like this: “I hate judgmental people. They make the world so much worse. It would be so much better if we didn’t have so many judgmental people around.” I had to restrain my laughter. Did she not see the degree to which she was the judgmental one? When faulty, judgment reduces and ejects everything except the pretense of one defining quality. Did Ashenden stop to think about his extreme judgmental evaluation of Miklowitz, one that reduced a compassionate talk to one phrase that the former head of DBSA thought was going to get us all locked up by an evil establishment?
Abuse precipitates many bipolar episodes, Dr. Miklowitz noted. Mood swings make it impossible to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There is a need to medicate and to offer therapy. I have to say that I agree with this assessment. I had considerable trouble facing my PTSD before I was put on lithium. Even now, I have problems.
There is a more extreme view that gained some voice at the conference. That was that our symptoms are entirely the result of trauma and that the medical establishment would rather sedate our symptoms into nonexistence than admit to their origins.
Dr. Rosenfeld was besieged during his talk by people who were eager for non-drug solutions such as Trans-Cranial Magnetic Stimulation. Rosenfeld reported an 80% success rate with the procedure, a fact that gave many in his audience hope for the future. Among them were people who had been through multiple ECT treatments with poor results. TMS could reverse those failures. While many will be helped by this, drug therapy will remain part of the equation for depression.
Meds have clearly helped me, but I have my nights when I am haunted by demons of my past or my disappointment in my lack of achievements. Therapists will often avoid talking about these things lest they precipitate an episode. The people who see it only as trauma-related suggest that I haven’t been put through enough pain. I see this as an alternative stigma, one that suggests that I am going through what I am going through because of character flaws. Both mainstream psychiatry and alternative approaches have driven me to a place where I feel to blame for my history. But they both have something to offer me, as well.
When Our Morals Began to Fail
Posted on September 27, 2010 in History War
Last night, I watched the American Experience documentary on [[My Lai]] at Netflix. The event is doubtless known to everyone who was at least 10 years old in 1968: a company of Americans killed friendly civilians in a hamlet known to defense planners as Pinkville. Not every soldier participated, a few ((Our hats should ever be off to [[Hugh Thompson, Jr.]] who organized a helicopter evacuation of civilians from the danger zone.)) even intervened to save villagers from the rampage. The massacre was hushed up by local Army command until a year later when probes by Army prosecutors uncovered the evidence and set in motion proceedings against the officers who participated or covered up the murders.
A controversy exploded after the conviction of Lieutenant [[William Calley]], the first participant to be court-martialed. The Army had moved against him because there were officers who felt that Americans just didn’t kill unarmed civilians, no matter what their association to the enemy might be. Those who defended Calley, Captain [[Ernest Medina]], and their superiors said that it was reasonable to assume that the villagers were helping out the enemy. They knew, after, all, where the mines and traps were planted but they didn’t share this information with U.S. forces.
This weak argument was to justify a huge mistake by Army intelligence which placed a significant [[Viet Cong]] force in the area. The unit which was the target of the operation was actually 150 miles away: when the soldiers, who had been jacked up for a fight by their superiors, found nothing, they began shooting women and children.
The whole story is better told elsewhere (follow the links), so let this article focus on the single act that deserves our attention today: the uproar following the conviction of William Calley. Calley had led and participated in the massacre. Though today he speaks of his remorse, then he ran about heedlessly slaughtering those in his path and directing those under his command to follow his example. It was a cut and dried case of a unit being out of control, but a large segment of the American public did not see things that way. They saw Calley as a hero. They composed songs in his honor and called for his release. Richard M. Nixon bowed to the onslaught of sentiment and pardoned Calley. Thereafter, it was impossible to convict any other agent of the massacre.
We blame free sex, drugs, homosexuality, etc. for the decline of our nation in recent years, but I put my finger on Nixon’s handling of this affair. He sent the message that we could break the rules when it suited us. So on one hand, we could speak about peace and protection while on the other being a death-demon for those who had nothing to do with happenings in the war aside from very personal concerns about their safety. My Lai taught a large segment of the American public to never admit to gross mistakes, to persist in repeating the same errors with greater and greater vehemence. Do you not see the harbinger of the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the stolen election in Florida, and the concentration camps that Obama is supposedly building to house his political enemies? No matter what you say to these believers, they will not accede to the facts. My Lai was their [[imprimatur]] for their stubborn clinging to errors of fact.
Nancy Reagan said “Just say no”, but nobody did. They went ahead blindly in the field and their partisans went ahead blindly in public opinion. Nixon changed what it meant to be an American in the eyes of the world and, worse, in our own eyes. We have succumbed to evil ever since.
Excellent Net Resource for Evaluating Political Claims
Posted on September 19, 2010 in Campaign 2010 Pointers
If you want to know whether you can trust what you see on television, check out FactCheck.org. It is nonpartisan and lets you know who the big liars are.
Dream
Posted on September 18, 2010 in Dreams
I’m watching a video/trying to get information off a web site about a national monument known for an Indian who was tied to a threshing floor and forced to push it. The Indian looks dark and old, but still strong from the years of toil. The excruciating question is “Is he still there?” and not “Is he even still alive?” but “Have they released him?” The lighting is very much like one of the late night video stills I take with my webcam. A shudder turns me over in my sleep and I want the dream to end.
Tea-Bullies
Posted on September 15, 2010 in Campaign 2010 Scoundrels
Politics is a topic forbidden to me by my psychiatrist. Especially in times like these, I depend on others to put out the facts. It discourages me when people write off the Tea-baggers as mentally ill because not only are they not this, but it allows people to not take the election itself seriously.
The Tea Baggers are not mentally ill, but they are intent on causing mental illness, specifically anxiety and depression, among their opponents. It is often said that the heart of their objection to Obama is racism, but I suspect something very different. We can apply here the viewpoint of a British site on bullying:
Bullying is persistent unwelcome behaviour, mostly using unwarranted or invalid criticism, nit-picking, fault-finding, also exclusion, isolation, being singled out and treated differently, being shouted at, humiliated, excessive monitoring, having verbal and written warnings imposed, and much more.
I suggest that the Tea-Baggers like other members of the conservatively politically correct squad do these things to annoy and hurt. Why choose the Democrats? It has nothing to do with their positions (other than no tax breaks for the wealthy), but with the fact that they strive for integrity and truth. It annoys the Tea-Bullies (as they could properly be called) that Obama is competent, that people like him, that he has a well defined set of values that defend women and other non-rich members of society, that he makes up his own mind. It enthralls them that he happens to have an exploitable feature in his race. In true bully style, they refuse to discuss what they actually stand for aside from tax breaks and refuse to understand other points of view. At the heart of it is a deep fear of their own inadequacy as evidenced by their relentless pursuit of money and defense of the possession of large amounts of it as an indicator of human value. They belittle because they lost the election. They do not compromise (observe the Republican lock-step which only recently gave way when five of the party voted for a jobs-bill) because they find the sharing of power unsettling.
They, too, are part of America, but the problem is that they want to be the only definition of America. It is important to vote them down in the election to come not only because their values are out and out evil and predatory, but also because it is important to send the message that this kind of politics — backed as it is by corporate interests who are widening the gap between the rich and the rest of us — does not make for a United States, but a fragmented one easily susceptible to the viruses of jingoism and despair. They want an unhappy America so they can feel valued. We must not let their sickness become our governance in the years to come.
Medicated vs. Unmedicated
Posted on September 14, 2010 in Bipolar Disorder Psychotropics
Someone saw my meme about my invisible illness and took offense with my answer to #15 which was “The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: That it is going to be like this all the way to the end.”. He felt compelled to tell me that I should not feel that I had to take meds, that I should learn from his example and not allow myself to be “contained”.
I plan to ignore the advice, though I feel a reply is warranted which is that I spent many years avoiding using psychotropics to curb my mood swings, possibly more years than my critic has been alive. In the end, I decided to go with them because I saw the ruin that my unbridled manias, depressions, and mixed states wreaked upon my family. I chose safety out of a conviction whose basis lies in strength of character.
Having said that, I must comment on the threat that I represent to some of the unmedicated. I have made the choice to take medications. It’s a free act. While I have told people that the pharmaceuticals have helped me, I also acknowledge the freedom not to take them. So why was this guy so threatened by me?
I have met a wide range of people who choose not to take medication. Many are depressives who choose to ride out their pain as a matter of character. I have great respect for these, though I have to wonder why one would choose pain over relief. It’s ultimately not mine to make.
Then there are those who just can’t give up their alcohol, their pot, their slim figures that come without attention to diet or exercise. I find these a problematic and ultimately vain. But it is still their choice.
Then there are those who have been hurt by overmedication or mismedication. I have more sympathy for these because they have been forced to suffer involuntarily. Still, I know also of those who have been put through the psychiatric wringer who, nonetheless, kept searching for a decent doctor who listened to them and prescribed with a mind to preserving the personality. It doesn’t need to be “stand up and don’t take your medications versus cower and do.” It’s more important to get the facts, measure the sacrifices, and choose intelligently versus emotionally.
I value emotions. I value the love I have for my wife and pets. I value the way my mind reveals the world to me. These emotions informed my decision to build dikes around my harbor so that I would not flood those around me with extremes. Yes, I like moderate amounts of safety alongside adventure. I wouldn’t climb cliffs without a rope. I wouldn’t put the pedal to the metal and go down El Toro at 100 mph. And I won’t terrify my wife with scenes where I talk about agents of the government following me and people on the net coming to destroy everything I have come to love. I won’t permit myself to be narrowly pigeonholed as a dupe of the psychiatric establishment. Yea, I prefer to within the sense of relative safety that the dispersal of my paranoia by medications afford. Admitting that ugly things happen when I don’t take themmakes me no coward but courageous in matters of my self.
A Realization Swerves to Meet Me
Posted on September 14, 2010 in Bipolar Disorder Hope and Joy Reflections
The sun kept shining into my eye as I drove down El Toro Road en route to my meeting last night. I lowered the visor to protect my eyes, but the twistiness of the boulevard kept moving the position of the day star relative to my eyes and I had to shrink and bend my body to avoid its flare.
For no especial reason — no one walked across the street bearing a sign saying “Wake up!” — a realization swerved to meet me. I had been avoiding any serious thought or creative impulse because I was afraid of triggering a relapse of my condition. Was this really necessary?
I’ve starved my mind and as a consequence, it has craved thought of any kind, even the misadventures of bad memories. If I leave it empty, it will attempt to relieve the tedium by filling the desert with images of cruel encounters from my past. What if I let myself think? What if I relied on my meds to keep me from jumping into episodes and on my wife to tell me when I was losing control? What if I enjoyed the road again instead of driving below the speed limit all the time?
I have a disease. But it doesn’t mean I must opt out of life.
30 Things about My Invisible Illness
Posted on September 13, 2010 in Bipolar Disorder Festivals Memes
This meme comes from Invisible Illnesses Week. As readers of this blog know, I have a few of them.
1. The illness I live with is: bipolar disorder and narrowing of the coronary artery, among others.
2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: 2005 after being diagnosed with depression in 1994; 2004 for the heart condition.
3. But I had symptoms since: childhood.
4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is: giving up on my dreams of having a meaningful career and allowing my wife to support me.
5. Most people assume: that I can get by without medications or that because I have the illness, I can’t be counted on to talk intelligently.
6. The hardest part about mornings are: the depressions that last for the first couple of hours.
7. My favorite medical TV show is: House, but I don’t expect it to resemble real life. I like how House talks to the mentally ill.
8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is: my Droid.
9. The hardest part about nights are: the long lonely hours (which are the same problem I have with the days.)
10. Each day I take 23 pills & vitamins. (No comments, please)
11. Regarding alternative treatments I: am open to them, but not to the point of closing my mind about therapies that have been proven to work. I also don’t appreciate ones that include insinuations that I somehow bring my illness on myself.
12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose: Neither. Nor would I wish them on others.
13. Regarding working and career: I have been unemployed for so long that I have given up the idea of working. People have often told me that I have not lived up to my potential. Some say I should take a job, any job. Like they would. Nevertheless, I encourage those who are still young or with strong career backgrounds not to give up on themselves..
14. People would be surprised to know: I am shy. It is one thing to stand on a stage, it is another to have the energy to leave the house and interact with people for very long. People tire me out.
15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: That it is going to be like this all the way to the end.
16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was: teaching adults to read and converse in English.
17. The commercials about my illness: make it sound like everyone can overcome their illness regardless of socioeconomic status. The fact is that most of us are not surrounded by loving family. Nor do we have wonderful doctors who know exactly what to do to help us excel. Most of us have to face stupid, mean people.
18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed is: writing poetry.
19. It was really hard to have to give up: nothing because I had already lost it all.
20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is: photography. Actually I returned to it.
21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would: make some new friends who didn’t have the illness.
22. My illness has taught me: the importance of listening to people and the scariness of dealing with people who don’t understand who just want to pigeonhole me, or who believe the media myths about organic brain dysfunctions.
23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say that gets under my skin is: “Everyone has moods. You just have to take them as they come.”
24. But I love it when people: say they don’t understand, but accept that I must be hurting. Even more when they offer to be there for me (which is next to rare).
25. My favorite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is: This, too, shall pass.
26. When someone is diagnosed I’d like to tell them: You’re not alone in this.
27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is: You don’t look any different from anyone else except maybe you smile less.
28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was: Coming to see me and calling me to see how I was. This happens so rarely that I don’t know what to do with it.
29. I’m involved with Invisible Illness Week because: I want people to know what it is like to live in this.
30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel: cautious. I wonder if you got the point that you don’t know a lot or if you have decided you know everything. Will you do anything at all for me or another person who has one of these illnesses?
