how to kill a conversation

tell people your thanksgiving plans are to have an anti-thanksgiving.

the only way they could wrap their heads around it was to remind themselves i'm vegetarian and chock it up to my lack of interest in the traditional foods. i didn't care enough to correct them.

i don't know why anyone even cares about my or anyone else's holiday plans anyway. i don't even care what my best friend's plans are. i'm sure he's doing something with his family. that's all i need to know. i suppose they don't care at all and it's just an excuse to flap the jaws. chewing dry turkey isn't enough exercise.

and then after they are done asking me about my plans, the conversation turns to themselves and what they are doing, and then i slowly remind myself, oh yeah, i guess i was supposed to reciprocate this and ask them what their plans were. . .

i've been doing this all my life. reminding. too late. you'd think i'd have the fucking script memorized by now. . .

i couldn't even care enough to listen and instead withdrew into my own thoughts as i sat beside them like an invisible person. their words invisible to me, my presence invisible to them. it's dissatisfying and yet i prefer it to the inane chatter.

being alone is almost never desirable. it's just more desirable than most options for not being alone.

i used to desire a fix for this. now i don't believe i'd have the energy to employ the fix. if the anxiety disappeared and i knew all the scripts and i could navigate all the social situations with ease. . . I'D BE ABSOLUTELY EXHAUSTED. by all the tedious conversation. or maybe i'd just become proficient in dominating the conversation like every other loudmouth.

just let the world write me off as some self-absorbed sad bastard who was too quirky to connect with and therefore care much about. i'm sick of trying to figure out how to make my way in a world that wasn't designed for me. every job requires fundamental skills i don't possess and never will without great difficulty and stress. i'm just going to be some underemployed piece of shit all my life.

i'm backwards. this is a world full of dependent individuals and i need to be an independent communalist. i don't know where the support is for that and i just can't keep my shit together about it today.

forget about drugs

in sleep, drugged even. . .
couldn't hide. these thoughts find you
and eat you alive.

----------------------------------

thoughts in swarms assault the brain, leave it spent, rent from rest no matter how much it tried to get. what IS rest? the thing you do with eyes closed, or the way you feel when you wake?

i went to bed with those thoughts that don't stop, the kind you CAN only drug away if you can even do that. and i woke to them as well. were they with me all night, or just filling in the cracks of consciousness like some sooty paste?

i got a full night's sleep, 7 hours of deep sleep from which i only woke once for the bathroom, and i feel like i've been up for days. my brain is exhausted and my muscles feel as if they have some memory of it too.

i only recently began medicating my sleep. prior to that, a night like this would have left me with no sleep and i would've blamed feeling exhausted on the lack of sleep. now what do i blame it on?

there is insight about jace in this post. for me at least. insight about how someone can sleep for 12 hours and wake up exhausted, desiring more sleep. insight that goes beyond slow wave sleep, because that's only part of the equation. insight about why medications may not work. how they can make sleep happen but maybe not rest.

medications will never make the thoughts go away. they ALWAYS come back to wage their assault. most brains eventually move on and forget as they accumulate new experiences that are more gentle on the mind. THAT is what makes the thoughts go away, or at least to go away enough to move on.

PTSD sufferers can't move on and forget. and once a person's stress tolerance is worn down to nothing, almost every new experience is potentially toxic, either toxic in its own right, or as a reminder of previous toxicity, or as something that demands hope and threatens disappointment as its reward.

here is what i believe about jace: i believe he suffered traumatic experiences all his life. they may not be experiences that would've traumatized you, but you must accept that HE felt traumatized. i believe he bore that trauma as best he could and continued on, much as i myself do. i believe a lot of shit came down on him at once, including medications he never should have been given, and it broke him. and his already troubled sleep became worse, and his days became worse, and his already troubled sleep became worse, and his days became worse, and his already troubled sleep became worse. . . do you see where i'm going with this?

it's a pebble grown to stone grown to boulder and it's running away down the hill faster and bigger and this hill is big, oh it's a fucking mountain, but it DOES have an end. and none of you are going to like it. the faster and the bigger it gets, the harder it will be to catch it. so far you've all failed miserably.

you can't do it with medication. you can't wish it away. you can't make it stop with tough love. in fact, tough love is when you try to catch it and instead you stumble and give it another good push.

you don't know what to do. you want an easy answer. i'll give it to you. this boy craves your redemption. he needs a support network. and, in my opinion, he needs help trying different non-drug-based therapies until he finds one that works for resolving some of the trauma. many people with PTSD do recover, but you're all going to wait until it's too late, aren't you? keep listening to "experts" instead of doing the research for yourselves, reading about what works and what doesn't.

forget about drugs. they aren't working. he needs to get off of them. at this point, they're just another reason to commit suicide and a weapon to try and do it with.

your time is not mine, does not fit, is not fit for human consumption

november 19th already. . . i can't keep up. marking time brings depression. i'm ready to throw away my calendars and watches and move to a remote location where i can live out the rest of it with a few close friends. this world is too fast for me. i want to forget your holidays and your ages, your milestones and your expectations. forget these things that do not matter and think only of the things that do.


quick passage of time,
cheering and depressing. brings
fast winter, fast death

------------------------------------

animated fools;
time will bury us all and
leave nothing behind.

Cops Above the Law: The Friends and Family Plan

As enforcers of the law, police have some leeway when it comes to obeying it. For instance, a cop on duty may legally run a red light when responding to an emergency. But if they want to, they can often get away with it even when not responding to an emergency. And because they work with and are friends with other cops, they can often get away with quite a number of minor (and occasionally not so minor) infractions. Being a cop is kind of like being a "get out of jail free" card. Is it fair? Some would say it's a small price to pay for these folks to keep us safe from the bad guys.

But what about when those "get out of jail free" perks are extended to the friends and families of cops? Is THAT fair?

Personally knowing a cop doesn't make you a better person. It doesn't make you one of the "good guys." Fuck, BEING a cop doesn't even make you one of the "good guys!" If anything, knowing a cop makes it MORE likely you'll speed or fail to stop at that red light, because you know you can get off with a slap on the wrist.

Here's what one cop had to say regarding Fraternal Order of Police Courtesy Cards:

"My family all carry FOP or OPBA (Ohio Patrolmans Benevolent Assn) cards. If they are stopped for a MINOR traffic infraction, the officer who stopped them can choose to give them a pass and take away the card. The card must be signed by an officer to be official and the driver better personally know the officer on the card or I do not accept them. Think of it as a perk for willing to get shot at 40 hours a week for minimal pay.
9 months ago
Source(s):
Ohio cop"

And this is from an article about another Ohio cop, Officer Rounds, after he ticketed a young lady (Harley) for speeding:

"Back in the car, Rounds mentioned that he knew a police officer who shared Harley's last name, and who lived in the same neighborhood. If she had mentioned a connection, "nine times out of 10, probably," the woman could have gotten off with just a warning."

If you can give bad press, then you're also safe to speed in the realm of Officer Rounds:

"He spotted two speeders there on a recent afternoon: On the first, Rounds threw his car into gear but then quickly backed down when he saw that it was a blue local TV station car.

"That would really make us look bad," he said. "I'd be washing cars tomorrow.""

Rounds also advises:

"If you have a law enforcement "courtesy card" -- a wallet size, get-out-of-jail-free card police officers give their friends -- don't be shy about using it. "If you are stopped, what you do is put the license and registration with the courtesy card right on top," Rounds said. That way, the officer will be sure to see it before starting to write the ticket.

Nurses or doctors who say they are on their way to surgery, firefighters, law enforcement officers and their relatives often get a free pass. Again, bring it up before the ticket is started.

By itself, a Fraternal Order of Police sticker in the car window is not an effective shield against tickets. Better is the FOP license plate, which is only available to those with law enforcement connections. In any case, don't be shy about mentioning your association with the FOP."

For the record, there seems to be all sorts of "get out of jail" paraphernalia: courtesy cards, family cards, triangles, shields, etc. And some carry more weight than others.

Is it fair? Let's ask a law professor.

"There is an insidious nature to it, even if it is only used in its most innocuous sense, to get out of a traffic ticket," said Lewis Katz, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University. "It says that there are two sets of rules out there: one for people who have a brother badge or a courtesy card, and another set for those that don't."

Agreed.

How to Build a Better Billboard. . . and Why

NYC's Times Square will soon see its first eco-friendly billboard powered entirely by 16 wind turbines and 64 solar panels. According to The New York Times:

"By generating its own electricity — enough to light six homes for a year — the sign could save as much as $12,000 to $15,000 per month, according to Ricoh, which estimated that the sign would prevent 18 tons of carbon from being spewed into the air yearly."

Those billboards use 12-15 THOUSAND dollars worth of electricity per MONTH!??

I've got an idea for an even better billboard: none! STOP BUILDING BILLBOARDS! I'm sick of being nagged from every direction to recycle my fucking trash, to turn off the kitchen light when I'm not in the room, and to install eco-friendly lightbulbs that have a warm up period before they give off full light, when FUCKERS LIKE THESE ARE COLLECTIVELY WASTING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF ELECTRICITY EACH MONTH to sell shit that NO ONE NEEDS! Shit whose manufacture is an EVEN GREATER fucking waste of energy!!

FUCK YOU, CORPORATE AMERICA! Stop blaming it on the masses. YOU are the ones destroying this planet, YOU waste our energy on pathetic ad wars for products that no one needs, YOU rape the resources of every country on this planet that doesn't have the power to keep you out, YOU fucking over-package ALL the goods I buy, which means YOU fucking generate all the waste I HAVE TO RECYCLE. YOU, Mister Rich Shareholder, IT IS YOU.

You are a death profiteer, the apocalypse come in suit and tie. And you spread your industrial capitalist meme everywhere you go like some cat dragging its shit-covered butt across the floor.

Go ahead, think about it. Tell yourself the world is overpopulated anyway, that this is survival of the fittest, that your actions are some sort of Malthusian population check on every species including your own. You ARE human, right? Better yet, don't think about it at all. Just think about yourself. Just shake my hand and kill me some more. Then tell the New York Times it was MY fault because I didn't go "green" enough, you PR-loving pieces of shit.

Why Elementary Social Studies Should Include More Cultural Anthropology

First I'd like to share a quote from the first lecture in Edward Fischer's Teaching Company course Peoples and Cultures of the World. He defines cultural anthropology by describing how it differs from other disciplines:

"Anthropology sees that what gets lost in such particular perspectives, such disciplinary perspectives, is the interconnectedness of it all, of life, of the human condition. One aspect of human behavior is influenced by and influences other spheres. We know this instinctively in a way. Politics is tied to religion. Economics is tied to psychology. Biology is tied to social organization. And this is all tied together with the glue of culture. Again, this is something we intuitively recognize I think. One's religion affects the way one votes, for example. Politics affects religion, religion affects politics. I was reading, uh, not long ago actually, that church attendance is a better indication of party affiliation in the United States than income is. But anyway, this is something that we as academics can easily forget, the interrelatedness of it all, as we work away in our increasingly narrow, uh, perspectives and specialization. Thus, a basic tenant of anthropology is its holistic approach, looking at the whole of the human condition and not just one aspect. "

Through the lens of cultural anthropology, we become familiar with and learn to accept and respect differences. We learn to see patterns, make connections, find similarities in differences, and look beyond borders for answers. We learn to appreciate the complexity and interrelatedness of all systems, both cultural and biological. We learn how various communities function, and we can use that knowledge to critically examine our own communities ("communities," by the way, can be replaced in that sentence by any cultural institution).

With all of this knowledge, we can put discreet disciplines in their proper context. While it can be academically useful to study the world in discreet chunks, the world is not actually made up of hermetically sealed systems of information that function independently of other hermetically sealed systems of information.

While there ARE benefits to be gained in knowledge specialization, it is to society's detriment if we don't first prepare children with the roadmap of how it all connects, how WE all connect. And not just one year. But year after year after year. Like math. Like history. It's just as important.

I'll leave you with this: Take two minutes and imagine what kind of world we might live in if an understanding of the interconnected human condition was as immutable and well-known as the oft quoted "2+2?"

Buying Obama

It's no secret that presidential campaigns have long been colossal marketing events. While this year's election will go down in history for the obvious reasons, there may be another reason to note this election in our schoolbooks: the Obama campaign stepped it up a few notches and offered the American public a slick and integrated brand that walked the hip path beaten not by previous candidates, but by companies like Apple computer. From the logo to the slogans to complete font control, the Obama campaign was a graphic designer's wet dream.

The keystone in the marketing campaign was a cleverly simple logo: You know how "they" say a picture is worth a thousand words? Here Obama, the sun, brings the promise of a new tomorrow to America: change. And everything that word might stand for in this fucked up country. This one image succinctly symbolizes the ideology of his entire campaign. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that Obama himself is an ideology, not a person.

So we bought it. Now we hope the product inside is halfway as remarkable as the packaging was. Either way, if the only choice was him or McCain, then good on us. But I saw some other brands on the shelf, albeit over there on that aisle where the light's burned out, on a dusty cracked shelf near the floor. It makes me ill that change, Obama's main talking point, would be much better served under the presidency of one of the many third party candidates who have agendas that differ wildly from the main two parties. I believe many of the Americans who voted for Obama want to see actual, major change. I believe they essentially wanted a third party candidate, but they won't be getting one. They're going to get the democratic party line: a slightly kinder business as usual.

Kindnesses

My car was broken into last night. I was very, very pissed off, and very expressive of my pissed-off-ness. And yet, I was fortunate, too.

The car was not stolen. I lost nothing valuable or important, besides the window.

The thief broke the right rear side window instead of the driver's window. In the world of a thief, that must be seen as a kindness.

The acquaintance who dropped me at my car, stayed with me, helped clean up, used her cellphone to call the police for me.

A young man who lived on the block saw us on his way home and fetched a broom, plastic and tape for us and helped clean up.

My acquaintance took me to a movie and took me in for the night. While we were at the movie, her housemate noticed that my dome light was on and 'broke' in through the plastic to turn it off.

So, I have a car, I can drive it without glass in my butt, my battery is still good, and my mind was taken off of my misfortune due to the kindness of enemies, strangers & allies.

It's still very satisfying that the thief got nothing for his trouble.

The Big Parent Syndrome (BPS)

(this is a modified version of a comment in response to this post by Intransitivus)

The job of the government is to conduct the policy, actions, and affairs of a people. Essentially, government is the big parent. When the big parent fails, the children must take their lives into their own hands.

In some cases, the big parent fails to provide access to medications necessary to improve a poor quality of life (For more information on this, see FDA/Pharmas: Conspiracy to Keep us Addicted, Not Cure Us by Intransitivus on nowpublic.com). Many will suffer rather than self-medicate, but those who are able to obtain necessary medications via alternate means should do so not with guilt, but be secure in the knowledge that their ability to govern themselves is superior to that of the big parent.

Yes parents, sometimes the child DOES know what's best for them.

The big parent wants you to feel like a guilty junkie even if you are a responsible adult who chooses to self-medicate responsibly. They instill this mindset in us from birth with their drug war, their commercials, their regulations, etc. The guilt trip is just one of many methods of psychological control.

Free your mind from the shackles of the big parent, the ultimate serial bully, in whatever ways you can. Its interests are rarely your own and as such it has always been a great disappointment to its children. It's well past time for the children to grow up and take care of themselves.

How Effexor Touches Lives

In doing research for the previous post, I came across a particularly tragic story. The poster was a young woman whose husband lost all sense of reality and committed suicide several weeks after starting Effexor. He was only 23 years old at the time and in addition to his wife he left behind two small children. He had never been treated for a mental illness and there was no family history of mental illness or suicide.

I contacted her, both to share Jace's story and to find out if her family had received any legal justice. This was her reply:

" It is an extremely difficult thing to do - which is to literally watch a loved one self-destruct before your eyes and everyone else that loves and cares for them so very much with very little you can do for them.

Pharmeceutical companies are extremely wealthy and are very experienced with dragging out litigations and law suits in attempts to emotionally drain those family members tying to seek justice and in most cases surviving family members simply give up after a few years years because it is just so painful to constantly have to relive such painful times and not be able to grieve in peace.

If I am being honest, I am involved in a pending lawsuit but I do not get caught up in the process. Taking legal action for issues such as these, unfortunately they average anywhere from 5-15 years before any settlement agreement is ever reached - which is yet another reason so many give up and choose to not go this route. Even in cases as severe as ours, when such a healthy young husband, father, son is lost due to such negligence on the pharmacuetical company's part-- it bears NO "priority" in settling, they do not care that the wife and children left behind lose their homes because they can no longer afford to survive on a single income. They do not care that you can not even afford to have your loved one buried. They do not care that the surviving family members will require YEARS of counseling due to a completely avoidable tragedy. They simply DO NOT CARE. They instead will spend millions TO avoid paying any compensation to anyone and everyone even when they are deemed at fault. (I guess they would rather pay attorneys than to do the right thing and compensate the ones with the real losses.) I have had to force myself to follow this thing at a distance and I had to not allow myself to get too caught up in it because I have to stay mentally well to continue to take care of our two children as they became my main focus.

I am sorry that I do not have better news or information to report, as you can tell the lawsuit beat us up pretty bad during the first year so in order for me to stay focused on our children I had to back off.

I will keep your email information handy should any miracle occur and the drug company find any sort of "soul" about the torture they have put our family through due to negligence on their part in studies, informing patients of all possible side effects, etc. It is so sad because it was extremely preventable and so many people on a regular basis continue to have to deal with the very sad situation.

I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers and hope your friend, and also his loved ones who remain concerned for him, are able to help him find peace again as I am sure he is so tired of feeling the way that he does. Be persistent and never give up - they do not realize sometimes how unwell the medication has really caused them to be. According to my research, doctors claim that the neurological damages caused from side effects from these medications could possibly require a lifetime of medication to offset the chemical imbalances it creates in the brain.

Stay strong and make sure your friend knows that he is not alone, which I am sure you all do on a regular basis. Good luck."

Effexor Experiences

Here are some words from Effexor users describing their experiences with the "antidepressant" found on message boards such as pandamedicine.com, the effexor activist's message board, and topix.com.

“I complained to my doctor the first day I took Effexor and was told "you either want to get better or you don't" so I continued to take the drug. I had had depression before in my life but I had never attempted to kill myself until after starting Effexor. I tried to kill myself 3 times because I didn't know who I was anymore and thought I was going crazy. I developed a seizure disorder and they never connected it to the Effexor but I haven't had a seizure in months and I have been off of it for several months now. I still don't feel like myself and I don't know how to make it better. Withdrawl was pure physical hell for about 6 to 8 weeks and I still think I am going through some withdrawl symptoms. I had my doctor tell a while back that maybe I should go on a small dose and try to wean off again and I said NO WAY. When I would tell them I felt more depressed they just kept doubling my dosage. It caused me to have rage, anger, so many things that I had never felt or said before. I have lost everything and am still floundering trying to get my life back or some form of it. I have contacted a lawyer to try and pursue this but thought I would provide you with a quick overview”

“My brothers case is truly tragic. In the 4 month period he was presribed 300mg he became extremely manic. He went into an unprecedented spending frenzy that left him in debt for over $900,000. He is now facing bankruptcy and the loss of his 16 year old fine carpentry business.”

"One day I'm okay, the next I'm planning out my suicide. Today is one of those days, just wrote yet another letter to my family explaining why I have to end my life. I have two small children who I love with all of my heart, but I am in such mental anguish that life is just not worth living anymore. Also, I've become so irritable that I think that I would be doing them a favor in the end. I fear that my brain is permanently damaged.”

"“Ive had all the horrible experiences with effexor, and I was never warned by anyone about how screwed up the side effects of this drug are. Thank God my issues haven't been as serious as the ones I've read about on this board. I suffered from the crazy dreams, inability to wake up, brain shocks, dulled sex drive/function, and a complete lack of concentration. "

“I am on effexor (150) and just tryed to kill myself. I need help, becuase my doc. said that it was becuase of my drug. I am so sacred of my pill and I am getting off, but should I file a lawsuit? Am I justfided at doing this, I can hardly afford the hospital bill as I am only 15 and my parents want me to pay for it what should I do?”

“I TOOK MYSELF OFF EFFEXOR XR ALL AT ONCE. I COULD NOT SLEEP WHILE I WAS TAKING THIS DRUG. ALSO, MY LIVER ENZYMES LEVEL WENT BACK TO NORMAL AFTER TAKING MYSELF OFF THIS DRUG. I FEEL ALOT BETTER NOW. I CAN ACTUALLY SLEEP . ALTHOUGH I DID HAVE AWHILE THERE WHERE IT WAS HARD , I DONE IT. I DON\'T WALK AROUND FEELING DRUGGED UP ALL THE TIME. I BASICALLY HAD NO EMOTIONS WHILE ON THIS DRUG, GOOD OR BAD. IT WAS LIKE I WASN\'T EVEN MYSELF. I HAD TO WORRY FOR AWHILE THAT SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH MY LIVER. THAT IN ITSELF WAS VERY SCARY.”

“I have been on it for at least five years, at this point I know most the symtoms that all of you have mentioned and effexor is dangerous to come off of, I have attempted several times to get off of Effexor and it is not pretty. The side effects that I have while I am on it are just as bad. I would not care if you caught my hair on fire, I dont care about too much. I now have RLS, I can not sleep, some kind of seizures or shaking (not to be confused with brain shivers during withdrawl) if I do sleep, night sweats, leg aches and weight gain are some of the few. I could come up with more but my memory is not as sharp as it was in the past. I have told and asked doctors about this, they act as if I was making this up in the early stages of my encounter with this drug. I guess now they are some what saying that there is a problem. I have gone from 225mg down to 75mg a day over a long time and I still have a way to go, God bless you all.”

“i have been on effexor 150mgs,for over 5 months now. i am currently tapering down,with the help of my dr,even though she was mad that i wanted off of it.it ruined me.turned me into somebody i never was.i quit my job of 4 1/2 years,and went crazy on a shopping spree,bouncing checks,and losing my checking account that i had for 4 years.i now have all of this to pay off,no job.my credit is trashed.i have never done anything illegal in my life,until this damn rat poisoning got into my brain. Tricia”

“I have been on it for a year, I am comming off it now and am in living hell. While on it I bounced checks, ran up credit cards, just didn't care. It was like it created a monster. I couldn't figure out why it made me do this. I was always responsible before. So, now I have to try to peice my life back together and over come the withdrawl."

"My husband lost all senses of reality after only taking this medication after THREE WEEKS which led to suicide. There is no history of mental illness or suicide in his family and has never been treated for any type of mental illnesses. There were no listed side effects with the medication when he started taking it other than possible nightmares. He was only 23 yrs old and left behind a wife and two small children who will not give up until justice is done.”

"I too just shoved my problems in the closet, I've had to learn all over how to deal with my emotions. I was on Effexor for five years...
But I feel great now that I'm off of it! I'm healthier, happier, and more vibrant.
I really feel that this medication robbed me of four years of my life...and I have whole sections of my memory that are missing. My hands trembled, I had chest pains, lost most of my coordination, and forgot entire conversations while taking this medication.
I am so relieved to be free from it.”

“a psychiatric nurse practitioner handed out a 75 mg prescription for effexor to my boyfriend after talking to him for less than 20 minutes. He was doing well on risperidone for an undiagnosed schizoeffective dissorder. He had no complaints, but he trusted the nurse and began taking it. after less than a week the panic attacks, night terrors and feelings of "being posessed" were unbearable. He contacted the nurse practitioner and she told him to just stop taking it and he would be fine by the end of the day. two days later he slit his wrists."

“only took it a short while but the nightmares it gave me caused me to go off it after only a month or two”

“this drug should not be prescribed as it can be lethal and dangerous-My wife Has spent the last 2 years literaly bedridden- From this evil drug-“

“I was told over & over & over again that there was no withdrawal with EFFEXOR. I almost went to jail 2 times, thought of suicide, homicide and lost my relationship with my daughter for a few years over these side effects and withdrawals. I was a horrible mess and I get nauseous at the thoughts of what was and what could have been had I listened to the DR'S & pharmacists.”

“I started at 75 and went to 150 then last april my mom died in a car accident and the docs answer was "up your effexor" to 225. i started having facial swelling and hives and it would come and go. then i started having "blow your brain out" middle of the night 2 a.m headaches that would wake me from a sound sleep and i thought my brain would burst out my eyes. it felt just like someone was squeezing my brain, i could hardly walk, i had slurred speech, could half see and facial numbness. i would make it downstairs get a cup of tea with my husbands help and sit up the rest of the night scared as hell to go back to sleep for fear of dying in my sleep.”

"This is is day 8 of my going off of this drug, called Effexor ( Please Google "Effexor withdrawal". Wish I had before ever taking a single capsule).
After a week, I thought things were improving immensely. My"Brain zaps" seem to have been decreasing in frequency. Those are freaky. Like electrical shocks in your head! And you hear them. Like synapses misfiring. Remember the movie "altered States"? Really reminiscent of those morphing moments. Sure, I was still dizzy, light-headed, short-term-memory for s**t, blood-pressure 149/100, pulse 90 at rest, feel like bugs crawling all over my skin, eyeballs hurt, diarrhea, and my dick completely disappeared!
Also, autonomic stuff, like swallowing, has become a problem. If I'm prostrate in bed i start choking on my own saliva because that flap that sends food to one place and air to your lungs doesn't close when it should! And my speech comes haltingly. Not good for a professional announcer.
Night terrors in the last week are like nothing I have ever thought possible. Violent, ultra-disturbing dreams, usually involving animals and mutilation and unspeakable hereto for unthinkable thoughts of purest horror. Never ..."

“Effexor XR is the most one of the most dangerous drugs out there. The withdrawl is horrifying. Now my husband is going through withdrawl and his anger is intolerable. This could break up our marriage. All I can do for him is read what others have to say on the iternet. Let's get Wyeth to come clean!!!”"

“I too am a victim of this horrible drug--a so-called 'medicine' which was passed by the FDA for public consumption on the strength of (count 'em) 2 clinical trials. Both were only short-term (3 months) and involved between 2-5000 people. It took me 3 tries to get off effexor and many horrible symptoms. Before I took effexor I was a healthy man who seldom saw a doctor. Since, I am almost constantly sick with something or other. My health hasn't been the same. "

“Wyeth has insidiously turned trusting consumers seeking relief from depression into drug addicts that are forced to take their product. Personally I worry more about having enough Effexor than about having enough to eat. Oh, and I am back to taking the Effexor XR. I found myself at work crying because I felt so bad and one of the MD's I work with told me to restart it...”

“I doubt one single person on this whole earth would have ever put one single pill in there mouth if they had been told about the withdrawel effects. Don't give up..it will end..sometime...WITHOUT suicide so don't give up...fight it out, fight it hard...you have it in you. Just take every SECOND at a time, not every minute, every second and you'll get through it...you'll come out on the other end...we all can't give up..we have to get through this to stop the drug companies that made this and knowingly never took it off the market even after they knew what was happening. 2 days ago, I wouldn't have been able to offer any support..but now almost into my 14th day..I'm hurting bad emotionally, but nothing compared to where I was at 40 hours ago... I'm getting better...some people have gotten better faster then me, some longer, but I keep reading of people getting better.”

“..all suicide thoughts are now gone, my head feels completely clear of the chaos and the anger is gone. I'm on Celexa now for depression, which has taken awhile to "kick in" but today I feel way less depressed, but no less ready to fight against this drug company.”

Yes, Jace Lives, Sort Of - And, I Quit.

Jace was found wandering the city streets for hours in the early morning two days ago in socks, sweat pants and a shirt. Injuries to feet, leg joints, (basically a worn out body), mind almost empty and mild hypothermia. He cannot sleep. His PTSD has taken over and he can barely feed himself.

He is staying in a shelter with off and on access to Internet and telephone service because people who give a fuck about him are trying to keep him from killing himself in more productive ways than throwing him into a drug rep's orgasm (hospital) like his biological parents, or abandoning him after being mind poisoned against him like his sister Jill was by his sick, fucked-up parents.

Oh, and: I Quit.

I can't handle all this family bullshit. I don't have one and Jace's is hell bent on portraying themselves as having done their best when I have access to all of Jace's email, writing, online friends and accounts which show otherwise.

Someone has to take over for me because I can no longer take over for Jace. I will comment, but this will be my last post.

If I see a single "I told ya so" from one of those fucking stalkers, I promise I will hunt down your IP addresses and do everything in my power to make your lives somewhat worse than they obviously already are.

P.S.: You have NO RIGHT to know where Jace is. Don't even ask.

Exposure: Pharma Reps

what kind of people are selling drugs to your doctors? are they ethical and knowledgeable, or are they a cut-throat pack of slavering wolves? find out on one of well over 100 anonymous company message boards for pharmaceutical sales reps at cafepharma.com.

Neurodiversity: Not diverse

autistic self-advocates often use the term "neurodiversity" to demand the fair and equal treatment of those who differ from the norm. but then they use labels such as "neurotypical," "aspie," and "autie" to draw two boxes: us and them. that is anything but diverse.

there are many good discussions online that rightly attack harmful public misconceptions of AS. but in questioning what qualities truly define AS, boxes are drawn and what follows is exclusion. the difficulties in obtaining a proper adult diagnosis of AS are commonly recognized, and yet people are often accused both of self-diagnosing with AS and of not having it, and then chided for muddying up the box for everyone else (and if there are so many internet AS experts who can diagnose AS or not AS based on a few words from a stranger on the internet, then why the fuck aren't these experts in the profession?). many autistics complain of being excluded because they are different, but their strong need to fit in is creating a repetition of the same exclusionary group behavior that damaged many of them (us?) in the first place. aspies in particular, you may be damaging shadow-aspies without even realizing it.
(shadow-aspies? see review of Shadow Syndromes)

where is the spectrum??? where is the neurodiversity? truth is, there is no archetype brain. they're all as different on the inside as we look on the outside. as for what's normal, well, this world contains a true spectrum of cultural behavior systems, and different types of brains will function well in different systems. what defines the norms of any particular system is just a shared collection of cultural knowledge, and as culture changes, the norms change.

we who find ourselves living outside our culture's norms will do much better if we end all infighting and band together. when it comes to advocating for neurodiversity, let's get rid of the labels and actually BE diverse. let's embrace anyone who wants to fight the good fight, that is, the fight for recognition and for the acceptance of perceived differences. it goes way beyond neurology. take a cue from the failing leftist movement in america if you're not convinced of the dangers of self-segregation. infighting has long splintered the radical left and has been a source of misdirected energy for many hardworking radical left activists; the lack of group power leaves the radical left quite easy to marginalize, and it will do the same to the neurodiverse if we do not come together.

and remember: the women's rights movement was born from the abolitionist movement. who knows what future rights movement(s) will arise from the struggles for neurodiversity acceptance? the rewards for cooperation may not just be your own.

not just the ones overturning cars and planters

HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK!!!
in the night, carhorns blast like bombs.
you’re ALL terrorists.

your win is my loss [UPDATED]

dear phillies,

thanks for the horde of rowdy fans now storming my street. thanks for the drivers who creep down the street while laying on their horn to show support. thanks for the pedestrians screaming chants at the top of their beer-drenched lungs. thanks for the random pops of fireworks that punctuate the occasional silences between the previous two. and most certainly thanks for what i expect will be a sleepless night FULL of this shit.

fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you.

hating all you wanna be jocks and your local sports team nonsense now more than ever (never would've thought that possible back in high school),

-vg

( HOLY FUCKING SHIT! where is the hole i so desperately want to crawl into? )

--------------------------------
from here, post is updated to promote an excerpt of the comments to the main page.
--------------------------------

blogavoidant said...

Looks like Philadelphia has a long history of rioting... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Nativist_Riots

4:44 AM, October 30, 2008

VictoryGrey said...

Blogavoidant,
thank you for sharing that link.

although the historical rioters were incited to riot over petty differences, it was at least political in nature and that is understandable to me. this sports thing. . . why does a sports victory incite a crowd to set fires, smash banks and destroy storefronts, and not anger about the war, the economy, and all the injustices our government commits against its own and against citizens of the world?

11:19 AM, October 30, 2008

blogavoidant said...

Hmm... smashed banks? Maybe that was a more political riot than we're giving credit for.

1:38 PM, October 30, 2008

VictoryGrey said...

Blogavoidant,

perhaps you are right. i hope so.

when viewed in the context of the other reported damage, it seems likely to me the bank just happened to be on a street that was thoroughly trashed. i haven't seen a report of which bank it was. it's my guess it was the wachovia on broad st since the fye and robbinson luggage stores right there also got smashed up.

"Windows were smashed at a bank and luggage store in the downtown shopping district. At least two cars were overturned, the windows of a TV van were smashed, dozens of huge streetside planters were flipped over and some bus shelters were damaged or destroyed."

each article tells a slightly different story of the damage. rioters also tried to turn over a police bus when the police finally got there to try and break them up. i've heard reports of other damage in town and in the suburbs from co-workers today. even out in west chester, some cars were damaged.

btw, the photo on the above article is very telling. i wish i'd had the mental fortitude to go out last night with camera in hand and shoot the scene. i probably could've gotten some great shots and sold some to the papers.

2:48 PM, October 30, 2008

Intransitivus said...

That people can be raging over fucking sports but not human rights, government (hah), corporate abuse of society and individuals, homelessness, disability, racism, descrimination, war and every fucking other IMPORTANT topics makes me want to [CENSORED]!!!

Fuck This Country: Police Don't Protect or Serve

VictoryGrey, like most people, has to go to work in the morning. It IS morning already. In Philadelphia, there are RIOTS. Yes, RIOTS.

Why? Governmental election? No.
The Phucking Phillies won A BASEBALL GAME.

Anti-society, hear VictoryGrey cry out at the horror surrounding her at home (a person I worry for and care about):

(in comments on her own story)

"my nerves are shot. there are several helicopters flying around the area and i'm pretty sure i just heard someone's property being destroyed outside. wtf is wrong with people? :( 12:12 and all mayhem continues unabated."
12:12 AM, October 30, 2008

Then:

"helicopters still buzz overhead. police response summed up in this article:

"Right now, we're just going to let themselves tire themselves out," said Tanya Little, a police spokeswoman."

"while they're still tiring themselves out by shouting their way down my street, i wonder, how do i get tired out?"
1:11 AM, October 30, 2008

[My emphasis used above]

VictoryGrey needs sleep to function. Like me. Like Jace. Like YOU.

THIS is law and order? THIS is humanity?

THAT was a "POLICE SPOKESWOMAN??"

NOT "Serving" or "Protecting" as the slogan used to be, but sitting along on the sidelines doing nothing because it's easier than DOING THEIR FUCKING JOBS.

Oh you huddled masses of creatures called human beings... learn your lesson well:

Non-Americans:
DON'T MOVE HERE. I want to move the fuck out.
This country is anarchy and a 1984-like, media-controlled, reality-twisting, history revisioning dictatorship. As Jace said: THIS IS THE DYSTOPIA.

Our law officials do NOTHING to quell the madness of the group mind (the unintelligentsia group mind, I add). Our law officials do NOTHING for the homeless OR the innocents huddling in their homes afraid of having rioters injure them, destroy their property, or kill them... all over A MOTHERFUCKING SPORTS GAME.

Step aside "nationalism."
Step aside "god."
Here comes the thing Amerikans TRULY worship:

"SPORTS"

FUCK THIS COUNTRY.
FUCK THIS COUNTRY.
FUCK THIS COUNTRY.

Asperger's Syndrome/Autism = No Rights at KU

Are you on the Autism spectrum?
Asperger's Syndrome?
You should read this. HERE

Addict's Almanac

Street Roots, a Portland nonprofit paper that assists the city's homeless and impoverished citizens, is running a short-term autobiographical column by Tye Doudy. The Addict's Almanac offers a thoughtful peek into the brutal lifestyle of heroin addiction and homelessness. Tye's prose is peppered with reflections that humanize America's untouchable class, reminding us that these non-entities were once people just like you and me, still are like you and me, and could be you and me. Between the past and the present, he glimpses into the future, putting truth to the junkie's lie and making self-aware forecasts that peer hopelessly further down the spiral to this lifestyle's inevitable end.

Please read the excerpt below, and then use the link to continue following his story.

August 6, 2008

"The smoky interior of the Roxy, with its smells of clove cigarettes, coffee, and greasy diner food, is an oasis. Those old familiar pulp fiction posters on the wall and the same Skinny Puppy songs playing on the jukebox. Small groups cluster at tables and in the booths. Gothic kids and punk rockers drinking the all-night coffee and chain smoking. Flamboyant gay guys sitting at the bar talking loud and looking around to see if anyone is paying attention. No one is.

I spot an associate sitting by himself at one of the small two-person tables and make my way over. His name is Joe but he goes by Ashes, and Ashes looks loaded. He barely looks up when I sit down and from the length of the ash on his smoke I can tell he was on the nod. His hooded eyes finally look up and find mine as the waiter takes my order for coffee and toast. He tucks a long strand of greasy hair behind his ear and through missing teeth tells me I look like hell. Coming from him this is truly something.

Ashes has been on the streets a long time. He was already “old” when I first hit the dope road all those years ago. Beneath his long and tattered leather jacket and his Sisters Of Mercy T-shirt his thin frame shows the wear of the longtime dope fiend. His arms are covered in homemade tattoos and scars from past abscesses. He is somewhere in his late 30s but looks a decade older. Anybody with eyes would make him for an addict. He’s about as trustworthy as a rented snake, and he is the closest thing I have to a friend at this moment.

My first question is, of course, is he holding and second, can I get him to kick down a little something. Even a rinse would set me straight and buy me some time to make a plan. No junky wants to give up any dope ever, but I have some leverage as he has no hustle and he knows I will make some money today. He supports his habit by spare changing in the transit mall. Not a sure thing, even on a good day. A real loser’s gambit. Real bottom of the food chain shit. So I get him to agree to get me well as long as I take him along on whatever scheme I cook up for the day.

In order for me to get the fix, we first have to go back to the squat he shares with some other scumbags under the Jackson Street overpass. We leave at once. Fuck the coffee and toast. It’s only a few blocks away and as we make our way to the spot, morning people are beginning their day. Office workers are emerging with their overpriced Starbucks beverages and service workers are on their way to their shitty jobs serving shitty food to shitty people.

The pedestrians avoid eye contact and keep moving. They’re not scared, just seen it all too many times. Anybody that lives or works downtown is so used to this that it’s like rain to them. Something unpleasant but inevitable, just part of the city. When we finally reach the overpass and duck down through the hole in the freeway fence the smell of shit is a shock. The whole side of the embankment is dotted with small white flags of used toilet paper marking each pile of human excrement. There are no public bathrooms open at night in this area of Portland so people do what they have to do whereever they can. No matter how many squats I’ve been in, the smell of piss and shit always takes my breath away for a moment. This is the bottom. Truly, it would be hard to fall any lower than this. Maybe dying of AIDS in a welfare hospital would be worse. Maybe."

read the rest of Addict's Almanac.

political rumor-mongering

Recently, following a rash of particularly hateful emails, I felt compelled to send everyone on my email list a nasty little reminder how much I DESPISE chain emails. Here's an excerpt:

"As all of you know I absolutely despise chain emails. Now that the election is near, I have been receiving some really vile and misleading political emails that make my stomach churn. I can't STAND these kinds of emails that twist statistics and outright lie. I think misleading people about something as important as elections is despicable. I urge you all to seriously research the truth before you forward, by email, or in conversation "facts" that you have heard about candidates. If you want to verify a claim, there is an excellent website that serves as a resource to fact check politician's claims and other political rumors that are disseminated and circulate.

The website is called www.factcheck.org.

Regards,
(me)

PS- If you've got free time on your hands and like to forward emails, how about starting with this one? It was written by a real, credible human being (see, I even signed my name!) I wonder how many of you who don't hesitate to forward emails with stupid fuzzy puppies and angels, and nonsense emails about murderes in the backseat will refuse to forward something such as this, which is actually relevant and factual?"

You should have seen my original email. It was so bitter and harsh with more profanity than was appropriate. I thankfully was able to reel myself in and edit it before I hit send, unlike some people.

Shadow Syndromes: Reviewer Gets It

on amazon.com a few weeks ago, i read a particularly well-written review of the book Shadow Syndromes: The Mild Forms of Major Mental Disorders That Sabotage Us. *

the reviewer uses this text and his own experiences to write a good critique of the confining DSM classifications and to provide a realistic view of brain complexity that argues for spending more time treating patient's symptoms and less on figuring out which box(es) they fit into. his analysis (and more fundamentally, that of the book's author) illustrates the dangers of not doing so. please read.

"Shadows Syndromes is a worthy read, in that it does a good job of highlighting the major disconnect between diagnostic categories and reality. While the DSM model has its uses (research and billing being the only two I can think of right now), it also serves to reify the notion that mental illnesses are precise, discreet disorders. Any one with an ounce of clinic experience will tell you that real cases don't fit neatly into categories. The diagnostic questions sometimes help think through and organize the presenting concerns, signs and symptoms. But often the debate over whether someone is suffering from a pure mood disorder versus PTSD versus character pathology serves as a distraction. Or , another classic example: spinning wheels arguing whether a patient is an addict with psychiatric symptoms secondary to drug abuse or are they actually someone with a primary psychiatric diagnosis who is using substances to self-medicate their mental illness. It's a meaningless exercise based on an overly simplistic model. But that one does matter because insurance companies consider one of those scenarios worth paying to treat and the other worthy only of their contempt.

In reality, just like any other organ in the body, the brain mediates a number of functions. It is responsible for mood regulation, memory, sustaining attention, shifting attention, interpreting social cues, integrating sensory information, regulating motivation of all manner of behaviors, and impulse control, to name a few. We all have various strengths and weaknesses, and we all fall somewhere on a bell-shaped curve for performance of each of these various tasks. People who shake out on the extremes ends in one particular area probably look like textbook definitions of specific illnesses (a "pure" mood disorder with no other comorbidities). That's rare. Looking at it even just from this sort of statistical model, one would expect that, for any given disorder, the number of people who unmistakably qualify for a specific diagnosis would be just a fraction of those who almost qualify. These "subclinical" cases are what Drs. Ratey and Johnson refer to as "shadow syndromes." They go a step further and assert that these people actually suffer more from mental illness, because they slip through the cracks. They are not quite sick enough to find themselves needing treatment, but they are impaired by their symptoms.

It's an important perspective that is explained in simple, readable terms in the first part of the text. The second part then breaks the shadow syndromes down into specific "mild" mental illnesses based on the traditional categories. So just imagine how densely the comorbidities can layer now. Is there anyone motivated to pick up this book that won't conclude that they have masked depression, are slightly bipolar, have a subthreshold intermittent rage disorder, mild attention deficit disorder, a touch of "autistic echoes" and are a shadow addicts? Then what are the implications? Does everyone need to be in therapy? Does everyone need to be on a finely tuned psychopharmacological regimen and a behavior plan?

I recommend this book, I think it's well-written and thought provoking. It does succeed in explaining complex issues in a way that is understandable to people outside the field without being simplistic or dull to people within the field. That's a tough line to walk. And I like the emphasis on blurry boundaries to disorders, and the overall message of understanding how your brain works, what your relative strengths and weaknesses are and how to make the best of things. But I worry that the take-home message for many will be to feel these diagnostic categories expanding, billowing out of their margins, pathologizing every aspects of our humanity as it envelopes us. While it gets at the true complexity of these disorders, it also does so with the bias that mental illness primarily a Biological phenomenon. Perhaps this is to combat social stigma and people's assumptions that these deficiencies are due to personal weakness (or- just as damaging- all to be blamed on bad mothering). Or perhaps, it's that, as we learn more about these disorders (which we are doing at a rapid rate thanks to the new abundance of genetic data and advances in brain scanning that lets investigators see brain regions light up as they work), we learn more about the biological aspects, since that is what we are looking for and trained to interpret. So, now the authors expand the scope of these diagnoses and therefore lead us to the conclusion that more people could benefit from psychopharmacologic treatments. It's a nice book to recommend to your patients if you take only self-pay patients and only do psychopharm visits. But it skims over the real beauty of psychiatry, the reason it is the most intellectually challenging field in medicine and the most rewarding specialty to practice, which is the multifactorial, composite nature of everything our brain is and does at any moment. No doubt the genetics shape the brain, as does the metabolic and endocrine factors in the uterine environment during development, as does nutritional factors, and then near infinite environemental variables acting constantly on each individual. From things as foundational as the fit in temperament between primary caregiver and baby, all the way out to religion and culture. From the preconscious memories of the earliest childhood experiences all the way out to this morning's headline news.

You can take the best brain in the world, if there is such a thing, but I guarantee the individual possessing it will be no healthier than the families, systems, and societies they inhabit.

So thumbs up for a great read, and a perspective that broadens our view of the mind and mental illness. Too bad they interpret the new landscapes with tunnel vision, but it's to their credit that they left me wanting more. "

*note that i haven't read Shadow Syndromes (although i'd like to at least skim it sometime soon).

if you don't fall for love, then fall for hate

i logged onto facebook this evening, made a couple of clicks and was greeted by this ad:


you've probably seen this style of ad before. to get your attention, they appeal to your innate human desire to be liked by leading you to falsely believe someone has a crush on you. shitty? yes. antagonizing? yes.

now they've upped the provocation. as you can see (if you look closely. . .), the companies behind this banner want to you believe the internet is teeming with people itching to proclaim their hate for you via some new, cruel social networking option.

what's important? your mental health or selling their valuable service?

and just what IS the service they're so aggressively tricking you into visiting? i clicked the banner ad, watched the domain name cycle through a dozen or so rapid changes in the browser's status bar (yeah, that's not sketchy), and the final destination was this:

http://purecrushcalculator.com/cx/index.php?pubid=15087-

from their site:

"Nextel and Boost customers will receive semi-weekly love prediction horoscopes at $5.99/week. Verizon Wireless, ATT, Sprint, Alltel, Cellular South, US Cellular, East Kentucky Network, Rural Cellular Corp, nTelos & Virgin Mobile customers will receive this service billed at $9.99/month. Cricket customers will be billed $6.99/month for this service."

that's right. mobile love horoscopes. the company would probably argue that they provide entertainment, but it's hard to believe the economy is so bad now that people need to be viciously enticed into entertainment purchases.

there's nothing about this that doesn't disgust me. of course, the effort to control mind-space in advertising is not new. it defines the profession. this ad is just more overt about it.

if the thought of someone being tricked by this ad disgusts you too, i'd like you to hold onto that feeling and revisit it whenever you see any ad. ask yourself how the companies responsible are trying to control your mind, whether they're successful, and most importantly, ask yourself whether it's RIGHT.