I am currently having a de-junking spasm : spasm being the expression a former male flatmate used, 30 years ago, in reference to my cleaning jags. An astute observation on his part in one way, yet I recall that he never lifted a finger to clean anything, and nor did my then partner - who also shared the house. Is it any wonder that I have no desire to cook and clean for another man ever EVER unhappily again?!?
And how was it that at the age of 20, I willingly lined up to be the chief-cook-and-bottle-washer and houseslave for two fit and limbed men who were also physically capable of pushing a mop and driving a vacumn cleaner?
I cannot say that I have never received support from my friends or partners. I have certainly worked my arse off doing stuff while others have relaxed and said: "You're doing a great job!"
Some things aint rocket science. I am adjusting my definition of supportive relationship which is currently going along the lines of: Words are cheap - get off your arse and get your hands dirty!
The folly of Youth, eh? May it never return.
Yesterday I found a journal that I started 20 years ago. The first entry is dated 4 June 1991 and the last 20 August 1994. Said 'journal' is a simple 128 page exercise book, the sort you use for school: I was a fairly no-frills low-maintenance type of gal back in the days of Low Self-Esteem. Which I reckon is part of the reason as to why I ended up sharing a house when I was 20 with two blokes and got duped into doing all the housework, despite also holding down a full-time job - same as them - and thought it was a fair deal that I received a five-buck rent reduction for being their houseslave.
Having found this journal from 20 years ago, naturally, I have Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as an earworm which has me wondering who in the world is Billy Shears?
Billy Shears sheep?
B.S.S.
Bull Shit Syndrome!
The oracle of Wikipedia sez that Billy Shears is an alias for Ringo Starr, then there's a mention of the 'Paul is dead' rumour from the late 60s and that Billy Shears is a clone.....and at this point, I shall quote Pontius Pilate: what is truth?
My current truth is that the last 12 months have been, hands down, the most gruelling months of my adult life in the wake of the road trauma that resulted in the loss of my car and independent means of travel. Lest this sound like the whine of a middle-class white person, allow me to elaborate (a little). Fifteen months prior to the road trauma, I began to experience severe panic attacks again and almost slid back into the abyss of agoraphobia. Having my own vehicle was integral to me being able to continue to function in the outer world as I had not been able to use public transport since Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia touched down in my life in 1989. Not having my own mode of transport has greatly impacted on my employment status which has an UN in front of it now.
Finding this twenty-year-old journal is synchronous because back then I was in a bad places because I did not have a skerrick of a clue as to what was feeding the Panic Disorder then. It is truly painful to read the words I wrote from the perspective I have now: so close and yet so far. Saturn Returns may well be like that. Where you keep going round and around in circles, reaching for the big brass ring and always falling short of the A-ha!
Last night I felt somewhat restless, troubled and awfully worn out. It has been a hard year. It's been a hard decade. It's been a hard twenty years. None of it has been helped by the fact that I have a tendency to be hard on myself. Over the decades people have observed this, a handful of therapists have observed: You're very hard on yourself. I note that not one of them ever offered strategies to help me stop being so hard on myself nor did they guide me in exploring how I came to be so demanding of myself. This seems rather an oversight on their part. An inability to identify the core issue and to address it within the context of a therapeutic relationship. Makes me wonder what psychologists and psychotherapists are actually taught to do apart from recline in their armchairs and pass comments that masquerade as supportive.
Sound familiar?
Two weeks ago, my GP wrote me a prescription for Lexapro. My GP who has a rather slim understanding of Panic Disorder and who has spent less than 3 hours with me over the last six years, and has absolutely no idea about my life circumstances is thoroughly convinced that a little white pill is The Answer to all that bedevils me. I am not as seduced by the prevailing medical model as she is. I don't need to be: I am not the one whose lifestyle is dependant on subscribing to and upholding its hypotheses and theories.
Twenty years ago, I effected a stunning recovery from Panic Disorder with extreme Agoraphobia completely without the use of pharmaceuticals. I did use flower essences and was consulting with a skilled homeopath/naturopath and I learned the Meares Method of Meditation, which is a stillness meditation developed by Australian psychiatrist, Dr Ainslie Meares, himself the author of several books, including Relief Without Drugs.
Meares came to use meditation as a means of treatment of psychosomatic and psychoneurotic illnesses in the late 1960s, writing:
"Our sensory input derives from sources in the environment, in our body and in the mind itself. When the sensory input reaches a critical level it is incompletely integrated, and anxiety results. A logical understanding of the cause of anxiety has no therapeutic effect. But the mind itself has the ability to reduce anxiety if suitable circumstances are provided. This can be quite easily achieved in the stillness of mind induced in a simple meditative experience known as Mental Ataraxis. The patient is first shown complete physical relaxation in global fashion. He is then brought to experience the relaxation as part of his whole being so that his mind fully participates in the process. He practises this, starting in a position of slight discomfort which eases as the meditative experience develops. The approach does not involve the patient in doing less work. The lessening of anxiety reduces nervous tension, psychosomatic disorders and defensive distortions of the personality."
Dr Ainslie Meares was ridiculed and ostracised by his peers and astutely predicted that his integrated holistic approach wouldn't be accepted by mainstream Western medicine and psychiatry in his lifetime - perhaps not for decades later. His peers considered him a quack!
Twenty years ago I was a student of the woman Dr Meares personally mentored and trained to continue his work. In my own way, over the last two decades, I have promoted and continued his work with teaching stillness meditation to small groups and individual clients, and have encouraged people to think outside of the big pharma box, to be informed with their choice of primary health providers, and in understanding what the concept of shared-decision making really means. Which is not being bullied into taking a course of treatment that you are not comfortable with and having your concerns denied and discarded.
My soon-to-be-ex-GP told me about some of the side-effects of Lexapro. The pharmacist who filled out the prescription told me even more and upon learning that I have never taken medication of this nature offered: You might like to take some time to consider very carefully if this medication will be part of a solution for you or if it will add to the problem, perhaps make matters worse.
I looked closely at this pharmacist, a woman of Asian nationality, and rolled the dice: Would you take Lexapro or recommend it to your loved ones?
She didn't blink: Absolutely not......and you didn't hear that from me. Then she smiled, nodded and said ever so quietly:
Namaste.
Of course, I have researched Lexapro using the time-honoured tool of Google and weighed up all the anecdotal evidence and apparently anecdotal information is the lowest form of evidence. How amusing! How on earth did humans ever learn that certain berries were poisonous if some poor person hadn't eaten them and told others? Or had died a violent and painful death! That is pretty strong evidence which reinforces the 'bad berries' anecdote.
Twenty-five years ago I was engaged in serious and intense study for a Bachelor of Applied Science majoring in Naturopathy. I do have a considerable and formidable grounding in the traditional Western medical sciences, which has always informed and tempered my perspectives when it comes to using and teaching holistic and integrative approaches and strategies. Half-naturopath, half-nurse and all-vibrational healer.....well....I suppose that is a receipe for non-compliance when it comes to sheeply accepting a recommendation to take a medication that is going to impact on my physiology in not so pleasant ways as to negate the dubious benefit I may gain. If the drugs work that is.
I have also heard that cocaine, heroin and ecstasy can be good for the short-term alleviation of the symptoms of anxiety and panic. Nobody has recommended those pharmaceuticals as solutions.
Funny about that.
It has been a long time since I have incorporated a discipline of daily meditation into my lifestyle. Of sitting down for 20 minutes and being still and I do know that my laziness here is part of the problem. I observed myself yesterday multi-tasking. I was watching a DVD while at the same time flicking through old magazines, cutting out articles I wanted to keep, images to use for collages and I caught this old habit - this lifelong habit - in the net of my awareness.
Why do I never do just one thing at a time?
Why do I always have more than one iron in the fire?
Why have I had issues since 2003 with anaemia, Vit B12 and Vit D deficiencies?
What ever happened to my interest in orthomolecular medicine/nutritional psychiatry?
Why am I in this handbasket and where are we going?
Am I really disturbed or has life designated me to be The Disturbed? Isn't that an interesting archetypal form to explore.........
I wonder if Bull Shit Syndrome is going to be in the DSM V......and if not...why not?
I looked at my cat who was looking at me : the feline glance.
I suspect it is the same as the Divine Glance. I dunno....like everybody else on this gold-durn planet, I'm making it up as I go.
Heyokay dokay!
The Gut-Brain Axis: The Real Axis of Evil
The enteric nervous system is really interesting actually, the gut is basically one big nervous tissue. In fact it’s been referred to as the second brain.
Image swiped from Bad Astronomy
This image of Venus as it entered the Sun’s disk was taken by the NASA/JAXA (Japanese space agency) spacecraft Hinode on June 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment