To tell you the truth, I'm more of a TGIM (as in thank god it's Monday) person myself ... and if I ever sank so low as to complain about Monday ... I was lying.
Friday signals the end of a week drawing to its close ... and I've never really liked endings ... prefer beginnings ... fresh starts. (and please don't tell me that beginnings are built on endings ... I know, I know ... I just don't wish to stuck talking about endings) ...
Monday is like a fresh page in a notebook ... a new canvas on the easel ... I'm sure you get my drift.
Speaking of endings and beginnings ... I found myself thinking about family as I was knitting away in bed last night (a winter hat, in case you're curious) watching Law and Order SVU trying, without much success, to keep my mind from going anywhere too deep. (You'd think with all that activity that I would have been successful ... harrumph)
Somewhere, at some point in my musings ... I realized that I am in mourning. Mourning the "old" Jonathan and the "old" Melanie ... realizing that some of the characteristics that made them both so special and delightful ... are now categorized as symptoms of their disease. The drugs prescribed have dampened their spirits, dulled their eyes and changed "them" ...
And I am unsure of who these new people are ...
And I miss their "spark" ...
I hate this disease ... I hate its "remedy" ...
Just another reason to dislike Fridays ....
7 comments to TGIF?:
i guess you mean "start" and not "stuck" (calling all freuds, calling all freuds, be on the lookout for psychobabble in the chaos sector), so i won't... start, that is... i will, however, begin to respond here for as long as it lasts unless i am told otherwise...
i think...
i wonder who else is reading...
i wonder why i might be told otherwise and yet, can probably pose some reasons even if they don't make sense to me, but be that as it may or may not be, i am here and i may have started (didn't i say i wouldn't?), so i'll stop...
friday/monday... a curious/interesting way to describe people/personalities... and you began to and i'll let you return as you wish... i mention it to say i think i like it...
tv can do that, sometimes, but for me it also comes with me and even sometimes inspires me deeper into anything from my own real-mind activities (thoughts, feelings, memories, dreams, fantasies, hopes, wishes, desires, etc) to the infinite possibilities of imagination when personal interests are secondary and exploration and creativity is the primary driver... though being that i spent the first ten months or so living in this space without plugging in the tv and i still do not have cable or anything more than the local channels floating on the airwaves, there's not much tv catching my attention and even less inspiring any depths at all these days... annoying news, glimpses of sport, some sensual eye candy, stupid human tricks, a bit of music, nature, art, science, comedy, and drama (way too much drama), but nothing compelling me to turn it on... when it is on, it is usually just habit (after work) to hear semi-human sounding voice, which must be the social instinct peeking out from behind the curtain that keeps me semi-sane (or at least functionally passing) and the real madness of humanity out as much as possible...
all that from a mention of tv, huh?... and i didn't even scratch the surface... so why stop, point it out, or even consider apologizing?... perhaps because you might want to avoid depths and i am in your online living room, or is this the den or some other metaphoric room in your world house?... which leads to the next point which will continue in another comment, specifically, your first entry back this time (two or three entries back)...
meanwhile, here, i continue to respond to this entry in my own babbling way and find that i must seem to pause because google/blogger will not permit more than 4,096 characters in a single comment and breaking thoughts up into separate comments always dilutes and distracts and diminishes the thought and what are we if not our thoughts so i am contemplating the best remedy for the size-limit obstacle and i believe i will brak the comment up here, if i have time, and find another venue, an entry somewhere perhaps, to present the entire thought as it originally flowed...
right, so anyway, onward...
so will the next comment be above or below in the reading on the page?... this comment will answer that questions (and is really taking up more time than i have for online babbling today, but you are worth it today and my frustration is with google/blogger, not you, so anyway... testing comment order (cuz i rarely remember, so my own bad too)...
psychobabble, part one
i am not a fan of the psychiatric profession, which may be why i decided to get a license in health care risk management and work in a children's psychiatric hospital... the LHRM is the police-lawyer-insurance agent in a hospital... i investigate, correct, educate, and metaphorically slap wrists... and i barely scratch the surface in the small facility i 'manage'...
my opinions are my opinions... professional brains use all sorts of smoke and mirrors to prove and shoot down opinions and almost all of psychiatric, as the same for medicine, is opinion... we can read limited empirical data and use sort-of scientific methods to diagnose and treat the mind and body and if we 'cure' something, we can claim success and even claim we know what we did, but the truth is, we really have very little clue as to what really happened because biological life and all the stuff of physical life starts and ends on an atomic level and nobody really knows what is going on in the atomic or subatomic realms...
credentials are bogus in most cases, because any relatively disciplined person with a good memory and a modicum of intellectual confidence can become a doctor or get any sort of degree and far from making the documents proving time in education meaningless, it expands the scope of the meaning of credentials to be anything from a genius to a quack most legitimately and explains why some of us treat doctors as gods and others want to hurt them and most of us ignore them and do not let them into our daily lives...
psychobabble, part two
when a person decides they do not want to or cannot cope with the hypocrisy of humanity and the pressures of conflicting perceptions and desires and either gives up or seeks professional help, he or she becomes a psychiatric patient, complete with label and associated medications...
it can also be said that when a person gets tired of figuring themselves and the world out and asks for professional help... and so on...
depression is mental fatigue that leads to helplessness and hopelessness... emotions take mental energy to understand and respond to (which is sometimes confused with control, but that’s another. . . ) and when the mind gets tired enough, clouds of confusion alter perception and people of science and medicine, in their compassionate desire to help and understand and explain and control everything, do what humans have always done to understand and explain and control everything, for better or worse, they give things names and try to change things…
the prevailing winds in medicine today use the study bio-chemistry and neurophysiology to attempt to chemically change the brain in the hope that it will relieve the fatigue and make people feel better… the fallacy in this reasoning is that the only real relief for fatigue is rest and the only one who can really give a mind rest is the person in the body/mind that needs the rest… medicine can subdue senses, turn off synapses, and even induce coma, however the processes of thought and emotion in the brain are so far from being understood that even the most scientific methods are not all that far from the lobotomies of the 19th century, the bleedings of the dark ages, the stoning and crucifixions of earlier times, or the ancient sweat-caves where fire and heat and plants and herbs would alter consciousness and attempt to heal… perhaps modern medicine has come full circle as radiation replaces fire and prescription psychotropic medication replaces opium and peyote, but that’s further along a philosophical trail I was not aiming for today…
psychobabble, part three
in my opinion, just in case we forget this is my opinion, mental rest comes from the decision to rest, nothing else… anything else can inspire the decision, thinking, talking, drugs, sex, other people, even reading these or other words can inspire the thought to rest the mind… the obstacle is fear, usually irrational fear (nonetheless very real fears) of inadequacy, failure, worthlessness, harm, or any number of other words that try to explain why something does not feel right and the instinct called fight or flight waves a red flag in the mind… the fear that one is messed up and cannot handle the daily chores and interactions of life is what leads most to seek professional psychiatric help… and those who do not seek it are brought to the doctor or hospital by a caring guardian, family, or friend because they cannot cope with or change the confused or harmful behavior of the person who is reacting to the fear triggering confusion and doubt inside their minds…
and the doctor asks questions and prescribes pills… and everyone hopes everything will get better; that the person taking the pills will resolve whatever is going on in their mind enough to return to clarity and do all the big and little things that make them who we know they are… but pills do not make the fear go away… pills are chemicals that attempt to turn off or stimulate different synapses, paths in the brain, in the hope that the fear can be blocked and that way overcome so that whatever is manifesting the reason for seeking help in the first place, the confusion, doubt, hopelessness, helplessness, or erratic behavior will stop, go away, and life returns to whatever was accepted as happy and normal prior to the change in perspective that lead to the doctor’s visit…
but the mind does not really get what it needs because daily life must continue and human daily life with all its responsibilities and interactions and conflicts and irrationality requires a great deal of mental energy… no rest for the weary mind… and everyone is way too scared to accept the only real rest comes when the person figures out how to rest inside… and even more frightening is the possibility that the skill might not be learnable after decades of human madness we call modern life… and still more frightening is to consider the change that seems drastic, completely changing the pattern that is not working, complete removal of all current mental energy drains, stressors, conflicts, confusions, responsibilities, obligations, etc etc etc and yet, none of that would have any effect if the true mental drains, the internal worries and doubts and fear is still over-working the mind…
to rest, one must learn how to rest… to heal, one must believe one can heal…
psychobabble, part four
the last line of part three expressed two of my opinions I accept as facts and the two that are most overlooked in modern medicine and our culture today… fast food, fast money, fast drugs, fast cures, that is what everyone wants and believes is not only possible, but right… and the saddest thought of all may be that learning and believe, which momentary occurrences, are skills that many never attain, no less master in a lifetime…
and still I live on hope because I know, from my own doing it, that it can be done and it all starts with a simple decision, an open door in the mind to a thought that brings confidence and belief that I can learn and I can heal…
that is why I am not on a mountain eating berries and fish and hunting/gathering to survive isolated from the modern world… that is why I drag a tired aging body into an office to take on the challenges of presenting my opinions to people who are afraid and who let their fear block most opinions that do not support or feed their fear… and that is why I am here again with a smile and an open hand and the hope that this time you will get it for real in your own mind better than ever before, enough to actualize the thought that you can do or be anything you want as you are master of your perception and perception is everything as your own…
and the belief that you can…
sincerely, at least until this signature which, as you well know, only intends to be the spoon full of sugar to inspire a smile,
johnny deep
:}
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