May 1, 2013
Oh good, company is here.
I read this a few weeks ago via a cracked article and it’s seriously, the hardest thing I ever forced myself to read.
Ferster (1973) suggested that if children express anger or seek care, but these expressions elicit anger or withdrawal of love from the parent, a child’s anger or care eliciting
feelings/efforts can become conditioned to anxiety. Over time the child may become unaware of their anger or desires to seek care and only aware of the anxiety. In contexts of conflict
they are more likely to adopt submissive and self-blaming behaviours for another’s aggression or lack of care towards them. Forrest and Hokanson (1975) found that, compared with
nondepressed people, depressed people switch to self-blaming and self-punitive responses in the face of conflict, whereas non-depressed people were more likely to express anger or
assertive behaviour.
In a review and study on self-critical forms of perfectionism Dunkley, Zuroff, and Blankstein (2003) suggest that self-critical perfectionists experience chronic dysphoria ‘because they
experience minor hassles in catastrophic terms and perceive others as condemning, unwilling or unavailable to help them in times of stress’ (p. 235).
Taken together then, self-criticism can emerge from many sources, e.g. from modelling (treating self as others have treated self), safety strategies/behaviours with hostile others, shame
(Andrews, 1998; Gilbert, 1998), inabilities to process anger (Ferster, 1973), lack of internal schema of others as safe/supportive (Mikulincer &
Shaver, 2004) and/or as a fear–anger/frustration response that acts as a warning in the face of threat (e.g., if you don’t work harder, lose weight, control your emotions no-one will love
you). Although the threat-safety seeking aspects of self-criticism can vary, a common theme that links them may be the inability to self-soothe and be compassionate to self when under
shame-focused threat.
Different role relationships are created via the exchange of different signals, and different social signals activate different brain and physiological systems (e.g., affection signals
can activate oxytocin, while aggressive signals activate stress-cortisol
In regard to the thought–emotion processes involved in self-criticism, this external and internal equivalence is important. Thus, CMT views self-criticisms as internal stimuli that act
like social stimuli that the brain can treat like real (threat focused) interactions. Thus one part of the self (processing systems) may deliver a string of criticisms (you failed again,
you are no good, nobody will love you) and another part of the self (processing systems) responds to these putdowns as it might to external putdowns, with stress, anxious or depressive
responses. The social mentality that is active is thus related to a dominate (hostile attack) and subordinate (submissive, anxious/depressed) response. These self-criticisms can be seen
as a form of internal self-harassment, which can regularly stimulate submissive, anxious and depressive defences, especially if a person cannot defend him- or herself against them (Whelton & Greenberg, 2005). We suspect that over time, with repeated use, these become highly sensitized and conditioned pathways and probably develop a retrieval advantage (Brewin, 2006). This type of self-to-self-relating can come in the form of self-talk and patients can often identify inner hostile or helpful voice(s). Critical inner voices can come with suggestions, commands, condemnations and with emotions (e.g. contempt; Gilbert, 2000; Whelton & Greenberg, 2005).
Patients can learn to interact with these aspects of self, such as writing them down as automatic thoughts and clarifying their meaning, or directly talking with them by (say) acting
them out, as in the Gestalt technique of two chairs (Whelton & Greenberg, 2005). In essence, however, they can be analysed as ‘inner conservations’ and relationships (Gilbert, 2000;
Gilbert & Irons, 2005; Watkins, 1986).
Shame-prone patients can be so riddled with ideas that there is something fundamentally bad or incompetent about them that we see this ability to ‘stand back’ and see safety behaviours as
automatic defences (rather than as distortions or maladaptations) as essential and helpful to a de-centring process, which aids empathy and understanding of one’s distress and
self-criticisms. Compassion can then be extended to one’s self-critical thoughts and behaviours as often automatic safety strategies/behaviours. This avoids people becoming critical of
their self-criticism or trying to aggressively rid themselves of, or subdue, their self-criticism. Without this formulation CMT can be difficult, because people can fail to see their
efforts as safety behaviours—that they developed to deal with fears of others (e.g., their rejection or contemptuous anger). If the underlying fear is not addressed, people can be very
reluctant to give up self-criticism. For example, one person from a rejecting background thought that her self-criticism made her work hard and kept her negative emotions in check and in
this way she could ‘earn her place in the world’. If she gave up self-criticism she might not work so hard, not spot her mistakes and never find a place where others loved or valued her.
Directly working on self-criticism was less helpful than working on her fear of rejection and of ‘never finding a place of acceptance or belonging’. She learnt to recognize her
self-criticism as fear based and to be compassionate to that fear
We thus discuss self-criticism by formulating it as arising from the following.
• Early trauma, such as abuse and neglect, bullying or parental/peer criticism. Such traumas are commonly associated with powerful sensory based autobiographical memories and the therapist may explore these in some detail because they have qualities that are like trauma memories (Lee, 2005). Unaddressed, these can make it difficult for the patient to feel safe. For example, one patient could vividly recall the ‘look of hatred’ on her mother’s face and her own terror when Mother had one of her rages. These experiences lay down the emotional memories that form the basis for carrying key fears through life.
• Basic fears are of two types, externally focused and internally focused. Externally focused fears relate to what the outside world can do to the self, e.g., ‘others have the power to reject and hurt me; they can turn nasty at any moment’. Internally focused fears relate to (a return of) anxiety, panic, shame, depression or rage that one feels one cannot control.
• Basic safety strategies/behaviours/beliefs are the ways that people have learnt to try to avoid or defend themselves against external attacks and the internal emergence of unwanted emotions that can feel overwhelming or shaming. People may try to avoid harm from others by being overly submissive and non-assertive, blaming self, silencing the self, always putting the needs of others first, not trusting others and keeping them at a distance, or working excessively hard to make themselves desirable to others. Alternatively, they may use avoidant strategies, bully others or keep others at a distance and avoid intimacies. Control of internally aversive experiences can be via dissociation, substance misuse, cutting oneself, reminding oneself of one’s faults and weaknesses or trying to rid oneself of ‘bad things inside me’.
• Unintended consequences. What start off as understandable efforts to defend the self from external and internal threats often have unintended consequences. Being overly submissive means others may not take you seriously; always putting the needs of others first means one does not learn what one’s own needs and values are, or how to satisfy them. Criticizing oneself to try to reduce errors (and thus reduce threats from others) leads to self-harassment and exhaustion, and rarely being able to be at peace and content with oneself. Keeping one’s distance from others, being highly self-reliant or being a self-concealer can lead to feelings of emotional isolation and never really feeling part of relationships—always the outsider.
• Self-attacking for unintended consequences. While self-criticism can be part of a safety strategy it can also arise because of the unintended consequences. For example, one submissive woman said that she hated herself for always being so submissive and letting fear overwhelm her. A man who abused alcohol said that at times when he stood back and saw what his addiction had done to him he hated himself for his weakness, got depressed and drank more. In such cases, one starts with compassion for the submissiveness and fear that underpins it, and for the need to use alcohol to soothe the self. Rather than hating the ‘alcoholic self’, we develop compassion for it. Key then is to always seek out the fear or sense of threat that underpins safety strategies.
We spend a lot of time developing what we call empathy for one’s own distress, both in the past (e.g., empathy for distress as a threatened child), and in the current life context. We
discuss why loss of affection/approval in early life and currently can feel so powerful and unpleasant. We give a brief outline of evolution and social mentality theory (Gilbert, 1989,
2005a), especially that derived from attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969, Cassidy & Shaver, 1999; Leahy, 2005; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2004, 2005), group belonging (Baumeister & Leary,
1995) and shame (Gilbert, 1998, 2003) to explain why humans are so dependent on the good feelings of others towards them. With them we feel safe; without them we can feel vulnerable and
threatened (Gilbert, 1998, 2003). We stress that ‘all humans want/need to feel loved and accepted, because in our evolved past our very survival may have depended on it. So when this does
not happen for us the brain can register this as a major threat—and then our emotional minds try to develop some kind of protection strategies, which can become automatic. Although very
understandable these can become unhelpful and prevent us from changing’. All of our participants found this brief psycho-education aspect helpful. Patients can then be invited to explore
(brainstorm) all the possible ways protection–safety strategies might work, such as avoidance, anger, emotional numbing or denial. We also explore how much of our time is spent trying to
either elicit other people’s approval or avoid being controlled/threatened by them.
In a group format, patients often identify with each other and support each other on these themes as they tell their stories of the origins of their self-criticisms. This standing back
and developing empathy for oneself, ‘it is understandable why I feel like this and attack myself because . . . ; my basic fear has always been that . . .’ often alters the affect from
anger or contempt to sadness and grief. Although some patients can find this emotional awareness of inner sadness and longing very threatening at first, it can be the beginning of
developing sympathy for one’s own distress and tolerating feelings of vulnerability and sadness. The therapists and group acknowledge, and give strong validation to this process (Bates,
2005; Leahy, 2005). With this validation the patients may begin to more fully appreciate that many of their efforts (including self-attacking) have been safety behaviours—to try to
protect themselves and regulate their emotions because they have felt so unsafe with others and their external and internal worlds.
We continually stress therefore that it not so much distortions in reasoning that are key but automatic safety strategies/behaviours and conditioned responses, and not having had opportunities to develop alternatives based on genuine care. For example, a patient may come to the view ‘I used to hate myself for getting anxious or angry because those feelings made me feel so vulnerable, but now I realize these feelings are painful and part of my protection system; they are understandable and not reflections of me being bad or weak’. Patients may also be invited to reflect that sadistic fantasies of revenge to others can be common (evolved) and understandable defensive reactions to being hurt—unpleasant, frightening and undesirable as they may be nonetheless. Even animals can engage in revenge. Our evolved brains can simply generate these thoughts and feelings at times of threat and injury, and while we can learn to recognize and cope with them and not act them out they are not a mark of personal badness.
I have to wonder what exactly happened to me in my early childhood years. A lot of it, I don’t remember except that I had a lot of bullies and I never could defend myself. I’m even
finding this hard to explain exactly. I don’t think I tried to be submissive to other people, well, at least not in the physical sense? I mean, I’m thinking this in terms of like
relationships. Even though dominant types often took me in as a friend in my early years, I don’t think I went along with every suggestion that they had and I’ve never bent over backwards
for any boyfriend trying to please them (the second one didn't expect it). I was paranoid about behaving in school, I was afraid of a lot of things. I remember being extremely paranoid
about my writing once I got into
that at eight—I didn’t want anyone to read it.
It’s like to this day I get confused when people actually pay attention to me, especially when they don’t want anything from me or compliment me as I tend to think that they don’t mean
it. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t really hear insults or criticism anymore, but I still have a hard time with being shunned for what I am (I know, it’s counterintuitive to want
to be published), I tend to think they don’t have room to talk particularly when I put up with them and all their flaws. I do feel like a lot of people, their opinions, and needs are
essentially irrelevant or inconsequential and the only people I felt comfortable with were/are my boyfriends and some of the curmudgeons (but then again, they liked me because I was
pretty and talked to them like they were humans). But I didn’t think that the two exes were genuinely supportive of my writing (they were because they were happy while dating me, if I
were a random author I don’t think they would).
This is now the hardest thing I’ve written. I think what I’m trying to do is to illustrate how I feel when I see normal people and that can essentially be nothing. But it’s more than just
nothing, it is a severe detachment even when I’m feeling happy or surrounded by people like the curmudgeons (or those like in my day job office, they’re nice people but I don't feel much).
I’ve been journaling since 1995 and have unknowingly doing this therapy. But I don’t think I’ve ever been compassionate to myself—I’ve just been writing thoughts and events--particularly
bad events that I had to get out of my brain because I couldn’t take feeling it anymore, probably because I couldn’t defend myself to tell the other person off (and even if I did, that
wouldn’t change their minds because they suck). If anything, I feel a steadfastness to get stronger and carry on, not to pity myself (one Erin gets taken out but there will be another
Erin to drag her to safety). I do remember being upset as a kid but I also remember a lack of sympathy from other people—that I did stop myself from reacting. Right now, I feel a vague
self-consciousness because I am digging up all this in me and putting it out there.
My writing is still scrutinized by myself because I do need it to be to work out the glaring flaws that would prevent it from being published or selling well. But I do remember thinking
that if I did accomplish something, that maybe I would have something in common with people. I always wanted it to be perfect (or at least good and coherent) eventually coming to the
conclusion that I didn’t need anyone to be critical of my writing because I could do it myself (and others whom I thought I could trust turned out to be inherently useless as I did try to
create a network of support in 1997-98). I do recognize that me being so tightly strung does prevent me from writing at all, so I do stop myself, however, I have to maintain standards
even if I may not be able to reach my own standards. And I do realize that writing is the only thing I think I can control in this life but and maybe I’ve always did it wrong by not
artistically expressing myself but by controlling it. However, this isn’t entirely true either—it’s a balance between art and control. Art creates the written universe but control keeps
track of continuity and logic that you need so it just doesn’t end up implausible.
I don’t even know where to begin to fix this. I should just be happy that I realized this and didn’t spend another 17 years stumbling around on this planet dragging this book with me and
being distracted too many times.
The other fun half of this entry is more thoughts on the depression article because I forgot one factor in this: China.
Here’s a nice song to take the edge off
If pollution, chemicals, and processed food were the culprits then China should be going through an apocalypse of mass murders. But even this seems incorrect as I can’t find any data
about that on the interwebs (I think I remember something about knife welding attacks but I don’t remember). Then again, they don’t have the same type of instant hysterical media that we
have.
Random thoughts and comparisons:
I want to try and differentiate between industrialization even though both pollute greatly—I associate modern industrialization as chemical production like Monsanto and Dow--more than the
usual coal burning/steel forging. Where the former industrial ages caused breathing problems and cancer, I tend to think that the chemical production would be worse. I read once that
scientists said that smoking can alter your descendants DNA—being that there is a lot of chemicals in cigarettes that may be produced by these chemical companies a theory concerning that
would be that perhaps the same factories producing this has slowly altered the population’s DNA over time. My Ma once told me that she was once friends with someone who worked at Monsanto in
the 70s, and they gave her a stocking allowance because their stockings would just get eaten by the pollution around the company. And sometimes in the early hours of the morning there’s
these weird smells down by the river (one’s like sweet—we call it Death Grapefruit), that we think is coming from either Monsanto or one of the other companies who are trying to get
around an EPA guideline. They’ve been in business around here for roughly 100 years and been making a wide variety of chemical compounds/weapons.
China on the other hand, started their industrial revolution in the 1950s with Mao’s Great Leap Forward (which I think ended in a great big disaster).
But within the last 50 years, they have done twice as much damage because there is no EPA or environmental standards whatsoever.
They do have modern snacks, but I’m not sure if they’re exactly like American snacks with like an overdose of high fructose corn syrup in every bite or if it's like Mexican stuff
where it's actually sugar, or if they’ve relegated themselves to
eat that for meals like some people in the US do. I know they still do holistic medicine (as to how much, I don’t know) but it’s not that organic considering the pollution. If it’s the
population numbers that is making people crazy then they have us trumped on that one and their diversity is about the same being that they have 50 ethnic minority groups (and I don’t know
if they have a natural infant mortality rate or if they inocculate their children with modern medicine). And we can’t really blame their entertainment because they have strict sensors
even if American action films do make it through. The only real difference, I can kind of see is their thought process versus ours where it isn’t so much about the individual over there.
So I’m not really coming to any conclusion based on all this except that we should keep watching China to see if they start losing it as well in roughly 100 years if not sooner.
This might be their first generation, where all people do is die of cancer.
In conclusion: Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. And next time, we’ll have fun with the Defiance show. I think I need to chill out for a while. I don't feel very inspired at the moment or
very artistic or if I was ever. Since it has taken me 17 years to get this book out, I do want to finish it at least for myself (I'm not ruling out for everyone else but step one is for myself).
But right now I need to figure out how not to control it so much. I need to let it just tell me a story all the time instead of some of the time.
And as always (or until I run out), your Russian proverbs.
It is no use for the fisherman to spit on the net after the eel is gone.
Sour apples are not lemons.
If you climb onto a big man’s behind you can easily fall into the muck
The eye of the envious can see the cheese but not the maggots
Better a wooden bed than a golden coffin.
What use are the golden spectacles to the blind man?
The donkey’s last word is “ya.”
The law is a protection for the mighty and a punishment for the little men.
If you want to drown yourself, you don’t have to go to sea.
Poverty is the heritage of poverty
There are more apprentices than masters.
If you are hunchbacked, God is sure to give you a cross to bear
I found 27 cents today.
April 25, 2013
Elaborations and updates
I often look back at generations before and see that while they had their own health problems, that they didn’t have the same compounded societal problems that we have, that they were able to get things done, to create the mess we’re in now. I know it isn’t one thing or another that causes this but I have to wonder when they survived without most of what we have now and grew their own food yet didn’t have mental spaz children (yes, I recognize that if I were born 100 years ago, I most likely would not have made it out of childhood—so this could be a moot point).
I looked up this guy and he’s no dummy so he could very well have a point about what we eat and use.
Most of the big things he hates came in the later part of the 20th century.
MSG came to the US in the 50s
Aspartame in the 70s
Sucralose in the late 90s.
But even if scientists have done experiments on these things and came to the conclusion that it’s fine, I’m sure they did not do experiments on people afflicted with depression or even kids—who would be sensitive in a time when they are developing their brains (it could be just kids who have problems with this stuff which in turn causes problems later on). Like the MSG—maybe it varies in various people as to how much you can handle yourself--that it’s like an allergy. The only thing that makes it questionable to me that it could be a trouble maker is that it does make you happy when you eat it (taste explosion!) which may cause people to binge on like processed cakes and chips particularly if they feel sad about something—which would mess with your brain and when it does work its way out of your system–causes you to crash. Much like an addict but on a lesser scale.
The only way to find out myself, is to do everything that he told me to do, which as of right now is borderline impossible. But, I am not a complete novice to most of what he has said that I should do.
1) Drug Companies Trivialize Mental Disorders: Probably. We are a society of opportunists. Do the pharmaceutical companies take the Hippocratic Oath? Maybe they should.
2) As for my symptoms of depression: I don’t know what it means to experience pleasure from things that were pleasurable in the past. The big year I was having the most trouble was 1998 but I can attest that there were times before that where I was painfully shy, did not like going places (did not want to go to sleep over camp, it weirded me out), and had a lot of anxiety in general.
Hallucinations/Delusions: Now that’s hard to say. I am a writer….and I am employed by the government
Dwelling: I used to be so bad at this particularly when people did bad things to me. I had to train my brain to learn not to care anymore. I had to remind myself that the other person probably didn’t care about me, so why was I wasting so much time on them?
Lack of sex drive: I’m not sure if what I have observed as normal from other people is actually normal anymore. But okay, yes, it is a slow burn being that I’ve had 3 boyfriends in my life. I don’t really find anyone attractive (that and I realize that beauty is only for a limited time so to base my attraction on physical traits is inherently stupid particularly if that’s their only redeeming quality), and the biggest thing is that I can never attract anyone who might peak my interest or isn’t what I normally attract (addict, tubby, blind, bad with money, usually born on the 18th of any given month). It’s kind of touch and go, fine, pun intended.
Oppressive sadness? Well it’s hard to say, I did have a lot of external factors to deal with.
Feelings of worthlessness--yes, it was always like I was trying to prove something of myself and failing often.
Guilt. No?
Self-hatred--one thing I never had or low self-esteem about my body, I just ended up hating everyone else or at least being annoyed by them.
Helplessness—well I think I did hate that every idea I had was like shot down by everyone, that I could never get anything done the way I thought it should be done.
Headaches (stress headaches came later, particularly when I started working where I am now, but it was hard to tell because I had sinus problems too), Fatigue (I would sleep for like 10 hours and sometimes still do this. I couldn’t get up very well and often times did not wake up until 10 am at school), digestive problems (don’t know in what way), back pain (now I have that), chest pain (no), loss of appetite (no?).
Problems with memory and concentration—absolutely.
Agitation and anxiety and being withdrawn from others—yes.
3) In the 50s, there were technically less adult people. The baby boom was just starting as was the modern age of technology. So saying there were only a certain number of depressed people probably is inaccurate to a point compared to now. I’m also coming to the conclusion that the parents of the baby boomers grew up in the 1920s-30s when there were even less people, although, it was the end of the industrial age (which was a mess of pollutants but even that was based from natural things like metal, coal, wood). So that’s questionable but a lot of people didn’t live in the big cities I think, it was kind of a pastoral age where people got out more and worked more to get food that they most likely grew themselves or got from neighbors. I’m sure that back in the 50s, they probably didn’t count the kids either for having depression if they did have it like they do now.
4) Psychiatric facilities—unless they separate them by affliction, I have heard that being in one could possibly make you crazier if you weren’t that bad off.
5) I don’t get any special Social Security payouts for my depression. Harrumph!
6) Psychiatric drugs can cause mental anomalies themselves. Probably, particularly in the young or people who may not need it.
7) Pesticides, Herbicides, fungicides, industrial chemicals, aluminum, fluroaluminum, mercury and vaccines causing brain inflammation.
Like I said before it could be a sensitivity to the following for some people. Over the years I have heard people
protest against like fluoride and vaccines. Apparently fluoride can be toxic in unknown levels and can build up in your body so
you don’t know how much you’re getting and I heard that vaccines have mercury in them so they don’t spoil but I’m not sure anymore (
this site says it does and has more)
. Being that I was born in 84, I was in a time when there weren’t that many vaccines.
I want to say I got at least 7-8 vaccines
according
to these links
So it’s impossible to tell if the vaccines affected my brain, I’m not sure if my mom had a flu shot when she was pregnant, I don’t think she needed it as she stayed at home and my sister was not in school yet. But I did find this interesting:
In 1900, the smallpox vaccine was the only one administered to children. By the early 1950s, children routinely received four vaccines, for protection against (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, and smallpox), and as many as five shots by two years of age. Since the mid-1980s, many vaccines have been added to the schedule. As of 2009, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommends vaccination against at least fourteen diseases. By two years of age, U.S. children receive as many as 24 vaccine injections, and might receive up to five shots during one visit to the doctor.
Also interesting--Mad hatter diseaseor erethism
Acute mercury exposure has given rise to psychotic reactions such as delirium, hallucinations, and suicidal tendency. Occupational exposure has resulted in erethism, with irritability, excitability, excessive shyness, and insomnia as the principal features of a broad-ranging functional disturbance. With continuing exposure, a fine tremor develops, initially involving the hands and later spreading to the eyelids, lips, and tongue, causing violent muscular spasms in the most severe cases. The tremor is reflected in the handwriting which has a characteristic appearance. In milder cases, erethism and tremor regress slowly over a period of years following removal from exposure. Decreased nerve conduction velocity in mercury-exposed workers has been demonstrated. Long-term, low-level exposure has been found to be associated with less pronounced symptoms of erethism, characterized by fatigue, irritability, loss of memory, vivid dreams, and depression (WHO, 1976).
It’s close to symptoms of autism but isn’t quite right. This is like constant exposure but two factors kind of point to mercury poisoning via over vaccination and/or in utero by the mom eating a lot of certain fish. First, these are children, there isn’t much to them so a series of 20 shots at once could overload them. Second: It can be permanent but there is a therapy of some sort that can detox them, not just by removing the source.
8) I’m rereading the article again—he does say that there are a fun variety of factors combined with the vaccination schedule that determine risk as to how mental your kid will end up.
9) Requirements to have a baby: healthy diet with omega-3 fatty acid, plenty of vitamin D3 and multivitamin, avoids stress. This, I’m kind of with him but not considering our ancestors. Like pioneer women—I’m sure there were many who were pregnant walking the Oregon Trail, I’m not sure if it was stressful or not (well, no high strung demands but you could die at any minute and you had to do hard labor to get anything done). Aside from fish, I don’t know what else has Omega-3 or if pioneer women had that available to them.
10) Maybe they should study like Roxana and all the other oil refinery blue collar/poor white trash to see how they’re fairing. But then again, autism is all over the place. A household with money and two parents doesn’t really solve this problem (one guy in my office has an autistic kid and an ADHD kid)
11) I remember seeing the schizophrenic elementary school age girl (this is rare) on Oprah and they said they gave her like Lithium as part of her treatment and it barely does anything for her.
12) These drugs block most of the dopamine receptors in the brain causing more receptors to generate which makes the brain hyper sensitive to dopamine/Dopamine overactivity in the brain is the cause of many symptoms of schizophrenia.
I had a half formed theory running around in my head but I knew it wasn’t quite right. I knew that dopamine (makes you feel good
when you do survival stuff—like eat, sleep, sex) had something to do with depression but it’s not a lack thereof because that
would give you Parkinsons. But then I was watching a show on Cocaine on National Geographic Channel and it told me as to how these
chemicals work in your brain--between nerve endings are receptors that spew out brain chemicals so you feel things, you have
receptors on these nerve ends that absorb the chemicals being seeped from the originator nerve. After the message/chemicals run
around in your brain, it usually recycles back where it came from. Cocaine floods your brain with dopamine to the point where it
does not recycle back and if you’re lucky enough will start to kill off the receptors. If that happens then the dopamine floats
around until it dissipates leaving you feeling blue. So with this, I must be producing the normal amount but maybe I don’t either
have enough receptors or they’re just not responding. But the thing is, I am not schizophrenic (or am I???? Maybe my coworkers or
the curmudgeons actually don’t exist!!!), so it must not be dopamine that causes my problems or even it causing it alone. The other
two chemicals I thought had a big influence were serotonin and
oxytocin. Sertraline is a SSRI which I think blocks Serotonin from being reabsorbed.
But I only think Oxytocin because it’s like I see people like me have kids or even get married and suddenly they’re okay. I tend to think this is what happened to Gerard Way particularly and one of the reasons My Chem ended considering how it started.
13) Suicide: strangely no, I have never felt suicidal or homicidal. In the early days of taking the happy pill, I felt as though someone might kill me but that’s as far as it went. But I think it varies on what you are on too—one of the curmudgeons said his wife was on wellbutrin and it made her want to bite people’s faces off. I’m not sure how I would be if I took sertraline as they told me to (fat and comatose?).
14) Glutamate: This is essentially the first time I’ve heard of this being inside of you and messing with you. But like the article on MSG said, it’s in a lot of things nowadays, yet it doesn’t always elicit the same reaction all the time. I’m not really sure as to how much glutamate makes it into my system daily. I’ve cut out a lot of processed stuff but I still eat things like cheese, peas, soy sauce, and broccoli and that article did say that processed MSG and natural glutamate really aren’t all that different or made different. I could try to avoid it everywhere but considering what I avoid already, I might end up eating air. But you know, it could also be the other chemicals reacting with the glutamate in the processed foods that may cause problems.
15) Ketamine blocks glutamate receptors—I believe this is a horse tranquilizer. I think I also saw a show on NGC about a dude who was hooked on this stuff. It wasn’t pretty.
16) I must avoid MSG (mostly done), aspartame (never touched the junk and won’t ever), hydrolyzed protein/protein isolates, whey protein (this is like the protein you get from body building stuff and baby formula—don’t eat it, and I was probably breast fed for the most part), autolyzed yeast (stuff like vegemite, do not eat), soy protein isolate, soy products (no pretending I’m vegetarian), carrageenan (a thickening agent in creamy desserts, beer, diet soda, processed meat, and some pills—mostly done), and caseinate (modified milk ingredients like Yoo Hoo which to me tasted like butt).
17) It says I shouldn’t eat a lot of meat but I’ve cut a lot of carbs in favor of protein and I feel fine.
18) Oil: If I use that (cut out a lot of fried things), I eat canola or even olive. Most fast foods use canola. I have taken omega-3 supplement.
19) Trans fats (invented in 1902): fried things (not really), margarine (I only use real butter if I do at all, never cared for margarine but my ma uses it), pie crusts (don’t care for pie much), shortening (I have never used that), cake mixes and frosting (the bane of my existence is sheet cake, I hate it, not terribly fond of cake mix—but my second grade year was compounded by birthday cupcake treats to the point where I don’t care to eat cupcakes ever again), non-dairy creamer (nope, milk or nothing, it just gunks up), box popcorn (don’t like popcorn much if at all), ground beef (I get the lightest fat content), any mass produced dessert and donut (nooooooooo!), cereal (in later years I only ate wheat chex and I only do now on the weekend). Anything mass produced for consumption. My day consists of this: breakfast is either eggs or peanut butter on wheat bread and whole milk with vitamin D. Lunch is something that I cooked a lot of meat vegetables, and black and chamomile tea, dinner lunch is something small, this week is pizza from pizza hut. I used to eat a box meal and hamburger helper but after a while it was like I couldn’t eat it anymore.
20) Don’t eat high sugar stuff or white carb products. I used to eat all sorts of sugar snacks growing up though. Not no more for either.
21) Fluorinated water. This, I can try. I don’t think I can outfit my house with the right filter, but I got a bottle of Dasani yesterday and learned that they do the reverse osmosis filtration and add magnesium to it like this guy says. BUT! It’s in a plastic bottle seeping plastic chemicals into it!
22) While my ma did give us healthy stuff, we did eat a lot of ramen (a no no) and can soup, spaghetti every Monday, processed treats, processed sugars, lot of kool-aid, processed lunch meats (every day at school because I didn’t like school lunches. I hated waiting for my food in a line and it smelled weird), and gummy sugar fruit snacks, processed puddings and always a snack cake, and she used Teflon pans.
23) I only now have switched to ceramic pans. They’re awesome. They don’t get food stuck on them if you don’t use oil and you can stick them in the dishwasher.
24) I do eat vegetables but not enough in their raw forms. Occasionally I’ll eat them raw at dinner.
25) Eat probiotics with prebiotics. I did eat some probiotics, probably no prebiotics.
26) Natural B12. I ate regular store B12 and that gave me a weird headache.
27) Zinc: this is new. The top foods with zinc in it, I barely eat
#1: Oysters (not really)
#2: Toasted Wheat Germ (no)
#3: Veal Liver (no)
#4: Roast Beef (I eat this more than pork now, I cut down on pork)
#5: Roasted Pumpkin and Squash Seeds (used to, not anymore)
#6: Dried Watermelon Seeds (you can eat these?)
#7: Dark Chocolate and Cocoa Powder (at one point I was eating baker’s chocolate but who knows what kind of chocolate we’re getting nowadays, quality was better in the 90s)
#8: Lamb (Mutton) (If I didn’t have recipes and if it wasn’t on sale, then no which is kind of weird as it’s so prevalent outside the US)
#9: Peanuts (occasionally)
#10: Crab (not really)
28) Phytochemicals: Berries (eat that a lot), citrus (I don’t eat a lot of fresh citrus just clementines and blood oranges), orange vegetables—squash (ew), sweet potatoes (only can eat that fried), carrots (don’t eat that enough), Tomatoes and soy (can’t eat that though according to the article), whole grain (every morning), red grapes (it’s been a while), onions and garlic (do I have to eat this raw…mmmmm), tea (everyday!)
29) Tocopherols/tocotrienols: Vitamin E, I have regular stuff.
30) St. John’s Wort—this does not mix with babies like SSRIs and can cause mania, possibly dementia, possibly worsen other mental disorders, and doesn’t like anesthesia.
31) Ginkgo leaf supplements are generally safe. In some people, they can cause headache, dizziness, heart palpitations, nausea, gas, and diarrhea. Allergies to ginkgo can trigger rashes or more serious effects. Also hates a lot of medication.
32) Omega-3. I take it occasionally, I don’t feel any different. Growing up though, I hated fish.
33) Coconut Oil. I could try this.
34) Willing your brain to better health. YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!! That takes so much work though…whine!!! I give up. Yes, I would like to see a schizophrenic that is coherent enough to do will their brain to stop being so crazy. Okay, game on. Let’s try it with writing.
35) With the fallout map—in 1963 it was declared illegal to do above ground testing, but still, where is all that radiation going to go?
Conclusion: DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! The general feeling I have today is not necessarily of defeat but exhaustion. That it's always something. It just feels like it takes an effort to understand things that might be beyond my comprehension. So according to this guy, I should eat more plant matter, zinc and possibly suck down some bottled water and get back to you later. I can tell something is up. I haven’t been taking my vitamin or mineral supplements and my skin looks like crap among other things. Right as I am typing this, I just ate whipped cream filled (death) donut with powdered sugar on top. I’m falling asleep, I feel congested all of a sudden. Aside of trying to get myself more functional, I do think we need to look into this kind of thing for public safety reasons due to these sudden upticks of mass murders.
It’s always angry young men who do this (90% white). I’m starting to think that it isn’t always the psych drugs either (well the last few attacks they never specified if they were on it or not). What is it that is making all these guys want to get even with everyone? It goes to show that even if guns are severely limited, that those who want to get even with the world will find a way.
And how is it that something so horrible is so easily accomplishable as well? Bruce would tell me that it’s evil at work and evil probably knows no bounds. But I have issues with that--as I see it as mental illness, so it’s not evil it’s just a faulty gene. But then this pretty much incriminates myself as I’m in the same lake as these violent people but not on the same boat (and I’m sure many people on the shore wouldn’t differentiate between boats). I hate to make it all about myself but it’s like both ideas here (bombing a group of people and a half decent book both while crazy) can be improbable, yet it’s easier to do the former apparently (there are occasional thwarts but it doesn’t seem to be too often). I know, as I tell Bruce when he complains about the world in general, if the world were perfect, it would be Heaven, not Earth. So as a whole, logic does not live here.
I also found the chaos. I didn’t go looking for it, to correlate it to my paranoia, it just happens. It has to do with Bruce but I can’t specify much. His office is messing with him (it seems like they’re trying to do everything to prevent him from doing his actual job by implementing new directives or some crap). If he’s not happy, then I’m not happy and if I’m not happy then…..I’m…going to write five different nasty emails!!! This could very well affect me and we’re both not prepared to deal with a change they are trying to force him to do.
So with this I bid you adieu, and as always your Russian proverbs for your everyday life.
The cleverness of priests overcomes the cleverness of snakes but the cleverness of women overcomes the cleverness of priests.
Don’t become a violin if you don’t want to be stroked.
Love likes to take the middle way.
Wine is poison for the young and medicine for the old
The devil can outwit a man; a woman can outwit ten.
After the snail has talked of the joys of travel, it withdraws into its shell.
The fool has the most trump cards.
Fortune favors the clever
It is not necessary to cut off the leg of everybody whose foot hurts
What lies between hammer and anvil is soon knocked flat.
The man who never went to sea can easily get shipwrecked in a pond
April 22, 2013
I hate to call him out on this (or talk about him much here--never you mind why) but Bruce is a man obsessed. He's pretty much like how I was 10 years ago, it's a trip and a half (particularly when trying to persuade him towards of my point of view). But instead of being overly obsessed with writing, he gets on a wide variety of tangents, one of them is health. I have to admit though, most of what he gets on actually tends to be right. He's the one who gave me liquid vitamins and minerals, and told me of the nutritionist. He also loves to eat raw vegetables (which has improved his outlook on life to a point). Today he gave me this newsletter that he bought (and I was about ready to kick him in the butt because I was certain I could find the same thing on the internet) but this seems different:
The Blaylock Wellness Report
By Dr. Russell L. Blaylock
April 2013
The Real Cure for Depression and Anxiety
With more than 19 million Americans affected, major depression has become one of the foremost social and cultural issues of our time. But it wasn't always this way. Believe it or not, widespread depression is a relatively modern phenomenon.
Sixty years ago, what we call major depression was quite rare. (1)
But today, depression and anxiety cost Americans $63 billion annually in medical fees, medications, and lost work time. For some, the effects can be so devastating that it leads to suicide.
Major depression (also called major depressive disorder or MDD) is characterized by a loss of enthusiasm for life, chronic fatigue, sleep disturbances, loss of interest in things that used to be important, and persistent social withdrawal.
What separates MDD from the occasional bout of sadness that most of us experience throughout our lives is that MDD seems to have no explanation. It is not linked to financial troubles, marital discord, or other personal disasters--it just seems to come out of the blue.
In this month's issue of The Blaylock Wellness Report, I will tell you what is really behind the rise in anxiety and depression, and how you can use natural therapies, rather than pharmaceutical medications, to prevent or even treat some mental disorders.
Drug Companies Trivialize Mental Disorders
The dirty secret is this: The pharmaceutical industry has turned depression and other psychiatric disorders (many only recently invented) into big business. In fact, antidepressants are now the largest selling class of drugs in the world.How did this happen? For one thing, the pharmaceutical industry promoted the idea that simply not feeling good all the time was a disease itself. That translates into tens of billions of dollars in profits. It was a gold mine waiting to be excavated.
Using all of its resources--including advertising, sponsored psychiatric meetings, workshops, ghostwritten (fake) medical articles, and flooding doctor's offices with pamphlets on the dangers of depression and newer "created mental illnesses" -- pharmaceutical companies generated a demand for more psychotropic drugs.
Not surprisingly, the media played a major role with cover stories on the dangers of depression and anxiety, along with the good news that no one need be unhappy any longer. In essence, they trivialized major depression, implying that anything less than constant elation was an illness. But people were not told that all of these drugs have very serious complications, altering the minds in dangerous ways. For instance, some 90 percent of mass shooting perpetrators have been taking one or more of the psychotropic drugs. These events rarely occurred prior to the spread of these drugs.
What is Major Depression?
Major depression causes a feeling of overwhelming, oppressive sadness and an inability to experience pleasure from things that, in the past, were pleasurable. Sufferers tend to dwell on feelings of worthlessness, guilt, self-hatred, and a sense of helplessness.
In more severe cases, one may experience hallucinations or delusions, which are common symptoms of psychosis. Reduced sex drive is also common, and in some, thoughts of suicide can arise.
Severely depressed people often also experience physical complaints such as headaches, fatigues, digestive problems, back pain, chest pain, and loss of appetite.
With prolonged depression, there can be problems with memory and concentration.
Some patients experience agitation and anxiety, while others feel withdrawn from others.
Drug addiction is common in depressed individuals and, unfortunately, can compound the problem. Manly illegal drugs worsen the neuropathological changes in the brains of severely depressed people. In many cases, exposure to these drugs can lead to chronic depression. (2)
As noted, simply being occasionally unhappy or being depressed when there is a good reason is not a psychiatric illness that requires pharmaceutical treatment.
Depression is a natural reaction to stressful events and teaches us to deal with adversity--that is, it strengthens our character.
Indeed, the Bible tells us in Romans 5:3-4, "...but we glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope."
Dependency on antidepressant drugs is just like being dependent on narcotics; it weakens our innate defenses and makes us a slave to a drug.
Why Are Mental Disorders Increasing?
In the early 1950s, the majority of severely depressed people were inpatients in psychiatric hospitals. There were only 355,000 such patients in the entire United States of America. (3)
Then, in 1954, the FDA approved the first psychotropic drug, chloromazine (which was marked under the brand name Thorazine). This event emptied psychiatric hospitals of a large percentage of their patients.
Legislation in the 1960s put even more patients on the streets. Today, most depression sufferers are treated in clinics and private offices of psychiatrists rather than being treated in psychiatric facilities.
In 1987, the FDA approved the drug Prozac, and since then a whole host of antidepressant medications have been brought to the market. In the last 25 years almost 4 million people have taken these drugs for "depression."
If we analyze mental disability payments made by the Social Security Administration, we see a 100 percent increase in depression-related disability claims over the same time period. As Robert Whitaker points out in his book (See Further Reading on Depression), the problem is accelerating even faster today, especially among young people. Both Whitaker and Dr. David Healy present a compelling case that these drugs can cause mental abnormalities themselves.
But I think something more is involved. There is evidence that inflammation--especially occurring early in life (even in the womb) -- is at the root of many, if not all, mental disorders. (4,5) Many environmental toxins cause chronic inflammation of the brain, including exposures to: Pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides; industrial chemicals; aluminum; fluoroaluminum; mercury; and vaccines.
Studies using both animals and humans have shown that immune stimulation during pregnancy dramatically increases the incidence of autism and schizophrenia in children. (6)
In most cases this results from infections during pregnancy. But the infectious organism isn't causing the problem. Rather, it is the immune reaction in the mother, which releases pro-inflammatory cytokines that enter the baby's circulation through the placenta. (7-9) This inflames the baby's brain and causes abnormal pathway development.
Despite proof of this mechanism, public health authorities and the American
Academy of Pediatrics insist that pregnant women receive the flu vaccine during pregnancy. This is insane.
Because of this practice, I predict we will see a dramatic increase in autism and schizophrenia in the future. Of course, it will take at least five years for the autism to begin to show up and as long as 15 to 20 years for schizophrenia--enough time for the vaccine promoters to deny a link.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have created vaccine schedules that actually maximize this risk. Soon after birth, children are exposed to a series of vaccines every two months, with some 26 vaccines being administered by age 2. By the time they enroll in school, they will have had more than 40 vaccines.
The way the vaccine schedule is structured maximizes the danger. Children are given from 5 to 8 vaccines at a single office visit.
The fact that this exposure is repeated every two months for two years greatly intensifies the brain's inflammation and makes the inflammation last for years after the vaccines. In neuroscience, we call this "priming of microglia." (10)
If this is true, then why are any children normal? There are many factors that determine risk, including diet, genetics, variation in exposure to the contributing environmental toxins, antioxidant networks, family structure (strong families are healthy families), and spiritual development.
For instance, a child whose mother ate a healthy diet with omega-3 fatty acids and plenty of vitamin D3, who avoided stress, and took a multivitamin during pregnancy would confer much less risk to her child than a mother who did the opposite--or who lived, for example, near an oil refinery.
A Cure Worse Than the Disease
There is little question that the drugs used to treat mental disorders worsen the symptoms and even produce new, often more dangerous symptoms. Take for instance, schizophrenia, which is associated with: psychosis, hallucinations, paranoid delusions, disorganized speech and thinking, and breakdown in thought processes.
When Thorazine came on the scene, psychiatrists were excited to see the dramatic improvement it made in their patients. One study found that 75 percent were significantly improve.
But what they failed to look at what happened to the patients on long-term drug treatments. According to Whitaker, when studies were finally conduced, researchers found that unmedicated patients were better off after one year--and the difference was that even more dramatic after five years. When looking at symptom relapse rates, scientists found that only 7 percent of unmedicated patients relapsed, while 65 percent of medicated patients relapsed.
Even more shocking was the finding that the medicated patients experienced worse symptoms on relapse. According to long-term studies, the medicated patients often become social "zombies" who would just sit and stare at the TV, rarely engaging in social interacting with others.
Researchers concluded that most mental illnesses, especially the severe forms, could improve over time--but not in those taking medications.
Why would medications make the patients worse if they seem so beneficial in the short term?
The answer to that mystery came from two researchers at McGill University who determined that because these drugs block most of the dopamine receptors in the brain, over time more receptors were generated, which made the brain hypersensitive to dopamine. Dopamine overactivity in the brain is the cause of many symptoms of schizophrenia.
The majority of patients not treated with the antipsychotic drugs improved significantly. In fact, in one study, 73 percent returned to normal lives and employment.
Another surprise was that taking the medications correlated with degeneration of the frontal lobes of the brain, along with other brain alterations not seen in patients who did not take the drugs. Examination of the brains of older patients who took antidepressant medications found changes similar to those observed in Alzheimer's dementia.
This was clearly a case of the cure being worse than the disease.
Antidepressants Raise Risk of Violence
In depressed patients, it has been observed that the period of greatest risk of suicide is when antidepressants seem to be working. In fact, suicide in depressed patients was much less common before drug treatments began being used.
As Dr. Healy writes, "Rooms full of data pointed to the fact that the Prozac drug group (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs) could trigger suicide and violence, and that companies producing these drugs knew of the problem."
Since the approval of SSRI medications as antidepressants in 1987, a number of studies have found that depressed patients on SSRI medications are two to three times more likely to attempt or actually commit suicide than those either on no medication or on other antidepressants (11-14).
Suicide in adolescents on these medications is six times higher than those on other medications. In addition, violent suicides are most closely linked to SSRI-induced suicides.
These medications are also associated with increased rates of violence and thoughts of homicide especially in adolescents and small children. In many ways, the psychological effects SSRI medications resemble a chemical-induced psychopathy. The violent psychopath lacks empathy, lies implicitly, is impulsive, and plans their crimes carefully--unlike those with simple impulse control problems.
The Glutamate Connection
As I noted, evidence shows that there is a strong link between brain inflammation and psychological problems. Until recently, most of the scientific literature attributed these problems to an imbalance of serotonin, dopamine, and/or norepinephrine in the brain.
In other words, we were told that mental disorders arose from a chemical imbalance. Newer evidence challenges this simplistic idea.
The chemicals (neurotransmitters) themselves are not the main cause of the problem. Of far greater importance are the receptors for these neurotransmitters.
Glutamate is the most abundant neurotransmitter in the brain, and operates through a very complex set of receptors. For that reason, glutamate has a wide array of effects in different parts of the brain depending on the arrangement and subtype of glutamate receptors.
Glutamate receptors also play a major role in controlling dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine receptors. This helps explain why SSRI medications cause suicides, homicides, and violence in some users.
When inflammation occurs in the body, it activates immune cells in the brain (15). When activated, these cells not only release inflammatory immune chemicals called cytokines, they also release large amounts of glutamate. This causes widespread activation of glutamate receptors, which in turn disrupts the other neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine. This whole process can make brain mechanisms go haywire and lead to symptoms of mental disorders.
Depressed people have higher levels of glutamate, as do people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, psychopathy, and anxiety (16-18). It is interesting to note that not long before depression and other psychiatric disorders began to increase in our society, food manufacturers began to add huge amounts of monosodium glutamate (MSG) to a wide variety of foods.
MSG not only directly damages the brain, but in the young to adolescent period it can actually affect brain development--especially in the higher thinking centers. It also increases brain inflammation, activates microglia (immune cells in the brain), and causes brain degeneration.
Evidence indicates that it is the interaction between the immune cytokines and specific glutamate receptors that cause the brain to misbehave. Sometimes the inflammation is widespread. At other times as with schizophrenia, specific areas of the brain are affected.
I call this interaction between immune cytokines and glutamate receptors
immunoexcitotoxicity. (19)
Recently, psychiatrists found that even a small dose of a drug called ketamine could rapidly reverse depression, especially in cases that had been resistant to other drugs (20). Ketamine blocks specific glutamate receptors and reduces microglial activation. Even a single dose can reverse depression for months.
Since this discovery, a number of other glutamate receptor-regulating and glutamate-controlling drugs have been shown to be effective antidepressants. The antibiotic minocycline also shown antidepressant efficacy. Minocycline both calms microglia and reduces brain glutamate levels.
New research demonstrates that inflammation reduces serotonin levels. For a long time, it was assumed that this was the cause of depression in many people with inflammatory diseases. But now we know that inflammation activates an enzyme (IDO) in the brain that converts serotonin into an excitotonin called quinolinic acid. (21)
This not only explains the depression seen with an infection, it also explains the increased suicide rate and violence exhibited in some who take SSRI antidepressants, which cause serotonin to accumulate in the brain. Quinolinic acid produced from this excess serotonin stimulates glutamate receptors, resulting in immunoexcitotoxicity which makes the brain go haywire.
People with inflammatory disorders (infections, autoimmune diseases, arthritis) are at the highest risk of such complications because they produce the highest levels of quinolinic acid. These people are also at the highest risk when taking SSRI medications.
Four Ways to Prevent Depression
In particularly acute cases, drugs may be required. But that is certainly not always the case. Here are four things that can make a big difference in mental health--and allow most people to avoid dangerous antidepressant drugs.
1) Avoid Things Known to Cause Inflammation and Excitotoxicity
Of course this is easier said than done. But you should at least make an effort and attempt to lower your risk.
This means not using insecticides in your home, garden, and yard. There are natural ways to protect your home and garden.
Avoid all food additive exotoxins, such as: MSG, Aspartame, Hydrolyzed Protein, Autolyzed yeast, Soy protein isolate, Soy products, Carrageenan, Caseinate, Protein isolates, Whey protein.
Also avoid white sauces, Portobello mushrooms, and cheese dishes--especially parmesan and gorgonzola cheese. Avoid foods cooked in soy sauces, meat juices, injected meats, and processed meats.
Limit meat intake to no more than 4 ounces a day.
Do not consume a high intake of omega-6 oils. These include corn, safflower, sunflower, peanut, and soybean oils. While canola oil is considered a healthy oil with a high omega-3 oil content, it also contains omega-6 oils. Polyunsaturated oils, including the omega-3 oils, should not be used for cooking or salad dressings, as they are easily oxidized and this causes inflammation in the body.
One should also avoid trans fats, which have been shown to damage brain synapses, especially when combined with MSG.
Do not eat excess sugar or high-glycemic foods, such as white bread and white rice. These foods promote inflammation and can lead to reactive hypoglycemia, which causes the brain to release high levels of glutamate. This reaction can cause aggression and violence in some people.
Avoid fluoridated water, fluorinated medications (including over-the-counter medicines), and fluoride-containing dental products. Fluoride combines with aluminum, forming a very powerful brain-toxic substance called fluroaluminum.
You should not eat foods packaged in cans (this can lead to lead exposure), aluminum packaging, or aluminum foils. Do not wrap foods in clear plastic wraps as these wraps are high in cadmium.
In addition, you should cook in ceramic-coated pans or stainless steel. They are not perfect, but far better than Teflon-coated and aluminum pans.
2) Eat or Drink 10 to 15 Servings of Vegetables a Day
A serving for dense vegetables, such as broccoli or Brussels sprouts is a half of a cup; for loose vegetables, such as leafy greens, a full cup. Chew the vegetables thoroughly, especially if they are raw. Plant cells have thick, indigestible cell walls that must be broken either by chewing or cooking. But cooking destroys many of the vitamins.
A better way to get all the nutrients is to blenderize vegetables. This releases all of the vital minerals, enzymes, and phytochemicals--which are the powerhouse of vegetables.
It's best to use nutrient-dense vegetables, such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, parsley, celery, kale, and bok choy. Add a quarter cup of blueberry concentrate to the mix to give it more flavor.
By blenderizing vegetables, you will absorb 80 percent of the nutrients rather than 20 to 30 percent absorbed by eating them.
3) Drink Purified Water
Unfortunately, many water purifiers do not remove fluoride. Reverse osmosis removes fluoride, but you will have to change the filter every two to three months, and that can be expensive.
I use a distiller that filters water through a carbon filter. Once distilled, I add 500mg of magnesium citrate/malate to a gallon of water. Magnesium is a vital mineral and is anti-inflammatory. In addition, it calms the process of excitotoxicity.
4) Take Probiotics That Contain a Prebiotic
The gut's friendly bacteria, the probiotics, modulate our immune system to make it efficient, but not overactive. When these bacteria are low, it allows pro-inflammatory bacteria to grow. This inflames the entire body--including the brain. We call this bacterial imbalance dysbiosis.
There are a number of companies making probiotics, I prefer the Theralac brand, and their new prebiotic (food for friendly bacteria) formula Truflora can be used for enhanced effectiveness.
All probiotics should be refrigerated, even if the label says it isn't required.
This allows longer shelf life. Take one probiotic capsule once or twice a week, unless on antibiotics--then take three capsules daily throughout antibiotic treatment and for one week afterward.
Violence and Inflammation
Over the past three decades, psychiatric disorders have dramatically increased among our youth. This rise is most distinct in conduct disorders, which are strongly associated with violence.
What changed during this period? Our diets certainly got worse, including the amount of excitotoxins in the food and a decrease in omega-3 fats. Also, the number of vaccines being given to our children increased exponentially. In 1980, a child received about eight vaccines before attending school, now they receive more than 40. Vaccines cause chronic inflammation, which increases brain glutamate levels.
And we are loading processed foods with glutamate additives and over-vaccinating, both of which dramatically increase immunoexciotoxicity in the brain, a reaction that appears to be a central process in many psychiatric disorders.
Supplements That Counteract Depression and Anxiety
There are growing lists of natural compounds that reduce depression. Almost all have ant-inflammatory or anti-excitotoxic effects. A number also suppress microglia activation and stimulate the release of a brain repair chemical called brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which has been shown to have powerful antidepressant activity.
-Methlycobalamin and folate. This is a natural form of the vitamin B12 that has been shown to reduce depression (22). It surpresses excitotoxicity and inflammation and plays a major role in reducing homocysteine. A metabolic of homocysteine, homocysteic acid is a powerful excitotoxin.
-Zinc. Several studies have shown that low zinc levels are associated with depression, and that supplementation can improve symptoms. The dose required depends on levels in the body. An RBC zinc level test is more accurate than blood or serum levels. Hair levels are also fairly accurate. Severe deficiencies may require a dose of 300 mg a day for a week followed by 50mg a day for three weeks. The maintenance dose is 25mg a day.
-Phytochemicals. Recent studeis have show that a number of plant phytochemicals have antidepressant and anti-anxiety properties (23). These include herperidin, quercetin, curcumin, resveratrol, berberine, luteolin, and several others (24-26). Ginkgo Biloba has been shown to improve brain dopamine function. Several of the flavonoids increase BDNF.
-Mixed tocopherols/tocotrienols. These are vitamin E forms and can be taken together. The dose for mixed tocopherols is 400 to 800 IU a day and mixed tocotrienols is 50 to 100 mg a day. The high gamma-E containing mixed tocopherols is best, as the gamma-E is a powerful anti-inflammatory and protects against excitotoxicity.
-St. John's Wort. Extracts of this plant contain high levels of a chemical called hypercium, which has been shown to be as beneficial or better than prescription antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds (27). Unlike the prescription drugs, hypercium inhibits excitotoxicity and increases the number of serotonin receptors rather than raising serotonin levels--an important distinction. In Germany, it is the most commonly prescribed anti-depressant. A number of studies have shown it to be as effective as many prescribed antidepressants, but with far fewer side effects, most of them which are minor.
-Omega-3 fatty acids. A great number of studies have shown that low levels of omega-3 fats in the diet significantly increases one's risk of developing depression and anxiety. The most effecting component is DHA, which is used almost exclusively by the brain, especially in synaptic membranes. EPA has also been shown to reduce depression, but high levels can cause mania. I prefer high-dose DHA or pure DHA. The mechanism of action involves reduction in brain inflammation and reduced microglial activation (28).
-Coconut oil. While not an omega-3 oil, coconut oil has been shown to reduce brain inflammation and reduce microglial activation. You can cook in it and add it to your foods.
Willing the Brain to Better Mental Health
Some years ago, I read an article in a medical journal about a physician who controlled his schizophrenia by sheer willpower without the use of any drugs. A recent study now confirms that defective parts of the brain that play a major role in schizophrenia symptoms can be rebuilt with special training techniques (29).
The researchers used training methods on nine schizophrenia patients while observing the function of a part of the brain related to empathy (the insula). They found that with training, the insula not only showed reorganization, but the patients were better able to detect feelings of others.
This opens up a whole new way to treat not just psychiatric disorders, but also strokes and brain injuries.
Vaccines Impair Brain Development
During the first two years of life, a child's brain undergoes extensive development, especially of pathways used in higher functions such as thinking, learning, attention, memory, social control, and language. While 80 percent of brain growth is complete by age 4, the frontal lobes continue to develop until around age 26.
This explains why mental illness peaks during adolescence. Studies also show that serious mental disorders begin very early in life, even during infancy or in the womb. It also explains why adolescents are risk takers and often exercise poor judgment--those parts of the brain are still poorly developed. I am convinced that the vaccine schedule interferes with this development. The results are antisocial behaviors, poor judgment, and learning difficulties.
But vaccines are not acting alone. The toxic environment, stress, injuries, poor diets, and natural infections also contribute to this problem. Take a child who is not breast-fed and is also vitamin D3 deficient, and as a result has poor immune development and function.
A weak immune system means that the child will not only have more infections, but the infections will be more devastating and prolonged.
Like the vaccines, this will prime the brain's microglia and impair brain development. This translates into poor attention span, behavioral problems, and impulsiveness.
Further Reading on Depression
Not long ago, major depression was rare, with less than 100 people in a million diagnosed. Now, we are told that many as 100,000 people per million suffer from "dangerous depression." That kind of increase means either something has drastically changed in our society, or we are being sold a bill of goods. In fact, it's both. For the full story of how we arrived at this disastrous juncture, I recommend two books: "Let Them Eat Prozac" by the psychopharmacologist David Healy and "Anatomy of An Epidemic" by journalist Robert Whitaker. The latter book is written more for the layman and makes some startling but essential findings.
References:
1) Healy, D., Let Them Eat Prozac, New York Univ Press 2004.
2) Nakagawa, T., et. Al., PLoS One 2011; 6(9): e24865.
3) Whitaker, R., Anatomy of an Epidemic, Random House 2011.
4) Schipers, O.J., et. al., Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry 2005; 29 (2): 201-17.
5) Bilbo, S.D. and Schwartz, J.M., Front Behav Neurosci 2009; 3: doi:3389/neuro.08.014.2009.
6) Rantakallio, P., et. Al., Inter J Epidem 1997; 26(4): 837-843.
7) Arrode-Bruses, G. and Bruses, J.L., J Neuroinflammation 2012; 9: 83.
8) Ozawa, K, et al, Biol Psychiatry 2006; 59 (6): 546-54.
9) Smith, S.E.P, et al, J Neurosci 2007; 27(40): 10695-702.
10) Blaylock, RL and Maroon, J, Surg Neurol Int 2011; 2:107
11) Healy, D, MBJ 2006; 333: 92-95
12) Healy, D, et al PL0S Med 2006; 3: e372.
13) Healy, D Psychother Psychosom 2003; 72: 71-9.
14) Creaney, W, et al, Human Psychopharmacol 1991; 6:329-32
15) Dantzer, R, et al, Nature/Neuroscience Rev 2008; 9: 46-57
16) Kugaya, A, et al, CNS Spectrums 2005: 10: 808-19
17) Chakrabarty, K, et al, Neuropsuychopharmacol 2005; 30: 1735-40
18) Rao, JS, et al, Mol Psychiatry 2010; 15 (4): 284-92
19) Blaylock, RL, Alter Ther Health Med 2008; 14: 46-53
20) Berman, RM, et al, Biol Psychiatry 2000; 47: 351-54
21) O’Connor, JC, et al, mol Psychiatry 2009; 14(5): 511-22.
22) Cornish, S. and Mehl-Madrona, L, Inegr Med Insights 2008; 3: 33-42
23) Blaylock, RL, Surg Neurol Int 2012: 3: 19
24) Yoshitake, T, et al, Brit J Pharmacol 2010; 159: 659-668
25) Gomez-Pinilla, F, Nat Rev Neuroschi 2008; 9(7): 568-78
26) Par, S-H, et al, Exp Neurobiol 2010; 19(1): 30-6
27) Kasper, S et al BMC Med 2006; 4: 14
28) Lu, D-Y, et al, Neuropsychopharmacol 2010; 35: 2238-48
29) Ruiz, S, et al, Human Brain Mapping 2013; 34: 200-12
Considering all that is in this article, the solution to my problems is to not just eat all the vegetables all the time but essentially build a domed compound of healthy living that is fully functional year round because of all the environmental pollutants that get into our food via rainwater and soil even (and using tap water to water it isn't good enough either!) the dome is also necessary to keep out any bugs or animals from feeding on it (yes I heard about eating St. John's Wort and Ginkgo but that has not been regulated by the FDA and I'm a bit wary but then again according to this article, this is what they want me to believe). Essentially I feel like I am personally doomed up to fail in this world because I don't know where the best place would be to do this either. Okay, fine, I know of a better solution but even that costs too much money and doesn't exist. But it's like I'm essentially being told that my efforts for anything are moot because the world has poisoned me to the point of being useless in this day and age, that I just might not ever reach my potential. Or...is this the depression talking?
Finally, for you and you alone: The uplifting Russian proverbs for your everyday life.
The man who looks at a woman through the spectacles of love will think that her hump is a second bosom.
The thief is not honored when he is hanged high.
If men could foresee the future, they would still behave as they do now.
The first childbed destroys the bosom, the second—the face, the third—the hair.
If you are blind, complain to another blind man, not to the seeing man.
Looking at a broken pot does not make it come together again.
What is the use of a loaf of bread when hundreds are starving?
When God punishes the cabbages, he also punishes the hares!
It is better to start in the evening than not at all
First plough up your field, and only then lend your plough.
When God wants to punish the donkey, he gives him horns.
When women wag their tongues, it is possible to make an armistice but not a peace.
Virginity is recognized only when it is gone.
Pffft.
April 13, 2013
I am on a roll and now here comes the paranoia! It's just that things are going well, I'm not struggling to complete this (I'm reading back on it and it's like I forgot to write down half of what I was working with
I suppose it is pretty good for working with half of my brain while being pulled in 3 different directions...), chaos isn't reigning in the rest of my life, things are calm--too calm. But I'm seeing a lot of what I consider my
omen. Elephants and finding spare change (it's usually 11 cents--one of my favorite numbers). The spare change thing started back in high school usually when I found money, bad things would happen.
The elephants came later and I often tend to think it has to do with the Hindu god Ganesh but I don't know what to make of it because
I'm not a Hindu nor have I converted (it seems that that deity is positive so this really doesn't make any sense). It's been 17 years since I started this thing, I kept at it because I knew I had it in me, I just had to pull it out (which took time, focus, discipline, a change of diet,
actual hard labor, being emotionally dead for a few years, pretending to get a life and realizing that I didn't have one, getting hit in the head with a ladder, and a lot of reading and solitude). Also, I didn't know what else to do with myself and
I already had spent too much time on this so I should just keep going until I finish it and find it good enough to let other people see it.
I do have a valid reason for this--I just heard of this sci-fi show that's coming out now that was developed for the syfy channel in 2011 called Defiance (also takes
place in dystopian St. Louis--wooo St. Louis connection).
One of my characters looks just like a race that's in this show. I know people read this (how many? no clue, that costs money to find out, I almost don't want to know) but I've kept mum, I've learned
my lesson. People can hack things, could
they hack the computer? Possibly, I think I had that character set back in 2011 (I started my outline in 2009). Or I'm just really good at coming up with stuff that comes out before I can
get it out there? This isn't the first time that it's happened. At any rate, I'm just annoyed. It was really perfect for my situation. But at least I caught it before I was able to publish
so I can change it and I think I have an idea on what to change it to (sigh). And I realize that I shouldn't go for the simplest thing--the first thing that comes to my mind, I should delve deeper.
At least it wasn't my plot line and I might end up watching that show.
I'm watching a lot of the Oprah channel on Sunday (it's included in basic cable now! yay!). There's a lot of life contemplating on those shows. Some of the sentiments that I've heard are
"If you're on the wrong life path, then you will suffer." But at the same time they told me to persevere because I will have to go through many doors slamming in my face before I
accomplish anything. You do see my conflict with this. Yes I'll keep doing what I do but I'm always going to have that small seed of doubt, it's healthy.
It's just hard to ignore all of this while maintaining a vigilance (and maintain a coherent presence at work). All I know is that it has to happen. What goes up must come down and when it flatlines then you're dead.
The back of my mind is also contemplating another entry but I'm focused on the plot so it's not forming right away. It's way late now and I have places to be, rummaging to do, cooking (again!), people to look at and a meeting
with my 3 major demographics (dogs, babies, and old dudes). It's 1:30 in the AM. Why do I do this to myself?
Harrumph! Here's some more Russian proverbs (in the winter my only friends are the louse)
God gives the wine and the bottle but not the glass.
Honor comes by itself but glory has to be conquered.
It is easier to live without the spoon than without the soup.
In great pain, the tears flow from the heart, not from the eye.
If you deal with dogs, learn how to bark.
Don’t remind a vain man of his pimples
The donkey sneers at the horse’s short ears.
A man caught in a frost learns to shiver all by himself.
The man who has bad luck will suffocate himself with a swallow of water.
Don’t fight with the man who knocked out your left eye because you will also lose your right eye.
To produce a child is no work but to rear a child is double work.
March 24, 2013
My Chemical Romance has broken up (Just heard, I'm totally out of the loop with them too)? What? Weird (considering what I've been talking about). Well, I certainly hope they're
all prepared for what is to come, good or bad.
Better an hour of the present than a year of the future.
The devil does not come until he is called.
If you look for a lasting peace, go to the cemetery.
The whore’s modesty can be seen only in the dark, not in the light of day.
Don’t get too close to a worldly whore, but avoid a pious one like the plague.
Grass becomes hay, and a pretty girl an ugly old woman.
Wisdom is born, stupidity is learned
Beautiful girls and modest girls live in two different villages.
A hundred sacks of gunpowder will put out no fire.
An abusive master makes a quarrelsome servant.
If you cannot fell a tree, it is always the fault of the ax.
It is easier to tear a hole than to mend one.
The day of starting a journey is certain; the day of returning from it is uncertain.
March 23, 2013
When I come across problems, I try to look back at my file of plans and I usually find that I didn’t really plan anything out. It seemed like I did, in fact, I thought I did, as this is
what I did for the most of 2009, but apparently I didn’t (maybe I hid it on myself—I tend to do that). So I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with my brain (am I really ever sure of
what’s going on in there?). I’m starting to see all the pretty flaws in my engineering capabilities due to my realization as to how big this place is that I’m dealing with and it’s
relation to space as in with space, space will do what it wants.
This particular floor is a big deal because, if I do change anything, then I have to rework my opening chapter and possibly the ending chapters (everything! I have to rework
everything…God, I hope not) and I haven’t really edited those sections. I think they’re pretty solid, but then again, that’s what I thought with this part that I’m working on (I can only
hope that the next books in this series are better because I’m dealing with the original plot line that I’m more familiar with and have more of a clue about).
At any rate, life at work has evened out. I’m no longer rogue, day job contracting management went to court and the VP is in charge (that’s the guy who wanted to fix things). I’m still on
the occasion debating myself over what to do if anything about telling the boss stuff especially since I do have something to lose now (well I know I could put it a bit more eloquently
and I think that’s my main problem if anything). I just need to pick myself up and readjust my curmudgeon levels—I was breaching the threshold of intolerable curmudgeondom, even for my
own standards. It's like I've been in a bad relationship for the last five years that I just can't leave so I have to deal with it knowing that it won't change no matter what I tell it.
It supports me financially, but not emotionally (certainly not physically--hardy har har--shut up), has extreme mood swings and out of nowhere turns on me so I can't say that I can put a lot of that behind me and smile when it behaves itself
because I know that won't last.
As usual, here are your Russian Proverbs for your everyday life. They’re particularly fun if you read them like a threat and there are many later to come, that if I were more surly I
would put in my signature block at work, like this fun one: Death is a way out of many troubles.
When fate shoots, it hits the bull’s-eye.
In the war between the owls and the crows, the peasant is the winner.
Even the miser wishes that his golden bride should have some flesh
If you are born a dwarf, you will never grow into a giant.
When marriage comes, love goes
The man who has nothing can lose neither his money nor his purse
A pound of woman’s flesh is more expensive than a pound of cow’s flesh
The squash calls the melon a cucumber.
The man who hopes to inherit a shirt will go naked all life long
A bought cucumber has more juice than a stolen melon.
It does not help the mouse to say “miaou” to the cats.
The devil is always dressed in the latest fashions.
There is no heart so hard that the knife of temptation cannot cut into it.
March 17, 2013
I, curmudgeon
Aside from the obvious reasons as to why I don't like discussing work much around here, the other big reason is that I don't want anyone else using what I've been through. I may not be
able to use it, but if in case there is someone out there who feels compelled to use it--then I don't want them profiting from it. But then I feel I must get it off my brain because I
feel that there is no one really to tell at work as it seems like it won't matter if I do tell them (those who want to know cannot change things) and it needs to be out there just in case
(after I wrote that whole spiel about finding $500 worth of stuff and all the binders that we throw away on a daily basis, it has stopped). Yes, I do realize I could just keep it to
myself but keeping it in does me no good, it still seeps into my unconscious and finds a way to affect me regardless of any emotions I end up shutting down. That, and I haven't done any
personal entries for myself in years--nothing was worth documenting like this folly (which has become all too common):
One day out of nowhere, I see a guy my own age staring at me. He wasn't too stupid looking or overly pretty, noticed me while I was not dolled up in a dress, and had a good job--he could
very well be my equal. His job and competency in life could allow me to quit all jobs, get off happy pill, lose my mind, fire out a few kids, completely lose my mind, and so forth as a
distracted writer/stay at home mom (in short I don't think I could work and be a mom--I realize that raising kids would take an effort to try and ensure that they at least do not end up
with the fun depression and anxiety that I have, like I said I know how to deal with it they might not be so fortunate in realizing what triggers are and how food affects them). So I'm
all like 'What do you want?' He's like 'Not what you think. I've got a girl I'm living with but we can be super best friends--I'm always looking for new friends.' And I'm thinking 'I'm
sure you are, okay bozo, game on,' because with that phrase I suspect I am just part of a collection and if I behave myself, I could be his next girlfriend (he, is a cad but may have too
much a moral compass and isn't pretty enough to outright cheat on a girl, so he collects them). This was confirmed when he all of a sudden gives me his number then a few weeks later
tells me that he's single and she moved out and would not clean up after herself all the while soliciting sympathy from me telling me that his sister and his ex are talking about him
behind his back which says that she found out something about him and left in a bitter huff. That's an outright shame right there as he had a lot of potential.
Anyway we got a new head honcho and he asked what was the major malfunction of our office while he attempts to streamline our processes. I only told him a few things because he has this
exceptionally adept way of being standoffish and instead of freaking out and having an emotional fit like I would in the past, I ended up forcefully babbling (not putting it in the most
professional terms or even trying government speak, I'm also going mute again because my hands have taken over in talking--in a sense I might have to dope my brain out of existence in
order to speak with him). After that I thought I should get down to it, I had nothing better to do and I could sit there and try to figure it out, write out and edit my thoughts into
something coherent. I got nowhere, because it was just beyond my grasp, so I decided to talk to everyone--the old and the young. The old told me it wasn't fun anymore (and we know this
because they're trying to force them out), the young said it was the old who were trying to stop them, overspending, and not changing because they wanted it all to stay the same and it
shouldn't matter as to what it was like 30 years ago.
But that's what I realized what was going on. There are two major types of workers here. Curmudgeons and Whippersnappers and that I am a Curmudgeon before my time. Whippersnappers, if
not utilized or if they're just bored or want something will move from office to office. Curmudgeons find somewhere where they feel okay or like it to a point and stick around for 30
years even if it goes sour they will just suck it up and deal with it (in turn this will slowly affect their health). I even came up with an analogy--both groups are on a grounded ship.
Whippersnappers jump ship for a passing ship. Curmudgeons will get the ship that they are functional, patch it to a point, and slowly keep sailing even if it keeps sinking due to the hole
in it because it has to be done. There isn't enough money or resources to get a new ship for them and the cargo and the other people on the ship has to be delivered and that sucks but it
doesn't matter to acknowledge that it does suck because everyone is already aware that it sucks. To tell you the truth, neither gets anything significant done because the Whippersnapper
keeps flipping about and the Curmudgeon is always denied things to properly get whatever it is done.
I used to have the promise of a Whippersnapper, but night job stomped it out of me and the desk jockey jobs only sealed my fate. I only came here for the health insurance and once I was
told by the family that I could move on (without thought of one other detail that I did not have), I thought I should. Because of this and that they thought they had standards back then,
they held me back (and what came after me was not held to such standards and was allowed to leave faster than I did--you have no idea how livid I was until I stuffed a pill down my throat
and stopped caring). I wasn't automatically a Curmudgeon--I met the original night Curmudgeons who treated me like I was their equals and subconsciously taught me their way of life which
made more sense in a bid for self preservation. Find a way to make your job flawless and management will leave you alone because you're on the night shift where they pretty much forget
you're there if you don't mess up (I do have a disposition as a Curmudgeon but this was due to a previous life time of getting the psychological whimsy kicked out of me by bullies in
grade school and everyone else moving on me). In desk jockey jobs, I was and still am held back due to the contract--I am only allowed to do so much. I am a second class citizen and they
keep taking tasks away from me. This actually got to me. I didn't think I cared because I'm not getting paid but it got to me because they are making me look bad (except that my office
likes me--in any other office this would lead to my termination) and there is nothing much I can do about it except throw a nice potluck.
Realizing this, I feel great; I physically had a great pain in my neck that wouldn't go away. However, I don't know how to tell head honcho this. I think it's a problem that's bigger than
the agency, possibly government wide (and then there's a whole bunch of people who think they're better than everyone running around, that's something that's beyond anyone's control). I
don't know how I can phrase all this in professional government speak (I feel that at this moment in time, it's kind of too late to really care about professionalism--we're past this,
we're in trouble). And in short, he may be part of the problem (and if I approach that conversation with that statement then it will go over real good).
However, I don't even have the health insurance anymore so it's like I really have nothing left to lose because my sanity left a long time ago and at the rate it's going I probably won't
have this job by June anyway so if I misspeak and he wants to ruin me then that's fine because there's no other job out there available for me anyway. They want to get rid of all the
Curmudgeons so it's not like I can exist there anyway. That was the second thing that was getting to me--all the Curmudgeons are either dying or retiring--they're moving on by proxy
(and I should be with the book but the psychological triggers hamper my creativity). And if they're gone, I would not be happily miserable with my peers but alone with my unexpressed
bitterness only to occasionally express it to my old counterpart who was the biggest Whippersnapper if I ever saw one without really explaining any of the parts of my thinking that could
offer hope to him or guide him to stuff that he could change if I just pointed it out to him (GET OFF MY LAWN!!!! I'M SHAKING MY FIST AT YOU!!! YOU THINK YOU CAN CHANGE THINGS JUST BY
SHOWING UP IN YOUR FANCY SUIT? WELL YOU CAN'T, IT'S OVER!!!! YOU MUST JOIN ME IN EARLY CURMUDGEONHOOD!!!!).
I'm still progressing in writing, I didn't really want to check in but I had this great epiphany (it's so strong too, like I said if you use this you're just a talentless hack and that is
being kind--but for some reason it's my life's work to be stomped on by people in general) so this should free me up some more once I get passed my pressing futuristic workstation that
is beyond a workstation/cubicle. I know how it should work but I don't know how it would hook up to the user or look like as a workstation--also involves no kung fu action which could be
a problem.
It's late again and it's time to go to bed, I was discussing the Bible with Bruce again and we found this site that has the same verses
from multiple Bibles and translations if you happen to be interested in it (Why didn't I think it might be on the internet before? I don't know).
And of course, your Russian proverbs for your everyday life.
If you buy a pig, you must also pay for its lard
A small cantaloupe is worth more than a large squash
Possessions bring worries, poverty has them already
If you see Venus naked you will discover many flaws in her
There are no barriers for the rich man
Many fools graze on the meadow of hope
Balsam heals slowly, poison kills quickly.
The hailstones hit more fresh roses than wilted ones
The sea swallows the wise as easily as the fools
The cross-eyed prefer the blind to the seeing
“Cheer up,” said the executioner to the thief, “seven others are being hanged with you.”
Nobody worships the Tsar so much that he would take his excrement for marzipan.
Ptooey.
March 1, 2013
I knew it was out there. I knew there was someone twisted enough to put together a video of Roger Daltrey screaming for 15 minutes
over and over again (for his birthday today!). I found it, yes this is an accomplishment. There is no point to this entry, I only came here to spread this absolutely pointless
video that I found out about this morning thanks to the Woody and Rizzuto radio show (Infect the internet! Go my minion(s)!!!). Why yes, I do realize that I'm 29 and this is what I'm doing
on a Friday night and I don't care (I was in a mood for a while before this, I officially let go of professional Erin). Okay, fine here's one more really
good quality video from the concert. That's taken with a phone or something, that's insane.
Your Russian proverbs for the night (you live best life, then you die):
Under the Empress' shirt there is only the naked skin.
No priest's dress is so tight that the Devil can't be buttoned up in it.
A cucumber received as a gift is worth as much as a bought watermelon.
The lazy man hates even gold, if he has to drag it out of the mountain.
While Peter and Paul quarrel over the sled, Ivan rides it to the wake.
Experience is a school mistress but not a boarding house keeper.
DISTRUST IS AN AXE AT THE TREE OF LOVE.
The ermine does not sing with joy because its pelt is so much valued by the Tsar.
If you hang a melon from a poplar, you are sure to find a fool who will think the poplar is a melon tree.
If you have the kasha [gruel], you will easily find the spoon.
If Justice travels for ten years, she will never find shelter in the castles of the powerful.
LAZINESS IS THE FASTEST GREYHOUND, WHEN IT CHASES THE HARE OF EXCUSE!!!!
When God sleeps, the angels become insolent
Good fortune wears a pretty dress, but its underclothes do not bear investigation.
It is easier for a lake to become a swamp than for a swamp to become a lake.
Even the elegant will grab a mucky pole when he is drowning.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
February 25, 2013
Hanson are going to an Jamaica in 2014 and I could go. But they're not telling me how much or how I get there (I'm driving and I'll totally
drive back after a 2 hour concert!!!). I think this is a fan club thing. I could join their fan club, after all, I am a fan and I have at least $40. It's a longwinded story as to why I am not
in their ranks. First my mom said no back in the day, then I had money but was technically not making enough in retail, and now I have plenty of jobs that may make money but I don't really
have the time make it worth the money or to get involved (Haven't I done enough in this world? Come on, I'm tiiiiired whine!) and technically, I would be paying $40 to figure out how
much this fantastic trek is. And there are problems--there are always problems. I have no idea where I am going to be in 2014, employed or not (or back with the nightcrawlers--but this time
in the dark ALOOOOOOONE--but seriously it's hard to take off work with the nightcrawlers). This also applies for the ride aboard the vomit comet(which, if I were to go with the Russians
would be around $2,000--I find that price a bit more reasonable but I do wonder if I would be getting what I paid for). Also, I don't know who I would take (always have to take someone), the
sister might go, Bruce would not--he doesn't like flying because he had a bad experience with his inner ear coming back from somewhere and I don't know if I have the energy to convince him
otherwise. Then there are other things that my employment likes to influence so I have to deal with that. I'm torn! I love Hanson but...but (dramatic pause) I just can't be with them. I can't run
away with them.... to a resort in Jamaica where I can be locked in with them and 500 (?? I don't know how many) other chicks and their less than enthusiastic boyfriends and/or significant others who just came for the beer.
My counterpart is leaving for another department at work (and I yelled at him--You aren't going to find what you're looking for there!! It's more of the same!! You've made the biggest mistake of your life!!! Okay no...)
But this means one thing. Not only do I get to do whatever it is that he is doing when he leaves, I could apply for his job. Given the current situation I don't know if
it's worth it or if it's just better if I continue to lay low and wait for my contracting job to collapse out from under me (I want to say June for that). Sometimes the best course of action here is doing nothing.
It means less paperwork.
Before I go, I would like to start sharing with you uplifting Russian proverbs for your everyday life, that I found over the weekend at a sale of a hoarder's estate in Madison:
"The hand that holds the knut [whip] does not bleed from the blow it deals."
NOW GO TO SLEEP. Good night.
February 21, 2013
Can’t stop here, hoosier country/WHOOSIERS!
That’s right, I figured something out. I went ahead and bought tickets to the Who Quadrophenia tour
for very simple reasons.
1) It’s my favorite Who album--which I was surprised they would ever do this in its entirety because of Roger’s vocal cords due to all the
shouting and high notes (I’m sorry, this is making me laugh, I’m just surprised there isn’t just one of all the screaming over
30 years from every taped performance ever and then looped into a 10 minute video of insanity--I'm sorry I don't have the time to do it myself).
2) It’s near my birthday, finally I get to do something around my birthday instead of hang out at a Burger King or the doctor’s office—best pretend present ever!
3) Possibly the first, last, and only time I get to see them both in concert.
4) Because now I can go travel to a concert, which I’m still not that fond of doing.
Of course, I needed a travel companion (always need a travel companion). I decided to take the closest thing I have to a best friend—Bruce.
(I felt that it would be exceedingly awkward to take the family, who scoff at this kind of thing, being that it is partially about a kid who is at odds with his parents among other
raucous thngs). Bruce really isn’t a Who fan (he likes soft/happy music) despite being old enough to originally be one but he would go with me regardless. I chose Louisville (in the Yummy dome!) because it
was the easiest to get to and it took the less time and I could drive (roughly $60) instead of fly in ($50-$100), get a rental car (which is hard—you have to sign your life away and still
pay at least $100), and book a hotel room ($70-$200). I could have planned to get a hotel room but I thought that was unnecessary (prices around the arena shot up to around $200 for that
day) and being that it was only four hours away I could easily drive there and drive right back another four hours.
Simple. Or was it?
He said we should leave at 2pm, I miscalculated and originally thought we should leave at like 3:30. He was right but he got caught up in doing some things and we ended up leaving at
2:30. I let him drive on the way there while I tried to sleep and let him listen to the Quadrophenia album (“It was different”). Naturally, I didn’t, even though there was absolutely
nothing to look at for the next two hours to the Indiana border (but I had to look at it because I never saw it before). Even though google told me that this would take 2 hours, I didn’t
seem to think that it actually would. I was also under the impression that there would be at least some small towns on the highway instead of nothing but flat land (maybe a hub of
restaurants, gas stations). I think I saw an eagle at one point. Then while trying to remember all that I did need to bring, I forgot a map of Indiana (I don’t like to print out the
google maps—wastes too much ink). Because we didn’t know how far we could keep going, we stopped and gassed up in the middle of the Hoosier National Forest (St. Croix) which was
terrifying all the same as they had to let us know that we were driving in a Hoosier Forrest. That was the first time we had to stop since we left my house with a full tank of gas which
was roughly 227 miles. Gas was expensive out there and they’re even drilling out there.
I looked on the internets for a good dinner restaurant because of his restricted diet (and I wanted to know when we would possibly see anything) and found a Cracker Barrel in
Corydon. We realized before we got there that we were running late and I still, miscalculated when we would end up in Corydon (we were going the speed limit of 70—which I don’t like to do
because I have an innate fear that it will destroy my car’s engine or at least blow out the cheapo tires I have that are wearing out on me after 2 years—it’s a small car, does not have
horse power but stubborn cow power). But I did not take in account how big of a town Corydon is, and that it is the suburban shopping/eating hub aside from Evansville for all of Southern
Indiana. I also did not take in account that it was a Saturday night—I was too busy being happy that the concert was on a Saturday and that I didn’t have to call everyone and their uncle
to take off work and on Friday before I was happy that I realized I had a 3 day weekend for President’s Day. At any rate, the Cracker Barrel was packed, in fact most sit down restaurants
were in the general area off the highway. So we stopped at the closest semi-healthy fast food place that we could find—Wendy’s—at least it was cheaper.
We got into Louisville around 10 minutes until the show time. I kept thinking we had entered Eastern but there was no signs along the way signifying that (I figured there would have been
as there was in South Dakota). Louisville was all but deserted, it was weird and all their roads were elevated way past the bridge. People at work told us to park on the street but I
didn’t want to as it would have been a long walk and would have left my sweet ride as a sitting target (although, I’m sure they don’t have the welcoming committee that St. Louis has—and
I’m sure nobody would have touched my car anyway, as it’s not a fancy car with fancy things in it). But strangely enough there was a parking garage right next to this place with empty
slots and it was fairly cheap ($8). We ran into the venue and were on the right side where our seats were and just as we found them the show started. I’m still confused—the tickets said
the show started at 7:30, but every time I look up Louisville’s time, it tells me it’s in Eastern. So, I guess ticketmaster printed the time in Central time for me.
Anyway, the venue was nice, it was large but intimate—Chaifetz is probably similar around here. Our seats were in the first section of the normal seats (not on the floor).
They could have been closer but it was okay, it was on the end of the row so not too many people were in my way (and I forgot my concert shoes—platform sneakers!). I could have shelled
out $300 to $500 for this (and got to meet them!) but I felt that it wouldn’t be that great. Those seats were on the floor and I would have ended up with some drunken old dude in front of
me doing some sort of odd fist pumping dance and essentially I did end up with that for any of the fast songs but it was at least only one guy (and the other possibly bad
thing was that when everyone was dancing, the floor moved--concrete shouldn't do that). These people did not want to sit still during the Quadrophenia part either—they kept getting up to
get one beer, then they’d want another, and then they’d have to go to the bathroom. But it was worth it
(Here are some more).
Bruce liked it particularly, it was a retrospective of the last 50 years with video cameos of Entwistle and Moon. The other songs they played were the big hits (Behind Blue Eyes,
Won't get Fooled Again, Who Are You, Baba O'Riley and one called Tea and Theatre) and they were done at 10:30. It's not very rock and roll but I liked it--it allowed me to think that I
could drive back in one day.
We waited five minutes before leaving--I noticed that I was not the youngest (saw a kid with a mowhawk with the bullseye painted on it) and that it was a diverse crowd.
I also had this idea. Roger now needs a humidifier on stage with him. But it didn't do him much good behind him, so what if they built it into the microphone stand, near his mouth?
That way he can still jump around yet have it where it would be of some use.
So, after that I get to drive home. I thought I was awake enough to do 4 hours of driving, I've stayed up that late messing around on the internet and it was fine getting out of the
city (no problem, no backups, nothing). But once I got out into the no-hoosier's land, is when I started to understand why people fall asleep at the wheel or drive off the road.
There were no lights on the highway, it was a scary darkness where you could only see a few feet in front of you and you had to keep totally alert because a deer or night hoosier could
jump out at you and then the road would curve just slightly enough to throw you off. Then some hoosier would suddenly come up behind you with their brights on and it would still blind you
in the side mirrors because it was so dark. It was just me, the silence, and the seemingly same patch of road in front of me--the radio was off to let our ears and Bruce rest
(I volunteered to do this because I'm younger and he wanted to go to church later on Sunday). My saving grace throughout it was probably my back pain and the fact that my allergy pill
started to wear off and all I could smell was skunk, eventually I figured out that I could focus better if I pushed my forehead with one of my fingers. It was a long drive to get to
Illinois and at that point, all the hoosiers were gone and I noticed the sky. It was awesome. I could see way more stars out here (so I guess if I need to see anything in space, I need to
drive 2 hours)--there were no large city light pollution halos. There were no signs posted in Illinois not telling me to pull on the shoulder like in Indiana so I did for 2 minutes
(before another car came) just to look at it all. That gave me a second wind to get me to Nashville for some gas. I wasn't out of gas but I wasn't about to risk running out of gas between
there and O'Fallon (and the stations close out there at night). At that time I was alert again due to the lights (and here I always thought they were a nuisance--but they could get rid of
half of the street lights around here and still be fine)--I made it home and promptly passed out in my bed. I'm not sure if I want to do that again.
So I'm going to cool my jets for a while, try not to go anywhere while I keep going on the book (it's going good, thanks, I'm making progress but I still keep finding things that I
thought of were already thought by other people so it's hard not to think that I'm being a rip off--I'll have to sort that out later. I'm trying to prevent this
and this for yooooooou!) and save money. Which is done not only for the
impending furlough (and yes, I will implement my incumbent expulsion plan as I see congress is still taking their exceedingly long vacations, going home at any chance they get by using
taxpayer money to pay for it and are not getting furloughed themselves. I'm not sure why we're so worried about other countries when we'll destroy ourselves just fine without their help.)
but to save up for next year's birthday event that could happen at any time in 2014. A ride on the Vomit. Comet.
though knowing myself, I might not be able to pull this off, nor would I want to pay for something like this using a credit card online so I'm not sure how I will do it.
Much to ponder. Good night!
(blank stare)
Fly wombat fly
