looney bin fun

So, I was sitting in my livingroom, talking to my son, about what, i do not remember. Suddenly, I was siezed by chest pain, wrist pain, sweating, and incoherent thinking. A few hours before, I had a moment when I could not figure out how to start the car, and I couldnt putt he steps together to sweep the living room floor.

I was convinced, absolutely convinced, that I was having another heart attack, or perhaps a stroke. Fairly quickly, my thought process cleared, but the pain remained quite severe, and I sent my son for help. Some very calm neighbors called an ambulance, and I went to the hospital.

They found absolutely nothing physically wrong. So i asked for a referral to a psychologist or psychiatrist, thinking that it was a problem with my mind, or perhaps my penchant for self-medication was messing me up. (Just OTC stuff, no narcotics or street drugs) I was told that I could not have one, they could not refer me to a shrink of any discription, I had to go thru "Crisis", which is apparently the ONLY way to get an immediate referral to mental health professionals, and the only way to do that was to let them send me to a mental hospital for "observation". I was scared shitless, still fairly convinced that I was dying, so I agreed, under the condition that I was NOT agreeing to be committed, and that I could leave whenever I wanted. that assurance being given, I agreed, albeit with a slight bit of angst.

While there, I slowly lost my conviction that I was dying. I arrived at Acadia on thursday night, and did not see an actual doctor until Tuesday afternoon.

While there, we had "group meeting" every morning, at which we were asked probing, consistently pointless questions, and were told what to expect for that day. Monday morning, I was told I would be seeing a doctor that day. This was very relieving to hear, as it was the whole reason I had agreed to go.

A lesser reason was to cease taking my OTC meds under controlled circumstances. There were no negative effect from not taking them, except that the pain I was taking them to treat came back like a freight train. Oddly, this lack of significant effects from cessation has not reassured anybody that my taking them was essentially benign, proving their objections had no basis in reason or reality, just in fear of the unknown, I have chosen to respect their emotional hesitance and not restarted the OTC med regimen despite the nearly crippling pain. I have been told that I do not really respect the emotions of oters, so this is an experiment in that direction. No idea how long I can put up with it, but I am trying.

Anyway, on Monday morning I was told, by a creature named Wayne, that I would see a doctor that day.

Several hours later, Wayne informed me tht he had decided I didnt need to actually see a doctor, I could just see him, a Nurse Practitioner. I refused. I was not there to see a nurse, but to see a psychiatrist, and wasn't really willing to compromise on that point, as I had already come this far. When I told him i considered what he had told me that morning a lie, he changed his story. It wasn't really HIM that decided I could skip the doctor, it was both him and the Doctor together. When I told him that really didn't much matter to my conclusion that he had lied to me, and now he had lied twice, he changed his story yet again, saying that the DOCTOR had decided he was too busy and had asked Wayne to divide up the case load and had put me on Waynes list. With the lie count now up to three, I gave up on Wayne, told him I would wait as long as necessary, ande had a snack to calm down.

Are you out there, Wayne? I am searching for your e-mail address because I have not yet told you how I felt at your deception while I was at what I considered a vulnerable point,. I will find it.

The next morning, during "group", Wayne made the mistake of asking us all if we had any issues that needed to be dealt with. So I told him. He had lied to me, in front of everybody in the "group" and lost all credibility, and as I had been told by a mutual friend that he was a good guy who actually cared, I would give him the chance to regain it by admitting error and apologizing in the same forum he had lied to me in. He couldn't do it, or wouldn't do it, and told me that it was an inappropriate forum in which to address the issue, and that i should stop talking in front of the other patients about it.

He refused to speak to me for the remainder of the day, but I did get to see the doctor. With a referral in hand, I asked to be discharged, and since I was there voluntarily, they of course said yes, and i left.

In order to get a referral to a psychologist, I had to sign myself in to a nuthouse (Acadia hospital in Bangor), and now I have to put up with all the stares and worried looks and stigma that comes with it. I had to stay there for almost a week. All this just to get an appointment.

The actual appointment will not be for six weeks to three months.

Result of the stay: a somewhat plausible explanation of what happened to me: PTSD sufferers frequently suffer flashbacks, or are force3d to relive their traumatic experience3s, in real time, again and again. The Doc thinks i was reliving my first heart attack. As this is a mental disorder, there is no way to conclusively prove this.

At no time was I ever a danger to myself or anybody else. My son performed admirable in what he thought (as did I) was a major crisis, and my neighbors did me the great favor of comforting me while I was waiting for the ambulance, as well as calling the ambulance and looking after the Kid till Deb came home.

I cannot in good conscience tell anybody else who thinks they need psychological help trust Acadia hospital, seek other alternatives first. And under no circumstances believe what they tell you in a looney bin, they have no respect for your feelings and expectations at all, they think you are crazy, stupid, and must be calmed down, even if it means lying their asses off to you. maintain your goals, insist on being treated honestly and forthrightly and realize you are still human, regardless of how they treat you.

Penis Joke

I have a friend who wants to go to special forces training because it will turn him into a finely crafted weapon of survival and destruction. I informed him that a weapon is a tool. If he wants to have real power, the thing to be is the hand that wields the tool. He thought it was a penis joke and didn't listen. Now he is completely screwed. So i guess he was right, it WAS a penis joke.

Answers to questions I have recently been asked,

1) are you insane

Probably. What you have to understand is that from INSIDE insane, things look pretty much normal.

Technically, the answer has to be "yes". I suffer from PTSD, i suspect i suffer from a lot of other things, too, but because of the way I am, objective answers are quite difficult to obtain. In a pinch, go with "yes", treat my words as coming from a crazy person and dismiss their significance. I dare you.

2) does the answer to the previous question automatically make everything you say dismissable and valueless?

Only when I am wearing a clown nose.

Are you out there, reading this? Because if you are, know this: I am willing to talk about it. I am also willing to promise that as far as it is in my power to do so, I will prevent harm from happening to you as a result of simply talking about it, whatever it is. a different perspective might help.

bottle of pills

There is a prescription bottle
on the shelf
Untouched for years
that represents freedom.

It's contents remain untouched,
for to use it is to lose it
and it is my silent support
and the greatest comfort I have.

It is insurance in pill form.

I have watched slow-motion death
crush families into despair and ruin,
anihiliate hard-won futures
as if they were tissue-thin dreams,
burned by the bedsides of the dying.

While there may be no good way to go
there is certainly a bad way,
slowly consuming every resource
as death is staved off,
minute by minute
while the handholding relations
wish the end would just come, and free them all,
and then hate themselves for wanting it.

There is no dignity in rotting,
no nobility in feebleness,
and little success in hope.

There is no peace in desperation,
just denial.

I will stand proudly and walk through the door
rather than cringe away in fear.

-----------------
No, I am not suicidal and no intervention is necessary.
it's just a poem

Honest Opinion

So there I was, just sort of hanging out, engaging in some minor substance abuse, writing some nice purple invective against some internet stupidity or other, when a person I respect (and love, but the respect is more important in this case) asks me for......an Honest Opinion.

I have lost friends this way. Frequently. When, many years ago, a friend asked me for an Honest Opinion about his new girlfriend, and after receiving it went immediately to fetch his assault rifle (I shit you not, this actually happened), I instituted a new policy: If you ask me for an Honest Opinion that I think you may not like when you hear it, I will say "ask me again, and I'll answer, but you should be warned, I am actually going to give you what you asked for."

People, as a rule, don't want your opinion, and when they ask for an honest opinion specifically, they are actually saying "I think you might disagree with me, here, so I am warning you I am sensitive on this topic". They are telling you to be honest because they really want you to AGREE with them. They are telling you how important it is to them. They are telling you, basically, "I want you to give me an honest opinion if you agree with me, and if you don't, I want you to lie"

Screw that. You ask me for an honest opinion, you will get exactly that.

On to the opinion.

"Do you think I am stupid because I am a Christian"?

Fuck.

The honest answer is "yup". It isn't "Yes", because "Yes" is a correct term, carrying none of the derision I want to pack into the affirmation. What I want to say is "Of course I think your Christianity is stupid. You stopped believing in the tooth fairy and Santa Clause, right? Well, if I was a 30-year-old who still believed in the literal existence of a fairy that rewarded you for losing teeth by putting currency under your pillow, you would think THAT was stupid, right? You think the Scientologists are morons because they believed in Xenu the Cosmic Overlord who stashes souls in Volcanoes, right?" but I actually respect this person, so even tho it would be the honest thing to do, I DON'T say any of that. I say "Yup" because "Yes" is a respectful answer to a stupid question.

And i still feel like a liar, because I didn't manage to convey what I actually felt, my Honest Opinion.

I believe in reason, and it is a sad fact that if you START from reason, you can't get to any of the major religions. You can get to a nebulous spirituality, but probably not much further. If you start from religion, you can still accept Reason, but you have to hold reason subordinate to your religion, because any application of reason to religious doctrine or dogma will end with said dogma or doctrine decimated. In other words, reason kills faith. As it should.

To hold as truth or fact things that reason dictates are neither is to willfully place reason in a subordinate position. And that is, almost by definition, stupid. So, yeah, I think Christians (and Jews, Muslims, Etc) are stupid, in that they are holding to beliefs that cannot be. And believing in Christ just as hard as you can (which is the suggested antidote to this terrible 'reason' stuff) isn't going to help at all. It didn't work with Santa, after all, did it?

So my Honest Opinion insults the intelligence of somebody i respect. It is what it is.

If I didn't respect this person, I'd probably just shrug and say "Nah, to each his own" or some other equivocation.

I find it distinctly odd that my respect for this person is going to make me tell him I think he is stupid.

living an intellectually honest existence blows sometimes.

PTSD really blows

I guess I am slowly learning to accept my diagnosis. Lately I have memories (I will not relate the substance because that will trigger the memory) that cannot be turned off. I have to see it, all of it, over again. feel what I felt, see what I saw, hear what I heard. Normal memories are fragile, can be interrupted by anything, a stubbed toe, a mosquito bite, a wandering thought, a small noise. THESE memories are a revery, unstoppable Imax relivings of experiences in minute emotional detail. Every feeling, every icky sensation, every horrifying microsecond. once it starts it goes until it is finished, and it goes until I feel every little detail of the things i thought I had forgotten years ago, thought I had boxed up, thrown out and gotten over.

it really sucks. But PTSD pretty much fits.

Why isn't Dick in Jail?

Richard J Cheney admitted committing a serious felony. On T.V.

Torture is unlawful. This is fact. Causing torture is also unlawful. This is also a fact.

Waterboarding is torture. This too is a factual statement. The United States Government has tried, convicted and executed people for waterboarding, as torture. Waterboarding was called, for years, the Water Torture.

Cheney admitted instigating torture, thus, he has admitted to committing a crime.

Mr Holder? What the fuck are you waiting for?

Swallowing

Science now knows that when pregnant women orally ingest the ejaculate of the father of the child she bears, she has a SIGNIFICANTLY reduced chance of developing preeclampsia. Further research has also found that the regular ingestion of the ejaculate of her partner can help a woman become pregnant in the first place. It introduces the partners proteins into her system as a whole, and gradually acclimates her system to the presence of his proteins, so that she is far less likely to have an immune response when the fertilized egg attempts to implant, increasing the chance of successful pregnancy.

Of course, I didn't fucking KNOW THIS ten years ago, or my wife's pregnancy would have been MUCH more fun for me. (She didn't actually have preecampsia, so the effect on her would have been minimal, but trying to prevent it would have been a blast. Health first!) :-)

Pantomime Horses, I shit you not.

I download a lot of japanese porn, mostly because the idea of beauty in Japan is apparently much different than in American porn. There is very little silicon breastage, Almost no Anorexically thin chicks (who arouse in me nothing more than the desire to buy them a good date at an all-you-can-eat pancake house) and quite a bit of defiled innocence and purity, and that happens to be my thing. But I erase 9 out of 10 of the things I download, mostly because I don't read or speak Japanese, and in addition to the aesthetically pleasing aspect of Japanese porn, there is a LOT of serious weirdness. Tentacles, a penchant for VERY young looking actresses (and if I can't TELL they are over 18, I don't feel comfortable watching it or having it on my hard drive) and a rather odd costume thing. And, apparently, a real liking of sex with pantomime horses. Or, rather, very well-endowed men in HORSE COSTUMES. The first time, I laughed my ass off. It was hilarious. Around the 8th such film, I got to wondering if there was some wierd cultural thing of which I was unaware. Pantomime Horses.

Squick

I was asked to define the term "Squick".

Squick is the sound you make, and the feeling you have when, in the middle, you realize that somebody has spliced Golden Showers into your perfectly good BDSM download. Curiously, I am told it is the same thing you feel when somebody has spliced Twinkie porn into your perfectly good Golden Showers porn. Or when you realize that somebody has put Missionary Vanilla in the middle of your download of the Ozzie and Harriet Show.

The Brits are getting it right. Us? not so much.

The British High Court came to the conclusion that "United States" authorities had violated the Convention Against Torture treaty that was signed by Ronald Reagan and ratified by congress.

This treaty states that whenever credible reports of torture are made, they must be investigated, first in the jurisdiction in which the torture was alleged to have taken place.

The treaty also directs third party countries to investigate and bring charges if the power accused refuses to investigate on its own.

Obama has no choice now but to investigate if he wishes to conform to the law. If he fails to do so, he is an accomplice after the fact.

Back from Florida. The drive was awesome. I raced up the east coast to avoid the "snowpocalypse" blizzard that slammed the megalopolis from New York to Richmond. Made the entire 1400 miles from Orlando to Vassalboro in about 30 hours.

I meditate while driving. The tunes are cranked, and I drive like a fucking crazy man, so my mind is almost constantly engaged in trying to look for cops, maximize the speed, looking for road signs. the whole front part of my brain is involved, psyched, grooving, moving. The back part, Mystic Half, is free to dream.

And dream he does.

The car is nice, a 1999 Saturn wagon, but it is white, not my favorite color. Named her Amalthea (from the glowing silver chick that the Last Unicorn turned into when she was hiding from the Bull) We got along well, immediately. I wasn't even off Disney property before she managed to become an extension of me, and I forgot completely about the physical part of driving. The rest of the ride was just sweet. Two three-hour naps in the back (she isn't quite long enough for me to fit into comfortably, but nonstop speedfreaking the miles takes a toll, and sleep was, for a change, easy)

And mystic half dreamed of plots, and characters, and possible narratives. I made progress on what I have tentatively called "Spinners" but the block is not yet broken. I have characters, names, places, maps, everything but a story. But the drive got me a bit closer to that.

More later.

Off to Florida

Tomorrow I fly to Florida, pick up a car, and drive it back to Maine. This should resolve some of our mobility problems, but it is only a temporary quick fix. Poverty really sucks.

I think I am going to start writing in this blog again, because I am in the midst of the worst bit of piece-specific writer's block I have ever experienced, and blogging seems to help.

I have the universe, I have the characters, I have the theme, I know what I want to say, and I have done an enormous amount of work on this one 'project'. what I DON'T have is a story.