Month: June 2014

This diagnosis has been liberating for me because, paradoxically, it proves I’m not crazy.  All of the psychic work it takes to be me, to get through an average day, has an origin, has a cause, and even if the exact cause cannot be found, an approximate cure can and will be.

But in sitting down for my first Kum Nye practice in a week or so, it occurs to me that our world is inundated with trauma, drowning in it, swimming in it.  Substantially every person on every street has some unresolved trauma, has some invisible force within them pushing them in unhelpful directions.

I don’t recall if I have commented on this, but I wonder what Islamic child rearing practices are like.  It is a very misogynistic religion: what sort of relations do young boys have with their mothers?  At what age is physical punishment introduced?  Are boys breast fed?  How are they potty trained?

And for that matter, do Leftist practices differ from those of conservatives?  It is hard to believe they would, it is easiest to assign these differences to cognitive differences and environmental programming, but COULD there be a difference?

It opens up a Pandora’s box to start to take psychodynamic considerations down to the primitive, to the infant level, but in my own experience I have found they are crucially important.

If we are going to build a truly better society, rather than a hell papered over in pastel and flowers, we have to start to look at all aspects of our cultural lives.  We have to grasp the ENORMITY of our collective failure, how much better this world could be than it is.  We have to understand that most people are thralls of experiences and fears that are largely invisible to them.

I think one could argue that religions evolved to keep people sane, to provide a web of meaning enabling them to surmount their traumas, and that ideologies serve the same purpose.

But this sanity is relative.  It comes at the cost of an unblemished capacity to see truth as it is, to see what is in front of one’s eyes, to adapt usefully and easily.  It merely creates a world within which one can live and breathe, procreate and die.  It is not the territory, though; nor is it a very accurate map in most cases, in my view.

We can do so much better.

A report has come out noting that even  the very flimsy, implausible NIST version of the Tower 7 collapse omitted structural supports which were in fact there, making even the flaming curtains hypothesis untenable.

If I had to pick a personal motto, this would be it.  I operate according to a very simple decision tree: try something, then ask if it worked.  If not, then “go again”.  This will apply until the problem is solved or I die. Those are the only two options.  (self evidently, I vary my methods as it seems warranted: the point I want to make is that there is always another effort of some sort, and the need for this absolute and inviolable.)

In my sessions with the therapist, I was getting very powerful abreactions–shaking, involuntary vocalizations, powerful feelings of sadness and anger–and we just kept going.  She’d elicit a reaction, I’d go, it would subside, and I’d say go again.  Her word for my pain tolerance was “unnatural”.  I take this as a compliment.

As I think I have mentioned, I have started drawing a Tarot card for each week.  Today I drew the 5 of Swords for the second time in about 6 weeks, which is as long as I’ve been doing it.  Odds: less than 1 in 10.

What I am finding is that these cards are interpreted many different ways by many people.  This means I can interpret it any damn way I want, and if it is helpful psychologically, then so much the better.

If you look at the picture, you see the figure has picked up his sword, and those of his comrades.  They are in despair.  They have given up.  He knows better.  He is going to get them back in the fight.  This is the Go Again card.  Fuck the odds, fuck the past.  Go again.

I will add as far as Tarot generally that this is a very interesting practice even if you don’t believe anything more is going on than pictures popping up.  All of us have a great deal of deep, latent content.  If you doubt this just read up on the work of Janet and all the things he could do with hypnosis.  I see the claim made occasionally–presumably by people suffering from some degree of emotional dissociation and following hyperintellectualism–that the unconscious does not exist.  This is patent bullshit.  We are oceans: some calm, some stormy, most a bit of both.  And that is fine.  It is as it should be.  We can all learn to swim, and to build boats.  That is and has been my work.

I am going to offer unsolicited opinion (as usual): TV’s in private bedrooms are a terrible idea, but particularly for kids.  In my personal view, one TV per home is sufficient.  That means that people sit down together to watch TV, or they don’t watch it.

Imagine we gave MMPI’s to all members of Congress, the President and everyone around him, and the members of the Supreme Court. How many would need to leave office if they had to be in the upper 50% of the population to serve? Would any doubt remain why we have the proplems we do?

Severe, complex PTSD with dissociation, with the cause unknown events before the age of 2.

This is pretty much a worst case scenario for PTSD.  Methods for dealing with it have only been developed in that past couple decades.

Having said that, this fills me with optimism, confidence and hope.  It is fantastic news.  I have a name, and a route to follow.  I have a path which I am confident will lead me to more or less full recovery, or at least substantial mitigation of symptoms.

Now, this is highly personal, and nobody’s damn business, but I share this for a couple reasons.

First, anyone who has been reading this blog for a while knows I have some emotional problems.  I have a powerful will and a very strong mind, so I can self correct.  But simply existing is work for me and always has been.

Second, I want to offer an example for any readers I may have who suffer from, or know people who suffer from addictions.

Here is the thing: I believe I understand fully why people take heroin, why Russell Brand took heroin, why Phillip Seymour Hoffman chose to end his life with heroin.

There are traumas you can’t name, you can’t pull up.  There are gaps in emotional development that happen that no normal therapist can identify, much less heal.  “Substances” like alcohol, like heroin, like pills, come to seem like reliable friends.  You can trust them.

And so too with “addictions” like sexual addiction, or video game addiction, or gambling, or workaholism: they take you out of that place you can neither name, face, nor escape.

I want people to know therapies do exist, now, which can help you face and process these traumas.

Missing from the psychotherapeutic arsenal has been treatments for very early childhood.  Holotropic Breathwork can certainly help, but what I experienced was very targeted, and very useful.

But there are very, very few therapists trained in these methods.  Think about this: my trauma is very likely nothing more complicated thanfeeling the terror of my mother hating me for crying too much because I had colic: how common must this be?
 
I think often of the black community, because that is where much of the misery in this country is concentrated.  How often must these teenage girls fail to bond properly with their  babies?  How often must other children have felt and feel what I did?  I think it is extremely common.  This should give us pause.  Decent human beings–Liberals, not leftists–should wonder how we can start to undo all the damage all around us.

We start with ourselves.  That is what I am doing.

And as a link, MDEM is a part of Emotional Transformation Therapy: http://www.ettia.org/

It is not normally a long term process, so you could literally book a vacation to go see one of these therapists, and do 2-3 sessions in a week, and leave feeling substantially better.  Just pay cash, if your insurance doesn’t cover it.

I will add as well that my therapist–this is her website –said that the most common methods used by the VA (immersion/exposure/in vitro therapy) in most cases either don’t help, or make things worse.  If you are a veteran suffering from PTSD, first off, I can now honestly say I feel your pain, and secondly, you should avoid the VA.  Pay cash for treatment with MDEM and/or EMDR. Believe it or not, your symptoms can be dealt with quickly and effectively in the vast bulk of cases.  If you suffer from intruding thoughts/feelings/images/smells/sounds, then EMDR can fix that quickly in nearly all cases.  If you suffer from traumatic grief at the death of a buddy, or from having killed, then Induced After Death Communication–which is a modification of EMDR–reportedly brings nearly instantaneous relief in about 70% of cases, and it doesn’t matter in the slightest if you walk in completely convinced there is no afterlife.

A case can be made that this blog, and my website, and all my other output, is an extended reaction formation.  This would be partly true. But I think it has been my choice to deal with my trauma THIS WAY.  I could just as easily have been destructive, or indifferent.  I have chosen a path of what I consider to be service.  I suffer, so I try to help others who suffer, and this reduces my pain.  As I gain in emotional flexibility and wisdom, my work will be more effective.  One must always keep in mind that even if you are trying to help, you may be hurting, and that is certainly true of me.  Very, very often your best option is to do nothing.  People need to be allowed to fight their own fights, so they can win their own victories.

Well, I saw a shrink yesterday and today for the first time in 25 years or more.  Their methods–or at least those of this therapist–have gotten better.  I did something called EMDR and Multi-dimensional Eye Movement Therapy, which I am having a hard time finding a link on.  With both processes, the deal is you do one or two 2 hour sessions, and that’s it.  In my case, I am doing three, as I apparently do in fact “have” PTSD; or at least I manifest all the classic symptoms.

I would encourage anyone dealing with grief, anxiety, sadness, flashbacks and the like to look these therapies up.  EMDR starts with a headset with tones alternating between ears. and two little hand things that alternately vibrate.  The claim is that it balances left and right brain activity and facilitates emotional integration.  That part, I can’t say helped or didn’t.

MDEM, though, consists in a bunch of colored sticks that she moved through my field of vision slowly, and damned if I didn’t light up with some powerful stuff at certain points.  I pulled out feelings I had no idea were there, and fragments of memories I still can’t decipher, but which were also new to me. I had powerful physical reactions, of the sort I have had in Holotropic Breathwork.

Another iteration of EMDR is just more or less the therapist waving a wand with a colored tip–she had a plastic yellow flower–back and forth while I went into specific memories or sensations.  Again, powerful physical reactions.

Whatever I “have” is apparently pretty deep, because a few run-throughs with the wand normally fixes whatever it is that ails a person, and we did it 15-20 times, and I was still getting symptoms.

I will say this about me, though: my emotional pain tolerance is through the roof.  I honestly think this is my single most valuable trait as a thought worker, other than having a relatively high baseline intelligence.

Most people can’t stand the idea of being mocked, or being alone in a belief, or dwelling for a long time on violent and unpleasant things, or being confused for a long time without giving up.  I can do all of these things, often, and without worrying about it, or feeling sorry for myself.  It’s what I do.  It’s who I am.  My hope for therapy is simply that I retain those traits while adding back in power I have lost to unresolved trauma and grief.

I can only imagine what I will be capable of when I am not carrying around a 200 pound weight.

A remaking of the  world in the image of the sociopath.

http://allenbwest.com/2014/06/bombshell-first-words-bergdahls-father-white-house-arabic/

Bergdahl’s fathers first words is the White House were an Arabic incantation claiming the White House for Islam.  Bergdahl was home schooled, and unless his father has converted during his captivity, one must wonder if he was not indoctrinated to learn the ways of the “enemy”–initially the French Foreign Legion, then later the American Army–then pass them along.  According to soldiers who worked with him, he was constantly asking questions about how things were done, and there is no reason to assume he did not pass along everything he knew during his five years stay in Afghanistan to our enemy.  He should be tried as a traitor.  Treason still has meaning, despite the intellectual depravity of our modern age. Men’s lives have meaning.  We tried to rescue him, because it was the right thing to do, and from what I read 6 men lost their lives trying to value honor and loyalty, traits he spit on with his decisions.

Islamists have no honor.  They have no loyalty, but to their tribe, but to specific people.  They are intellectually incurious, generally lazy, misogynistic, violent, and primitive.

And Obama is kowtowing to them.  It is sickening.

I go to strip clubs on occasion.  Sometimes I just need to see boobs and butts, and the parade will go on with or without me.  Any healthy heterosexual man who tells you seeing naked or nearly naked women doesn’t put a smile on his face is lying. I could feel myself relaxing, sipping on my club soda.

My procedure is simple: I pay my cover, get a bunch of ones, sit right up front, and tip the dancer on stage at least $1 per song.  Many men sit for hours a few seats back, expressionless, just watching, but I want to be sure at least SOMEONE is tipping every dancer something, and showing them appreciation.  Many dancers find it a turn on to have a man’s full attention.

I wait til a girl comes out who really attracts me, then get a lap dance.  I’m no saint, and I have normal urges.  I don’t want a girlfriend until I get my emotional house clean, and I don’t believe in pornography.  It is absolutely beyond my comprehension how anyone could spend hours watching pornography.

Anyway, sometimes when it isn’t busy, after she’s done we’ll just sit there talking.  I’m easy to talk with, and most people enjoy telling their stories.  Last night I talked with a girl whose stage name was Ivy for every bit of an hour.

Among other things that came out she revealed she is into bondage, and has on numerous occasions done rope suspensions, which is where she is completely tied up and hung up in the air like an ornament. Her boyfriend does it, and she even did a rope suspension “show”, where she was part of the decorations for a goth/emo music show.

I asked her if it made her come, and she said “OH YEAH”.

But what she said next I found interesting.  She said it makes her feel free because she doesn’t have to make any decisions.  Someone else is in charge.  She doesn’t have to do anything because she can’t do anything.

This is what I have always suspected, and here is the point of this post: roughly one third of our population  is into this sort of bondage.  Not literally, of course, but the ideology of conformity exists precisely to free people from freedom.  It takes the Duhkha of conditioned existence of the Buddhists and makes it into a positive good.  I think of the Loki lines from the Avengers movie, lines I could have written for him, and it very certainly applies to many in our social order.

There is plenty enough information in circulation to learn about the world.  But large segments of our populace ONLY want to hear that which enables them to remain a part of a group defined not by principle–not by abhorrence of inequality, not by abhorrence of prejudging groups en masse, not by opposition to slavery, not by opposition to violence, not by insistence on human rights, all of these being merely rhetorical props which they use for their demonic work–but solely by the membership itself, solely by conformity to whatever that days “truth” is, whatever that day’s “Kos” is (and I will remind you that Kos is a god in the fictional world of Fritz Lieber).

They hang in the air, voluntarily helpless, and can be swung like swings.  These are the headless people.  They make truly rational dialogue impossible.  They make fixing problems very difficult, because every sane proposal has to make it through a wasp’s nest of lies, distractions, distortions and character assassination.

Edit: she made one other interesting comment, that is was about trust.  I said somewhere that trust rewarded is the ultimate aphrodesiac for women, and this is the logical end point of trust: complete helplessness.

Continuing my analogy with leftists, this would be trust in the government, trust in leaders, trust that no matter what the reality would appear to be if that person were capable of apprehending it directly, that everything they are being told is true.

This is the major difference between Leftism and sexual bondage: the latter is honest, and can at times apparently yield desirable results.