Fifth Time In Costa Rica, 2

I did very Little today. I had breakfast with a pleasant oouple from the Montreal área. They are here with their three kids. Now they are probably in Monteverde. We had an interesting conversation, among other things, about the connection between good nutrition and good mental health and the catch twenty´twos that a lot of our people get trapped in: too unwell to eat properly, and also unwell from not eating properly. Then I did another long walk, in a different direction this time, climbing up for around four miles or so to another small town up in the hills. I noted how full of coconuts the palm trees are around here, just laden with them. I also passed a small papaya tree with fattening and ripening fruit hanging from its trunk. Yesterday I also visited in the same bed and breakfast another nice couple from Ontario. I actualloy met them on the flight from Toronto and we had a really enjoyable conversation. As Christians we seem to share a lot in common though they are really involved in a church and I´m kind of nowhere church´wise that is. It felt like a constructive dialogue and I feel assured that even if I´m nowhere, I´m still in the right place at the right time. It was a nice surprise seeing them here at the bed and breakfast the next morning. They have two kids who hung out with me for a while in the breakfast patio while I was working on a drawing and they also showed me their sketch books. Funny, though I´m not huge on kids (but I´m not a kid hater either) I find it interesting how much I end up engaging with children during these trips, and enjoying it. Following a delicious two hour siesta at midday in my room, I went back out and visited a local secondhand bookstore, bought anoteher novel, then went and sat in the garden courtyard of the Cultural Centre again. the trees in that garden are just full of chattering parakeets, but I can only see them when they´re in flight since their green plumage blends so well with the leaves of the trees. The security guard there took an interest in me and my art and we had a couple of pleasant chats in both Spanish and English, since he wanted to practice with me, and since he was wearing the uniform, I was not about to argue with him. He told me he wants to move back to Georgia, USA to be with his mother who has lived there for a number of years. He says he´d like to leave Costa Rica because he doesn´t like the attitude of a lot of the local people (he is Costa Rican, or Tico) especially their disregard for the law and their poor driving habits. Quite honestly, even though they do need to learn how to drive properly and courteously here, they are far better than the ones in Mexico City and Bogota. He asked me why I don´t think of moving here, myself, and I replied that, besides being already comfortably fixed, more or less, in my own dear Vancouver, I really don´t know if I´d have anything to offer people if I lived here. This country does very well already, please and thank you, besides which, I am not comfortable about consumer immigration. I even ask people who want to live in Canada or are already getting settled here to please ask themselves what, besides their tax dollars, are they willing to contribute to the common good of the people in their new country. Whether it´s consumer immigration or consumer tourism, it still really indicates the huge multipolar culture of selfishness that has overtaken our planet. I never ask that question of refugees, by the way. That would be like hitting a child.

Fifth Time In Costa Rica, 1

Gentle Reader, I am giving the trauma theme a rest for a while in order to keep you up to date on my time in Costa Rica. Writing this post is going to be a bit of a challenge because I am in the living room of the bed and breakfast where I´m staying, surrounded by other guests, all old well off Americans and Canadians carping about their health and making other small talk typical of well off rich White North Americans visiting a tropical country. Oh, I just heard that some of them are vegetarian, maybe they´re also a bit interesting. Well, isn´t everybody? In the meantime I´m wearing the earplugs till I´m done writing this. I don´t really feel sociable with this kind of people, probaby because we don´t have a lot in common, and really, it is kind of difficult explaining to other visitors about my reasons for being here. I am not a bucket list tourist, and neither am I interested in what staying here is going to do for me. I do feel a certain connection with the people who live here, or with a lot of them anyway, and I don´t even bother looking at tourist sites, or whatever, because I´d far rather simply be here, observe people, talk to them, make friends if possible, and simply enjoy the real resource of Costa Rica, which is the Costa Rican people. Today, I went for a long walk, taking one of the main roads till it led me well out of Alajuela, the small city by the airport where I´m staying. San Jose, the capital, is nearby, I think around thirty miles or so, but I´m not really sure. There wasn´t anything really interesting to see, just neighbourhoods and shopping strips and tons of tropical vegetatioon. There is something about the beatiful leaves and flowers that really transforms very ordinary and often shabby buildings and gardens. People are reasonably friendly. One fellow even patted me on the shoulder when I said hi to him (in Spanish). I also saw some catle egrets in a field hanging out with...cattle. They are lovely birds, a type of heron, pure White and a bit smaller than our great blue herons. Altogether, it was a three hour walk, and yes, it has been a bit warm, today. I am impressed with how much people here seem to interact with each other. there aren´t that mahy phone zombies here, which I find refreshing. I found a small vegetarian café, run by an Asian family, Chinese, I think, or Taiwanese, as I Heard them speaking Mandarin to each other, but their Spanish is also very good. I had vegetarian sushi, they seem like nice people and I´d like to return. I also found a beautiful courtyard garden in the cultural centre, which also appears to be a music academy. While seated on a bench in the shade with my sketchbook I Heard different people from respective rooms practicing cello and trumpet, and then a young woman practicing her flute in the garden. They sounded rather interesting together, though they were practicing from different spaces and there was a weird sense of counterpoint that appeared to work. Lots of parrots in the trees. The ambience in the room has changed somewhat, there is a family here now. Lots of coming and going right now. I´m going to sign off for now. These people are driving me a bit nuts and this is a very difficult computer, hence the errors and poor formatting. Sorry.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 60

While finishing my breakfast and adjusting the contents of my three travel bags for weight and balance I was listening to an interesting documentary on the CBC about bullying. There are often fascinating videos being played in the dawn hours, and often much better than the mediocre daytime programming. This doc is about bullies and bullying. This makes me think of what made me a target in school, and to my vicious aggressive elder sibling (so sue me, Rick). Any sense of difference, weakness, or vulnerability or perceived threat to one's status and, that obnoxiously Darwinist term, access to resources, will make one a target for abuse. I was listening to this one just after another half hour doc about personality disorders and the reason why it is so hard to treat certain people, not because they resist treatment, but because of the bad treatment they often have to suffer throughout their lives. I was also having this conversation with a friend over coffee yesterday. I was telling him how a diagnosis as inchoate and nebulous as schizotypal disorder can lead to a most toxic and frightening dynamic. It isn't that these so-called disorders are illnesses. Rather, those of us who are stigmatized for being different have to put up with a lifetime of crap, bullying, neglect, abuse, social exclusion, you name it. By the time we make it to the psychiatrist's office or are sitting in the waiting room of the local mental health care team we are already destroyed, not by our diagnosis, but by the secondary effects of our diagnosis. This is where the irony becomes particularly cruel. Much of what we call mental illness is a socially manufactured chimera. If those of us who have been diagnosed had found people early on in our lives who could love us unconditionally, who would accept us, nurture and mentor us and help us find creative and constructive ways of expressing our uniqueness without turning self or otherwise destructive, if this sort of accepting and non-judging community could exist anywhere, then I really wonder sometimes if psychiatrists and mental health case managers would end up having to retrain for more useful occupations. One of the particularly nasty judgments that get placed on someone for having schizotypal disorder, and for any number of mental health and personality disorders, is in the inability to make and sustain close friendships. But no one tells us how difficult it is to find real safe friends in a world that judges and condemns us for being different. Not for being harmful to others, or for being ill, or being toxic, but for simply being unusual. For being "interesting." The impact of rejection accumulates. Depression and anxiety, even psychosis can eventually set it, because in the long term, no one can be realistically expected to hold up well under a lifetime of social rejection. Vicious circle. A lot of us really should be ashamed of ourselves.

Healing And Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 59

This is what really sticks in my craw about this bogus diagnosis I was given for schizotypal disorder. If my shrink was going to pin this one on me, he had only his personal animus against religion in general and Christianity in particular to go on. (Christians, like the poor and the mentally ill, remain the last socially-sanctioned targets for discrimination and stigma. And no, I am no longer buying the lame excuse that Christians deserve this kind of treatment. Maybe once upon a time, but now this is blaming the victim, and there is no excuse for treating us like crap and getting away with it!). Some Christians have a strong mystical orientation to their faith. I am one of those Christians. It seems my shrink decided to go to town on pathologizing me because my spiritual reality didn't square with his atheist and mechanistic view of nature. Naturally he would throw into this garbage category his opinions about magical thinking (something I am well aware of and do not practice) and superstition (ditto) and conclude that I must have a personality disorder, since I appear to not only believe in someone he is sure could not possibly exist, but insist that I have a relationship with this being. So, those were the one and a half categories that I scored in the online test for schizotypal disorder. On the other hand, we are not supposed to have any close friends and we have trouble making friends and sustaining friendships. When I was seeing this quack (so sue me, Ed!), I was in a period of huge transition. I had three fairly close friends at that time, but found it difficult connecting with new people because of the huge holocaust my life and just been through. This series of personal tragedies were not brought on by mental health issues, but the resulting trauma certainly brought them on. I have since lost those three friends, but as a clear result of the success of my therapy, despite my shrink's rather shrunken worldview. I was becoming strong and they didn't want me to challenge their pet fictions (and, no, Gentle Reader, I was NOT being a jerk about it!) so they all dumped me. I began to make new friends. Most of them are still friends, closer than ever. Two of them are people I knew when we were in our twenties and we have grafted ourselves back into each other's lives over the last decade or so. I have new friends as well. Some have gone away, either from losing interest, or they turned out to be not very nice people and really I am better without them. However, given my life circumstances, for having decent people in my life, I am doing pretty damn good, so, no, Duckies, I do not have schizotypal personality disorder. Apparently we are also supposed to dress funny. I don't dress funny. My usual outfit? Loose-fitting military-cut button up shirts, neutral colours, sleeves rolled up to just above the wrists, and the top one or two buttons undone. Always tucked into my pants. I usually wear blue jeans, rather loose-fitting. And sensible walking shoes, black, nothing unusual. In hot weather I wear a bandana on my head for solar protection (doctor's orders), because I like the look, I don't like baseball caps and it's too warm for toques. I don't wear any kind of jewelry, don't have tattoos (thank God), and I never wear cologne (showering every day and deodorant are enough, please and thank you!) What is left of my hair is always kept very short and neat. So, I look pretty darn normal, and, no, Gentle Reader, I don't wear lingerie or women's underwear, or black leather and bondage gear in the privacy of my home, nor in the privacy of anywhere, and I don't wear stuff like that out in public, either. As for having eccentric beliefs, other than my Christian faith, I tend to be curious about astrology and psychic phenomena. I am not exactly sceptical, nor am I a confirmed believer, but I do believe that there are phenomena at work in our universe and in our lives and world that cannot be scientifically-determined. And, no, I don't base my life or decision-making on things like that, so, no schizotypal disorder here. I do sometimes, on very rare occasions, recognize signs and omens, often in birds. For example, the seven eagles I saw flying overhead a few days before I went on my first trip to Bogota, Colombia, or the white raven I saw flying one morning less than two months ago. And the white eagle feather I found in the year 2000. The reason I believe why these might be signs? (notice that I am not one hundred percent persuaded, so there is some healthy skepticism here, therefore, no schizotypal disorder!) Because of significant changes and transitions that followed in my life shortly after. But I would also like to add here that before the Enlightenment and before our academic bigheads decided to disembowel our humanity of all the spirituality and sense of wonder that makes our lives so much more tolerable on this sorry earth, everybody believed in the numinous, in signs and omens and that the whole freakin' universe was alive and pulsating with meaning and glory and wonder! Artists and poets still have this sense. Does this make us sick? Only if it doesn't make us shitloads of money and make us famous as well, I would imagine. Neither am I particularly uncomfortable in social situations, but really, isn`t everybody at least a little bit uncomfortable in social situations, especially in a room full of strangers? As for talking funny, I don't talk funny, therefore no schizotypal disorder. I do have a way of sounding educated and polished and perhaps rather sophisticated but this could be because I happen to be those things? No personality disorder. Schizotypals also tend to believe that people are out to get them and do them harm. There were a few years in my life when I really pissed off certain people in positions where they could harm me and they certainly did try to harm me, and it took me a few years to work through some of the resulting trauma. And I have evidence that those things occurred, which also cost me a couple of friendships when I tried to ask some of those individuals if they could please tell me what was going on? Rather than 'fess up, or deny, they withdrew and simply will not bother with me now. Suspicious? Hell, no! But if you are already poor and vulnerable and marginalized, the psychiatric profession is going to be all the more likely to pathologize you, even if there is really nothing wrong with your psychological health. Another symptom of this bogus disorder: unconventional beliefs that are not compatible with current societal norms. Talk about shooting fish in a barrel, but here I go! I do not subscribe to many of the so-called values of contemporary society. I am vegetarian, partly for health but especially for the planet and I don't like being party in the suffering of animals. Does this make me crazy? I have never learned to drive a car, simply because I did not want to contribute to environmental pollution and degradation. Given that we are already in the midst of catastrophic climate change, and it is expected to get even worse, would you say I'm crazy? I have always been poor, even though there is this rather stupid-ass expectation in Canada that everyone has to make a nice living, have two cars, a nice home, and tons of savings and investments. I was not able to access this dream because my life situation was thrown out of whack from my parents' divorce and from childhood abuse. So, having to struggle to survive I could not finish my post-secondary education, could not find decent-paying union work since no one would hire me (it helps to know the right people to secure those kinds of jobs) and the struggle to pay the rent every month made going back to school even part time unrealistic. I was working in home support, a stressful and low paid occupation and simply didn't have the spare emotional energy to do evening classes. So, I stayed poor. But it also squared with my values, because I have long been anti-consumerism, as our wealth is not in the size of our bank accounts, homes, or paycheques. Our wealth is in the quality of our souls, our characters, our willingness and ability to reach out to others in love compassion and care and our capacity for enjoying the beauty in the world that surrounds us. So, I was not competitive. Does this make me crazy? According to the psychiatrists, it at least means that I have this bogus personality disorder, and all because I happen to have ethics and values, unlike any of those pretentious bastards. So, if you don't conform, if you want to live in a way that is beautiful, kind, ethical and compassionate, then you must be crazy because you are not fattening the economy nor participating in this mad dance of death that we are all being plunged into. We may feel all the richer and all the more joyful despite living in this state of dissonance but, not wanting to put our own interests and desires first, there must surely be something wrong with us. Yeah, I get it. If your goal isn't to be your own little god, to be a selfish, but well-off narcissist, then you are not participating in the death dance. You must be sick. You must surely be crazy!

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 58

First, I am going to call the writer of the article in Psychology Today on their own words: "The word personality describes deeply ingrained patterns of behavior and the manner in which individuals think about themselves and their world. Personality traits are conspicuous features of behavior and are not necessarily pathological, although certain ones may encourage social problems. Personality disorders are enduring, persistent behavior patterns severe enough to cause significant impairment in functioning as well as internal distress." If these traits "are not necessarily pathological" then why is so-called schizotypal personality called a disorder? Isn't this simply pathologizing? I just read another article about schizotypal. Here is the quote: " A personality disorder is an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates from the norm of the individual’s culture." It is boldly declared here that if it does not conform to the current social and cultural norms, even if those norms are in themselves toxic or lead to harmful behaviour such as addiction, competitiveness, narcissism, selfishness, social inequality, fear of others, and a huge deficit of compassion and empathy (all clear calling cards of contemporary North American and European society and culture), then it is a personality disorder. This becomes a mental health diagnosis, and even if you are not exactly ill, you are going to be stained and tarnished for life by social stigma, thanks to this so-called diagnosis. All because you are not considered a good fit. I took an online test the other day and it turns out that of five traits, I show perhaps one and a half, and according to this quiz you have to demonstrate all five traits in order to qualify as schizotypal. Which leaves me to wonder what my shrink, an old school Neo-Freudian with Adlerian tendencies must have been thinking when he diagnosed me. And the last couple of days, what was he thinking when he decided not to reveal to me, his patient, this, MY diagnosis? What was he thinking? Or, What! Was he thinking? I already know what led him to this diagnosis. I revealed to him some secrets of my heart, about my experience of spirituality. I believe that I have a living relationship with God, with the Divine. I do not believe that I have exclusive rights to my maker. I believe that we all have this access. Some are particularly aware and responsive to having this divine connection. Many are not. This does not make me an elite, nor anyone special. It makes me feel particularly fortunate. My life, my vision of life seems often illuminated and luminous with a sense of beauty, and connectedness to nature and to others. This is the reality that I live. I am not a creep about it. Even though I often feel as though I know others even if they are complete strangers, I take care not to cross normal boundaries. I do greet strangers on the sidewalk, in a friendly way, and this is because of this sense of connection. And people often respond very positively. I am not going to presume that we are sudden best friends or anything like that. This kind of perception is often considered suspect. It doesn't go with the norm. It doesn't generate competitiveness, and it has nothing to do with personal ambition or bucket lists. It is decidedly anti-capitalism. If you have this experience of spiritual beauty, love, and oneness with the universe and with other persons, then you are not going to help grow the economy. You must be sick. Especially living in a society and a psychiatric and mental health profession that is so decidedly atheist, and often way more concerned with imposing social conformity and social control instead of helping the individual to grow and heal and develop as a whole being.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 57

Yesterday my physician at the Three Bridges Clinic gave me a transcript of a letter from the endocrinologist who is currently attending me. I read it later, after I came home. A rather interesting bit of information, with a compendium of my diagnostic history from care providers in my past. Among other things was a surprise I had not been counting on. I was diagnosed with having a schizotypal personality. I am assuming that this is from the psychiatrist I was seeing from 2002 to 2006, a pivotal time in my life. Before I go on, here is some information I have just lifted from Psychology Today (In advance, let me apologize again, Gentle Reader, for the lack of formatting. Windows 10 screwed up royally in some areas and thanks to their beneficence, the ability to format on this website remains paralyzed : "Schizotypal personality disorder is a psychiatric condition marked by disturbed thoughts and behavior, unusual beliefs and fears, and difficulty with forming and maintaining relationships. Definition The word personality describes deeply ingrained patterns of behavior and the manner in which individuals think about themselves and their world. Personality traits are conspicuous features of behavior and are not necessarily pathological, although certain ones may encourage social problems. Personality disorders are enduring, persistent behavior patterns severe enough to cause significant impairment in functioning as well as internal distress. Schizotypal personality disorder is a pattern of social and interpersonal difficulties that includes a sense of discomfort with close relationships, eccentric behavior, and unusual thoughts and perceptions of reality. Speech may include digressions, odd use of words or display "magical thinking," such as a belief in clairvoyance and bizarre fantasies. Patients usually experience distorted thinking, behave strangely, and avoid intimacy. They typically have few, if any, close friends, and feel nervous around strangers although they may marry and maintain jobs. The disorder, which may appear more frequently in males, surfaces by early adulthood and can exacerbate anxiety and depression. Symptoms People with this disorder may be severely disturbed and might appear schizophrenic. More commonly, however, patient beliefs (aliens, witchcraft, possessing a "sixth sense") are stranger than their behavior, and may often keep them isolated from normal relationships. Hallucinations, however, are not a common symptom. Other symptoms include: Discomfort in social situations Odd beliefs, fantasies or preoccupations Odd behavior or appearance Odd speech Difficulty making/keeping friendships Inappropriate display of feelings Suspiciousness or paranoia Causes The cause of schizotypal personality disorder is unknown, but there is an increased incidence among relatives of those with the condition. Awareness of risk, such as a family history of schizophrenia, may allow early diagnosis. Treatments Schizotypal patients rarely initiate treatment for their disorder, tending to seek relief from depressive problems instead. Some people may be helped by antipsychotic medications, but therapy is preferable in many situations. Patients severely afflicted with the disorder may require hospitalization to provide therapy and improve socialization. Schizotypal personality disorder patients do not often demonstrate significant progress. Treatment should therefore help patients establish a satisfying solitary existence. The social consequences of serious mental disorders—those that affect a person's ability to function in social and occupational settings—can be calamitous. Comprehensive treatment is crucial to the alleviation of symptoms and finding a path toward recovery. Consumer self-help programs, family self-help, advocacy, and services for housing and vocational assistance complement and supplement the formal treatment system. Many of these services are operated by people who use mental health services themselves. The logic behind their leadership in delivery of these services is that those using the system might be especially effective in reaching out to those in need. Psychotherapy Behavioral modification, a cognitive-behavioral treatment approach, can allow schizotypal personality disorder patients to remedy some of their bizarre thoughts and behaviors. Recognizing abnormalities by watching videotapes and meeting with a therapist to improve speech habits are two effective methods of treatment. Prognosis The outcome varies with the severity of this typically chronic disorder." I have almost exhausted my five minutes on today's post, Gentle Reader, and tomorrow I plan to expand further on this topic. Led me conclude with this statement: No one at any time in my medical history ever informed me that I was diagnosed with this syndrome. In fact, until yesterday, I have never heard of it. I do believe that with the emphasis of pathology being placed on "Odd beliefs, fantasies or preoccupations; odd behaviour or appearance, etc., as opposed to actual dysfunctional behaviours, there is a valid concern here that this is a bogus mental health diagnosis that pathologizes the individual, promotes social conformity and social control, and exists simply to make the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, aka the Psychiatrists' Bible, yet bigger, fatter, heavier and more unwieldy. More tomorrow, Gentle Reader.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 56

There are so many obstacles to our moving forward. There are a lot of people who want to maintain the status quo. There are many others who are not really aware or informed about the conditions of our humanity. A lot of them simply don't want to know. Quite a few are too tired and worn out from the daily unforgiving grind of just having to survive in order to care. Others don't want to lose or share power, and they are the most despicable of a bad lot. I am thinking here of corporate and banking powerbrokers and the morally bankrupt politicians and governments they tend to endorse and support. We are living underneath the Sword of Damocles. It hangs by a rapidly fraying thread. Climate scientists say that we have but decades before the global conditions from climate change become so severe as to render large swathes of this planet uninhabitable to humans. We don't have a lot of time left and we have to start choosing very wisely. I see very few signs of hope. We have here in my own part of the world this ongoing quarrel between the government of my province (BC NDP) and the NDP premier of Alberta with the federal government on her side about constructing the Kinder Morgan Pipeline to open up another port of export to China for Canadian petroleum. No one who doesn`t live here seems to remember or care that this is a fossil fuel, the dangers of leaks and spills and environmental degradation are significant, and this is a fuel of planet death and the new emissions are just going to add to the carbon output into our air and help increase global warming, which is what is getting us into this predicament. But it`s all corporate greed drowned out by that popular conversation bomb hurled at random by rightwing politicians (and even by leftwing politicians when they want to get elected again, that shrill battle cry of "Jobs! Jobs!! Jobs!" similar to the infamous Auschwitz logo: "Work Makes You Free." Ignorance, genuine and intentional, is one of our greatest obstacles, along with the many powers whose vested interests are in keeping people ignorant. How do we educate people? How do we educate ourselves? What is it going to take for enough of us to begin to really understand and care enough? There are people moving forward, but nowhere near enough. There is something inherently sinister and destructive about this ethos of selfishness and competitiveness that our governments have opted for. Capitalism is not globally sustainable, and it is the galloping greed of our corporate masters that keeps getting in the way, as we are lured and threatened and tempted to remain trapped in this dance of consumerism, addiction and death. Knowledge and education empower us. Fear and greed make us weak.