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Saturday, November 26, 2011

I Want to Fix You

Nooooooooooo!  I scream, but you can't hear.  I am silently screaming when you arrive at the door of my dark place and say you want to help, help, I said help and fix me.  What will everyone do next?  Hope springs eternal that I will have an EpicEpiphany and realize that, Yes, you are here in the presence of darkness and you have the magic words, potion, idea...food.  Light will be just around THIS corner and the fresh, bright, clean, non-threatening air will fill my lungs once again.  Or, perhaps, You would have the GrandEpiphany and determine that this situation should really go one of two ways.  You should just follow Sheryl Crow's advice and if you want to reach me; just leave me alone;  Or, you could decide to know me instead of determining that you must fix me.

It's popular now, fixing things:  fixing people, brains, body parts,  did I say body parts?   I enjoy fixing many things myself, especially scraggly hair (!) and negative thought patterns, for example. So there! While you think I am doing nothing toward "fixing myself" I am in reality quite busy.  You know very well how "busy" it is in my head...I am even allowed to joke about the many people in there and their thoughts, needs, and desires. I am the one in charge of defining my own "crazy".  I love that job, especially because it allows me all the procrastination time I like, and it's new every day.  So the issue isn't that I am in denial that I need repairs done but that when you come to my dark place to visit me,  I wish you came to see me...know me - not fix me.

I do know that a walk would do me good.  I know that I feel better (((some times))) after I have gone out and visited with friends.  (((I know that Everytime I visit darling Grandson Number 2  I am always better, way better.)))  I know that I should eat food and... keep the routine.  I do appreciate all of that and most especially the food part - when you bring it or prepare it for me.  The other things which are too embarrassing to discuss but which are as crucial as food, those who know, know.  Those who don't but wish to know just need to ask their depressed loved one.  The dark place and everything which surrounds it is an extremely difficult place to be for the "well" person in this scenario.  I do feel horrible when I see that glazed-over blank stare from otherwise familiar eyes, when I'm trying to speak from my crazied but fantastic mind.... well...still I want to rant even though I feel badly for you.

The only other "fixing issue" I have is the one which comes after I'm trying to tell you something I think is important and you instantly answer that what I said was,  nonsensical and/or was in keeping with my "usual downward-spiral thought pattern".  I hate it when my own words are used "against me".  And I can't even win saying THAT.  (((Yet another piece of negativity evidence.)))  And yet it IS true.  Most times I can't express myself without someone correcting me...or including some missing piece of My puzzle.  It is indeed puzzling...which seems to add to my original communication problem.  Again, alas.

The "Fix You" song is popular in the mental health community...the reason is obvious.  I must admit, after every crazy, ranting, negative thing I've said... Coldplay could come over and fix me, I'm sure.





Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Thanksgiving and Native Americans


When I was growing up in Kansas, all the schools were named after Indian tribes.  I attended Cherokee Elementary where a large part of every year was occupied with studying the various tribes, wars, disputes...history.  I thought every child was studying these things but learned as an adult that I am unique in my knowledge about Native American history. It isn't...popular, to be sure.  I also lived in Arizona for four years and not only drove by a few reservations, but stayed with my little family on one for a weekend.  It was a fun, memorable and educational trip I hope some of my children will remember.

I became interested, anew, in the subject of the bigBad white man and the poor Native American man, woman and child after my conversion to Catholicism.  I suddenly needed to change my homeschooling curriculum to include history books which were Not anti-Catholic.  I learned about what Catholic missionaries did for the indigenous people they found here in America.  It was a different story than I had heard years before.  We're not in Kansas anymore.  Now, with Thanksgiving Eve upon us I am thinking of the poverty I saw on the reservations in Arizona.  I am secretly wishing I could just not eat food tomorrow and offer that teeny bit of hunger this small body experiences to God;  to show him the sorrow in my heart for these people.  But  The Family is on my "eating case" as it is - so silent prayers will have to do.

In 1621 the Plymouth folks and the Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts celebrated the first Thanksgiving.  The tribe folks were symbolically excluded from the table.

In 2007, 143 countries finally adopted The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  The United States was not one of them.

A 1990 study showed that Native Americans are "high" on the "assaultive" side of behavior problems and "lower" on the "depressive/suicidal" side of behavior problems.  It is said that this is because "they have clear, external sources to blame for their misery."  (((sounds like many people I know, actually))).

The National Relief Charities (NRC) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to help improve quality of life for Native Americans living on remote and poverty-stricken reservations in the United States.  One in four live in poverty.  The vast majority are not wealthy by virtue of gaming.  Geography is destiny, many say and I agree.  (((Being adopted I know very well this idea.)))  These citizens live where they were placed...by those who wanted them exterminated as a people.

"To be poor is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships."
- W.E.B. Du Bois


Have a very blessed Thanksgiving and remember the poor.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Coming Clean and Family Support

My most favoritefavorite crazy writer is Natasha Tracy, whom you know if you are not a first time reader of the Rant.  I am merely poser-writer  and find myself stealing many of Natasha's great lines.  Happy to follow her train...goin' along for the ride, her ride, so-to-speak, makes me feel like I'm moving forward in my own struggle to put order in my brain.  She wrote recently about mental illness words you cannot say - found here.  I have been thinking about how important words are more and more, realizing anew that we don't have to be bound by another's "definition" of - whatever craziness we may suffer.  I've been pleasantly surprised lately with my own family's openness to talk about what has been "ailing" me.  Maybe it's the crazy blog, maybe it's my own willingness this year to come clean with "the diagnosis".  Anyway it is no surprise that my family wishes to think I'm not as "crazy" as I think.  Who wants to "live with" crazy mom, aunt, friend?

I wish I were not as crazy as I think.  HolyMoly, my dear father-in-law would say.  Who wants to read definitions from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and find that your Shrink isn't as crazy as You think - but you Do say yes to every symptom of a.....disorder?  Who wants to ruminate/deny/ponder/obsess/ignore/accept/tell/don't tell about a...Mental disorder?  Not me, bucko, but I think I am and I do do and think all the crazy things that I shouldn't do and think.

Sigh.


The DSM (published by the American Psychiatric Association)  first appeared in 1952 with revisions made until 1994.  A new revised edition is due in May of 2013.  The manual is supposed to provide common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders for hospitals, clinics, insurance companies and for research.  In the beginning census statistics and help for the returning WWII soldier were the goals...now the accusation by some is that the manual exists just so Shrinks may make more money.  (((bummer.)))  My accusation would be that Shrinks want to be "politically correct" and maybe it is about money.  (((more than a bummer.)))

It doesn't matter to me if the name or symptoms of Clinical Depression were revised to become something new, or more detailed.  I don't care if the new 2013 version describes my every thought process, all my crazy words, ideas and actions....and declares me a perfect Lunatic.  Who cares at this point?  I didn't jump off the Bay Bridge (again, this time) and no longer think about it.  Again I have slowly clawed my way out of the dark place and see that light I mentioned in DERAILED seen here.  But THIS time I found myself flying out towards "the end" because I have found the family support I have heard so much about and have coveted for years.  This crash and return has been a unique one to be sure.  And some people I know now have a hope that (((sit for it))) I may never crash again. 


I must admit that discovering THIS as I clawed out was a beautiful thing, so in keeping with my innate "motherliness," (((and believing that water and music heals)))  I give you every good thing:









Friday, November 11, 2011

Perfect Contrition?

When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth? 
Luke 18:8

"No."  That was the answer I received one Saturday afternoon in The Box.  Once again I found myself using tissue during Confession.  I always hate when this happens....is this a Convert thing or what?  I hate leaving the box puffy, red-eyed...sniffling, sniveling. ugh.  I lovelovelove The Box, I just hate, as always, that other people are on the earth at the moment I exit.  So the "No" came when I asked if one can arrive at Perfect Contrition while on the earth.  I soon learned that Father was concerned that I was adopting a:  just confess it to God-mindset... a Protestant mindset.  After we both "understood" one another we did discuss "the contritions".  The reason why I ended up crying - you know I will not reveal - but I left convinced that I would investigate this question further.

My beloved CCC says:


Contrition is "sorrow of the soul and detestation for the sin committed, together with the resolution not to sin again." (CCC 1451)


When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called "perfect" (contrition of charity).  Such contrition remits venial sins; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have reourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible." (CCC 1452) 


When I heard Father's "no", I felt as I did once, long ago, during a bad acid trip.  Hallucination/fairy tale/fantasy land feelings instantly began swarming my brain.  Multi-tasking as usual, I continued my good confession while reelin' in the years in my poor overworked mind.  I remembered that even a "habit of contrition" rarely leads one to "perfection" - it is found with grave difficulty.  I also recalled a sermon of Luis of Granada called,  Contrition and Satisfaction.  He said that contrition freed man not only from the guilt, but the weight of and pain of sin.  He used my patron,  St. Mary Magdalene as his example.  I thought of a novena to St. Anthony of Padua when we pray:  give us perfect contrition.  Now I am thinking about our modern discussions which seem to always disintegrate into a Purgatory debate... Alas.  Or in some circles a discussion about St. Thomas Aquinas and the "Baptism of Desire".  Alas, again.


So, what to do now is the question.  I think I'll take a look at this:




I must be one of the most thankful Converts in town. 







Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Misunderstood Conversions

When I converted in 1995 and entered the Catholic Church, there were many and varied reactions, but my favorite came from a dear friend, Barbara.  Barbara had left the Church some years earlier and very quickly said,  "People convert and go INTO the Catholic Church?"  I was stunned (((yet snickered))),  and soon learned that the path to God as a convert would be no easy climb.  In these sixteen years I have met dozens of converts with similar stories....the majority of "us" have experienced the "misunderstood conversion".


The "why" of the Catholic Convert is another attempt to brainstorm a stormy mind, so for now I am thinking of "how" the (((hopefully))) poor convert is so often met with raised eyebrows and suspected motives.  Our family and friends love to let their own imaginations spin as to how anyone would want to be "under the ball-and-chain of the CC" (((and a Pope!))).  It seems to be innately reactionary to try to disprove the Convert's "conversion story"....because if at least some of the points the Convert makes can be shown to be in error then the "Job's Helper" make walk away unaffected.  For the avoider-of-confrontation, all is well.

It is surprising how many Convert friends have described family/friend debates about what the Catholic Church believes and teaches.  Without fail the descriptions are faulty, at best, and completely off the mark most times.  I have recently been studying Pope Leo XIII's Letter:  Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae found here  and I do think many of our problems in understanding and communicating our Catholic faith is our own fault to begin with.  I am loving all the new young priests I have met throughout these glory days in the Church who love Sacred Scripture and know how to "preach" the Word of God.  The Catholic in the pew is learning how to share and defend his faith like never before, thanks to our good priests (((Jesuits too!))).

So we find ourselves with family and friends loss, and divisions creep in almost without anyone noticing.  What is clearly noticed is that relationships change.  Like the negative downward spiral one who suffers from depression experiences and fights off,  the stigma of the "conversion" often colors our loved ones' present and future acceptance of all of our life's decisions and choices.  A negative downward spiral does occur when we should be humbly walking together with our God. (((I, for one, wish to fight this off as much as I fight the daily MDD.)))  It seems basic human respect is the missing puzzle piece.  I'm watching for it.

I think it is profitable to "look back" and remember the "whys and hows" of loss in my own family and with old friends.  The "why" of that is only because I hope to learn from my many past relationship "mistakes"... after all, everyone loves the old granny knitting in her rocking chair, right?  


Next week:  How to Become Sweet, Kind, Lovable Knitting Granny 101

Friday, November 4, 2011

Natasha Tracy - bipolarburble

I found Natasha Tracy here, at:  Inside My Bipolar Brain 10/06 by HealthyPlace Radio | Blog Talk Radio - completely by accident.  I thought I would broaden my Crazy Research Project and find out what bipolar people had to say about their depression.  Lately I have found myself remembering this short, 15 -minute interview often, and even quoting Natasha when I'm trying to explain my state of mind to loved ones.

If you or anyone you love is suffering from depression, this is an invaluable way to spend fifteen of an hour.

You may also find Natasha here

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Facebook Apostolate


What a waste of time.
Do you ever talk to real people?
Ridiculous.
Do you realize the privacy issues?
You should get out of the house more.
I can't believe the people you accept as friends.
You could be doing so much more.


I hate writing this blog.  I hate Facebook (((love/hate issue))) and I hate that I care about what people think of my little "Facebook Apostolate".  I hate the debates there, the ugliness, the name-calling, the insults, the threats, the stalkers/spammers/lurkers/over-sexedyoung'uns. Today I'm just.... hatin....i guess.

I almost forgot the most important complaint:

I don't like all the suicide crap.


So, instead of ranting about Everything else, I am actually going to address the suicidal Facebook friend.

He told me the first time that he had suicidal thoughts...too.
He said he felt lonely.  All. Alone.
Later he told me he had tried to commit suicide.  A few times.
Then She told me her brother jumped from the very bridge I had mentioned
wanting to jump from...
She thanked me for posting the Suicide Hotline Number
every Friday and Saturday night.
with a suicide song.
He came back into my Facebook world some time later
very foul and angry.
Now, somehow (((we know how)))
the young "child" He
is her very dear friend.

So, don't cry for me, Argentina.  It is not me, at the moment, who is the cause of my suicidal concern.  "They" who cause the tears to still flow and the prayers to come and leave in constant succession (((and who "cause" the "crazy" posts and blogs))), are a part of my heart. "They" cannot be banished be there Facebook or not.  As there is a reason and a good which comes from suffering, that good often includes dwelling with those who suffer and are grieving.  

Somehow I found myself suffering with those who suffer on Facebook.  So in keeping with the bizarreness of it all, I give you the lovely and controversial Sinead.  Enjoy.


Wednesday, November 2, 2011

All Soul's Day


Prayer for Souls in Purgatory

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory,

for sinners everywhere,

for sinners in the Universal Church,

those in my own home and within my family.  Amen.


O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful:

grant to the souls of Thy servants and handmaidens the remission of all their sins:

that through pious supplications, they may obtain the pardon

which they have always desired:

Who livest and reignest.