#Helpless & Hopeless

[frizzy-hoot]

Neuroessentialism and mental health

Hi!

Time for a little rant about neuroessentialism.

The aim of this post is to provide the opportunity to be conscious of the things that influence us when it comes the way we think about mental health and to challenge stigma around mental health.

First off, I’m not a doctor and the information here cannot serve as medical advice. Always consult your doctor before changing your medication or treatment approach.

Secondly, a lot of the information I present here is elaborated on and further discussed in an episode of the Psychiatry and psychotherapy podcast called “Free will in psychotherapy and psychiatry Part 3” and while I will link to as many things as I can, you can also find a lot of the source material on the website for the podcast. https://www.psychiatrypodcast.com/psychiatry-psychotherapy-podcast/2020/7/22/free-will-in-psychiatry-amp-psychotherapy-part-3

So, I see a lot of people talking about mental health on here through a neuroessentialist perspective in memes or text format and I don’t think they’re aware of it so. I’d like to talk a bit about it.

First, I’ll offer a definition of neuroessentialism:

" Neuroessentialism is the view that the definitive way to explain human psychological experience is by reference to the brain and its activity from chemical, biological and neuroscientific perspectives. For instance, if someone is experiencing depression a neuroessentialistic perspective would claim that he or she is experiencing depression because his or her brain is functioning in a certain way.” - Schultz, W. (2018)

I see people talk about, for example, depression in this way often: in memes when people say "I have a literal neurotransmitter deficiency, Karen." or " God forgot to add serotonin when he made me".

Now, why can this be problematic?

Before I get into the issues with this perspective, I will first acknowledge that one of the reasons this view has become so prominent lately is because it aims to reduce stigma around mental health issues.

In the podcast episode mentioned above they point out that “Efforts to reduce stigma should be praised, but they should also be critically analyzed to determine if they meet their goal.”

And that’s the thing neuroessentialism, while aiming to reduce stigma and shame it only does so short term and ends up contributing to stigmatizing attitudes about mental health.

I want to say that it's great to see people fight back when it comes to stigma around mental health. That's what I see people do in these memes. But the effects of neuroessentialist perspectives end up othering people; making them inherently “bad”, “defect” or “helpless”.

Here the deterministic aspect of neuroessentialism comes up - it tells us that there’s something wrong with our brain that we can’t change. It alienates people because it chips away at their and our belief in their ability to change. If you believe that someone's mental issues are rooted exclusively in brain biology, you're less likely to believe that they can control their behavior and so it is less worth the effort of getting them better. This brings about more stigma.

Another thing that’s important to talk about is how neuroessentialism is an extremely simplistic perspective on mental health. And that’s also one of the reasons it has become so big- because it offers a simple explanation to very complicated illnesses.

Here, I want to add a quote by Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Dr. David Puder:

“There are prominent theories out there that we know just aren’t true anymore and that get propagated because they are simplistic ways of explaining things; for example, depression is because you have low serotonin in your brain. That’s just not true. It’s a whole lot more complicated than that.

You could probably show 20 or 30 things that are going on in the brain during depression. Inflammation. Like initially I thought ‘oh depression is inflammation!’

Well, it turns out not all depression has inflammation. Maybe, only one third [of patients with depression] have inflammation markers in the brain.”

We have been looking to neuroscience for an explanation when it comes to mental health and been satisfied with the idea of a simple "chemical imbalance" but truth is that there are many more neurotransmitters which significantly affect our brains when we talk about depression – it’s so far from just serotonin.

Another example of how neuroessentialim can oversimplify mental health is with brain scans. So, in the podcast episode mentioned above, Dr. Puder talks about how he was really interested in emotions and especially studying anger and he was looking at all this research on the different areas in the brain involved in anger. After a while, he says, he began to understand that it’s really complex and you can’t just point at one area and say that’s the area that’s involved in the emotion anger. There are several areas involved in just that one emotion and different studies show different things.

The truth is that the manifestation of mental illness in the body is a very new area of research and we haven’t found physical manifestations for most mental illnesses and the important thing to note here is that despite this we still do have ways of treating all of them.

Alright, all this can seem quite removed from us so how does neuroessentialsim affect us?

In the episode the guest star, Mathew Hagele, further discusses the article which provided the definition on neuroessentialism above: “Shultz looked at studies investigating how patients viewed their own prognosis and later the same with professionals.

The study found that biochemical or genetic attribution scores were a significant predictor of longer expected symptoms duration and lower perceived odds of recovery.” (Lebowitz et al., 2013, p. 523).

Now, this means that the more a patient attributes symptoms of their psychopathology to genetic (inherited disorderes) or biochemical (serotonin deficiency for example) factors, the longer they expected to struggle with their disorder and the smaller the belief that they can recover.

If a person doesn’t believe they can be helped or get better they’re a lot less likely to try and a lot more likely to feel scared and hopeless.

The other side of this coin is the effect the neuroessentialist narrative has on clinicians which Matthew Haegel dives into in the next part of the quote:

“Another study shows that clinicians believe psychotherapy to be less effective when shown biological descriptions of mental health pathologies...

They took a couple different disorders that these clinicians were looking at and one group had a biological explanation and the other did not- had a different type of explanation. And [in] the results that were across disorders, the biological explanation yielded significantly less empathy than the psychosocial explanation. They also did some additional analysis and they found that biological explanations yielded less empathy than the psychosocial explanations among both MD’s and non-MD’s…..”( Lebowitz, M. S., & Ahn, W. K. (2014). )

So, in these studies we see that a neuroessentialist perspective lowers empathy for the patient in medical health professionals and people who weren’t medical health professionals.

Okay, so how does this perception of the patient’s illness affect the patient’s treatment?

I’ll start with a quote where Hagele elaborates further:

“…and finally, that clinicians perceive psychotherapy to be significantly less effective when symptoms were explained biologically than psychologically…[ Lebowitz, M. S., & Ahn, W. K. (2014). ]

basically, linking the idea that the diminished importance of psychotherapy among mental health professionals ascribing to the concept of neuroessentialism is doubly harmful when considering the multiple contexts in which psychotherapy matches or outperforms pharmaceutical interventions.”

What Hagele points out here is the way neuroessentialism can lead to a less effective and ethical treatment of mental illness. It makes us approach an issue in one manner only- fix the brain, fix the behavior. But sometimes what can treat he issue in the brain is, working on the behavior. This can be talked about in terms of meds vs. psychotherapy.

So, seeing mental health from a neuroessentialist perspective, completely excludes the effects of psychotherapy. A classic example is CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) in which we have “Cognitive restructuring”: a psychotherapeutic process in which a person learns to recognize maladaptive or distressing thoughts and teaches their brain to consider other perspectives or different thought pattern. This is an example of “work on behaviour to better brain” rather than “working on brain will fix behavior”. According to strict neuroessentialism therapy shouldn’t work as well as it does but there is a really big body of science backing psychotherapeutic intervention and its efficacy compared to psychopharmacological intervention.

I feel I should address the discussion of Meds vs. therapy before I continue, (it is a whole topic worthy of a post on its own) but to be brief, they work best together and if you’re weighing one against the other psychotherapy has more long-term effects and barely any side effects compared to medication. There are other factor affecting what would be the most effective treatment approach that further nuances this discussion.

Now this is all a pretty big picture but how is this seen every day?

Well, its seen in the downplaying of the importance of therapy. Often, I see this as people normalize behavior where they kind of devalue the importance therapy or put off working on their issues in therapy with the excuse that it’s only for “crazy” people or not something worth the effort.

Therapy then increasingly is seen as this unimportant, extra thing rather than, in most cases, the most effective and safe treatment. And the less crucial therapy is considered, the less accessible it’s going to be – in the U.S. it can often be easier to get your insurance company to cover for a doctors visits where the treatment would be for your GP to prescribe you an antidepressant than an inpatient or outpatient treatment with a mental health professional.

Another point I wanna put out there is that that neuroessentialist narrative is incentivized by pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Puder talks about his own experience in the podcast episode and makes sure to stress that practitioners are humans too and will of course be biased towards something if that something writes them a check or pays some of their expenses. In the episode they discuss a way in which we have seen the neuroessentialist narrative progress:

“Second, there is evidence that the significant increase in direct-to consumer (DTC) advertising for antidepressants is related to rising prescription rates (Park & Grow, 2008). Such advertisements portray depression as a biological medical condition that can successfully be treated with medicine (Lacasse & Leo, 2005; Leo & Lacasse, 2008)” (613).

Now, medicine is an important tool in psychiatry and there is a lot of unnecessary stigma around medication for mental health conditions. I am under no circumstances arguing that medication is bad and therapy is the only right way to treat mental illness. That would be an extreme simplification and invalidation of human experiences. I also wanna acknowledge that being able to go to therapy in many places in the world is a matter of privilege. Therapy simply isn’t accessible for everyone and people can choose an “only medication approach” for many valid reasons. And if that’s the only treatment that was accessible to you I’m really proud of you for taking care of yourself and doing what you can.

If your doctor has prescribed you a medication please take it and know that the purpose is to help you and that you are worthy of help and good health care. The situation where I would suggest to be a tad critical is when people come in with disorders and issues that they have dealt with for years and most of their life and they are just prescribed an antidepressant and sent home. That simply isn’t effective and ethical care. In that case it is worth investigating getting access to a mental health practitioner as well as continuing with medicinal treatment.

I could talk about this for hours but the last thing I wanna get across is that this is a societal problem. I don’t suggest we turn away from pharmaceutical intervention which saves thousands of lives and helps people get better, rather that we work to make psychotherapy (which can be and is crucial for long term remission and recovery) more accessible for when it’s appropriate.

When your doctor tells you that this invisible illness is because of your biology most people feel validated and experience less shame. The fact that people feel like they need to have a tracible biological “anomaly” in their brains to be worthy of treatment and care speaks to an invalidation that many feel. But the issue here is that we're taught to invalidate invisible illness in society which in the end makes people delay critical treatment or blocks access to ethical and effective care.

We also have to acknowledge that with the technology we have now we are not able to know whether all mental illness manifests in the brain in a way we can see so hinging our worthiness of help and care on the definition is in the end harmful.

TL;DR

" Neuroessentialism is the view that the definitive way to explain human psychological experience is by reference to the brain and its activity from chemical, biological and neuroscientific perspectives. For instance, if someone is experiencing depression a neuroessentialistic perspective would claim that he or she is experiencing depression because his or her brain is functioning in a certain way.” - Schultz, W. (2018)

Neuroessentilism can validate a patient and bring relief of shame short term but ends up contributing to stigmatizing attitudes and thus doesn’t help reduce stigma overall.

The neuroessentialist narrative can downplay the efficacy and criticalness of psychotherapeutic intervention

Neuroessentialist perspectives foster lower empathy levels for patients in medical providers and non-providers alike.

Neuroessentialist perspectives of a patient significantly increases levels of prognostic pessimism which leads to worse treatment outcomes

Neuroessentialism arose because of a real invalidation people feel around their mental health and it is a societal issue we need to work on

We can combat neuroessentialism and stigma by working to make psychotherapy more accessible and talking about our experiences openly as well as giving each other kindness and empathy.

[thejosh1980]

(Seems like) Years since yesterday...

Today, 1 year ago, is a special day...

One year ago today was the last time I bought myself a new guitar... I always wanted a Guild, and as I had been touring a lot with The Cashbags I figured I could now afford it. It's blonde, with P90s and as close as I could get to one of my idols, Dave G from The Paladins.

I bought it second hand via “Ebay Kleinanzeigen”, right before a show with The Cashbags. The guy came to the venue, before sound check and I tried it out. I was in love... I bought it there and then...

I played it that night at The Cashbags show too. This was the only show I played my own guitar during all my years touring with the band. Usually I would use the band gear, as it best suited the look the band wanted (and it was easy for me, I didn't have to carry my guitar and amp to and from shows)...

It's also the only show I have so far played with this guitar...

Why?

Well that's cause of that damn pandemic.

You see, that show in Langenselbold was to become the last one The Cashbags would play with me...

I knew I was leaving the band at the end of the tour, which was at the end of April, but COVID had a different plan. It's kinda hard to explain how it felt driving to the show, a good 6 hours, with 1 or 2 date cancellations happening along the way... However, by the the next morning hotel breakfast, the rest of the tour was cancelled.

We lost 6 solid weeks of shows...

But how naive I was. I thought we'd be back at it pretty soon; dates rescheduled, last minute shows would be booked... you know the deal. But in the end, I didn't share the stage with the band again, I didn't get to say goodbye to half the band members before leaving Germany either.

Alex and I had only been married 10 days when restrictions started to begin in Germany. The full lockdown was a week or two later, wasn't it? I don't know, it's all a bit of a blur.

I was lucky, at the time, I had my studio which was all mine, so I could get out of the apartment, walk the dog and play guitar, loud... The new guitar got some action, behind closed doors of course.

You know the story, we started selling up, packing up and, eventually, moved down under...

It feels surreal to think how, at the time, we had no idea how this was going to affect us. It's quite clear the pandemic has brought out the best (and worst) in people.

I think for me, during my time in Dresden's restrictions, everything felt, well, OK. It didn't feel too bad, but I had a lot to focus on. The “goodbyes” to everyone was the hardest thing. I don't remember being under the weather, depressed or sick. I may have been, but whatever negative thoughts and feelings there were, they weren't strong during that time.

I was lucky to be one of the earlier guests on the Blue Note live stream in March, which encouraged me to do my own live streams in April and May. As unprepared as I was to learn so many new songs, it was a good focus, until it got too much.

In July we had “The Josh Fest” which was too much for my emotions. Dresden, I feel the love. I'm so thankful (and lucky) so many friends could come out for one last party. Reuniting old bands, new bands and old friends on stage, it'll go down as one of the best shows in my life. One that ended with me in tears...

When we had the first cancelled flight and rescheduled flights in mid July, I don't remember feeling too bad about it all either. I didn't like it, but our delay was only a week or two. And we had a roof over our head and Alex's family there to support us.

But once the 3rd or 4th rescheduled flight happened it started to get scary and worrying. I remember some really bad days in Meine. I had lost all hope of getting home. We were in limbo, and had little control over the situation. Our health insurances had expired, we were no longer registered in Germany and were worried constantly if the next flight would let us on. So many last minute cancellations, wears one down. I spent quite a bit of my time frustrated, depressed and helpless during those 2 months.

Once we took control, used some savings and bought ourselves new flights, we made it to Adelaide. I definitely felt better by taking action. However, another set of challenges arise, quarantine isn't fun. We were lucky with our hotel, room and food, but it's still tough... Very tough... And I sympathize with everyone who's had to go through it, especially those who are doing it under hardship.

In late September we made it mum's. We finally made it... I'd been waiting for this moment for a year (longer than originally planned of course). I made the decision to move in September/October 2019. I had achieved a lot in Europe, so many amazing adventures (good and challening) that I'll have enough memories to last a life time (if I can remember them!).

I wanted to come back and take care of my family.

When we arrived at mum's, it hit me... I was back! I didn't feel the excitement I thought I would. I felt bad for Mum. Like, shouldn't I have been crying? Shouldn't I have been screaming! “I'm baaaaaaack!!!” In the end I think it was just relief... We'd arrived almost 3 months later than expected. We needed to settle in.

I think settling in took a while. Is it still happening? Even the smell of the fresh salt air knocks you out! Lots of new things to get used to. Integration had begun. Usually I returned home for a holiday, now it was a return for good. This is a full time permanent position.

I did enjoy October through to January. Alex wasn't working, we had time to do stuff, relax... Enjoy the local scene. I don't surf every day, but definitely as often as conditions allow. I did some work, which I previously blogged about. Alex started working in December, and she loves her job... Things were pretty good...

I was, I still am, trying to get over saying goodbye to my puppy, my friends and wondering why I had little motivation to pick up the guitar...

In mid January Mijo, my little kitten, came into my life. Thanks to my wonderful wife, she knew full well I wouldn't decide to get a pet on my own, and on the responsibility to bring some fur into our lives. Damn I'm lucky.

In fact, Alex's intuition is amazing... She always seems to know know when to ask questions, when to listen, when to take action and when to bring coffee. Bless her cotton socks...

However come February I'd hit the wall. I don't know what it is, what it was.... But it's been a little while coming, and hasn't gone away. It did leave me in bed for 3 days, and don't ask me the reason, cause I can't tell you.

I've had a lot of motivation issues... I just don't feel like getting up... I have to, because I gotta drive mum to work and pick her up. Once back home, usually I drink coffee and force myself to do something, anything... I've used the excuse of “training Mijo” that I visit friends with him, but really my heart hasn't been in it. I just know I'd feel guilty if I didn't do anything...

I've had a lot of paperwork to fill out since getting home. Bank accounts and all that kind of stuff... Alex's visa (which is still on going for another 18 months or so). Also local government bureaucratic stuff I have to deal with. Taxes! I'm planning to start studying in April, but to enroll the process comes with a lot of documentation, questions and answers...

So... Lately...

I have distanced myself from everyone lately. Except for a few moments, I haven't picked up the guitar in almost 12 months. I barely do anything. Writing this blog today, has taken a lot of energy and focus to start. If it wasn't for the “anniversary” today, I wouldn't have even begun to type.

To help you understand the hole I was (and still am) in... I have been blessed with a roof over my head, food every day, a loving wife, a beautiful kitten, a loving mum (and family and friends), the beach, the sounds of birds waking me up and (mostly) great weather... But I'm still unhappy...

How could that be? Why is that?

I know I wrote a few times before, that writing has helped me process my feelings. So I figured I'd better try it. Practice what I preach!... But don't ask me how I feel, I just don't know... and it can change in a heart beat.

I got out of bed today, and I did some office work... First time in over a week... Stuff I've been putting off... I'll need to make a few calls this afternoon too... But in between I think I'll rest... Relax...

Usually, I push myself too much... I have pushed myself to the edge (again)... I've been feeling desperate, unmotivated, hopeless, helpless and, well, just plain shit... I know I gotta get out of it, but these days I'm trying a new approach: pull back, relax, rethink, rest and figure out the right balance... So far I am somewhere in the middle....

At least I think I feel better than when I was constantly powering through and not acknowledging my feelings.

I'm my worst critic, and I feel guilty if I don't “do” every day... I gotta “do” this or that... But sometimes you gotta take care of yourself... That is also a “do”... isn't it? Self care. Self love. Listening to your body.

So it's been one of the roughest years in a long time for us... hasn't it??

Damn...

Please don't do what I do and ignore the stress and pressure... What I mean is, there's been so many new things for all of us, so many new challenges, we forget how far we've come. We forget we are still here.

We have achieved so much, even if it's the fact we got out of bed today!!!

We need to be kind to each other, but more importantly to ourselves. I wouldn't treat my pet, my friends or my family as badly as I do myself, so why am I doing that?? It's gotta stop.

I gotta listen to myself when I don't feel up to it, and forgive myself for putting myself first... Rest... Reflection... Relaxing... Recuperation... Maybe then I can begin the next chore... Like filling out this damn paperwork just to get into college...

https://youtu.be/-rkq9ffBpWY - The Paladins - Years Since Yesterday

Thanks for reading,

Josh

[stereostevie]

LaKeith Stanfield Settles Into His Toughest Role Yet: Himself

As he heads towards his thirties, the electrifying actor is laying himself bare — and finding a new sense of balance

by Tirhakah Love Feb 12

For nearly a decade, LaKeith Stanfield has used his screen time reveling in the bizarreness of America’s racial consciousness. Whether Atlanta’s quippy street mystic Darius, or the code-switching sardonics of Cassius in Sorry to Bother You, his characters have always seemed to be in on the joke — and in his latest, Judas and the Black Messiah, Stanfield is closer to the secret than ever before.

Shaka King’s film, which chronicles the final days of Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) through the sullen eyes of FBI informant William O’Neal (Stanfield), finds the actor in his darkest, most nuanced rendition of the Black saboteur to date. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” the 29-year-old said over a Zoom call last week, “I just really wanted to make sure I was getting it right. But then also not getting it too right, if that makes sense.”

Stanfield has built a name on playing conflicted characters, but a figure with as much baggage as O’Neal — who was forced into his own role while still a teenager — demanded what he calls a “necessary nuance,” one that became, at times, overwhelming. The film set became not just a vision of radical Black politics, but a space for Stanfield to process his own upbringing in order to be a more “realized, holistic” person. LEVEL spoke with the actor about how playing O’Neal helped illuminate his path toward a healthier decade that included both therapy and meditation, heading into his thirties.

LEVEL: Judas and the Black Messiah was supposed to drop in August, but 2020 had other plans. How does it feel to know it’s coming out?

LaKeith Stanfield: I’m excited. I want people to learn about Chairman Fred Hampton’s story. It’s something that’s not spoken about enough. Everything has been such a question mark with this pandemic — not knowing how it was going to come out, or whether it would come out, period. So here we are with Black History Month, this story of Chairman Fred Hampton, and everybody gets to experience this in the most honest way we could put it in. I’m really happy. I’m going to host a screening at my house and just invite everybody… who’s been tested. [Laughs]

By my count, this is the second role that Daniel swiped from under your nose. Didn’t he get you for Get Out, too?

That’s right. You know what, for Get Out I auditioned for like every role. I came in and I read with Jordan Peele. And then I read for another — I think it was Rel’s role — and ended up eventually reading for my role. Damn, I forgot all about that.

How can we keep being friends with a dude who just steals roles from you, bro?

Nah, it’s all good. [Laughs] Ultimately, those decisions are made by people who have a better understanding about casting and their relation to the story than I do. If they’d asked me to play a hat in this movie, I would’ve done it.

It doesn’t seem like a Hollywood thing to do at all.

Hollywood is not always behind things like this. It took years to get it to the point where we could actually make it. These are stories people are yearning for. We have to always prove that time and time again, unfortunately, but it is what it is. We show and prove these kinds of stories are human stories. They’re specific to the Black experience, but it’s global. We hope that we can get these studios to understand that more and more.

How did you relate to [William O’Neal’s] isolation and paranoia he lived with? How did you tap into that?

I didn’t see him as someone I could connect to, so we started to design the character from the inside out. The thing is, we don’t have any information about O’Neal outside of his Eyes on the Prize interview, a couple of court transcripts, and other eyewitness accounts. We could create him from scratch and give him different dimensions. I wanted to introduce how he might be a thrill-seeker. He might get fun out of creating imbalance. He steals cars — he wasn’t very afraid to put himself in a line of fire — but he was also a person who eventually felt guilty about what he did. In the full-length version of his Eyes on the Prize interview, he says at one point, “I felt bad about the things I did, but I had to continue to play the role.” He contradicts that later by saying, “I’ll let history speak for me.” Clearly this guy has an internal struggle that we missed.

Wearing all these different masks.

In the scene where I had to poison him, a lot of it didn’t end up making it to the final cut, but we shot [me mixing it in] Kool-Aid, and I had to go through all those motions. With somebody like Daniel, who I just respect as a human and an artist, as Fred Hampton, it felt like I was actually poisoning Chairman Fred Hampton. One thing [co-star] Dominique Fishback mentioned to me is that your body doesn’t always differentiate the experience from your imagination. So sometimes your body thinks that’s real, everything you’re putting it through. It’s no wonder I’ve been feeling so stressed out and having panic attacks. I realized going forward before I step into something like that again, maybe have a therapist. [Laughs]

“There’s a dynamic between celebrity and the common man that Covid-19 has really lifted the veil on. We all gotta wear our masks or we suffer the same fate. You’re not special.”

For Black people playing an op it’s different. There’s real pressure. Especially for a character who’s never been portrayed.

That’s how I felt when I first figured out I found out who he was. But you don’t go into something like this not knowing that’s going to be the case. I hope I was able to portray him in a way that made people see themselves in the character. What decisions would you have made? Were you trying to go to jail for five to 10 years? Would you try to stay out? What does that mean? Those are the more important questions. Let’s say there’s a million people in the world: two of them are Fred Hamptons; the rest are William O’Neal. I want to challenge people to think about the ways they might be O’Neal-esque. And maybe through seeing this, you might distance yourself from some of those things.

If the pandemic has revealed anything, it’s the disconnect between the celebrity class and everyone else. People like Hampton and [Bobby] Seale are trying to do cultural work. We’re seeing that there’s disconnects here. How does a film like this impact your view of celebrity?

These roles are metaphors for so many things. Chairman Fred Hampton as a metaphor for socialism, selflessness, and O’Neal could be argued to be a metaphor for capitalism and selfishness, or perceived celebrity ego. There’s a dynamic between celebrity and the common man that exists, which Covid-19 has really lifted the veil on to a significant degree because we all sit in here on Zoom, right? [Laughs] We all gotta wear our masks or we suffer the same fate. You’re not special. This made everybody have to sit down and confront that idea.

[Laughs] Right.

One could argue that the fact that Fred Hampton died at a young age is justification as to why you shouldn’t try and put things outside yourself for the greater good, because it ends up being helpless and hopeless. I don’t agree with that. I think that Chairman Fred Hampton’s legacy lives on, like he said, “you can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill a revolution.” I remember being in that scene where Daniel was giving a speech, and I’m thinking, the things that Chairman Fred did all those years ago, today we are here experiencing this moment collectively because of him. While I’m doing this, I’m looking into the audience, seeing Afros, seeing Black people, seeing the beauty and the confidence and love, I don’t really even see that these days. So he zapped me back into a time where this is what people were on. We gotta find that in ourselves again and unlock it

You have a great way of playing chaos agents. Whether it’s a muted performance in Atlanta or muted in a different way in Uncut Gems, where your character was always on the fucking edge. Why do those roles as subversive figures speak to you?

I haven’t really thought about it but I know one thing’s for sure: I tend to lean toward characters who have internal dialogue or struggle. I like trying to find some groundedness and truth in the in-between of two extremes. These characters appeal to me on a subconscious level because that’s how I am. I like taking things to crazy extremes and then trying to find some kind of balance in that. I’m also attracted to characters being able to show the mirror to you and have you see something that activates something in you. Those characters that have you see yourself through absurdity.

You mentioned earlier how young these dudes were. Fred Hampton was 21 years old when he was killed. If he made 24, 25, I’m wondering how much more he could have gotten done. Being Black, we make it to 25, it’s a thing. You’re now about to make it to 30. How’s it hitting you? Do you think about age at all like that?

Not really. Not really, but to some extent, this is a landmark moment for me. I feel like I’m just starting to really get my shit together, like personally. And be the better version of myself for myself. I just started therapy just this year.

Yo, congrats.

Thanks man. Going into my thirties, I plan to continue to do it. It’s been helpful for me to unpack a lot of stuff. I’ve been through a lot of stuff, there’s a lot of things I just didn’t confront. Those things mount; you act out in different ways and they can become harmful to you. So I just said this year, I’m going to make the choice to try and be better. Like I was always throwing off therapy. I never wanted to try it. I was like, whatever. It was just something that’s bad in my family. Growing up, everyone’s like, “therapy, what the fuck are talking about?”

So I wanna continue working on that — working on myself and finding a better sense of balance, and by virtue of doing that, unlock more potential in my heart. And I’ll be able to express in a more realized, whole holistic way. Those are my ambitions moving forward.

There’s always a moment where you just know that you need it. That, there are strategies you just don’t have that you need to build to be a person. Was there a moment for you where it’s like, fuck I really gotta go to therapy. I really gotta get some help?

I wake up every day and I have the same thought: Fuck, I gotta go to therapy.

[Laughter]

I was kind of raised like a wolf. I didn’t have parents or people who were guiding me or told me anything. So I had to figure out everything on my own — try on masks and faces and hats and wigs — and try to figure out what my place is in the world. For a long time, I didn’t realize I was stunted because of that. Not having that at home, and at an early age being traumatized by things I was seeing. Just now, I’m starting to really find the tools to help me pull that young self out of that abyss. It took me a while to even realize there was a problem because I was like, “Oh, you guys are crazy. I’m not crazy.”

Were you shopping for therapists during the pandemic?

It’s all on Zoom now. I’ve found this really cool therapist. It’s great and perfect for me right now. Hopefully it continues to be the case. It’s helped me a lot. After doing press yesterday, I had another session and it was amazing. It helps you unlock things about yourself. It’s not even necessarily about the person that you’re doing therapy with, but like you said, perspectives and strategies and tools that you didn’t have access to before.

Especially in the work you do, it’s important to extricate yourself — that period of like, okay, I gotta get out of this. How have you come back to yourself in this period of time?

It’s been meditation. The one good thing about this pandemic is being able to sit at home by yourself and deal with yourself and just your inner voice. And even though that’s annoying as hell, beautiful clarity comes out of it. People would be surprised how many answers they can give themselves just by listening to themselves and not distracting yourself with so many things like social media or movies and stuff. Now, it isn’t easy, especially once you become hooked into a pattern, but it’s really worth it.

That’s been beautiful for me just to take those moments. It’s important and it’s taught me a lot about myself. And that’s kinda what pushes you. Now that you understand and recognize some of the issues that you want to make better about yourself, you can plan on ways to do that. Whether it means therapy or yoga, which I also started doing.

There’s a scene in the film that feels like the Last Supper, and it’s just gut-wrenching. That sense of dread is so hard to tap into, but it also feels of a piece with what so many of us have been going through — knowing that people are losing their lives, either from our government or from a virus, and living with that same dread.

It’s a real thing. I went to the hospital recently on some health stuff. When I was in there, there were a bunch of Covid-19 patients being moved about. Being in a hospital is pretty scary right now. People screaming and literally dying around you. There’s an overall energy. Like this feeling of loss permeating in the world today.

Before we started this movie, my best friend who I grew up with got killed by his brother. So I was carrying that with me the whole time. One thing that made those moments real for me is that I know what it feels like to lose somebody abruptly, violently. When we filmed me having to poison Fred Hampton, it was a really tough day — I was thinking about my own brother, just in a whole different place all day. On set crying. That sense of loss, knowing the violence of all of that, really informed everything for me. There was no distinction between reality and what I was experiencing in the moment. Most of the takes in that scene, I was actually bawling. I had to tone it back.

The worlds are just overlapping with one another. That’s fucking wild.

I hope having gone through all that, somebody watching it can be moved or touched. Maybe it helps put emphasis on Fred Hampton and why it’s so valuable to protect people like him.

As someone who lost someone close recently, some days it feels like your worlds are collapsing on one another. I just lost my dad this past summer. It’s weird to even talk about, but the fact that you have to just carry on, with your friend’s death sitting in the back of your head is…wild.

With movies, you never know if we’re doing the right take, or even if it’s ever going to be seen by anyone. Especially with something like this, you never really know. I’m so grateful for everybody putting their best foot forward. I want everybody to see it. I really want Black people to see it, especially Black kids in Chicago. I want them to see someone who really put things outside of themselves and put something first and gave in love. I just hope that somebody sees it and it touches them. It makes them think about something a little differently. That’d be dope.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

[spaceofgracetoday]

Speaking Life to the Dry Bones

Speaking Life to the Dry Bones

  Click here to connect to Audio

God told the prophet Ezekiel to speak life into the dry bones of his day that were laying in the valley.      Ezekiel 37:4-6,  “Then he said to me,  “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the  Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons…

[austenpoppy]

Mental Torture in the Wizarding World (1)

Warning : Very long post. So long that I had to split it in different parts. I have no idea how to make it under a cut "keep reading". Highly Upsetting topics such as self-loathing, madness, suicide and torture.

This post really means a lot to me. It may be one of the most important. Torture is something which makes my blood boil and that I want to fight until I die. So often overlooked or judged necessary, it destroys people. Literally.

Mental torture is a topic which is unfortunately too often overlooked. People often consider that the level of pain is not the same as physical torture, if they even consider that it causes pain at all. Because there is no scar, no mark, no trace on the body, mental torture is less visible - yet minds can be destroyed.

The wizarding world makes no exception. If torture, embodied by the Cruciatus Curse, is loathed, mental suffering caused by psychological methods are barely, if ever, evoked.

But they exist, and they are not in any way less painful than the Cruciatus curse.

Let's agree upon a definition of torture : "United Nations conventions that bar torture refer to it as "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental," study author Metin Basoglu of King's College wrote" .(https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSN0535973620070306)

This is the particularity of mental torture : it aims the disintegration of the personality : "We conclude by examining the specific evil of mental torture: the merciless attempt to break down and occupy the personality of the victim." (Mental Torture: A Critique of Erasures in U.S. Law by David Luban and Henry Shue)

And for those of you who might doubt that mental torture and physical torture are on the same level : "Sadly, psychological torture can in fact be counted on to cause harm, which is indeed often severe and prolonged. Even worse, substantial research suggests that psychological torture, as well as some cruel and inhuman treatment that might not qualify as torture at all, can cause more severe long-term damage than some physical torture tends to." (same study)

1. The Dementors

I am utterly awed every time a "good" character in fanfiction threatens somebody of being kissed by a Dementor or expresses regret that the Dementors are no longer guardians of Azkaban after the war.

The Dementors have been created by the author to be a symbol of depression. Indeed, they make revive to their victims the worst moments of their lives and give them the impression that they will never be happy again.

However, I have to notice that they are more than allegories of depression. They act like torturers.

A depression is something self-induced, which means that the brain of the person itself is no longer able to grip on good thoughts, but only on the bad ones. It can be expected in certain circonstances : when a person is in mourning, during a burn-out - even if sometimes the burn-out itself can be considered a depression - after certain traumatic events (especially if the person in question suffers from PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), after having been bullied... Or it can be the consequence of life-long insecurities (especially if the person in question has a crippling low self-esteem) aggravated by small or not so small events in daily life. It is absolutely horrible, a daily drowning, the impression that nothing makes sense anymore... It can be helped with medicines and psychological sessions, but ultimately, it is a struggle that the he or she has to do himself/herself. If he or she is not willing to fight against it, you can't do anything (To be clear, I am not making any judgement, I am just noticing that depression is a daily struggle, and a very hard one - because there is no external enemy, the enemy is in your own head). Not to say that depressed people should be left alone - in the contrary, they have to be backed up, loved, to know that people care about them.

But what the Dementors do, the way they harm human beings and other creatures is definitely not something people self-induce. They are external forces, who can act for themselves. And even if the pain they cause leaves horrible lingering effects - we will come to that later -, it is a pain which affects everybody and not just vulnerable people.

This is the description of a torturer, according to an article I found on the Internet (reference : http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-10/beard-cheney-defends-torture/5957372)/

Specifically, it is defined by an intention to degrade a detainee to a sub-human state in which he or she is morally and psychologically dis-integrated. Torture is an act motivated by a torturous attitude, which means it requires people who are willing - literally - to pull another human being apart."

The worst Dementors can do is to suck the soul out of their victims, which means that they can literally disintegrate their victims'personality, spirit and intelligence and turn them into empty shells (which would be quite a heartwrenching metaphor for people forever broken by torture and mental pain).

This is the description of the Dementors' kiss by Lupin :

"'They call it the Dementors' Kiss,' said Lupin, with a slightly twisted smile. 'It's what Dementors do to those they wish to destroy utterly. I suppose there must be some kind of mouth under there, because they clamp their jaws upon the mouth of the victim and - and suck out his soul.'

Harry accidentally spat out a bit of Butterbeer.

'What - they kill -?'

'Oh, no,' said Lupin. 'Much worse than that. You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you'll have no sense of self any more, no memory, no... anything. You'll just - exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever...lost.'"

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K.Rowling

But that's not all.

"Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope and hapiness out of the air around them. Even Muggles feel their presence, though they can't see them. Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory, will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself - soulless and evil. You'll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.

(...)

The fortress is set on a tiny island, way out to sea, but they don't need walls and water to keep the prisoners in, not when they're all trapped inside their own heads, incapable of a single cheerful thought. Most of them go mad within weeks."

The first thing I want to notice is that the victims of Dementors go mad from pain. The only other characters we have been talked about who went mad were the parents of Neville. Funny coincidence, isn't it ?

Moreover, what is obvious here is that the "methods" used by Dementors lead to the disintegration of the personality : victims are even described as "soulless", "trapped in their own heads".

Well, that's exactly what mental torture leads to - and physical torture as well, in terms of psychological consequences, according to the study I have quoted above.

Furthermore, it is important to underline that victims of Dementors are left helpless, unable to be happy or hope. Feelings of permanent helplessness are one of the consequences of mental torture.

And they don't have any control over they suffering. They are just a bundle of fears and terrors, unable to control themselves, unable to distinguish reality from what is in their heads. Their nightmares become the reality and the reality is an eternal nightmare.

To quote once again the study above :

"People also often say that what they fear is not so much death but dying. It is one thing to have gone, it is another to continue to survive but in despair and with no grounds for hope. One of the special terrors of torture is that like dying, as distinguished from death, being tortured is a continuing process, not a single event or a final state. It is a process filled with dread, despair, hopelessness, and the awful awareness that one has absolutely no control over one’s own condition. One can try to end the torture by trying to cooperate, but the torturer may well not be convinced and may well not admit it even if he is. Like the flies to the wanton boys, and like us to the gods, in the words of Shakespeare’s blinded Gloucester quoted at the beginning, the victim is the torturer’s plaything. The vulnerability is absolute, and the mental suffering accompanying that awareness is awful."

"One is of course rarely in full control of one’s fate -- the panic at the recent world financial crisis in part reflected many people’s frightening sense of having lost any firm grip on how their lives would go in future. But the fear of a depleted pension is nothing to the fear that one’s own self will be undermined so that one will not retain even the underlying psychological integrity necessary for having desires and beliefs that are one’s own, much less the psychological capacity (the agency) to act effectively on them -- that one will be returned to the infantile state of being an uncoordinated bundle of desires and fears with no integral self to organize them."

"Psychological torture, in contrast, undermines the structure of the personality -- it literally breaks apart the self, unhinging its parts from each other."

Not all the prisoners become mad. Some, like Hagrid, are released because they were innocent. When Hagrid describes his experience in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, he presents anxiety disorders, a typical reaction of victims of mental torture and torture in general (p. 239-240) : just talking about what he went through makes him shiver and cry, and he would do anything to never go back to Azkaban, even if he has to loose Buckbeak (the same Hagrid who made enter an Acromentula in Hogwarts, and bought a dragon's egg even if it is absolutely illegal and dangerous).

Another study I've read, Les pires cicatrices ne sont pas toujours physiques : la torture psychologique by Hernán Reyes (The worst scars are not always physical : mental torture) backs it : "The victims of mental torture have symptoms associated with anxiety disorders."

Moreover, what he says is striking : in his cell his only will was to die to end his suffering, and he had lost any hope to quit the prison.

"Thought I was goin' mad. Kep' goin' over horrible stuff in me mind...

(...)

'You can' really remember who yeh are after a while. An' yeh can' see the point o' living at all. I used ter hope I'd jus' die in me sleep..."

[virullcnt-a]

The setting is all too familiar. The screaming around you is louder than ever. Cries and wails of pure agony, of pure suffering. And it's all coming from you. Every volt those bastards amped up, you felt it. It was like a new knife being added to the same old wound, over and over and over again. You know it's not going to stop. Not until you're body is nothing but charred and burnt, until your brain has been fried beyond recognition, until the person known as Izuku Midoriya ceases to ever exist.

Send my muse an anonymous nightmare.

He gets up so fast, he could be mistaken for the embodiment of lightning. And just like in that damned nightmare, he let out an ear shredding scream, loud and tearing his throat up. He didn’t stop until he was out of breath, until the world decided to listen to his cries. Izuku leaned forward on the bed, sweat pouring down his face and splashing onto his bedsheets, his body feeling like it was going to overheat as his breaths came out heaving and hard to get in. His limbs were shaking, his mind was spinning like a merry-go-round, and the horrid vision still played over and over again in his head.

The trauma he had being strapped down and filled with constantly amped electricity became stronger and stronger with each passing night. The feeling of being helpless, scared, lost. He hadn’t lost hope until that very day, where he couldn’t do anything to defend himself. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how loud he yelled and kicked for freedom, there was no escape. There was nowhere to go. He was doomed…

Or at least, he almost was. Before he could even kill over after being in a paralyzed state, his friends from The Underground came in to rescue him. He had never been so thankful. It took Izuku days, weeks, months, to recover not only physically, but mentally as well. He had to cover up many bruises and charred scars so his mother wouldn’t see them. And as far as he knew, she still doesn’t know about them, about what happened to him…

There was a familiar pain in his lower back, and Izuku brought his hand around to give it just a quick brush. The burns there had already healed along ago, and yet the soreness was still present. It still bothered him, truthfully. Even in his spine, there was an uneasy rush of pain, because it was damaged from the shock he took. For some reason, another wave of hopelessness, of weakness, rushed through him again, just like that night.

Trying to force the tears back, Izuku hugged his legs and pressed his face against his knees, letting out shuddering breaths as he tried to make the memories go away. It hurt so, so much. It felt like he wanted to die because every time he thought of it, it felt like it was happening all over again. And he would do anything to make the trauma to away, anything…

The rest of the night felt too long after that. But that was the thing when it came to restlessness.

[vanail]

To My 5 Years Old Self

Your world is about to change,

your security shattered,

all that you’ve known will be no more,

But you are NOT alone.

The fear that you’ll feel

the anger that’ll rage within

the confusion,

anxiety,

desperation,

hopelessness,

the tears that you’ll let fall,

and the many that’ll be held in

None is in vain, you are NOT alone.

You are a child,

but soon you will be

more than a mere child.

YOU WILL BE A SURVIVOR!

Not because your heart beats and your lungs fill with air,

but because you LIVE despite all that you’ve faced.

Almost killed several times, lack of basic needs,

emotionally destroyed; yet you overcome.

Because you are NOT alone.

To the 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13 and 32 years old me, who cry silently at night,

YOU ARE NOT ALONE! YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN ALONE.

“for He has said, “I will never[under any circumstances] desert you [nor give you up nor leave you without support, nor will I in any degree leave you helpless], nor will I forsake or let you down or relax My hold on you[assuredly not]!” HEBREWS 13:5 (AMP)

[columbuscomicscorner-blog]

X-MEN MONDAY REVIEW: JEAN GREY #4 REVIEW

Writer: Dennis Hopeless Artists: Harvey Tolibao, Jay David Ramos, Dono Sanchez-Almara Letterer: VC’s Travis Lanham Cover Artists: David Yardin NCBD: 7/12/17 Publisher: @marvelentertainment Review by: Ryan Douglas

Since slaying an undersea kaiju, Jean’s come to the realization she must train in order to face the Phoenix force when the time comes. She’s deep in the snowfall Alps seeking her next mentor, who is Thor. When Jean comes across a herd of orcs, getting amped to make it to the top of the mountain to ax down Thor. We haul ass to where Thor is drinking up his mead surrounded solely by the bartender, Jean bombards the bar to warn Thor of what’s coming. But he is more relaxed than ever and would rather tell stories of the past. When the Orcs crash through the door, the battle ensues. Things seem dire and Jean feels helpless as the two are outnumbered. But Thor delivers a tale to Jean, of a time when he had to muscle enough strength, to call on Mjolnir’s Thunder during a losing battle. Jean continues to shrug off Thor’s drunken tales until Jean herself accidentally constructs her own Psi-Mjolnir and let the real fun begin. Jean has a spark in her step now and begins to lay out several of the Orcs and takes no time for the two to win the battle. After some time to rest, sitting at the bar Thor teaches Jean her first lesson. Although Jean can’t recreate her weapon, she’s on the right path to learning all. Now that’s she earn an insane amount of hit points and can level to seek training from Psylocke next.

This issue came out sooner than I thought it would and that’s not a complaint. While I thought the Thor would appear throughout the entire arc, it works. Thor was used a way to teach Jean her first lesson to put the Phoenix Force to rest. Using Thor’s drunken tales help play off Jean’s own journey and as a character. Knowing at some point Jean would have a bad ass hammer, based on the cover. I was drawn into the story enough to completely forget of the cover spoiler. The execution of the of the psi hammer was flawless and the story elevated again from there. The chemistry didn’t feel natural as I thought it would. But feel the chemistry needed that awkwardness between the two, giving us an expected team up worth the cover price. Where Jean will travel next has me strapped in for the final confrontation.

David Yardin’s cover art sold you alone, right? The interior art switch up for this new story portrays Thor’s side of the world perfectly, while still staying in the realm of Victor Ibanez’s character design of Jean. With a continuous change in art, each issue for this particular story line will play to its strength for each of Jean’s encounters. Jean Grey’s series continues to be the strongest X related title, by adding a new layer to the character.The creative team provides strong dialogue, consistent storytelling approach, and art. I’m glad Marvel didn’t bog down this series with a Secret Empire tie-in and let her series be. Dennis Hopeless has set an incredible feat for Jean to conquer. Of all writers recently, he’s shown his strength in sticking the landing. My only question, where was Pickle’s when the battle ensued?

8.7/10

Hear more discussion of Jean Grey #4 on the X-Men Monday Podcast, here!

@xmenuniverse @xmenladies @ladiesofcomics @thorvalkyrie

[cyberkrinn]

Real change can only come about through nonviolent action and anything else runs counter to our most deeply held American values –Senator Bernie Sanders, after Wednesday’s shooting by a former campaign-volunteer

Americans have very wrongly held themselves and this country out as being better than others. That’s a false image. Our people and our government are no different than any other and we’ve proven over and over again our capacity for violence, oppression, and atrocities. Despite all the evidence, average Americans will deny all of it, though. It’s cultural and systemic cognitive dissonance.

I agree that the source of much of the violence within our society - that which we direct on ourselves - is fueled by the actions of the wealthy. And while that violence is condemned, it is also quietly encouraged. That violence and the subconscious propensity towards it, is a tool of control. It keeps the masses fighting amongst themselves, keeping them angry, fearful, and distracted. That’s a pretty poweful tool.

Change has only come when that violence is redirected outwardly and not at each other. When we turn that violence on the entities that subtly encourage our violence against each other back on them, we get the change we want. American cities burned in the riots before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed. The same was true of the early 20th century when workers rioted. The response was labor laws and unions.

It’s appeasement.

We were quieted and we have largely remained quieted. And in our quiet time, voting and civil rights have been eroded, labor laws attacked, and unions weakened and, in some states, outlawed.

Hold their feet to the fire.

We all know that phrase; it’s been used as an idiom to mean keeping the pressure on so that “they” do what is expected of them. Holding feet to the fire is an act of violence and, quite possibly, that phrase evolved directly from peasants holding the feet of their oppressors to fire. Or vice versa. Let’s do it, though. Let’s hold their feet to the fire. We need to consistently hold their feet to the fire.

Congress displayed bipartisan outrage that their own were attacked. Some in Congress and the media labeled it “an assault on democracy.” They vowed to be softer in their rhetoric and kinder to each other.

None of that is the source of the anger, fear, pain, and violence seen in the population and they know it.

It wasn’t an assault on our democracy, neither directly nor figuratively.

It’s not only what they say that creates this atmosphere, but also - and more importantly - what they do that creates the anger, fear, pain, helplessness, hopelessness, and the resulting violence. That, however, never once entered into the conversation and the next day they went right back to doing what they’re doing to hurt us and divide us. That is the real assault on our democracy.

In the aftermath of Hodgkinson’s rampage, Speaker Paul Ryan addressed the House and declared “an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.”

He didn’t mean all of us; he meant all of them.

When there’s a mass shooting against us, they’re pretty much mute. They take no action.

And that right there should tell us everything we need to know.

#tuesdaytruths

Disclaimer: this is not a call to violence or an advocation of violence as a means to an end. It is simply an observation.

[reinyu]

Absent

I feel absent with myself and life sometimes. I'm not sure why I feel like this but I feel like i'm missing something from my life and something from the world.. I feel like i'm not where I should be in this thing called life actually. I'm 20 years old, And I feel lost more than I did as a young child or even a teenager. What does it really all mean right now, Why am I even typing this up right now to be quite honest. It's just blurring day by day for me and I never know what I should be doing in those days. I know the cliche saying "make everyday seem like it's your last" And the thing is, I can't do that. I have no energy, no motivation to live life to it's fullest like i see everyone else doing.. Is there possibly something wrong with me, am I just already dead inside, have i lost my purpose or the spark in my life to make it seem more fullfiling and colorful. I miss being honestly and truley happy. Being happy with myself and feeling like I was achieving things in life, and now I feel like I don't do anything besides work, come home, sleep and repeat. I don't know what to do with myself on my free times, or my days off. I feel like I go insane because I don't know what to do or how to do it or how to get there. Like what should I be doing with myself at this very moment, Where should someone like myself be in life? Should I be somewhere higher than a low paying waitressing job and barely making ends meet as i always feel like. Should I need feel like a failure to myself and eveyone around me. I feel like I havent gone anywhere in my life and I feel like i'm just doing this stuff on repeat a never ending routine with nothing to give and nowhere to go honestly. I'm not sure what to do, I just don't honestly know.. I feel so lost so hopeless, and helpless. What do people do in times like this, what should I be doing in a time like this.. Is there a guide for people who feel lost and don't know how to get back on track? Is there a forume for me to get a Q&A from?? Like what's there for me to do, what should I be doing with myself.. I feel like i lost all my ambitions and dreams and hopes, because they were just dreams and hopes.. and maybe reality got to me and i realized I can't make these things come true.. or maybe i've become so negative in these aspects of my life that I don't even believe I can achieve them even if they are within my grasp in this lifetime.. How does anyone do this? How does someone give themselves the motivation to make things happen. I feel dead inside like i'm on repeat.. Like nothing will be changing.. I feel like that girl from the movie who literally died and lived the day before her birthday over and over.. But I'm techinically alive and even though i'm doing the same things over and over.. I feel dead inside because I feel like i'm trapped here with nothing to do and nowhere to go.. I just don't know where to bring myself to get where I need to be or where I should be.. I don't know where I should be, or if there's even a place for me to go.. I just want to feel like i have a goal to go to and not just be stuck in a humdrum routine doing the same things day in and day out.. I want to live my life go on adventures, actually expierence what this thing called life has to offer. But sometimes it just seems to out of my reach and that i'm stuck on land when I want to travel the seas. I feel so lost..

[torturedwarrior]

Mental Health:

  Why mental illnesses are not a disability? Should it be? I think so! We have to ask What is mental health? Hoe does it affect our daily lives. Even though antidepressant medications such as the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) consistently reduce symptoms of depression by 30 percent to 60 percent overall and lead to complete remission in a significant proportion of patients., I believe all types of mental illnesses should be considered a disability because interfere in one's ability to work and thus provide for themselves financially significantly reduce one's capacity to complete tasks of daily living (shopping, self-care, food preparation, etc.) prevent one from caring for him- or herself and/or others and Mental health disorders can present challenges in daily living. When they interfere with your ability to function and meet basic needs. What Are the different types of mental health? And how can they impact our life? There are several types; Here is a list: Anxiety- Related disorders, mood disorders, psychotic disorders, eating disorders, impulse and addiction disorder, personality disorders, Obsessive compulsive disorder, Traumatic- stress, disorder, Stress response syndromes (formerly called adjustment disorders), Dissociative disorders and so many more. So what exactly is mental health? Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.         How can we tell if we have a mental illness? Experiencing one or more of the following feelings or behaviors can be an early warning sign of a problem: Eating or sleeping too much or too little, Pulling away from people and usual activities, Having low or no energy, Feeling numb or like nothing matters, Having unexplained aches and pains, Feeling helpless or hopeless, Smoking, drinking, or using drugs more than usual, Feeling unusually confused, forgetful, on edge, angry, upset, worried, or scared, Yelling or fighting with family and friends, Experiencing severe mood swings that cause problems in relationships, Having persistent thoughts and memories you can't get out of your head, Hearing voices or believing things that are not true, Thinking of harming yourself or others, and the inability to perform daily tasks like taking care of your kids or getting to work or school. Sometimes people who have a mental illness sometimes do not ask for help, or they to afraid to speak up and tell the truth. Some may want their psychiatrist to ask certain questions. For example, Can you help me understand what its like living with your condition?, Is there anything you need from me or something I can do to help you?, Can we do something together – get coffee, go for a walk or see a movie?, Just because the person has mental illness doesnt mean he/she wont want to do regular activities, What is your diagnosis and how do you feel about it?, Do you need to talk?, Sometimes talking can help make things feel a little better,  What can I do to be there for you, and help you feel supported?, How can I support you – can I listen to you, leave you alone, give you a hug?,  How has living with this condition shaped who you are today?, How are you? You dont seem like yourself, and I want to know how youre really feeling because I care about you. Can mental health change? Yes! But for some it does not it gets worse. What are some ways to help with mental health? Well you are in luck! There are six habits; positive, that can help improve mental health. For instance, Exercising, sleep, play, eat well, give and manage stress. It will be a difficult journey and it may not help but how will you know if you do not try. Another example is, taking prescribed medication that your psychiatrist gives. Prescribed medications play a key role in the treatment of co-occurring disorders. They can reduce symptoms and prevent relapses of a psychiatric disorder. Medications can also help patients minimize cravings and maintain abstinence from addictive substances. For instance, many doctors choose to prescribe a psychopharmalogical drug, usually made of a synthetic chemical compound that helps to compensate for imbalanced brain chemistry. For example, antidepressant medications such as the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) consistently reduce symptoms of depression by 30 percent to 60 percent overall and lead to complete remission in a significant proportion of patients. But Many patients do not take medication as prescribed. Some simply forget medications, but often "forgetting" is really related to an underlying concern.  When patients are not adherent to the medication plan, modifications to the medication prescription or to the plan should be based on the patients' unique reasons for not taking them.       So it is clear that although antidepressant medications such as the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) consistently reduce symptoms of depression by 30 percent to 60 percent overall and lead to complete remission in a significant proportion of patients., I believe all types of mental illnesses should be considered a disability for two main reasons. First, interfere in one's ability to work and thus provide for themselves financially significantly reduce one's capacity to complete tasks of daily living (shopping, self-care, food preparation, etc.) prevent one from caring for him- or herself and/or others. But most importantly, Mental health disorders can present challenges in daily living. When they interfere with your ability to function and meet basic needs. It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences., Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increase the burden: It is easier to say, "My tooth is aching" than to say, "My heart is broken". So, what if mental health can improve, some people may have a more difficult time improving their mental health and coping with it. Work Cited: Gluck, Samantha. "Quotes on Mental Illness Stigma | HealthyPlace." Mental Health Support, Resources & Information | HealthyPlace. Healthy Place, Web. 29 Jul 2019. . "6 Habits to Improve Mental Health | Skyland Trail." Residential Psychiatric Treatment and Mental Health Services | Skyland Trail. 5 May 2015. Web. 29 2019. . Health Insights, Magellan. "9 Questions Someone With Mental Illness Wishes You Would Ask." Magellan Health Insights. Behavioral Health, 17 Jul 2018. Web. 29 Jul 2019. . "Medications Play a Key Role in Treatment | Behavioral Health Evolution." Mental Health Disorders | Behavioral Health Evolution. Hazelden, 2016. Web. 29 Jul 2019. . "Mental Health: Types of Mental Illness." WebMD - Better information. Better health.. Web. 29 Jul 2019. . "What Is Mental Health? | MentalHealth.gov." Home | MentalHealth.gov. 5 Apr 2019. Web. 29 Jul 2019. . Sloan, Robin. "Pros and cons of resorting to medication for mental health treatment." The Leaf Chronicle | Clarksville, TN. Leaf-Chronicle, 12 May 2015. Web. 29 Jul 2019. .

[point-of-break]

La prospettiva di studio del suicidio basata sulle “note suicidarie” ha consentito, fin dai primi studi di Schneidman alla fine degli anni ’40, di gettare uno sguardo sugli stati affettivi che precedono la fine. Tali stati affettivi possono essere disposti lungo tre assi (Rossi Monti & D’Agostino, 2012): l’asse “vergogna-colpa”, secondo cui il suicidio è associato a un sentimento di colpa, a un senso di responsabilità totale nei confronti di quanto accade intorno, ma anche, molto più spesso, a un sentimento di vergogna, ossia a un senso d’inadeguatezza profonda nei confronti della vita intera; l’asse “vuoto-disforia”, per il quale ad avere alta potenzialità suicidiaria sono sentimenti di ansia, irritazione, umore scontroso, con propensione ad acting out e rigidità affettiva (che racchiudiamo sotto il termine “disforia”) soprattutto se associati a un sentimento di vuoto cronico che pervade sia il mondo interno che quello esterno; e l’asse “hopelessness/helplessness”, per cui ciò che caratterizza in modo prevalente la condizione presuicidaria è la mancanza di speranza, accompagnata dalla convinzione di non poter ricevere alcun aiuto dal mondo esterno.

[solomonfiore]

A Night in Kyiv

“I’m an angel who was attending a school of Satan.”

Anatoly Onoprienko

We have broken our way into an abandoned tenement in the slums of Kyiv. Piles of trash are scattered about recklessly. A black pentagram has been spraypainted on the wall. We mark all the squats we occupy this way as a tribute to Beelzebub. The wallet I stole from the old man I stabbed to death in the park earlier that evening has enabled us to spend a little extra money on drugs. A hypodermic needle filled with high-grade heroin sits next to a piss-stained mattress lying on the floor. I stole some vodka from the market on the way back from the Peste Noir concert. Most of the bottle has been finished. We're thoroughly drunk by now. You can't wait to make love. You're already lying back against the side of the mattress with your skirt hiked up over your pale, young legs. Our skin has yet to become leathery and peel away from our bones like it has to a lot of our friends who are addicts, though my track marks are becoming blacker and blacker—the chronic nature of my abuse growing impossible to ignore. I'm grateful that I was able to cop some decent drugs for a change. Due to the grinding poverty we are forced to endure on a daily basis, we often have to use a substance that is less potent and far more toxic than heroin to keep from getting sick. Were it not for the deplorable conditions of our environment we would not have to inject this garbage known as desomorphine. We are smarter than this! We are better than this! But the hopelessness of our situation keeps us down. We cannot raise our voice to our oppressors for fear of reprisal.

After having suppressed my rage throughout my adolescence, I found solace in Satanism. Huysmans once stated that Satanists are no more than disappointed Christians. Well, I am disappointed. Not only in Christ, but in the entire world. I am disappointed with the U.S. and globalization's fallout. I am tired of being caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between Poland and Russia like a helpless child growing up in a dysfunctional household. Centuries of oppression boil inside me, but I’m not allowed to scream. I must suppress this fury.

I’m getting sick. I feel weak. Tingling sensations radiate down over my shoulders, emptying out into my legs.

You want to make love, but I tell you we must shoot up first.

You have only been using needles for a week. You were twelve when you became my lover. Now you are thirteen. Your arms are as white as a Calla lily drenched in a gauze of mist. They show no trace of abuse. You’re still inexperienced and squeamish so I have to inject you myself.

Everything unfolds before us in black and white as if we were actors in a film. Our favorite scene gets played back over and over again unto eternity. I hear your breath in my ear while I find a tender, blue vein under the light of the moon. The plunger descends beneath my thumb and memories of our love are pushed back into my mind…

You were lost when I met you. The drowning ghost of Ophelia lived inside you. And your emerald eyes climbed out of the black waters of your long hair to cling to me for dear life. I introduced you to the Devil and you embraced His power wholeheartedly. I took sadistic pleasure in seeing what heresies you were willing to commit in His name. We vandalized and burned churches together when I wasn't introducing you to the lowliest depths of sexual degradation. But as our fascination with the occult grew into an obsession, it became apparent that we had both become equally enmeshed within a web of inescapable evil. Murder became more than just a means of fueling our habit. It became a mainstay.

We left a string of killings behind us. We talked about them for hours together, recalling certain details about the incidents that one of us may have missed in the heat of the slaughter. For instance, you were particularly interested in what our victims were wearing. Whether it was the diamond brooch we pilfered from your aunt after clubbing her to death in the schoolyard or the ring I had slid from off the finger of a dismembered hand seconds before proposing to you under a sanguine moon, you always had an eye for accoutrement. You remembered the pattern of the knickers that the street vendor from Andriyivskyy Descent wore when we stripped him down at the abandoned factory and forced him to drink drain cleaner, putting cigarettes out on his chest as he ingested the toxic concoction. After removing a pauper's private parts with a box cutter and feeding them to his dog, you kept its collar, not only as a memento, but to wear around your own neck as a fashion statement. You always had a strong sense for aesthetics.

What fascinated me was how some of our victims would assume an entirely passive stance once they came to the realization that their death was inevitable while others would scream like bloody hell until their very last breath. A trucker we ambushed on Hertsena Street was surprisingly resigned after I had slit his throat. Having worked at a slaughterhouse, I knew it took considerable time for a pig to die after this. Instead of panicking or trying to escape, he just lay there in the brush beside us, surrounded by tall stalks of hazel grass as a burbling fountain of maroon viscera bubbled out of his mouth. Watching the individual suffer is half the entertainment when committing a homicide. He wasn't animated enough so I stabbed him in the eyes with his own house keys hoping that would jolt him into action, but he hardly flinched. We took turns carving upside down crosses into the fat of his thighs but he nary moved an inch. On the other hand, a young woman and her five-year-old daughter would prove to be quite the handful. Not the daughter. The daughter behaved in much the same fashion as the old man, though I only know this from what you’ve told me. I was busy with Mother Goose. She sure squawked like one. Enough for me to have to stuff her mouth up with my own sock while gutting her. After considering these psychological phenomena, I asked you whether or not you intended to die softly or put up a fight.

Your purple lips curved into a serene smile. Lightly dusted with pollen from an upturned window box of chrysanthemums nearby, your cheeks betrayed an ever so slight blush of excitement. Bearing the tenderness of a kitten and the immaculate aura of a cherub, you answered thus:

“If it is for my Master, the Great Spirit Lucifer, I shall approach my grave with open arms. He has assured me during His visits that we will have a place beside Him at the foot of His throne so long as we have done His bidding on the material plane. The violence of our passion burns with a flame intense enough to carry us into the netherworld where we will rejoice together in love everlasting."

The Gods of the Pit must have been watching out for us. For we had successfully taken out almost a dozen people without a trace of the law in sight. But the season of our good fortune would abruptly change one afternoon.

We had been terrorizing a homeless woman in a field just outside of Puscha-Vodytsia. Cold drizzle pelted us as I smashed her head in with a shovel. Amping up the bludgeoning to a hyperbolic frequency, you, my ashen-haired accomplice, whipped her with the branch of a tree. In beige, mercurial gobs, the three of our shadows fused to create a single form projected onto the shivering walls of grass around us. The ghostly reflection of our struggle wavered in the wind. She whimpered and drooled as her brains spilled out of the top of her cracked skull with the same disorder as the tentacles of a freshly beached squid. On a trail less than a yard away, a little boy happened to be riding his bicycle. I knew he recognized you as the missing girl in the papers because he stopped momentarily to get a better look at the scene. I tried to catch him but he sped away.

Now we are on the run, hiding out in the slums of the Ukraine.

Your beauty shines through the gray pall of the room. You excite me beyond measure despite the potency of the heroin. I'm no longer paralyzed by the grinding stress of being hunted amidst a country about to go to war when I’m entering the clean, silky haven of your insides. It seems I could live off your spit and your fluids forever when we are bound together physically. I see the look in your pleading eyes and know what you want me to do. I wrap my hands around your throat and start to squeeze. It’s hard for me to stay focused on making love to you while I'm choking you, but I do it because you’ve come to love it so much. I derive no pleasure from this. I have to be careful not to deface your fragile skin or use too much pressure while at the same time maintaining my own level of arousal. This is difficult for me, particularly when I'm high. I do this strictly for you.

You’ve told me you’ve experienced visions of the Beast while being throttled and tonight something wondrous happens. Lucifer comes to visit, not just you, but both of us while our bodies are entwined together in that squalid lair. Inky jets of smoke climb out from the back of your head as you speak in tongues entirely foreign to this world. Sweaty bundles of pale yellow and green fungi growing on the far wall behind us swell to life. An oozing globule of sulfuric vapors congeals to form a static cloud in the shape of the Horned God. He stands over us, calling upon us to express our devotion to Him through the throes of our lust as we writhe about the floor in throes of illicit rapture. Your face begins to twitch as I apply extra pressure to your platysma muscle, clenching my teeth together so tightly they threaten to pierce the insides of my mouth. Your throat—so pure and white that it never so much as reveals the horizontal stress lines that all of us possess from infancy on—is now wreathed in blue and purple corals of broken blood vessels as ecchymosis sets in from vagal inhibition and the increased strain against your hyoid bone. Your hypoxic climax is a sea of convulsions squirming in my clenched fists. Milky clouds fill up the green domes of your eyes and a tear of black blood runs down your left cheek as my darkness empties into you, blotting out what little you still possessed of your purity like an oil spill spreading out from the center of a crystalline pond.

I collapse on top of you, resting my head atop the thin plate of your solar plexus. You’re coughing violently. You pull yourself out from beneath me. I lift myself up and watch you in silence as you gasp for air while clutching your throat. At first I’m worried I’ve gone too far this time, but you flash me a faint smile to assure me you’re okay once your composure’s regained. I breathe a sigh of relief. I haven’t disappointed Lucifer by denying Him the sacrifice we’ll be offering Him when we execute the joint suicide pact we planned for tomorrow on Walpurgisnacht.

"Regie Satanas," I mumble under my breath.

Solomon Fiore - March 18, 2017

<photos: Aleksandra Petrova>

Special thanks to Aleksandra Petrova of the Kitsune Klan.

[livewiremind]

The Hospital part 1

“ Was going to the hospital for your bipolar a positive experience?” I look back at the straight faced psychologist, looking for a signal of some understanding of what the experience had truly been. Gut-wrenching, life altering, mind destroying, unbelievably hopeless- no indication of these words played for a moment across the doctors face. How could I begin to explain those three weeks in the psyche ward with a broken arm?  “ It was grounding,”  I finally reply. “ seeing everyone else with their delusions caused mine to crumble. I learned I wasn’t the only one, and up to that point I had felt like it.” His next question surprised me. “ have you written about your experience?”  

Writing had always been an escape for me. A place I sought to distill life events and emotions to find some definitive meaning. I hadn’t written much since the hospital, not for a lack of time but rather because I felt a profound inability to be the author of my experience. I didn’t know how to interpret what happened. The events were so confusing, the higher meaning that an author weaves his story around seemed to be missing, or at least I wasn’t able to see it. The only option I had was to write down exactly what my perspective was, without the final vision of clarity that i always imagined would come with absolute truth. 

“I just know I have to go. I have to go. It’s my only chance to chase my star, I have to go. “ Before the hospital I was determined to leave my hometown again, but I was worried. Concerned I was making irrational choices. “ I want to understand where my mind was at when I made this decision.” I thought to myself, sitting on my bed that I had recently ripped the sheets off. My room was in the unfinished basement and I stared up at the floor rafters above me. My roommate was having friends over in the living room upstairs. I heard a girl, one of his friends, but couldn’t make out what she was saying. Suddenly I heard laughter, and it broke me. It wasn’t malicious, it was friendly and warm. I wanted more than anything to go upstairs and join in, but as long as I lived in that house I never felt like I belonged. “ There’s nothing for me here.” I thought to myself. I felt the opposite of inclusion, like I literally had no belonging at all. The year and half previous of strange experiences and stranger thoughts had made isolation a familiar place. I was convinced that there was a higher purpose for my life, that I had been set apart and chose by God, as the Bible says. I certainly felt set apart. 

No one could understand. Others were, in fact, enemies of the inspiration that I was being given. Their minds had not been awoken to see the spiritual side of life, or so I was convinced. If they did see, it didn’t seem to matter as much to them as it did to me. It was a lonely road, but I was convinced there was a reason I was walking it.  

When I came to in the hospital, the first thing I remember was that I couldn’t breathe. I was laying on a table, flat on my back in the emergency room surrounded by nurses and doctors and fighting desperately for air. There was a strong pressure on my back, making it impossible for my lungs to fill with air. I arched my back and pointed out my chest, with all the symbolism of Christ on the cross, rising only to fill my chest then sink back down again. “ Stop moving!” the nurse ordered, angrily. “ i can’t breathe!” I yelled back. “ I need something under my back”. The nurse relented and though not understanding, agreed to my demands with the placement of a small wash cloth under my upper back. I said I was thirsty and they gave me ice chips. To me, this entire procedure felt like a crucifixion. I was in pain and couldn’t breathe, but the nurse helped with the wash cloth. Suddenly supported, though without any idea why I needed the support, I could breathe again. I relaxed for a moment and looked around the room. 

A nurse to my right was washing my right arm while a doctor stood over her. It was broken, I realized. Mentally, It started to click, I was in the hospital, something had happened. They started asking me questions, none of which I remember in the confusion. I asked the doctor what was going on.  

“ You fell on a train track and broke your arm and fractured your back.” Dr.McAndrew answered in a matter of fact voice. “ Can you tell me, Dr. McAndrew went on, “why you jumped on the train tracks?” I didn’t answer right away, everything was a blur.” “ I think”, I finally stammered, “ God told me to.”. The doctor shook his head then turned to a female nurse that had just entered the room. “ He says God told him to do it” he told the new nurse. McAndrew turned back to me “ This nurse will be watching you. We need to perform surgery on your arm.” I didn’t realize at the time, I was being assigned a caregiver not for the sake of hospitality, but because I was considered a suicide risk. They were still cleaning my fractured right arm when another nurse on my left offered me her hand. “ You can hold my hand, if you want.” she smiled sweetly. I reached for her hand, held it in mine and passed out on the table. 

I hadn’t lied to Dr, McAndrew, as far as I could remember, God had told me to jump on the train tracks. At least, to some extent. When I left my hometown of Springfield 2 night earlier, I had taken the greyhound bus to St. Louis. Our bus out of town was delayed, and during my time in the station I had met Sean, a mid 30′s black man who said that I was dead. “ Your mind is gone, that means you’re dead. But you’ll be alright kid, you’ll be alright.”  Another had asked if I was an angel. “ I’s just asking cuz you got that look about you like you’re supernatural, and the Bible says we entertain angels unaware.” I had said nothing unusual to either of these two to prompt their odd behavior...It had been a strange way to begin a fateful journey. 

Finally that night the bus arrived and we left for St. Louis. Exhausted, I remember feeling that the trip was not as much fun as I had expected it to be. Usually when I am moving to a new place or beginning some other life transition, I genuinely enjoy the rush and excitement of something new. This time it was different, this time I was scared. I didn’t have a phone for entertainment, as it had been acting glitchy so I threw it on the ground a few weeks earlier. Instead, I huddled up in my greyhound seat, grateful no one was next to me. I looked out my rain streaked window to find the moon, but it must have been over the bus because all I saw was rain. 

Arriving in St. Louis, I wasn’t really sure why I was there. I felt I was leaping out in faith and waiting on God to direct my steps. I went to the park to sleep for the night, after discovering a 24 hour white castle was drive thru only. 

I more waited for the sunrise than I did actually sleep at night. In the morning I wandered through downtown heading back to the greyhound station. The song lyrics “ You don’t know me but you don’t like me” was playing in my head and I sang along. I had a sense that a profound transformation was taking place within myself, but couldn’t describe it. I was helpless to direct it either, but it felt like I was being tossed around by whatever arbitrary sign the universe or my own mind wanted to throw at me. 

With no home to go back to, I wasn’t sure my next steps. I had come to the city for two reasons, firstly because months earlier a church group I belonged to mentioned that there were rap battles in St Louis. I had convinced myself that my path would be like Eminem in 8 mile, that I would walk into a room of battle rappers and just blow them away with divine inspiriation. Still, although it was a strongly held delusion of mine, after a day in the city I didn’t see a direct line to it. There were no bars or clubs that I was aware where I could perform. 

The second reason I had come to the city was because of its title as “ Gateway to the west.” There were more bus routes and trains leaving St. Louis to anywhere in the country than I had access to in Springfield. I finally realized that I didn’t have to do this, that I could go anywhere that amtrak or greyhound station connected to and God’s will would find me. I wondered if this made me like Jonah, and if I was in fact running from God and my mission to preach the gospel of Christ as I knew it.. Really I guess I was just being dumb and impulsive. I had $500 and decided to buy a ticket to Portland Oregon. Suddenly this was a journey about coming home. I had grown up in Oregon when I was 5, and the thought of returning was extremely exciting. i was going to simply wait for my train in the station, when a security guard demanded to see my ticket, saying there was a two hour limit for customers. My train wasn’t leaving for six. A brief argument ensued, and the security guy won. I left the station as he advised that would “ be the smart thing to do.” 

Unsure what I would do for the next several hours. 

After leaving the station, I was amped up because of the confrontation with the security guard. I guess I’d been a bit of a smart ass, but I was direct and truthful in what I said. It felt like a superpower and I was tripping off the energy of it. No one can make me feel bad if I don’t let them, was the basis of the realization and power that I felt. I saw a cable van that said “ be careful around electricity.” and I immediately applied it to the incident with the security guy. I would have to be careful with this new energy. 

 I saw a St. Louis city work vehicle, it’s work number #667 identifying it on the license plate. At that point in time, I had made the number 67 my God. The Bible said that in the end times, the number of the beast would be 666. In my psychotic state, I paid extreme attention to numbers. Whether it was addresses, phone numbers or grocery store totals, I seemed to be followed around by 667 or 67. If 666 was the number of the beast, I imagined 777 would be God’s numbers so being told that my number was 667 seemed to fit. That I was awash with sin, a mortal man, one step away from the great beast, but with one single digit that signified the redemption of God. Surely 67 was the number that suited me, a bringing together of my good and bad qualities to form a cohesive, redeemed identity. I would make decisions based on this number, determine if I was “ following the path” based on where and how often it would come up. Seeing the St Louis city truck with that number, when I had already decided to leave set me back. “Maybe I am supposed to stay here.” I thought to myself. I went back to the greyhound station and cancelled my ticket. 

Once out of the station, I was feeling euphorically happy, although still just as aimless. I was so enthusiastic, I begin to dance by myself in front of the greyhound station. “ Stop, you’ll be arrested” a small voice seemed to whisper in my ear. I wasn’t dancing too bizarrely that security would mind, but being that I felt aligned with God, it made sense that the enemy of this world would be looking to destroy me.  

I gathered my things and  wandered the streets downtown for a while, finally ending up at a bus stop when it began to rain. 

Here is where my mind really begin to fail me. Prior to this point I held a lot of unsubstantiated beliefs, but it was over those last 24 hours things started to go haywire. I was praying, intensely, asking why God had led me to St. louis. My thoughts were coming at a rapid rate, so quickly it was hard to identify where they were coming from. All I was sure of is they were not mine. I would be walking down the street and something would tell me “ pick up that hat on the ground, put it on.” i would notice the tag would have a number like 3343 which would add up to 67 and it would set my mind spinning on if that was God telling me to put the hat on and if there was a deeper meaning.

 I never actually heard any voices, but the thoughts in my own head had a life of their own.  As I sat in that bus stop, the thoughts kept coming faster and faster. I saw a father pull up with his family in a small car. It was pouring rain and as I watched him hold the umbrella for his wife, then open up the rear door and take his child from their car seat, it broke something inside of me again and I started crying. Why was I so different? Why couldn’t I be a father and have a family that I loved? I felt so distant from everyone. “ Go to Oregon Sam, I’ll be waiting for you on the becah.” The thought popped into my head and I didn’t know what to do with it. “ I only want what God has for me!” i shouted back in my own mind, trying to find contentment and peace of mind. What followed was an intense battle with my own mind mocking me as I insisted on peace and higher purpose. Never before had my own thoughts antagonized me so directly, calling me names and shouting curses.  The sign at the bus stop said “ hold until safe” and that was exactly what I intended to do- to hold myself until I felt safe again or the thoughts calmed down. It felt like my mind was melting.

I can do this thing, and I’m not sure if it’s common or not where I can empty my mind completely and not think when I went to. I can simply shut off my thoughts. I think I did that then after a while and just watched the rain. 

I noticed two people walk by during this time. The first was a rough looking, ghetto type character with sunglasses and flashy dress. He motioned for me to follow him, and in the midst of the mental war that my mind was going through I imagined him to be the devil. I shook my head and the man tossed his hand, waving it in a “ you ain’t shit.” kind of way and he walked off. I was relieved, but wondered what purpose my life would now have not in the devils employ. The second person to walk by I barely noticed as I wasn’t facing him when he did. He was on his cell phone, and I only heard him say” metro station.” Immediately I got up and followed him, figuring maybe I would take a train back to the greyhound station. I still had all my bags with me at this point while I bought my ticket, went down the stairs and stood on the metro platform. 

[personalwellbeing-blog1]

Emotional Wellbeing

Make Money

When it Comes to psychological health, there's a propensity to talk only concerning emotional wellbeing. There's a preconceived notion that the absence of any mental illness, is described as psychological wellbeing. That is totally untrue. Much like not needing any physical or bodily disease, does not force you to match; not needing any psychological disorders, does not make you emotionally well.

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Let us understand mental health in thickness.

What's Emotional Wellbeing?

• Emotional wellness is a circumstance, in which an individual can deal effectively with all the pressures of life and contribute to society, with no pressures, psychological or otherwise.

• Mental wellness is more Of an inclusive idea. Here the lack of mental illness, objectivity and endurance are joined to assess the psychological wellness of someone.

Detailed definition of wellness, said, "Health is a state of complete physical, psychological and societal well-being and not only the absence of illness or infirmity." This implies, not using a disorder does not make you healthy. What makes you healthy is a whole state of health.  In addition, this is what applies to this idea of mental health.

Perhaps not Possessing any psychological illness, doesn't mean there's psychological wellbeing. Whenever we speak of psychological health, we're actually speaking about the general package. Unless a individual has clarity of thought, aim decision making ability, productivity, etc., we can't state the individual is emotionally healthy.

A Frequent mistake to be cared for, is That emotionally well and emotionally sound aren't the exact same thing! They're distinct in definition, not just clinically, but also legally. Someone who's emotionally sound might not be emotionally. He might be exceptionally disturbed.

Let's now have a peek at a few of the common mental disorders or ailments and comprehend what they indicate.

1. Depression

The most frequently known mental illness, can be employed as a term quite synonymously with intense despair.

Depression Is a condition of reduced mood and aversion to action that could influence a individual's mind, behavior, feelings and awareness of well-being. People with a gloomy mood may feel unhappy, stressed, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, humiliated or nervous

(Note: Just to be clear, you aren't miserable if you display those symptoms alone.

Depression Is something which only a professional psychologist or psychiatrist can diagnose. The main reason I'm dreading this, is straightforward because we now have a propensity to self-diagnose.)

2. Stress

It's a condition of internal chaos, where a individual will feel an intense sense of distress, guilt and becomes more restless.

A Person having an anxiety disorder, frequently constitutes situations, before realising they're not real. Negative ideas begin to breed and also a individual loses calm readily.

3. Mood Disorders

Disposition Swings of intense range are observed within this scenario. Someone with mood disorders, is frequently Not Able to Discover a rational degree between depression and mania (Mania - exceptionally Large end Depression - exceptionally low ending of emotion)

4.

OCD Is the inability to restrain the temptation to carry out a specific action. It's more than often a activity that becomes a regular habit, which the individual then finds impossible to not perform.

OCDs can be as normal as the necessity to wash ones every couple of minutes to harmful ones such as the necessity to self-harm.

5. Phobias

In Straightforward terms FEAR. A phobia is an intense fear which prevents someone from performing particular activities or dealing with specific conditions. Thus claustrophobia, makes folks feel suffocated at a bunch, etc..

As A WHO, the well-being of a person is surrounded in the understanding of the skills, coping with regular stresses of life, effective work and contribution to the area. Even in the event that you consider it logically, it is logical. We would not look at a man that, has really large possible and is doing a very menial job or becoming really angry about really trivial problems or doesn't become involved with some social action, as a emotionally well or happy individual.

However, this Also doesn't necessarily mean that someone who's always smiling and quite affable and also does social company, is really pleased! It is said that those who smile the broadest are the most picky. That's the reason why it will become crucial to make sure mental wellness.

Let's now take a look at a few of the most effective approaches to make sure psychological wellness.

1. Connect with individuals

With The debut of technology, even if there's 1 thing we dropped, it's the humanist touch to our own relationships. We must bear in mind that regardless of how complex the technology has, the energy that private connections possess, is unmatched. It's vital for mental health, this relationship with individuals occurs. When we speak to people we let them share our joys & sorrows. This affects our psychological health tremendously.

2.

From Time to Time, Most of us need a bit of drive. A bit cheering to assist us proceed and get on with life. A life coach can assist us depart behind our problems and really locate the psychological peace we desire. It's always better to find some motivational suggestions and guidance. The brain frees up and we believe better.

3.

Does not have To be hours of social support.  But a couple of hours per week or even in the event that you can do something over the weekend, then it can be quite great for you. When you return to society, it makes an awareness of self-worth. We always feel better if we're in a position to give.  It's human tendency. Contributing in any little way, can deliver positive feelings.

4. Challenge yourself

Never mollycoddle yourself. Always give yourself difficult jobs and keep raising the bar. Your mind should feel challenged. Otherwise a feeling of worthlessness and despair falls in.

So keep yourself Busy and up to almost any task at hand. Mental wellbeing comes just when there is gratification. What greater satisfaction than finishing challenges?!

5. Take it simple

Just because I stated Challenge yourself, do not place yourself into undue stress. You've got your personal limitations.  This enables you to set unrealistic objectives. Whenever these goals will not get fulfilled, the brain feels reduced and demotivated. Mental wellbeing is hopeless without positivity. So constantly allow yourself some distance. Take it easy on your own.

6. Notice your environment

It might not Always look so, but this universe is a fairly amazing location. At any time you feel as if there's a lack of equilibrium, just look on your own. Take note of what is going on around you. Your mind will become alert and it'll think of productive solutions to issues. Emotional health, has as one of its elements, productivity. Pay careful attention to your environment.

Most of all, live in the here and now.  It's Absolutely absurd, to overlook a gorgeous now, in hopes of a better tomorrow.  Appreciate the moment.

7. Request help

There Is no doubt in not having the ability to remain 100 percent in control, all of the time. There's not any such thing as perfection.  Nobody is ideal and neither are you.  If at any stage you are feeling out of control, simply go and request assistance. Do not need to be a physician on the first move. You could speak with a buddy, a favorite teacher, your own parents, a counsellor or anybody! But ask for assistance if you want it.

Mental wellbeing is a lot easier to achieve if you have people that you can visit for assistance.

The Brain is actually intricate. We never know, what's happening up there all the moment! But that does not mean we will need to give up. Emotional wellbeing is our best.

I know, It's impossible to be happy With all the time. But we have to Look for a little bit of Sunshine in every dark moment. That's the only way to guarantee psychological wellbeing.

[torturedwarrior]

Mental Health!!!!

 Why mental illnesses are not a disability? Should it be? I think so! We have to ask What is mental health? Hoe does it affect our daily lives. Even though antidepressant medications such as the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) consistently reduce symptoms of depression by 30 percent to 60 percent overall and lead to complete remission in a significant proportion of patients., I believe all types of mental illnesses should be considered a disability because interfere in one's ability to work and thus provide for themselves financially significantly reduce one's capacity to complete tasks of daily living (shopping, self-care, food preparation, etc.) prevent one from caring for him- or herself and/or others and Mental health disorders can present challenges in daily living. When they interfere with your ability to function and meet basic needs. What Are the different types of mental health? And how can they impact our life? There are several types; Here is a list: Anxiety- Related disorders, mood disorders, psychotic disorders, eating disorders, impulse and addiction disorder, personality disorders, Obsessive compulsive disorder, Traumatic- stress, disorder, Stress response syndromes (formerly called adjustment disorders), Dissociative disorders and so many more. So what exactly is mental health? Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.         How can we tell if we have a mental illness? Experiencing one or more of the following feelings or behaviors can be an early warning sign of a problem: Eating or sleeping too much or too little, Pulling away from people and usual activities, Having low or no energy, Feeling numb or like nothing matters, Having unexplained aches and pains, Feeling helpless or hopeless, Smoking, drinking, or using drugs more than usual, Feeling unusually confused, forgetful, on edge, angry, upset, worried, or scared, Yelling or fighting with family and friends, Experiencing severe mood swings that cause problems in relationships, Having persistent thoughts and memories you can't get out of your head, Hearing voices or believing things that are not true, Thinking of harming yourself or others, and the inability to perform daily tasks like taking care of your kids or getting to work or school. Sometimes people who have a mental illness sometimes do not ask for help, or they to afraid to speak up and tell the truth. Some may want their psychiatrist to ask certain questions. For example, Can you help me understand what its like living with your condition?, Is there anything you need from me or something I can do to help you?, Can we do something together – get coffee, go for a walk or see a movie?, Just because the person has mental illness doesnt mean he/she wont want to do regular activities, What is your diagnosis and how do you feel about it?, Do you need to talk?, Sometimes talking can help make things feel a little better,  What can I do to be there for you, and help you feel supported?, How can I support you – can I listen to you, leave you alone, give you a hug?,  How has living with this condition shaped who you are today?, How are you? You dont seem like yourself, and I want to know how youre really feeling because I care about you. Can mental health change? Yes! But for some it does not it gets worse. What are some ways to help with mental health? Well you are in luck! There are six habits; positive, that can help improve mental health. For instance, Exercising, sleep, play, eat well, give and manage stress. It will be a difficult journey and it may not help but how will you know if you do not try. Another example is, taking prescribed medication that your psychiatrist gives. Prescribed medications play a key role in the treatment of co-occurring disorders. They can reduce symptoms and prevent relapses of a psychiatric disorder. Medications can also help patients minimize cravings and maintain abstinence from addictive substances. For instance, many doctors choose to prescribe a psychopharmalogical drug, usually made of a synthetic chemical compound that helps to compensate for imbalanced brain chemistry. For example, antidepressant medications such as the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) consistently reduce symptoms of depression by 30 percent to 60 percent overall and lead to complete remission in a significant proportion of patients. But Many patients do not take medication as prescribed. Some simply forget medications, but often "forgetting" is really related to an underlying concern.  When patients are not adherent to the medication plan, modifications to the medication prescription or to the plan should be based on the patients' unique reasons for not taking them.       So it is clear that although antidepressant medications such as the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) consistently reduce symptoms of depression by 30 percent to 60 percent overall and lead to complete remission in a significant proportion of patients., I believe all types of mental illnesses should be considered a disability for two main reasons. First, interfere in one's ability to work and thus provide for themselves financially significantly reduce one's capacity to complete tasks of daily living (shopping, self-care, food preparation, etc.) prevent one from caring for him- or herself and/or others. But most importantly, Mental health disorders can present challenges in daily living. When they interfere with your ability to function and meet basic needs. It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences., Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increase the burden: It is easier to say, "My tooth is aching" than to say, "My heart is broken". So, what if mental health can improve, some people may have a more difficult time improving their mental health and coping with it. Work Cited: Gluck, Samantha. "Quotes on Mental Illness Stigma | HealthyPlace." Mental Health Support, Resources & Information | HealthyPlace. Healthy Place, Web. 29 Jul 2019. . "6 Habits to Improve Mental Health | Skyland Trail." Residential Psychiatric Treatment and Mental Health Services | Skyland Trail. 5 May 2015. Web. 29 2019. . Health Insights, Magellan. "9 Questions Someone With Mental Illness Wishes You Would Ask." Magellan Health Insights. Behavioral Health, 17 Jul 2018. Web. 29 Jul 2019. . "Medications Play a Key Role in Treatment | Behavioral Health Evolution." Mental Health Disorders | Behavioral Health Evolution. Hazelden, 2016. Web. 29 Jul 2019. . "Mental Health: Types of Mental Illness." WebMD - Better information. Better health.. Web. 29 Jul 2019. . "What Is Mental Health? | MentalHealth.gov." Home | MentalHealth.gov. 5 Apr 2019. Web. 29 Jul 2019. . Sloan, Robin. "Pros and cons of resorting to medication for mental health treatment." The Leaf Chronicle | Clarksville, TN. Leaf-Chronicle, 12 May 2015. Web. 29 Jul 2019. .