#literally the best thing humanity has ever created more important than antidepressants

[elspethdixon]

Even the “trashy” television the people OP is talking about like to judge you for can be too active depending on the person and the situation. If I get stressed enough, I can’t watch new-to-me television shows or fictional tv content in general. Nature documentaries and docudramas about prehistoric life only. “No fannish shows, only this obscure series about a wildlife refuge in Namibia,” sounds smart and worldly, but it’s actually the opposite. “No characters I might get invested in that could have bad things happen to them, no content I’m fannish about that involves emotional investment. It’s time to rewatch the collected works of Sir David Attenborough for the 46th time while fast-forwarding over the stressful bits where people talk about poaching/habitat loss/anything being endangered. Then we can rewatch the BBC Walking With Monsters series again. No need to have anxiety about how humans are destroying the planet and wiping out endangered animals when you’re watching something set before the Mesozoic! Humans don’t exist yet so nothing bad that happens to the fictionalized Devonian and Permian creatures is our fault. Oh look, the orphaned warthog in Namibia was successfully re-released into the wild just like it was every previous time I watched this program, how nice.”

The same applies to reading - when I’m stressed I’ll pass over new fiction on my tbr list in order to read nonfiction because it doesn’t require as much thought/imagination/emotional investment as something with fictional characters and a plot does. Worst case scenario, I’ll just reread the same three books about evolution over and over again. No sci-fi or romance novels, only Donald Prothero’s Evolution: What the Fossils Show and Why it Matters and Nick Lane’s book on the biochemical origins of life for the 14th times

[rewrite-the-wrongs]

introductions / howdy, pardner

My first short story was about a fishboy and his human best friend. They battled a mutant piranha (whose name I think may have been Mutant Piranha, such was the monumental daring of my creative endeavor) and his army, who were out to destroy a mountain that held a whole planet together. The boys won singlehandedly, because scale was apparently a bit of a mystery to me.

This was the second grade. My teacher--who held me every day as I cried for weeks, confused and miserable and stranded in the throes of my parents’ divorce--understood before I did that I create to a ploddingly slow and steady drumbeat. A sentence is always so much more in my head than I’m able to let out, at first; I have to pore over it again and again, fleshing and flourishing (and often correcting) it, the same way I often have to reread paragraphs or pages or whole books to truly capture their meaning. In a word processor, this back-and-forth is as easily said as it is done; on double-wide ruled paper with dashed-line handwriting guides, the task is magnitudes more time-consuming, especially for somebody as messy as I am. So, while nearly everybody else played at recess on the sandlot and the jungle gym around us, a select few stragglers laid our reading folders on our laps and finished our stories.

My villain, that dastardly Mutant Piranha, found himself in prison at the story’s close. Awaiting trial, I guess; I never ventured that far ahead, seeing the big fishy bastard for a coward. “When no one was looking, he stabbed himself.” That’s the last line, stuck in my memory, not for its own sake, but for my poor teacher’s horrified face as she read my final draft there on the playground.

A mom volunteered to type up the class’ stories and get them printed and bound. For years afterward I reread that collection, always proud to have written the second-longest piece therein. I felt the weight of the pages, inhaled the tiny but acrid breeze that came from rapidly leafing through them. Knew it was a whole smattering of worlds inside, that one of those worlds was wholly mine, and I had the power to show it to people however I wished. Yes, I thought, I want this.

*

I’ve been introduced to writing many times over, by many people. Don’t get me wrong--I nightowled the first several chapters to many half-baked novel concepts all through my youth. But teachers have a way of showing a thing to you from new angles.

The first person to impact me as such was a high school teacher who was essentially given carte-blanche to construct a creative writing workshop in the English curriculum. The first semester was structured--you practiced poems, short fiction, humor and essay writing, drama, the gamut. Every semester after, the carte-blanche was passed on: A single assignment due a week, each a single draft of a poem or a minimum of two pages’ worth of prose. Forty-five minutes a day to work, and of course free time at home. By the time I graduated, I’d finagled my schedule such that I was spending two periods a day in the computer lab, and several hours after school every day working the literary arts magazine before I went home to get the rest of my homework out of the way and write some more..

My next big influence came in the form of  a pair of writers who taught fiction at my university, a married couple. One had me print stories and literally, physically cut them up section-by-section as a method of reworking chronologies. Told me stories happened like engines or clocks or programs--pieces that meshed differently depending on how they were put together, rules that held each other in place. The other showed boundless confidence in me, listened happily to some older students who recommended I be brought on board for a national arts mag. They both encouraged me toward grad school, but toward the end of my junior year I began to stumble, and by senior year I was, to be frank, a drunken asshole. Time I could be bothered to set aside for writing began to dwindle. I limped through the editorship with the help of my extremely talented, utterly more-than-worthy successor--and come to think of it, I’ve never truly thanked her. Maybe I’ll send her that message, now that I’m feeling more myself.

*

On feeling more myself:

That drunken rage was brought on by a myriad list of factors, the primary ones being 1) I am the child of recovering alcoholics, and our inherited family trauma runs deep, 2) An assault that will likely be mentioned no further from hereon in, as I have reached a solid level of catharsis about it, 3) Some toxic-ass relationship issues, and 4) I was a massive egg and had no idea (or, really, I had some idea, just not the language or understanding or even the proper empathy to eloquently and effectively explore it).

I had a recent relapse with drinking, technically--a mimosa at Christmas breakfast at my partner’s parents’ home--but I’m not honestly sure I can call it a legitimate relapse. I’m not in any official self-help group, I’ve never engaged in the twelve steps or a professional rehabilitation. I had a very wonderful therapist for a few years but reached a point at which I could not pay her any longer and we parted ways--I miss her dearly, as she truly became my friend and confidante; she was the first person I came out to, and very well-equipped to handle it, lucky for me--but I’m still on behavioral medication. That tiny smidgen of alcohol pushed my antidepressants right out of my brain, and I became terribly anxious and angry and sad all at once, and briefly lashed out during a conversation with my partner behind closed doors. Not nearly the lashing out I’ve released in the now-distant past--more on that maybe-never, but who knows, as I am obviously a chronic over-sharer.

Frankly, I don’t deserve my partner. She endured my past abuses, told me to my face I had to be better, and found it in herself to wait for me to grow. She’s endlessly and tirelessly supportive of me. She sat with me to help me maintain the nerve to start this blog tonight. I came out to her as a trans woman just under a year ago, now, and I’m happier than ever, and we communicate better than ever. Our relationship is, bar-none, the healthiest and stablest and happiest I’ve ever been in.

So, naturally, I apologized fairly quickly at Christmas, and continuing where I’d left off at two and a half years, decided I’m still solid without booze.

If we’re all being honest, though (and I’m doing my best to be one hundred percent honest, here, though I will absolutely be censoring names because no shit), I still smoke way too much fuckin’ weed. High as balls, right now. 420 blaze it, all day erryday, bruh. That self-medicated ADHD life. I should be on Adderall and not antidepressants, probably, but it’s been a while since an appointment and psychiatrists are expensive, so I’m at where I’m at for now. Sativas help a lot. It helps with the dysphoria, too.

I don’t have a legal diagnosis for gender dysphoria, but tell that to my extreme urge to both be in and have a vagina. I’m making little changes--my hair, an outfit at a time, no longer policing how I walk or run or how much emphasis I put on S sounds. If I manage to come out to my parents sometime soon--and it feels like that moment is closer every day--maybe I’ll tell y’all my real, full chosen name. For right now, call me Easy.

*

Anyhow. My goals here are pretty simple:

1) Share words, both those by people I like/admire/sometimes know! and occasionally words I’ve made that I like. See the above screenshot from my notes app. Steal some words if you want, but if you manage to make money off some of mine, holler at ya gurl’s Venmo, yeah?

2) Discuss words, how they work, and how we create them, use them, engage with them, and ultimately make art of them. I am not a professional linguist, but I went to undergrad for creative writing, so, hey, I’ll have opinions and do my best to back them up with ideas from people smarter than I am.

3) Books! Read them, revisit them, quote them, talk about them, sometimes maybe even review them, if I’m feeling particularly bold. No writer can exist in a vacuum, and any writer who insists they don’t like to read is either a) dyslexic and prefers audiobooks or b) in serious need of switching to a communications major (no shade, but also definitely a little shade @corporate journalism).

5) I added this last, but I feel it’s less important than 4 and does not deserve bookend status, and I am verbose but incredibly lazy, so here I am, fucking with the system. Anyway: Art! Music! Video games! I fucking love them. I’ll talk about them, sometimes, too. Maybe I’ll finally do some of the ekphrastic work I’ve felt rattling around in my brain for a while now. Jade Cocoon 2′s Water Wormhole Forest, looking right the fuck at you.

6) Ah, shit, I did it again. Oh well. Last-but-not-last: This is obviously, in some ways, a diary, or a massive personal essay. I will sometimes discuss people, places, or experiences that have informed my work just the same as other people’s art has.

4) Be an unabashed and open Trans woman. TERFs, transphobes, ill-informed biological essentialists not permitted. Come at me and my girldick and prepare to be dunked on and subsequently shown the door via a swift and painful steel-toed kick in the ass. Everybody who doesn’t suck, if I screw up on any matter of socio-ethics or respect for diversity, please feel free to correct me.

*

Punk’s dead, but we’re a generation of motherfucking necromancers. Be gay, do crime, fight the patriarchy, and fart when you gotta. May the Great Old Ones select you to ascend to a higher plane and learn the terrible truths of existence.

Much love--

Easy

[braindamageforbeginners]

On the nature of evil

Cycle 5, Day 9 I’m in the grips of an infusion hangover; it’s not the worst I’ve ever had, and I predict be back up to full-speed in a few hours, with the help of a lot of coffee and aspirin. However, recent events - combined with my fatigue (fhe coffee has’t kicked in yet) inspired me to go dig this out of the “Drafts” bin and finish rather than start from scratch. This will be long - my apologies - and have more than few typos and problems in it (for starters, I stitched it out of three or four other ideas/observations/proto-essays, and I’m all chemo hung-over now).

I’ve thought an awful lot lately about the nature of good and evil - as you do, when you face an existential threat that originates in your own body (and, because it’s me, I’m not going to get there in a straight-line path). I’m a reductionist (that’s shocking, I know), and, as a child, I wanted to know what made us us (DNA, I know, but I was hoping for more details). I once asked my high school biology teacher whether it would be more accurate to describe us as multicellular critters, or as walking colonies of specialized cells. She said the latter. Later in life, I put the same question to my biochemistry professor; his learned opinion was that we’re just walking, talking biochemical reactions that existed to provide the carbon molecules within us the best, most-stable shot in a hostile universe (that might seem dehumanizing until you realize that all life, in all its myriad forms, and all human progress and endeavors - from laying cement to composing an adagio - stem from a few basic rules of chemistry and physics, which is almost miraculous if you think about it). Which means that my tumor is the result of one or two brain cells getting very specific mutations (six or seven I think: I have the exact list of mutations written in my personal notebook, but I’m not sure it’s that interesting), and then growing, spreading, and recruiting other rogue cells. That’s not particularly evil; it’s just the horrible result of a few cells being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s just some rogue, reprogrammed bits of me; but, unlike the harmless bacteria in my gut or the fungus on my feet, it will grow and spread without constraint... until it kills me (hopefully that won’t happen, but it’s important to keep that in mind throughout the essay)..

One accusation I’ve occasionally heard leveled at atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other non-religious folk like myself is that by not having some grand villain to creation, we refuse to acknowledge the existence of evil. As a pragmatist, has always been, “Well, you have to. The bar has to be set somewhere.” Even though human morality may not exist in the vacuum of space beyond Pluto, humans have to have it - or at least pretend to (we’ll get to that very shortly). The best, most-useful definition comes from an obscure short story written by M. Shayne Bell, “Evil exists; it is intelligence in the service of entropy.”

To further pad this essay, and make it all about me; I have not mentioned my psychiatrist much (this isn’t Shrink; they’re two different people). This is both to protect her privacy, and because, despite what you might think from these writings, I do have aspects of my life I don’t spill out to the general public. But, she is - like everyone else on my health team - not above using any and all tools available to her. Which means that she’ll prescribe any medication she feels is indicated (I am indebted to her for her reviewing my meds and recommending the exotic antidepressant I’m on)(and the rather more-common anti-anxiety meds I’m on). However, despite being up-to-date on all psych meds (as far as I know, she specializes in cancer patients, so that one’s important)(she’s the doctor who noted my previous antidepressant lowers seizure threshold, so it might not be ideal for me), she’s still what I would call old-fashioned. Which she’ll listen for a few minutes, then say something deeply wounding. Or, worse, means she’ll say something innocuous that you’ll wake up at three am to think about. She was the person who told me to look at my current situation (namely, I have stay within easy driving distance of my oncology teams in SoCal and NoCal for a year) as a form of probation, rather than a sentence. I know my father hated that metaphor when I discussed it with him, but it was what I needed to hear (and, more importantly, she knows me well enough to know I despise and mistrust people who sugar-coat things) to start changing my thinking. A few months ago, when she asked how I spent most of my day, I told I wrote, went to the gym... and spent most of my time dealing with the unfortunate, bureaucratic paperwork and bills (well, as many as I can deal with) that tend to stack up when you get sick. Her response was, “That’s depressing” and it felt good initially, to hear a real grown-up say that, because it reassured me that I wasn’t just going insane. However, as I thought about it, I got angry, because she’s right - it is depressing - it should not be a full-time job to be a sick person, but that is exactly what it takes. I have access to some of the best doctors and medicine, and there is a still dangerous amount of luck involved in this project. There’s been a lot of skill on my part at gaming the insurance companies, when I can (which is rare), and I’ve had a tremendous amount of financial support from my family, but there are sick people who die by the boatload from very, very treatable diseases (yes, hospitals do throw you out; it actually happened to me). And even though there are resources available, there are not enough, and anyone who claims that we don’t have the money is clearly not familiar with the bloated military industrial complex, which even most hard-core conservatives I know admit is bloated.

If the theme of Day 47 was “How much have we, as a species, lost because we all went out of our way to stomp someone,” the theme of today is, “how many people have we unwittingly killed - how much blood is on our hands - because we never said “No” to the few dozen psychopaths who maintain a system that is addicted to death and misery. And, let’s be honest, there is a massive difference between considering how much potential we destroyed when we chased the neighbor kids off our lawn, and nobody giving Jeffrey Dahmer a damned good thrashing when he set the cat on fire (for starters, we can actually quantify Jeff’s evil based on how many people we found in the freezer; the mountains those kids never climbed are completely imaginary).

Returning to mathematics and statistics (it comforts me); just as I am a medical rarity (I’ve done the math, the word “freak” might be cruel, but it’s not inaccurate), but the vast majority of you, readers, are healthy and able-bodied - in other words, if the law of averages works, if you spread it across a population - then, just as I’m becoming aware that almost all of us are filled with madness and wonder and magic; then a few of us contain black holes from which light can not escape. Bipedal nightmares, if you will.

The point of this piece is not to frighten you, although some of you might be frightened. It’s merely to recognize that psychopaths and people with psychopathic tendencies (we’ll get there shortly) exist, and, in order to triumph, you don’t have to do much. Just don’t let them walk over you. That’s it.

Now, this is one area where I definitely am largely uneducated (I like writing, because, as long as I flash that warning up front, I feel I’ve done my duty), and I’m not going to discuss psychopaths (well, not yet, we’ll get there very shortly) inasmuch as I am going to discuss anti-social personality problems. Despite the name, it doesn’t describe people like myself who’d much rather sit at home with my dog, a beer, and the latest sci-fi series from Netflix rather than go out or meet new people (which I would, thanks). It describes people whose actions describe a lack of empathy or caring about other people; which includes psychopaths.

Here’s the thing; according to Ron Jonson’s “The Psychopath Test,” people with anti-social traits make up 1-3% of the general population, however, 30-40% of politicians, CEOs, financiers, etc. - the people at the helm of society, if you will - have anti-social personality traits. I’m sure that number is entirely inaccurate, and the wealthiest, most-powerful class of Western society is quite normal and compassionate, and we serfs are entirely responsible for the harmful, dangerous policies that govern us. I’m sure there’s some sort of long-term wisdom in the medico-legal policies governing my access to medicine I’m not aware of, and me dying or going bankrupt in the process is a minor price to pay for everyone else to benefit (and it might be, using that Law of Averages idea).

Of course, that might be a little extreme; however, law and morality are miles apart, and you confuse the two at your peril (as any racial minority who’s received an unnecessary traffic citation can attest). In my own case, at age 17, after an MRI confirmed that I had a brain tumor; my insurance company literally pulled the plug as I was being wheeled into the OR - entirely legally, I might add, using a loophole in the law in my coverage (I think it’s the hall-mark of morality to let a teen die of a preventable disease)(yes, hospitals do throw people out into the street). Thankfully, my parents were calmer and faster on their feet than I, and they were able to get things back on track - two days later.

The point is, we live in a society seemingly created by, and for, people who are unhindered by any sense of morality. Of course, I’ll admit that I’m an exceedingly small minority, and a self-solving problem, as far as society at large is concerned (literally, all it takes is stopping funding to a few programs at the FDA and NIH and I’ll be finding out if Pascalor or Marcus Aurelius was right. It’s quite possible the rules have changed (I’m sure they have, because I’ve successfully taken advantage of those changes)(and paid a lot of money for that privilege), and the faceless companies that were so eager to see me dead at various points are now fully-invested in my survival (good news, if I’m reading the FDA testing info right, I’m one of 80 people in this drug trial, and my gruesome end would represent a failure rate of 1.25%. I doubt that’s enough for them to step in and dramatically intervene on my behalf, but I’ll settle for CVS being a little more competent and generous about the Temodar).

As someone who is occasionally (okay, so more than occasionally) thoughtless or insensitive, but also horrified at the depths of human cruelty, I also feel like pointing out that we have an unhealthy fascination with anti-social personalities and anti-social personality problems. We marry them. We vote for them. We work for them. When, quite frankly, all it would take would be us - or someone else along the line - refusing to let these idiots get away with it. If we made them pay their taxes and stand at the back of the line. Now, that wouldn’t rid of us John Wayne Gacy or Ted Kaczynski, but they aren’t the problem. Adolf Eichmann is. Those of you familiar with recent history will probably have recoiled from the screen - probably rightfully; to the rest of you; Eichmann was a Colonel in the SS, and one of Hitler’s lieutenants; if there is one single person responsible for the planning and execution of the “Final Solution,” it is this man. Yes, I just broke Godwin’s Law, because the problem with Nazi Germany wasn’t actually the Nazis. Don’t get me wrong; they had to go; my point is, the relatively few Nazi zealots in power would have been completely incapacitated if their clerks and underlings had simply refused orders. Or if someone had dragged them off and told them that wasn’t cool.

Of course, this is being played in real-time with US detention of immigrant children. Again, I’ll bring up Nazis, but in this terrifying context: they didn’t have first, or even the biggest genocide; they were just the first to keep records that allowed the prosecution to build a case. So when you hear a hospital administrator say, “We’ll get back to you about that,” or a border bureaucrat say “We don’t know where the girls and toddlers are,” it should raise the hackles on the back of your neck. Once you get lost in the paperwork - in medical administration or the actual administration - that’s the first, quiet sign that someone doesn’t want to be held accountable if something bad happens (to counteract that, I’ve had good luck demanding to speak to supervisors or get employee ID numbers)(we will ignore the irony - in a few cases - that I was way too tired or in pain to really back up any threats).

At each step in this thing from July 5, 2002 until now, I’ve been lucky enough to find great doctors, surgeons, nurses, etc. who cared about their patients. Sadly, we live in a society that views Gregory House as a realistic character (there’s a fun med student drinking game where you sip whenever he inadvertently kills a patient). And the common thread throughout is that no one thinks it’s just a job or a paycheck or a way to get rich (if you want that, get MBA and become a hospital administrator - they’re usually paid way more than doctors). I think Mad Scientist and Senior Warlock would show up at the hospital tomorrow if they won the Powerball today (I could see them quitting work after finding some definitive cause of brain tumors and/or winning a Nobel Prize). In other words, the trick to finding great medical groups - is the same trick as finding someone who loves their job and would keep working even if all their financial obligations were met. In other words, you find someone who loves their job or their patients, and they’ll focus on being a better doctor. Which means fewer mistakes and/or dead patients.

To tie this all together - or attempt to, this is a Frankenstein’s Monster of writing combined with a morning head - I met, a med student a number of years ago (two neurosurgeries), who said, about my near-disastrous first-surgery (that’s the one where I was thrown out of the hospital while being wheeled into the OR, thanks to an insurance screw-up) that the medical system - such as it is, was more or less fine, dismissing me with “I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you.“ Telling someone they deserve to die due to profit margins and bureaucracy is right up with “Have you gained weight” as far as ways to promptly alienate and piss off other people. He also boasted about how many women hit on him, even though he wore a wedding ring (to be fair, I’d give it a 50-50 chance his wife was actually his mother’s corpse in a wedding dress), and how you have to be careful when providing free service because “poor people will tell their friends” - that man was not very smart (although I have no doubt he’d pass an IQ test)(BTW, there are a lot of studies showing that IQ tests are only slightly better than the MBTI or mood rings when judging intelligence; and it’s telling that whenever one of my crazy, brilliant physicians wants to assess my intelligence, they don’t use an IQ test), but, as far as I know, there are no set systems in place to ensure he didn’t graduate and go into practice (I mean, it’s possible he passed through med school and never got into a residency; I really hope some interview board looked at each afterward and said, “This is the creepiest motherfucker I’ve ever met; do we need another cadaver?”) . And, if he is practicing, I promise you - I’d bet my new lease on life on that statement (you need to understand, though, you’re betting your life on that statement if you’re one of his patients) - that he has, probably unintentionally, killed people because of his complete lack of interest in anything apart from money, sex, and self-aggrandizement - he has absolutely no interest or incentive to improve himself, or save more people, or take anything, other than his bank account to the next level. It’s possible the fear and/or wrongful death suits got to him (again, that’s assuming  a lot). It’s a single case, but it’s demonstrative that our society has no real check against human evil or one person getting a dangerous amount of power. You can read into that whatever political statements you like, I’m just noting as a chronic patient a few observations about the importance of compassion (or curiosity) as a quick indicator of physician quality.

The other important lesson here regarding medical sociopathy - and I might’ve written about this previously, forgive me - is that talent attracts talent. I write a lot about the nurses and physicians, but in the chemo ward, I have never seen the orderlies not take out the trash and/or replace linens (and they recently went on strike - and I really hope they got all their demands met, because they’re making it possible to be in a hospital and not feel under a microbial threat). My point is, even the orderlies - a group no one ever thinks of, are top-level. And when that’s just the cleaning staff, everyone else is of a similar competence. I don’t know why they (the orderlies) work there - it might just be a paycheck - but they’re good, and the nurses and doctors aren’t going to outshone by the facilities. Meanwhile, think of that one great doctor in an otherwise lousy practice or hospital. Go ahead and do some research if necessary; I’ll wait. I’m guessing there aren’t a whole lot.out there.

To bring all of this back to the current medico-political situation, the White House has something of a staffing problem, to say the least. At this point, I believe we have a series of rubber stamps in office at this point (everyone familiar with my “Fall Risk” story will know how I feel about that issue), and not particularly competent ones. That’s disturbing in and of itself, but the greater problem is that it’s an endorsement of psychopathy as policy, and, as noted, psychopaths aren’t even particularly intelligent or efficient. But, more importantly, the way you’re betting - if you’re a majority member - is that you will be, personally as wealthy, healthy, and powerful as you are now, and that you will never need the help of someone else. If you don’t feel comfortable with that, then maybe just slap the bullies when you see them. I’m more-serious than you might think; they’re not all going to stand down and behave, but it’s a safer bet than that Immortan Joe will overlook you and behave charitably.