The following is an Order of Service and Sermon that I [Donald B. Jeffries] wrote and presented at my congregation, the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis, on July 21, 2013. During the summer, our services are lay-led. This is a subject that I had wanted to address for quite some time, given my 43-year devotion to racial justice, diversity and inclusion, and my training as an anti-racism activist for the World of Difference program.
Chalice Lighting
from a quote on "Color Blindness" by Michael Eric Dyson, 1996
"The ideal of a color-blind society is a pale imitation of a greater, grander ideal: of living in a society where our color won't be denigrated, where our skin will be neither a badge for undue privilege nor a sign of social stigma. Because skin, race, and color have in the past been the basis of social inequality, they must play a role in righting the social wrongs on which our society has been built. We can't afford to be blind to color when extreme color consciousness continues to mold the fabric and form of our nation's history."
Prayer and Meditation
from Explorations Into Consciousness, a video interview with Deepak Chopra
"People have fear of the unknown. What they should fear is the known. The known is all the past training they've had that has locked them into a certain reality. The unknown is what we should be stepping into in every moment of our existence. By doing so, life would become more exciting. There's nothing like getting in touch with yourself."
Now, let us meditate on these words.
First Reading
The first reading is from an article entitled White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. The article is considered a 'classic' by anti-racist educators. Peggy McIntosh is a European-American feminist and anti-racist activist.
"As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.
Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn't affect them because they are not people of color; they do not see "whiteness" as a racial identity.
In my class and place, I did not recognize myself as a racist because I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.
My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfair advantaged person or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed this pattern: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow 'them' to be more like 'us'."
Second Reading
A quote by Margaret Young
Often people attempt to live their lives backwards:
they try to have more things, or more money,
in order to do more of what they want,
so they will be happier.
The way it actually works is the reverse.
You must first be who you really are,
then do what you need to do,
in order to have what you want.
Sermon - Being Intentional About Racial Inclusiveness
The first portion of the sermon, concerning the elements of transformation, is quoted liberally from Living Deeply: The Art & Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, by Marilyn Mandala Schlitz, Cassandra Vieten, and Tina Amorok, pages 92-112.
This morning, I will be weaving together two strands of thought which, I hope, by the end of my sermon will make sense. One topic is the process of 'being intentional' and how that produces transformational action, and the second topic is racial inclusiveness. So, let me begin this weaving.
In the book Living Deeply: The Art & Science of Transformation in Everyday LIfe the authors outline the four essential elements of transformative practice: intention, attention, repetition, and guidance.
They begin by noting that the first step of any conscious transformative path is personal choice -- the will to change, motivation, or put more simply: intention. It's an interesting paradox: even though transformation is a natural process -- one that you primarily need to recognize and surrender to -- it also requires making the choice, each moment of each day, to be in greater alignment with who you are at your core. In the process, you become a co-conspirator in your own evolution. In other words, intention is a choice you make about where to place your awareness.
Intention not only fuels the transformative process through commitment, it also imbues actions with transformative potential. In other words, bringing strong intention to any constructive action can make that action transformative.
A second key component of the transformative experience is a shift in perspective -- you begin to look at the world with fresh eyes. In the process, you begin to notice things in a new way. A transformative practice you can start today is paying greater attention to your everyday habits. If you're like most people, transformation may require that you break from some pretty deeply ingrained patterns of thinking and behavior, many of which you may be in denial about. But before changing any of these behaviors, we must become aware of them -- we must bring them into consciousness.
Just as physical exercise helps form your musculoskeletal system and improve your cardiovascular health, transformative practice helps you move into a new way of being. Learning to live more deeply requires repetition. Part of the practice is the building of new habits -- it makes sense that you'll need to engage in the process on a regular basis to reinforce them. Since the brain continuously reorganizes itself, repeated transformative practices may allow us to consciously shape our brains and our behaviors.
Fourth, guidance from experienced teachers and sacred texts is helpful to learning a practice correctly and staying on course over time. External guidance must be balanced by your own internal wisdom.
Of these four elements, as I noted at the outset, my focus will be primarily on intention as it motives action, with reference to the other three elements.
------------------------
In order to create real change, we have to be willing to set aside significant blocks of time to work on them. If that means less time to sit in front of a TV, or less time to goof off, or less energy for social pleasures, then that's simply what it takes.
No major social movement in America -- or anywhere else -- succeeded without a core group of people putting a wealth of time and energy into its implementation. It is important to be intentional in your planning, but without the willingness to put out a lot of 'directed' time and energy, such processes will never change.
Many people think that work on political and social change occur 'when we have the time', as though they are some sort of 'polite social engagement in community work'. But social change is hard work and it takes a lot of time and energy and dedication. It's not enough to simply 'intend' to work on social change, it takes rolling up our sleeves and getting dirty.
But as important as it is to be intentional, even that is not enough. You must personally be willing to follow-up on your intentions and proactively implement them, instead of simply talking about them or hoping someone else will do it for you.
Hence, critical to any intentionality is the willingness to 'walk your talk'. As we all know, talk itself is cheap and actions speak infinitely louder than words. Good thoughts and fine speeches are positive, but they are worth little without a willingness to follow them with a change in behavior and action.
One of my favorite quotes about transformation is from Joseph Campbell. "Follow your bliss and doors will open where none previously existed."
In the process of the transformative journey, you create the doors, you walk through them, and then invite others to walk through them with you. You create change and consequences result from every change.
----------------------
Now that I've discussed intentionality and the importance of acting upon those intentions, I want to move to the second part of my sermon today.
In the past couple of years, our congregation has displayed a greater willingness to engage in a multicultural journey, by initially inviting, via our Welcoming Congregation, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people into our congregational life. And we have shown success in that effort. On June 30 [2013], via the joint efforts of the Social Justice Chairs of First Unitarian of St. Louis, Emerson Chapel, Elliot Chapel, and First Unitarian of Alton, Illinois, our four congregations marched together in the St. Louis Pride Parade, visually and vocally proclaiming our support of LGBT civil rights and inviting LGBT people into our congregations. I see that as a very positive development and one which assists us in opening our hearts and minds to the wider culture.
Having done that, I would now encourage us to take more steps on that multicultural journey. As we all know, the world in which we live is becoming more 'global'; the old narrow parochial view of the world, where only a small tribe grouped together, separate from the larger world culture, is becoming a thing of the past.
St. Louis has always been a gathering place for many different cultures; as the 'Gateway to the West', it has historically been a city where many groups gathered as a way-station on the journey further afield. But one of the other major historical legacies of St. Louis as a city was that it was located in a slave state, and, as a result, we have been burdened with a legacy of institutional racism. The degree of racial polarity in our city has dragged it down economically and engendered a fair degree of mutual distrust and animosity.
Many residents of St. Louis, of all racial groups, live in monocultural neighborhoods, their children attend monocultural schools, they worship in monocultural religious institutions. Most of their friends are from within the same racial group that they are. Oh, they might interact with other racial and ethnic groups at work or when out shopping, but their social and economic world is largely circumscribed by race. And that limitation is often quite conscious, at least to the extent that they feel a subliminal discomfort in the company of people who don't look like them.
As a person who both grew up in a multiethnic family [my mother was Hispanic/Mestizo and my father was Anglo] and later became an anti-racist trainer for the World of Difference program, I've always felt a bit incredulous when I meet a person in St. Louis who is white, and they say, in apparent innocence "I don't know what you're talking about when you say there is all this racism in St. Louis. I just don't see it." I now realize that, given the institutional racism, they may be 'telling the truth' from their perspective.
As Peggy McIntosh pointed out in the reading today, in America people who are white live in a sea of privilege and entitlement. And if you're a fish in the ocean, you are unaware of the ocean around you -- it's just 'reality'.
Generally, when white people refer to 'race', they are talking about people who are non-European white, as though being white is not a racial group. Tim Wise, who is a nationally-known speaker on racial sensitivity, speaks about how it is important that white people in American 'own their whiteness', own the fact that being white IS a racial distinction. Only by doing so can they begin to confront the entitlement that is conferred on whiteness in our country.
That is one of my personal discomforts about the current cultural and legal attack on Affirmative Action. It's as though after 20 years of allowing racial preference to be given to minority groups in an attempt to redress past inequalities and bring greater balance to the academic and economic environment, we are suddenly going to ignore the way in which whites in America have had 400 years of Affirmative Action, where having white skin gave a person a significant racial preference.
When students are given a preference in admissions to the best colleges in the country due to 'legacy' advantages -- because their parents were graduates of that school -- we fail to take into account the fact that until recently, African Americans were not allowed to attend those universities and therefore could not establish a 'legacy' for their own children.
As members of a larger Unitarian Universalist religious tradition which has a strong history of working for social change in America, we have distinct advantages in our overview of the world around us. But in confronting 'race' in America, being 'race-blind' is NOT advantageous. Culture does have a place in our dialogue, and ignoring racism around us does not cure the problem.
Being 'liberals' does not necessitate that we fail to notice our differences; in fact, to do so makes the problem worse. We are different and we are similar. It is equally important to be aware that skin color has historically separated us from one another, often for very illogical reasons, and at the same time to remember that 'race' is a cultural myth. This myth was promulgated in the 16th and 17th centuries as a way to divide groups and make it appear that people with darker skin were 'mentally inferior' and 'deserved' a lessor role in the economic sphere of the society. The 'lie' to that myth is that all humans share 99.9% of the same genetic markers, and that except for skin color, there is only one 'race' -- the human race.
It has been said that "Sunday is the most racially segregated day of the week." That has been historically true in our nation, not simply a legacy of our racist past here in St. Louis. While that has allowed us to gloss over and ignore the racial polarity around us, I would encourage us to actively challenge the cultural acceptance of the observation. Our congregation, the only Unitarian Universalist congregation in the City of St. Louis, located as we are three blocks south of the 'Delmar Divide', is in an excellent position -- and I would argue in an advantageous location -- to 'act upon' helping to bridge that racial divide.
We needn't start from scratch in creating that bridge. The National Conference on Community and Justice has sponsored a Dismantling Racism Conference since the mid-1990's for leaders in our region. FOCUS St. Louis has sponsored a Bridging the Racial Divide program for many years. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League, through their World of Difference Program, has been working on confronting racism in our community. Nearer to home, the Holy Ground Collaborative here in the Central West End [of which the First Unitarian of St. Louis is a member] has for the past 10 years been fostering interfaith and interracial dialogue in our neighborhood. And the Unitarian Universalist Association has many resources for engaging in multicultural workshops, that encourage congregations to become more racially aware.
On a more practical level, what kinds of steps can we take, as a congregation, to achieve both racial diversity and inclusiveness?
- We can partner with a politically progressive African American congregation on joint projects and in the pursuit of mutual education.
- We can use the materials and resources listed on the UUA website pertaining to multicultural change.
- We can engage in adult education courses on racial sensitivity.
- We can view, together, films such as "Traces of the Trade", a documentary about how the New England states actively fostered the slave trade in America, by building the ships that ferried slaves across the Middle Passage. Racism in the northern states has its own historical legacy -- it's not just a southern issue.
- We can engage in discussions about these issues and ways in which we can become 'part of the solution'.
Further -- and more importantly, I would encourage our congregation to:
- Actively invite African Americans into our congregation, by promoting awareness of Unitarian Universalism among communities of color.
- Encourage our present and future African American members to become leaders in the congregation, first as chairs of church committees, and then as members of the Board of Trustees [Policy Board & Church Council].
- Educate ourselves on how to truly become a 'welcoming congregation' on many levels, not just welcoming lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, but also encouraging actual racial diversity in our membership.
- Promote 'Standing on the Side of Love' in all aspects of our congregational life, learning how to be more effective advocates for social change.
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In conclusion:
Will we make mistakes along the way, as we implement these changes in our congregational demographics and move toward a multicultural & multiracial religious community? That's a guarantee.
Mistakes are part of any journey. We ARE going to make mistakes and are likely to feel embarrassment about those mistakes. But what is critical is to learn to forgive ourselves, get up again, dust ourselves off, and continue the journey with open hearts and minds. Mistakes are all part of the practice, and being perfect will never teach you anything of value.
It is important to remember: What is the one most truly paradoxical aspect of this life, that is continual, timeless, and never changes? Change.
We can simply ride the wave of change and let it take us where it chooses, or we can choose to become 'change agents'. I believe the second option is more valid, and infinitely more empowering.
Hence, with all four elements of the transformative journey, we can 'make the change' into a consciously multicultural, racially inclusive congregation, by:
(1) being intention,
(2) paying clear attention to the steps we take and educating ourselves about what constitutes 'right relations',
(3) repeating the lessons we are going to learn, as we all grow together, and
(4) all the while being guided by our Unitarian Universalist theology and history, hand-in-hand with thoughtful anti-racism teachers in the present.
I believe it is time to move our Beloved Community into the 21st century, allowing us to once again be the 'Beacon on the Hill', our hearts open and ready for dynamic change.
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Benediction
We have the opportunity to lead the change in our church community in vital ways that include becoming consciously aware of racial entitlements that get in the way of being a truly Welcoming Congregation.
As you leave church today, I encourage you to take hold of the spirit of this transformation as a Clarion Call, and go out into the world, knowing that we can be the change that we seek.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Equalizing Social, Sexual and Political Reality
DOMA struck down
The news this morning that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), along with Prop. 8 in California is, indeed, from a men's wellness standpoint, very wonderful and welcome. The law was, as the opinion stated, openly discriminatory toward a very specific group and therefore violated equal protection. Now, the battle moves to overturning all the other provisions of the law, which continue to allow states which don't allow same-sex marriage to ignore the laws of states that do allow it. At this point, it is relatively safe to be a same-sex couple in New England -- most of the states in that part of the nation recognize same-sex marriages -- but it remains quite unsafe to be in a same-sex marriage in most of the rest of the nation, which often have fairly virulent laws that limit the freedoms of LGBTQIA people.
At the same time, though, the 'equal protection' didn't seem to apply, in the minds of a majority of the justices, to voting rights for non-white minorities (decided yesterday). It's like two realities living side-by-side and not affecting each other. Equal protection for same-sex couple but not for the legal freedoms of minority group members. (Though, soon we're going to have to change those terminologies, given that the demographic projections are that by 2040, 'white folks' are going to be a minority in population terms, though they may well maintain, like in the formerly-apartheid South Africa, political majority advantages.)
And then there was the SCOTUS case this week concerning affirmative action at the University of Texas. In a narrow decision, the justices allowed academic admissions programs that are partly focused on racial balance to continue, though with more oversight. What all the challenges to affirmative action continue to ignore is that white people in America have been allowed affirmative action for 400 years; after 20 or so years of affirmative action for non-white minorities, we aren't likely to balance out the damage done by a system that ignores 'white advantages' by simply saying 'that's just the way it is'. It doesn't have to continue being that way, and is frankly unequal protection under the law.
This simply means the 'good fight goes on', not that anyone is surprised by that. I saw an interview with the late Howard Zinn a couple of days ago, and he was talking about how American history is a story of the 99% fighting for their rights in the face of the 1% control -- of money, resources, the law, the police, etc. So, today we can cheer for DOMA going down and feel most uncomfortable with the key provisions of the Voting Rights Act being crushed as well.
NSA Leaks
The other bit of recent news that has struck me as lacking in 'balance' has been the security leaks at the National Security Agency. The focus has been on how Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower who leaked the information about the massive surveillance of the American populace, has broken the law, while ignoring how the NSA itself broke the law in the extent of their surveillance of the citizenry. Even the loose nature of the Patriot Act, which allows for a profound invasion of the civil liberties of Americans in the name of 'protecting their freedom', was routinely violated by the NSA and its subcontractors due to their 'secret interpretation of what the law allowed them' to do.
Through the various programs which were exposed by this leak, the security-survaillance state routinely compromises American freedoms in the defense of those freedoms -- which strikes me a weirdly paradoxical. I was always concerned that after 9/11, when the United States, without provocation, invaded Iraq, we would end up "exporting democracy and importing dictatorship", sort of like the old Pogo cliche of "we have met the enemy and they are us". And this situation seems to support that concern. As many articles on Salon.com have pointed out, the government regularly 'leaks' confidential information to the media in support of their political perspectives, but is aghast and profoundly lacking in 'balance' when a whistle-blower 'leaks' information which makes them look bad. Not a very consistent policy! To say "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" should work both ways: if the government has nothing to hide, why not let the public know the general outlines of what they are doing 'to protect American freedoms'?
The old cliche that "just because you're not paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you" has been sort of trumped by this recent news. As one writer pointed out "we are all now persons of interest", whether a citizen is completely innocent or not. As Caroline Kennedy said recently at a book-signing at the St. Louis County Library (in reference to a question about her 1997 book The Right to Privacy) "there is no longer any such thing as privacy in America, it's an illusion". That's sad and quite regrettable.
I just hope that Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado and his liberal colleagues have some impact on reining in these egregious violations of law. We do, indeed, need security from non-state terrorists, but at the price of an abrogation of civil liberties by what Noam Chomsky terms 'state terrorism'? I question whether that is worth it. I value my rights under the U.S. Constitution and the attendant Bill of Rights; having the government violate those rights in their attempt to defend my rights makes me wonder if Big Brother isn't taking this all just a bit too far.
Rape in the U.S. Military
The continuing story and evidence of ongoing rape in the U.S. military, and that, in spite of year after year statements of 'extensive training' and 'zero tolerance' by the top brass, the percentages keep rising, is a sad tale of the patriarchy allowing itself wide latitude while ignoring and even further victimizing vulnerable populations. The Independent Lens film The Invisible War this week on PBS portrayed both female and male military personnel, who were victims of rape, who were, after that sexual violation, then charged with crimes [such as, absurdly, adultery, even when the victims were single and their attackers were married] while their perpetrators were let off 'scot-free' -- and in some cases, those perpetrators were even promoted or honored, but rarely ever charged with a criminal act.
How can our military claim to be going around the world implementing 'democracy' when the personnel in that organization don't have rights? In one of the cases, the court ruling was that "rape is an occupational hazard" of military service. Really?? An occupational hazard? That is an egregious interpretation of the law. At least in civilian life, there is some redress to various levels of court systems; in the military, even if a court finds a perpetrator guilty, his commanding officer can vacate the ruling -- and apparently often does.
The other issue that the Independent Lens film brought up is that 50% of the rapes are of men. That is a statistic which very few of the critics of how the military has handled (or ignored) the issue have paid much attention to. As in many areas of the society, the rape of females is what is emphasized, while the rape of boys and men is either ignored or trivialized. Men who are subjected to sexual rape in prisons are ignored, as though that is 'just part of being a criminal'. (Back in 2006, a man in Texas sued over this issue, noting that while he was incarcerated for a specific crime, part of the imprisonment was not that "you will serve 10 years and be subjected to rape quite a number of times". I'm not sure what ever happened following his suit, but I hope it had some salutary effect on the 'justice system'.) There was a recent article on Salon.com talking about rape of boys in the juvenile justice system, and another article on rape of boys in school gymnastics programs (by other boys of the same age group).
My point isn't to minimize the quite horrific effects of the rape of females, but to note that it's not only females who experience rape. And to once again -- as I have often brought up in my blogs -- note how our culture willingly chooses to ignore the sexual rape and molestation of boys and men, often trivializing that kind of abuse as 'toughening up men', when in fact it is traumatizing and profoundly destructive on an emotional level -- just like it is for females.
Sexual Insecurities
This morning as I was reading articles on various websites, I came across a reference to a British video which challenges cultural notions about masculinity and male sexual insecurities. The film My Penis and Everyone Else's is a mildly humorous, but nonetheless serious documentary about male sexual insecurity about penis size, a subject that many men mention to close friends, but are uncomfortable talking about anywhere else. And yet it is a subject that affects their 'emotional sense' of being 'good enough' in many areas of their lives. As the filmmaker notes "what is important is not what's in your pants, but what's in your head", i.e. a man's perspective about the whole issue.
For years, I assumed the primary synonymous issue for females was breast size. In American culture, women are far more concerned about that issue than are most men, just like men are far more concerned about their penis size than are most women. (I've always argued that most women are far more focused on the size of a man's paycheck than on the size of his sexual organ. If their paycheck is large enough to satisfy women's financial fantasies, everything else 'seems' large -- or large enough -- as well.) Then, recently, I was reading an article on Salon.com about a website devoted to women sending in photos of their genitals and discussing their insecurities around that issue. The Large Labia Project is truly the 'equal concern' place for women to discuss matters that are incredibly similar to male concerns about penis size.
It just goes to show, once again, that sexual insecurity is hardly a gender-specific problem, though the 'nature' of an insecurity may be specific to one sex or the other.
The news this morning that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), along with Prop. 8 in California is, indeed, from a men's wellness standpoint, very wonderful and welcome. The law was, as the opinion stated, openly discriminatory toward a very specific group and therefore violated equal protection. Now, the battle moves to overturning all the other provisions of the law, which continue to allow states which don't allow same-sex marriage to ignore the laws of states that do allow it. At this point, it is relatively safe to be a same-sex couple in New England -- most of the states in that part of the nation recognize same-sex marriages -- but it remains quite unsafe to be in a same-sex marriage in most of the rest of the nation, which often have fairly virulent laws that limit the freedoms of LGBTQIA people.
At the same time, though, the 'equal protection' didn't seem to apply, in the minds of a majority of the justices, to voting rights for non-white minorities (decided yesterday). It's like two realities living side-by-side and not affecting each other. Equal protection for same-sex couple but not for the legal freedoms of minority group members. (Though, soon we're going to have to change those terminologies, given that the demographic projections are that by 2040, 'white folks' are going to be a minority in population terms, though they may well maintain, like in the formerly-apartheid South Africa, political majority advantages.)
And then there was the SCOTUS case this week concerning affirmative action at the University of Texas. In a narrow decision, the justices allowed academic admissions programs that are partly focused on racial balance to continue, though with more oversight. What all the challenges to affirmative action continue to ignore is that white people in America have been allowed affirmative action for 400 years; after 20 or so years of affirmative action for non-white minorities, we aren't likely to balance out the damage done by a system that ignores 'white advantages' by simply saying 'that's just the way it is'. It doesn't have to continue being that way, and is frankly unequal protection under the law.
This simply means the 'good fight goes on', not that anyone is surprised by that. I saw an interview with the late Howard Zinn a couple of days ago, and he was talking about how American history is a story of the 99% fighting for their rights in the face of the 1% control -- of money, resources, the law, the police, etc. So, today we can cheer for DOMA going down and feel most uncomfortable with the key provisions of the Voting Rights Act being crushed as well.
NSA Leaks
The other bit of recent news that has struck me as lacking in 'balance' has been the security leaks at the National Security Agency. The focus has been on how Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower who leaked the information about the massive surveillance of the American populace, has broken the law, while ignoring how the NSA itself broke the law in the extent of their surveillance of the citizenry. Even the loose nature of the Patriot Act, which allows for a profound invasion of the civil liberties of Americans in the name of 'protecting their freedom', was routinely violated by the NSA and its subcontractors due to their 'secret interpretation of what the law allowed them' to do.
Through the various programs which were exposed by this leak, the security-survaillance state routinely compromises American freedoms in the defense of those freedoms -- which strikes me a weirdly paradoxical. I was always concerned that after 9/11, when the United States, without provocation, invaded Iraq, we would end up "exporting democracy and importing dictatorship", sort of like the old Pogo cliche of "we have met the enemy and they are us". And this situation seems to support that concern. As many articles on Salon.com have pointed out, the government regularly 'leaks' confidential information to the media in support of their political perspectives, but is aghast and profoundly lacking in 'balance' when a whistle-blower 'leaks' information which makes them look bad. Not a very consistent policy! To say "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" should work both ways: if the government has nothing to hide, why not let the public know the general outlines of what they are doing 'to protect American freedoms'?
The old cliche that "just because you're not paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you" has been sort of trumped by this recent news. As one writer pointed out "we are all now persons of interest", whether a citizen is completely innocent or not. As Caroline Kennedy said recently at a book-signing at the St. Louis County Library (in reference to a question about her 1997 book The Right to Privacy) "there is no longer any such thing as privacy in America, it's an illusion". That's sad and quite regrettable.
I just hope that Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado and his liberal colleagues have some impact on reining in these egregious violations of law. We do, indeed, need security from non-state terrorists, but at the price of an abrogation of civil liberties by what Noam Chomsky terms 'state terrorism'? I question whether that is worth it. I value my rights under the U.S. Constitution and the attendant Bill of Rights; having the government violate those rights in their attempt to defend my rights makes me wonder if Big Brother isn't taking this all just a bit too far.
Rape in the U.S. Military
The continuing story and evidence of ongoing rape in the U.S. military, and that, in spite of year after year statements of 'extensive training' and 'zero tolerance' by the top brass, the percentages keep rising, is a sad tale of the patriarchy allowing itself wide latitude while ignoring and even further victimizing vulnerable populations. The Independent Lens film The Invisible War this week on PBS portrayed both female and male military personnel, who were victims of rape, who were, after that sexual violation, then charged with crimes [such as, absurdly, adultery, even when the victims were single and their attackers were married] while their perpetrators were let off 'scot-free' -- and in some cases, those perpetrators were even promoted or honored, but rarely ever charged with a criminal act.
How can our military claim to be going around the world implementing 'democracy' when the personnel in that organization don't have rights? In one of the cases, the court ruling was that "rape is an occupational hazard" of military service. Really?? An occupational hazard? That is an egregious interpretation of the law. At least in civilian life, there is some redress to various levels of court systems; in the military, even if a court finds a perpetrator guilty, his commanding officer can vacate the ruling -- and apparently often does.
The other issue that the Independent Lens film brought up is that 50% of the rapes are of men. That is a statistic which very few of the critics of how the military has handled (or ignored) the issue have paid much attention to. As in many areas of the society, the rape of females is what is emphasized, while the rape of boys and men is either ignored or trivialized. Men who are subjected to sexual rape in prisons are ignored, as though that is 'just part of being a criminal'. (Back in 2006, a man in Texas sued over this issue, noting that while he was incarcerated for a specific crime, part of the imprisonment was not that "you will serve 10 years and be subjected to rape quite a number of times". I'm not sure what ever happened following his suit, but I hope it had some salutary effect on the 'justice system'.) There was a recent article on Salon.com talking about rape of boys in the juvenile justice system, and another article on rape of boys in school gymnastics programs (by other boys of the same age group).
My point isn't to minimize the quite horrific effects of the rape of females, but to note that it's not only females who experience rape. And to once again -- as I have often brought up in my blogs -- note how our culture willingly chooses to ignore the sexual rape and molestation of boys and men, often trivializing that kind of abuse as 'toughening up men', when in fact it is traumatizing and profoundly destructive on an emotional level -- just like it is for females.
Sexual Insecurities
This morning as I was reading articles on various websites, I came across a reference to a British video which challenges cultural notions about masculinity and male sexual insecurities. The film My Penis and Everyone Else's is a mildly humorous, but nonetheless serious documentary about male sexual insecurity about penis size, a subject that many men mention to close friends, but are uncomfortable talking about anywhere else. And yet it is a subject that affects their 'emotional sense' of being 'good enough' in many areas of their lives. As the filmmaker notes "what is important is not what's in your pants, but what's in your head", i.e. a man's perspective about the whole issue.
For years, I assumed the primary synonymous issue for females was breast size. In American culture, women are far more concerned about that issue than are most men, just like men are far more concerned about their penis size than are most women. (I've always argued that most women are far more focused on the size of a man's paycheck than on the size of his sexual organ. If their paycheck is large enough to satisfy women's financial fantasies, everything else 'seems' large -- or large enough -- as well.) Then, recently, I was reading an article on Salon.com about a website devoted to women sending in photos of their genitals and discussing their insecurities around that issue. The Large Labia Project is truly the 'equal concern' place for women to discuss matters that are incredibly similar to male concerns about penis size.
It just goes to show, once again, that sexual insecurity is hardly a gender-specific problem, though the 'nature' of an insecurity may be specific to one sex or the other.
Friday, May 31, 2013
The Old Boys Network Revisited
The continuing news in recent months about the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, and the rape of female and male soldiers by personnel in the military exposes, once again, 'systems' that are managed by 'old boys networks' that look out for one another, rather than for those whom they should be protecting.
First, there was the demand and finally, due to a court order, release of hundreds of documents in the Los Angeles diocese that documented many decades of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, and the avoidance of responsibility to correct this problem by the management of that institution. The Catholic Church once again (this has happened so often it is becoming a cliche) displayed that it cared far more about their employees than about the parishioners for whom they are supposedly responsible. Apparently they were concerned, to a far greater extent, about 'their image' and 'covering their tracks' than they were about the care of vulnerable children. Of course the paradox is, now that the documents are being released and they display this avoidance of responsibility, the 'image' of the Catholic Church is once again becoming tarnished.
For an institution that exists supposedly to save souls, they are doing a pretty poor job of protecting souls on this plane of existence. Of course, they are not alone with that problem; many other religious organizations and denominations, along with their faith leaders, have been tarnished in recent years with such revelations about abuse of children under their care. But the Catholic Church, in particular, just doesn't appear to be 'getting the message', and this is portrayed by one case after another coming to light where the upper echelon of the organization has continued, in the face of expensive lawsuits, to not heal itself or its followers.
But as the revelations of the last couple of years about rape in the U.S. military ranks have proven, the Old Boys Network is alive and well in many institutions. The military, which is also supposed to protect and serve, has been hit with several years of reports exposing a pattern of sexual abuse, primarily by male personnel, of both women and men, and the senior commanders covering up that abuse or overruling their own tribunals that hand down prosecutions. And the result of that system failing to protect its recruits is that the number of rapes has increased since the report of last year, rather than decreasing due to more vigorous oversight. The most 'telling' aspect of the report was that both women and men are being raped in more or less equal numbers in the military ranks. And the U.S. military continues, largely, to 'look the other way', or to the extent that the problem is being confronted, fail to adequately address it in a manner that will take control of this sorry situation.
In most societies worldwide, the military and religious bodies are paramount organizations that have enormous physical, financial and 'devotional' control over their nations, so what they do and how they behave effects all their citizens. Hence, how they handle problems that arise in their organizational systems is of enormous importance to everyone. That both of those systems, at least in the United States (and, for the Catholic Church, in many other countries as well), continue to betray the confidence the citizenry places in their hands is a travesty of monumental proportions.
In non-democratic countries, abuses by the military are not unusual and sadly common. But one expects that a military that serves to protect the liberties of democratic societies would equally work to protect the rights of individuals who serve in that organization, but so far, at least, the U.S. military is receiving a major demerit on that account. Even the officer who was supposed to enforce the code of conduct around sexual protection of female soldiers was recently arrested for being drunk and fondling a woman in a parking lot. We should expect -- and receive -- better behavior from individuals who are sworn to protect the rest of us. Clearly, though, it is not only female soldiers who are being subjected to sexual abuse within the ranks; as the recent report noted, male soldiers are being widely raped in the ranks as well. Not surprisingly, in a culture that refuses to admit that males are routinely sexually abused, that portion of the report has been largely ignored by the media.
Until the society begins to face the need for and addressing of men's emotional wellness, and the deleterious effects of a patriarchal system that fosters much of this poor behavior, such abuse will continue to be rampant and unregulated. We are only as healthy as a culture when we can adequately protect the most vulnerable members of that culture. And heretofore we've done a poor job of it.
First, there was the demand and finally, due to a court order, release of hundreds of documents in the Los Angeles diocese that documented many decades of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, and the avoidance of responsibility to correct this problem by the management of that institution. The Catholic Church once again (this has happened so often it is becoming a cliche) displayed that it cared far more about their employees than about the parishioners for whom they are supposedly responsible. Apparently they were concerned, to a far greater extent, about 'their image' and 'covering their tracks' than they were about the care of vulnerable children. Of course the paradox is, now that the documents are being released and they display this avoidance of responsibility, the 'image' of the Catholic Church is once again becoming tarnished.
For an institution that exists supposedly to save souls, they are doing a pretty poor job of protecting souls on this plane of existence. Of course, they are not alone with that problem; many other religious organizations and denominations, along with their faith leaders, have been tarnished in recent years with such revelations about abuse of children under their care. But the Catholic Church, in particular, just doesn't appear to be 'getting the message', and this is portrayed by one case after another coming to light where the upper echelon of the organization has continued, in the face of expensive lawsuits, to not heal itself or its followers.
But as the revelations of the last couple of years about rape in the U.S. military ranks have proven, the Old Boys Network is alive and well in many institutions. The military, which is also supposed to protect and serve, has been hit with several years of reports exposing a pattern of sexual abuse, primarily by male personnel, of both women and men, and the senior commanders covering up that abuse or overruling their own tribunals that hand down prosecutions. And the result of that system failing to protect its recruits is that the number of rapes has increased since the report of last year, rather than decreasing due to more vigorous oversight. The most 'telling' aspect of the report was that both women and men are being raped in more or less equal numbers in the military ranks. And the U.S. military continues, largely, to 'look the other way', or to the extent that the problem is being confronted, fail to adequately address it in a manner that will take control of this sorry situation.
In most societies worldwide, the military and religious bodies are paramount organizations that have enormous physical, financial and 'devotional' control over their nations, so what they do and how they behave effects all their citizens. Hence, how they handle problems that arise in their organizational systems is of enormous importance to everyone. That both of those systems, at least in the United States (and, for the Catholic Church, in many other countries as well), continue to betray the confidence the citizenry places in their hands is a travesty of monumental proportions.
In non-democratic countries, abuses by the military are not unusual and sadly common. But one expects that a military that serves to protect the liberties of democratic societies would equally work to protect the rights of individuals who serve in that organization, but so far, at least, the U.S. military is receiving a major demerit on that account. Even the officer who was supposed to enforce the code of conduct around sexual protection of female soldiers was recently arrested for being drunk and fondling a woman in a parking lot. We should expect -- and receive -- better behavior from individuals who are sworn to protect the rest of us. Clearly, though, it is not only female soldiers who are being subjected to sexual abuse within the ranks; as the recent report noted, male soldiers are being widely raped in the ranks as well. Not surprisingly, in a culture that refuses to admit that males are routinely sexually abused, that portion of the report has been largely ignored by the media.
Until the society begins to face the need for and addressing of men's emotional wellness, and the deleterious effects of a patriarchal system that fosters much of this poor behavior, such abuse will continue to be rampant and unregulated. We are only as healthy as a culture when we can adequately protect the most vulnerable members of that culture. And heretofore we've done a poor job of it.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
The Prince and The Pea
In spite of quite Herculean efforts, I seem to be gaining increasing dismal results from my endeavors, at least as it is related to my physical health. Partly it's a product of aging: unlike viruses, for which we gain a partial immunity as we grow older and survive the ill effects of the virus (or flu), allergies appear to get worse and more prevalent as we age. And my efforts to resolve those allergies are met, over and over again, with an intolerance to the suggested remedies, even when those remedies are seemingly tolerated quite well by most of the population.
In recent years, I have been faced with one allergic reaction after another, to all kinds of materials, fabrics, food, mattresses, eyeglasses, rashes, etc. And this list just keeps extending.
Several years ago, I developed a rash on my chest. For a year or so, I was able to tolerate topical medication to 'keep it at bay', but after a while -- and ever since -- I could no longer tolerate that or any topical medications (my body absorbs them almost directly into my blood stream, causing severe nausea and disorientation), and as a result that rash has plagued me, with periodic itching, ever since. That applies to the long-term eczema that I've had in my ears; there is no topical medication that I can tolerate to relieve the symptoms, so I end up (as much as I try to stop myself) scratching my ears far too much.
Then, two years ago, I started having negative reactions to hair shampoo, resulting in a condition known as 'burning scalp'. I tried a slew of different brands, many which claimed to be good for resolving that condition, but to no avail. The result has been that when I wash my hair, with the only shampoo that I've found to be even minimally tolerable, it often 'burns' immediately afterward and for several days, and each time I rinse it, with even cold water, it starts burning again. It's feels, much of the time, like having a Bunsen burner on top of my head, resulting in a quite painful outcome. And the heat radiates down into my upper chest area. I've tried homeopathy and acupuncture to relieve the symptoms, but to no sustained effect.
Then, this past year, my Sterns-Foster mattress reached its usable life, and I discarded it to purchase a new one -- an issue that I covered, at length, in my previous blog post. The only other thing I want to say about that issue is that the mattress which I tried, after all the memory foam ones, that was supposed to resolve the respiratory and upper GI tract distress from the foam fumes, resulted -- after one night on it -- in a 'Ben-Gay' kind of neuropathy in both of my calves, which has continued ever since and, I suspect at the point, may continue for the remainder of my life. Every morning I wake up with my ankles either feeling like they are freezing or are 'on fire', which within an hour or so radiates a burning sensation throughout my calves. No matter how much I wash my legs, exercise them, or meditate about the issue, the burning sensation continues all day long. On rare days, for a few hours, it subsides to the point of feeling 'like it did before that night on the mattress', but then returns with a vengeance.
I thought I had found a solution to the mattress issue (though not the neuropathy symptoms) recently when I received a new issue of Consumer Reports and they had a review of mattresses, with recommended models. A Sterns-Foster innerspring mattress was listed and I thought "great, I can replace my old mattress"! But when I went to Sears to view the model, to my great distress I realized that it, too, was covered with a 'pillow-top' foam, though it claimed it was not memory foam. But, nonetheless, it was not the 'non-foam top' that my former mattress had, and which I know I could tolerate. I've tried a cotton futon at my female partner's house, but at least that one is far too firm, and I wake up with back pains. I keep hoping (against hope) that I will be able to find an unused Sterns-Foster mattress, circa 2000 or before (the 'old' style one without foam tops) at some discount warehouse, but I haven't found one yet; and I continue looking at cotton futons, though I haven't found one that was of a 'medium firmness' for a back sleeper like myself.
Then there are my allergies to materials and fabrics. For years, I purchased surgical strength anti-embolism hose from Ames Walker and was quite tolerant of them. But about 5 years ago, they changed vendors (though, when I noted this problem, they claimed they were using the same vendors). I knew something was amiss when the new batch had a strong chemical odor [that had never been there before], and when I tried them on (after, as always, washing them in Seventh Generation laundry soap), I experienced an immediate intolerant, profoundly nauseous reaction. And even after washing them multiple times, the chemical allergy remained. The result has been that I've used the same old ones for years now, and they are shredding out in a severe way (making their anti-embolism qualities increasingly more minimal), because I can't find another brand that I can tolerate.
Or the fabric of black slacks. Several years ago I purchased a pair of Dockers black dress pants (oddly enough with 32" legs, when I wear 34" in every other pair) which now are the only ones I can wear at all (in black, that is). I've tried multiple pairs of Dockers and other brands since, and each and every time I experience an immediate disorienting nauseous reaction to the fabric. [This is a major issue for me, since black pants are required in many of the venues where I usher.] The result has been that I've had to wear this one pair of black pants year after year, and they are getting quite worn, but replacing them with a pair I can tolerate has been, heretofore, not available. I don't know if it's the cotton I can't tolerate (not all cotton is equal in tolerance level) or the black dye in the fabric. But it's a very real problem.
Or food allergies. I've gotten to the point where I can only eat poultry or salmon, and not all poultry reacts equally well in my GI tract. I can't even cook organic chicken at my own house (and I am a trained chef) without getting ill from it. I have found several restaurants in the St. Louis area -- Crazy Bowls & Wraps, Panera Bread, and San Sai, plus several sit-down restaurants -- where I can get cooked chicken meals that are tolerable to my body. But it gets expensive eating out every day. When eating at home, I can tolerate salmon and Butterball Turkey Bacon, but only that brand; all others make me ill. And at this point in life, I only ever drink water. No sodas, no alcohol, no fruit juices, definitely no caffeinated beverages of any sort, not even herbal teas [all of which I used to love as a younger man]. And all water isn't tolerable; some brands of bottled water, especially those with added minerals, make me quite ill. I can drink the tap water, in most locations in St. Louis, and be ok, but when I go across the river into Illinois, much of their water tastes like pond scum to me, and the water in many other cities I have visited (my former hometown of Albuquerque, and Atlanta and Chicago) has too much chlorine in it. So, I end up carrying the brands of bottled water, that I've learned that I can tolerate, everywhere with me.
Then, recently my eyeglasses needed to be replaced [the anti-glare covering is scratched]. I asked several friends for recommendations where to have them made, and decided to use a local university eye clinic. I had an eye exam prescription from the welfare medical system of which I'm a member, but the female eye doctor had said "here's what I came up with, but if you want to keep using your old prescription, that's fine with me". But the university eye clinic said that, since she hadn't written down that allowance, they, by law, had to act upon the new prescription. So they made me a new pair of glasses. The left lens was far too strong and the right lens far too weak, which caused severe headaches. I managed, through some connections at the school, to obtain a willingness to use the old prescription, which my present eyeglasses have in them [and which I tolerate quite well]. They did a 2nd re-make, but again I had the same problem with the lens. Then last week they did a 3rd re-make -- 'right on the mark of what we requested', especially in the prism, but when I tried them two days ago, the left lens was ok, but the right lens was far too strong, and the prism 'felt like' it had been set at a diagonal. The result was profound visual disorientation, headaches and resultant GI tract distress. At this point, I realize I'm going to have to 'eat' the $150 I spent on the eyeglasses, ask the university clinic for a new eye exam (hopefully with an optometrist who understands hypersensitive clients), and plan to try for a pair of eyeglasses that I can tolerate.
All of these allergies make me feel like "The Prince and the Pea", sort of a male version of 'The Princess and the Pea' fairy tale. The hypersensitivity that I experience, to all kinds of stuff, appears to be particular to me alone, though I hardly believe that I'm the only person with hypersensitive reactions. I date a woman who can eat and drink almost anything, with no ill effects sleep on mattresses which I find intolerable, wear most fabrics with no negative reactions, etc. And that appears to apply to the majority of the population. Many a doctor over the years (medical and ophthalmology) has commented that "I've never heard of anyone with those reactions", but they never write down my reactions and submit them to any kind of PDR tool (as far as I know). So, I keep ending up with reactions that aren't even listed as rare symptoms.
Alternately, though, my emotional health is improving all the time. My ability, as a sexual abuse survivor, to feel 'safe' within my own gender skin has become more 'tolerable' as my years of mental health therapy progress. The motivation to dissociate from my 'self', to emotionally 'run away' from any comfort with my maleness, which for so many years was the default position, has subsided to a profound degree in the last several years. My therapist has strongly suggested that my hypersensitive reactions to all these materials, fabrics, mattresses, food, etc. are the result of internalized anger and feelings of fear that I've lived with throughout my life, on the heals of [resultant outcomes of] being sexually molested and tortured at the hands of my parents. My former therapist in Albuquerque speculated years ago that trauma survivors have stressed out adrenal glans, due to being in more or less continual 'fight or flight' mode as children. And the result of that long-term stress is an lowered ability to deal with any foreign substance or traumatic situation later in life. I strongly suspect that is at least partly the problem for me and one reason, among many (not all of which I'm aware), that provokes the hypersensitive reactions that I experience.
It's not, though, that I feel 'hopeless' to resolve these issues. Hopefully I will find a mattress I can tolerate; hopefully I will find black pants I can tolerate (if I do, I'll probably buy 10 pairs to last me for many years to come!!); hopefully I'll discover foods that I can tolerate that allow me to widen my choices, rather than continually narrow them; hopefully I will find eyeglasses that I can wear without getting profound disorienting headaches. I no longer feel the situation is 'insolvable', like I did when I was seeing the world, exclusively, through 'deeply traumatized' emotional lens. In the last 5 years, I've found an intimate relationship which I can feel 'alive and respected' within, with a woman who I feel is truly a 'fellow traveler' on my life journey. Given my experience for most of my life before her, I had good reason to wonder if that would ever occur. So, there is clear and definite hope for change, even though my hypersensitivity limits my life, and in some ways -- at least partially because of aging and the breakdown of the body due to simply chronology -- will become more so in the coming years. But hopefully I will be able to 'cope' with those limitations. "Hope continues to be available". I sense there's some sort of Zen lesson to be learned here, though I can't think of what it is. But I'm sure it has something to do with 'acceptance of suffering'.
In recent years, I have been faced with one allergic reaction after another, to all kinds of materials, fabrics, food, mattresses, eyeglasses, rashes, etc. And this list just keeps extending.
Several years ago, I developed a rash on my chest. For a year or so, I was able to tolerate topical medication to 'keep it at bay', but after a while -- and ever since -- I could no longer tolerate that or any topical medications (my body absorbs them almost directly into my blood stream, causing severe nausea and disorientation), and as a result that rash has plagued me, with periodic itching, ever since. That applies to the long-term eczema that I've had in my ears; there is no topical medication that I can tolerate to relieve the symptoms, so I end up (as much as I try to stop myself) scratching my ears far too much.
Then, two years ago, I started having negative reactions to hair shampoo, resulting in a condition known as 'burning scalp'. I tried a slew of different brands, many which claimed to be good for resolving that condition, but to no avail. The result has been that when I wash my hair, with the only shampoo that I've found to be even minimally tolerable, it often 'burns' immediately afterward and for several days, and each time I rinse it, with even cold water, it starts burning again. It's feels, much of the time, like having a Bunsen burner on top of my head, resulting in a quite painful outcome. And the heat radiates down into my upper chest area. I've tried homeopathy and acupuncture to relieve the symptoms, but to no sustained effect.
Then, this past year, my Sterns-Foster mattress reached its usable life, and I discarded it to purchase a new one -- an issue that I covered, at length, in my previous blog post. The only other thing I want to say about that issue is that the mattress which I tried, after all the memory foam ones, that was supposed to resolve the respiratory and upper GI tract distress from the foam fumes, resulted -- after one night on it -- in a 'Ben-Gay' kind of neuropathy in both of my calves, which has continued ever since and, I suspect at the point, may continue for the remainder of my life. Every morning I wake up with my ankles either feeling like they are freezing or are 'on fire', which within an hour or so radiates a burning sensation throughout my calves. No matter how much I wash my legs, exercise them, or meditate about the issue, the burning sensation continues all day long. On rare days, for a few hours, it subsides to the point of feeling 'like it did before that night on the mattress', but then returns with a vengeance.
I thought I had found a solution to the mattress issue (though not the neuropathy symptoms) recently when I received a new issue of Consumer Reports and they had a review of mattresses, with recommended models. A Sterns-Foster innerspring mattress was listed and I thought "great, I can replace my old mattress"! But when I went to Sears to view the model, to my great distress I realized that it, too, was covered with a 'pillow-top' foam, though it claimed it was not memory foam. But, nonetheless, it was not the 'non-foam top' that my former mattress had, and which I know I could tolerate. I've tried a cotton futon at my female partner's house, but at least that one is far too firm, and I wake up with back pains. I keep hoping (against hope) that I will be able to find an unused Sterns-Foster mattress, circa 2000 or before (the 'old' style one without foam tops) at some discount warehouse, but I haven't found one yet; and I continue looking at cotton futons, though I haven't found one that was of a 'medium firmness' for a back sleeper like myself.
Then there are my allergies to materials and fabrics. For years, I purchased surgical strength anti-embolism hose from Ames Walker and was quite tolerant of them. But about 5 years ago, they changed vendors (though, when I noted this problem, they claimed they were using the same vendors). I knew something was amiss when the new batch had a strong chemical odor [that had never been there before], and when I tried them on (after, as always, washing them in Seventh Generation laundry soap), I experienced an immediate intolerant, profoundly nauseous reaction. And even after washing them multiple times, the chemical allergy remained. The result has been that I've used the same old ones for years now, and they are shredding out in a severe way (making their anti-embolism qualities increasingly more minimal), because I can't find another brand that I can tolerate.
Or the fabric of black slacks. Several years ago I purchased a pair of Dockers black dress pants (oddly enough with 32" legs, when I wear 34" in every other pair) which now are the only ones I can wear at all (in black, that is). I've tried multiple pairs of Dockers and other brands since, and each and every time I experience an immediate disorienting nauseous reaction to the fabric. [This is a major issue for me, since black pants are required in many of the venues where I usher.] The result has been that I've had to wear this one pair of black pants year after year, and they are getting quite worn, but replacing them with a pair I can tolerate has been, heretofore, not available. I don't know if it's the cotton I can't tolerate (not all cotton is equal in tolerance level) or the black dye in the fabric. But it's a very real problem.
Or food allergies. I've gotten to the point where I can only eat poultry or salmon, and not all poultry reacts equally well in my GI tract. I can't even cook organic chicken at my own house (and I am a trained chef) without getting ill from it. I have found several restaurants in the St. Louis area -- Crazy Bowls & Wraps, Panera Bread, and San Sai, plus several sit-down restaurants -- where I can get cooked chicken meals that are tolerable to my body. But it gets expensive eating out every day. When eating at home, I can tolerate salmon and Butterball Turkey Bacon, but only that brand; all others make me ill. And at this point in life, I only ever drink water. No sodas, no alcohol, no fruit juices, definitely no caffeinated beverages of any sort, not even herbal teas [all of which I used to love as a younger man]. And all water isn't tolerable; some brands of bottled water, especially those with added minerals, make me quite ill. I can drink the tap water, in most locations in St. Louis, and be ok, but when I go across the river into Illinois, much of their water tastes like pond scum to me, and the water in many other cities I have visited (my former hometown of Albuquerque, and Atlanta and Chicago) has too much chlorine in it. So, I end up carrying the brands of bottled water, that I've learned that I can tolerate, everywhere with me.
Then, recently my eyeglasses needed to be replaced [the anti-glare covering is scratched]. I asked several friends for recommendations where to have them made, and decided to use a local university eye clinic. I had an eye exam prescription from the welfare medical system of which I'm a member, but the female eye doctor had said "here's what I came up with, but if you want to keep using your old prescription, that's fine with me". But the university eye clinic said that, since she hadn't written down that allowance, they, by law, had to act upon the new prescription. So they made me a new pair of glasses. The left lens was far too strong and the right lens far too weak, which caused severe headaches. I managed, through some connections at the school, to obtain a willingness to use the old prescription, which my present eyeglasses have in them [and which I tolerate quite well]. They did a 2nd re-make, but again I had the same problem with the lens. Then last week they did a 3rd re-make -- 'right on the mark of what we requested', especially in the prism, but when I tried them two days ago, the left lens was ok, but the right lens was far too strong, and the prism 'felt like' it had been set at a diagonal. The result was profound visual disorientation, headaches and resultant GI tract distress. At this point, I realize I'm going to have to 'eat' the $150 I spent on the eyeglasses, ask the university clinic for a new eye exam (hopefully with an optometrist who understands hypersensitive clients), and plan to try for a pair of eyeglasses that I can tolerate.
All of these allergies make me feel like "The Prince and the Pea", sort of a male version of 'The Princess and the Pea' fairy tale. The hypersensitivity that I experience, to all kinds of stuff, appears to be particular to me alone, though I hardly believe that I'm the only person with hypersensitive reactions. I date a woman who can eat and drink almost anything, with no ill effects sleep on mattresses which I find intolerable, wear most fabrics with no negative reactions, etc. And that appears to apply to the majority of the population. Many a doctor over the years (medical and ophthalmology) has commented that "I've never heard of anyone with those reactions", but they never write down my reactions and submit them to any kind of PDR tool (as far as I know). So, I keep ending up with reactions that aren't even listed as rare symptoms.
Alternately, though, my emotional health is improving all the time. My ability, as a sexual abuse survivor, to feel 'safe' within my own gender skin has become more 'tolerable' as my years of mental health therapy progress. The motivation to dissociate from my 'self', to emotionally 'run away' from any comfort with my maleness, which for so many years was the default position, has subsided to a profound degree in the last several years. My therapist has strongly suggested that my hypersensitive reactions to all these materials, fabrics, mattresses, food, etc. are the result of internalized anger and feelings of fear that I've lived with throughout my life, on the heals of [resultant outcomes of] being sexually molested and tortured at the hands of my parents. My former therapist in Albuquerque speculated years ago that trauma survivors have stressed out adrenal glans, due to being in more or less continual 'fight or flight' mode as children. And the result of that long-term stress is an lowered ability to deal with any foreign substance or traumatic situation later in life. I strongly suspect that is at least partly the problem for me and one reason, among many (not all of which I'm aware), that provokes the hypersensitive reactions that I experience.
It's not, though, that I feel 'hopeless' to resolve these issues. Hopefully I will find a mattress I can tolerate; hopefully I will find black pants I can tolerate (if I do, I'll probably buy 10 pairs to last me for many years to come!!); hopefully I'll discover foods that I can tolerate that allow me to widen my choices, rather than continually narrow them; hopefully I will find eyeglasses that I can wear without getting profound disorienting headaches. I no longer feel the situation is 'insolvable', like I did when I was seeing the world, exclusively, through 'deeply traumatized' emotional lens. In the last 5 years, I've found an intimate relationship which I can feel 'alive and respected' within, with a woman who I feel is truly a 'fellow traveler' on my life journey. Given my experience for most of my life before her, I had good reason to wonder if that would ever occur. So, there is clear and definite hope for change, even though my hypersensitivity limits my life, and in some ways -- at least partially because of aging and the breakdown of the body due to simply chronology -- will become more so in the coming years. But hopefully I will be able to 'cope' with those limitations. "Hope continues to be available". I sense there's some sort of Zen lesson to be learned here, though I can't think of what it is. But I'm sure it has something to do with 'acceptance of suffering'.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Hypersensitive In A Toxic World
I've been suffering from a "mattress nightmare" since last June. My 15-year old Sterns-Foster mattress had, I thought, lived out it's warranty and needed to be replaced. So I found a new Sterns-Foster Extra Firm mattress at Macy's and had them pick up the old mattress. That's when the nightmare began.
The Extra Firm was too firm. So I went a couple of weeks with no mattress while I searched for a replacement at Macy's. I tried a Serta iComfort mattress with 'cool jell foam'. After two nights of sleeping on it, and each morning feeling like my legs had been bathed in menthol (which degenerated from a freezing cold sensation into a burning hot sensation), I returned that mattress. Then I went another couple of weeks without a mattress (luckily, my female partner of many years agreed to let me sleep at her house while I was searching for a new mattress). Macy's wasn't too happy about my getting yet a 3rd mattress, until I emphasized that I was going to have to sell the Serta on Craigslist. So, reluctantly, they agreed to a 3rd choice (with restocking and delivery fees).
The third time around I picked a Sterns-Foster Comfort Firm mattress. It seemed to feel fine at the showroom. But when I got it back to my house and slept on it for several nights, I was waking up each morning with a massive headache, respiratory distress, and profound upper GI tract upset. So, I got on the internet and did some research on memory foam. Various sites suggested 'airing out' the mattress for 20 days, letting the sun hit it, and allowing it to 'de-gas' its fumes. I tried that for a month, airing it out on my sunporch.
After a month, I tried it again. The same horrible physical reactions were there. I aired it out another month, and then tried sleeping on it -- the same hypersensitive reactions. Then I aired it out for two months. I tried it again, and still was profoundly ill the following morning. So, I called Macy's again. The main customer service reps refused to allow me to return the mattress. But I went to the Macy's corporate website and wrote them a plea. A manager called me, and in the process of the conversation agreed to take the mattress back and give me a refund, minus another restocking and pick-up fee. (At this point, I had laid out around $500 in restocking and delivery fees -- and not had a bed to sleep on at my house for 6 months -- and still didn't have a mattress that I could medically tolerate.)
So, I asked around, talked to friends, did some research online, to find a mattress that I might be able to tolerate. (I've got to tell you, all this time I was having very fond memories of my 15-year old non-memory foam Sterns-Foster mattress, wishing I had simply put a plywood board beneath it and kept it for another 15 years!) I tried one that is locally manufactured. After one night on it, I awoke the next day with a very weird sensation on my lower legs like they had been bathed in Ben-Gay. It was a 'freezing-burning' sensation, very painful. So, I called the local company and they agreed to take the mattress back, with a full refund and no delivery/pick-up charges. I talked to the manager; he said that while they used 'standard, regular, non-memory foam' material, they did use a poly-foam material. Most people were fine with it (some good friends had recommended it and they had had no problems for 10 years). But that a few people, mostly women, had had hypersensitive reactions.
So, that was three weeks ago. My legs still burn daily and/or feel like they are freezing -- some days I feel both sensations at various times of the day. I find that swimming in pool water at the gym cools them somewhat, but I'm afraid at this point that this has provoked a form of neuropathy in my legs which will continue for years. I have already been suffering for more than two years from 'burning scalp syndrome'; no shampoo I use does not burn my scalp. So, my body is 'on fire' much of the time -- all really quite uncomfortable.
At this point, my only option is either to continue sleeping at my female partner's house (which is not a negative, but we agreed early on that we enjoyed having separate domiciles and it feels awkward to continue not having a bed at my own house), or sleeping periodically on my couch (the foam in those cushions doesn't make me ill, but the couch is not really a bed). My therapist suggested finding a 'non-manmade material', like a cotton futon. I tried one last night, to mixed results. This is all quite frustrating.
The one thing I do know or have learned about all of this is that there is a high degree of possibility that my hypersensitivity is caused by heightened reactivity due to emotional turmoil from the sexual abuse and torture that I suffered as a child (which I've discussed on this blog in the past). One of the results of sexual and physical trauma, especially in childhood, is that the adrenal glands are overextended from being in constant 'fight or flight' mode, and that therefore ones immune system and other bodily functions are overstressed throughout life. It's a major dilemma: I'm hypersensitive to mattresses, clothing material, food, fumes, chemicals, stress, etc. as a result. Materials that don't bother most people just devastate me. Unlike viruses, where we gain an immunity over time, my hypersensitivity has increased as I've aged, making even being alive, at times, a bit of a fearful issue. Even as I heal emotionally from the sexual and physical abuse, my body's ability to recover from or even tolerate toxins in the environment decreases.
That personal medical/emotional issue is mixed with the reality that there are more toxins in the environment all the time. Rachel Carson wrote about this back in the 1960's and the problem has only become worse; more and more chemicals are dumped into the environment which are either untested on human subjects, or the testing is so skewed and doctored that it passes government scrutiny with little oversight.
It's a challenge, no doubt. Finding a bed to sleep on which doesn't make me ill is a major disruption in my life; thankfully my female partner still has one I can sleep on (she says she surely won't get rid of that one). When just getting a good night's sleep without fearing that the mattress upon which one sleeps is going to be potentially deadly, that is indeed a major problem in anyone's life.
The Extra Firm was too firm. So I went a couple of weeks with no mattress while I searched for a replacement at Macy's. I tried a Serta iComfort mattress with 'cool jell foam'. After two nights of sleeping on it, and each morning feeling like my legs had been bathed in menthol (which degenerated from a freezing cold sensation into a burning hot sensation), I returned that mattress. Then I went another couple of weeks without a mattress (luckily, my female partner of many years agreed to let me sleep at her house while I was searching for a new mattress). Macy's wasn't too happy about my getting yet a 3rd mattress, until I emphasized that I was going to have to sell the Serta on Craigslist. So, reluctantly, they agreed to a 3rd choice (with restocking and delivery fees).
The third time around I picked a Sterns-Foster Comfort Firm mattress. It seemed to feel fine at the showroom. But when I got it back to my house and slept on it for several nights, I was waking up each morning with a massive headache, respiratory distress, and profound upper GI tract upset. So, I got on the internet and did some research on memory foam. Various sites suggested 'airing out' the mattress for 20 days, letting the sun hit it, and allowing it to 'de-gas' its fumes. I tried that for a month, airing it out on my sunporch.
After a month, I tried it again. The same horrible physical reactions were there. I aired it out another month, and then tried sleeping on it -- the same hypersensitive reactions. Then I aired it out for two months. I tried it again, and still was profoundly ill the following morning. So, I called Macy's again. The main customer service reps refused to allow me to return the mattress. But I went to the Macy's corporate website and wrote them a plea. A manager called me, and in the process of the conversation agreed to take the mattress back and give me a refund, minus another restocking and pick-up fee. (At this point, I had laid out around $500 in restocking and delivery fees -- and not had a bed to sleep on at my house for 6 months -- and still didn't have a mattress that I could medically tolerate.)
So, I asked around, talked to friends, did some research online, to find a mattress that I might be able to tolerate. (I've got to tell you, all this time I was having very fond memories of my 15-year old non-memory foam Sterns-Foster mattress, wishing I had simply put a plywood board beneath it and kept it for another 15 years!) I tried one that is locally manufactured. After one night on it, I awoke the next day with a very weird sensation on my lower legs like they had been bathed in Ben-Gay. It was a 'freezing-burning' sensation, very painful. So, I called the local company and they agreed to take the mattress back, with a full refund and no delivery/pick-up charges. I talked to the manager; he said that while they used 'standard, regular, non-memory foam' material, they did use a poly-foam material. Most people were fine with it (some good friends had recommended it and they had had no problems for 10 years). But that a few people, mostly women, had had hypersensitive reactions.
So, that was three weeks ago. My legs still burn daily and/or feel like they are freezing -- some days I feel both sensations at various times of the day. I find that swimming in pool water at the gym cools them somewhat, but I'm afraid at this point that this has provoked a form of neuropathy in my legs which will continue for years. I have already been suffering for more than two years from 'burning scalp syndrome'; no shampoo I use does not burn my scalp. So, my body is 'on fire' much of the time -- all really quite uncomfortable.
At this point, my only option is either to continue sleeping at my female partner's house (which is not a negative, but we agreed early on that we enjoyed having separate domiciles and it feels awkward to continue not having a bed at my own house), or sleeping periodically on my couch (the foam in those cushions doesn't make me ill, but the couch is not really a bed). My therapist suggested finding a 'non-manmade material', like a cotton futon. I tried one last night, to mixed results. This is all quite frustrating.
The one thing I do know or have learned about all of this is that there is a high degree of possibility that my hypersensitivity is caused by heightened reactivity due to emotional turmoil from the sexual abuse and torture that I suffered as a child (which I've discussed on this blog in the past). One of the results of sexual and physical trauma, especially in childhood, is that the adrenal glands are overextended from being in constant 'fight or flight' mode, and that therefore ones immune system and other bodily functions are overstressed throughout life. It's a major dilemma: I'm hypersensitive to mattresses, clothing material, food, fumes, chemicals, stress, etc. as a result. Materials that don't bother most people just devastate me. Unlike viruses, where we gain an immunity over time, my hypersensitivity has increased as I've aged, making even being alive, at times, a bit of a fearful issue. Even as I heal emotionally from the sexual and physical abuse, my body's ability to recover from or even tolerate toxins in the environment decreases.
That personal medical/emotional issue is mixed with the reality that there are more toxins in the environment all the time. Rachel Carson wrote about this back in the 1960's and the problem has only become worse; more and more chemicals are dumped into the environment which are either untested on human subjects, or the testing is so skewed and doctored that it passes government scrutiny with little oversight.
It's a challenge, no doubt. Finding a bed to sleep on which doesn't make me ill is a major disruption in my life; thankfully my female partner still has one I can sleep on (she says she surely won't get rid of that one). When just getting a good night's sleep without fearing that the mattress upon which one sleeps is going to be potentially deadly, that is indeed a major problem in anyone's life.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Pen To Paper
I've quite gotten out of the habit of writing this blog, having last posted in July 2012. It's not as though I don't have a lot to say or that constant relevant issues aren't running through my mind continually, but getting them "on paper" (sort of a old-style way of referring to a word processing document) has been, of recent, difficult.
In part it's due to the approach I have to writing this blog. Heretofore, I would compose it on my computer, engage in extensive editing, then sit down at my desktop computer and transfer what I had written to Blogger. I tried a couple of times to simply cut-and-paste, but that was a disaster, as the formatting is messed up in a severe way when it is transferred. So, I would end up typing the whole document again, editing as I wrote, and then publishing it. I couldn't figure out a way to 'save' what I had written and return to it at a later time, before publishing it, so I ended up having to wait until I had a dedicated 'block of time' to do the whole blog, all at once, which always ended up being quite exhausting.
Today, I have decided, at least for this entry, to simply sit down and write it, fresh, without extensive previous composing and editing, which may result in syntax and grammar errors, but at least I'm 'getting my ideas down' rather than procrastinating for months on end and never writing anything!! So, this may not be as smooth, but it's 'pen to paper' after months of not writing.
I'm thinking about moving this blog to WordPress (since it has been recommended to me to change my website software to WordPress formatting, so that new future iterations of Apple OS can access it), but when I downloaded the WordPress package a couple of days ago, the instructions talked about a zip file I had to open, but I can't find the zip file in the WordPress folder. I'm a bit lost, therefore, in even beginning the process. My present website was constructed using iWeb, which is an Apple-based software which Apple, at this point, no longer supports. Hence, I need to transition it to something else, and though I've considered Droppel (is that it's correct spelling?), I don't have the skills to use that and don't have sufficient funds to pay someone else to construct the website with it. So, WordPress is my best choice for now (it's free and I've heard that it's a good choice, as well), but figuring out how to make use of the package is, presently, stopping me.
So, my blogs henceforth will probably not be the 'opus' postings I've tried for in the past, but more 'stream of consciousness' shorter ones. Just lowering the bar for how I construct them will allow me to write them more often, and communicate my thoughts to friends and colleagues.
So here are some things that have been on my mind of late, some related to my life personally and some related to men's emotional wellness in the larger context.
I was gratified by the verdict in the Jerry Sandusky trial in Pennsylvania. From the evidence that I've read, he was clearly quite a monster, and got his just due. A lot of young boys were severely traumatized by his sexual predator behavior, and the institution where he worked spent far more effort covering it's administrative backside than protecting those children. Thank god the state prosecutor had more care and diligence. The larger issue, of course, is that that is the 'tip of the iceberg', that most of the sexual child abuse occurs within families, not outside in the larger world, and those circumstances do not 'see the light of day' often enough. But every little step is helpful.
I am happy to see that President Obama was reelected (I spent a lot of time and effort working on his 2008 campaign and would have worked on this last campaign if the Obama folks had not written-off Missouri to Romney). I spent most of my political efforts, hence, working on Claire McCaskill's campaign and was happy to see that she was reelected. Now, we have to keep working with the Administration to get the kinds of issues addressed that are important to us. Being the Loyal Opposition is a role I've assumed for many years and feel at ease with.
I am happy to see that both the ban on gays and lesbians in the military and the ban on women in combat roles has been dropped. Serving one's country is difficult enough without that kind of overt discrimination. Dealing with all the sexual abuse within the ranks, though, is something the military has done a poor job at, though they seem to be aware of the problem and seem to be feeling major 'heat' to face up to it.
On a personal level, I've been dealing with the negative fallout of having a memory foam mattress, which I finally got Macy's to take back (which I hear from others was a major coup, in that getting an outright refund is rare). I spent 6 months getting quite ill from the off-gassing of the mattress. I only slept on it 5 times in those 6 months, because each time it would cause significant upper GI tract distress, profound headaches and serious respiratory congestion. I ended up 'airing it out' for 4 months on my sunporch and still the off-gassing made me ill. Thankfully that problem is gone! I have a new mattress now, which doesn't have any memory foam, and I'm hoping it will solve the problem. What a medical nightmare! It amazes me that anyone can tolerate that material.
Well, that's enough for right now. I'll write more (or at least hope to write more), more often, with this different approach to my blog. If any of my readers has suggestions on how to access the WordPress zip file, I'd be appreciative of the information. I need to change the software, at least of the website and possibly this blog [to keep it as a whole package] and soon.
In part it's due to the approach I have to writing this blog. Heretofore, I would compose it on my computer, engage in extensive editing, then sit down at my desktop computer and transfer what I had written to Blogger. I tried a couple of times to simply cut-and-paste, but that was a disaster, as the formatting is messed up in a severe way when it is transferred. So, I would end up typing the whole document again, editing as I wrote, and then publishing it. I couldn't figure out a way to 'save' what I had written and return to it at a later time, before publishing it, so I ended up having to wait until I had a dedicated 'block of time' to do the whole blog, all at once, which always ended up being quite exhausting.
Today, I have decided, at least for this entry, to simply sit down and write it, fresh, without extensive previous composing and editing, which may result in syntax and grammar errors, but at least I'm 'getting my ideas down' rather than procrastinating for months on end and never writing anything!! So, this may not be as smooth, but it's 'pen to paper' after months of not writing.
I'm thinking about moving this blog to WordPress (since it has been recommended to me to change my website software to WordPress formatting, so that new future iterations of Apple OS can access it), but when I downloaded the WordPress package a couple of days ago, the instructions talked about a zip file I had to open, but I can't find the zip file in the WordPress folder. I'm a bit lost, therefore, in even beginning the process. My present website was constructed using iWeb, which is an Apple-based software which Apple, at this point, no longer supports. Hence, I need to transition it to something else, and though I've considered Droppel (is that it's correct spelling?), I don't have the skills to use that and don't have sufficient funds to pay someone else to construct the website with it. So, WordPress is my best choice for now (it's free and I've heard that it's a good choice, as well), but figuring out how to make use of the package is, presently, stopping me.
So, my blogs henceforth will probably not be the 'opus' postings I've tried for in the past, but more 'stream of consciousness' shorter ones. Just lowering the bar for how I construct them will allow me to write them more often, and communicate my thoughts to friends and colleagues.
So here are some things that have been on my mind of late, some related to my life personally and some related to men's emotional wellness in the larger context.
I was gratified by the verdict in the Jerry Sandusky trial in Pennsylvania. From the evidence that I've read, he was clearly quite a monster, and got his just due. A lot of young boys were severely traumatized by his sexual predator behavior, and the institution where he worked spent far more effort covering it's administrative backside than protecting those children. Thank god the state prosecutor had more care and diligence. The larger issue, of course, is that that is the 'tip of the iceberg', that most of the sexual child abuse occurs within families, not outside in the larger world, and those circumstances do not 'see the light of day' often enough. But every little step is helpful.
I am happy to see that President Obama was reelected (I spent a lot of time and effort working on his 2008 campaign and would have worked on this last campaign if the Obama folks had not written-off Missouri to Romney). I spent most of my political efforts, hence, working on Claire McCaskill's campaign and was happy to see that she was reelected. Now, we have to keep working with the Administration to get the kinds of issues addressed that are important to us. Being the Loyal Opposition is a role I've assumed for many years and feel at ease with.
I am happy to see that both the ban on gays and lesbians in the military and the ban on women in combat roles has been dropped. Serving one's country is difficult enough without that kind of overt discrimination. Dealing with all the sexual abuse within the ranks, though, is something the military has done a poor job at, though they seem to be aware of the problem and seem to be feeling major 'heat' to face up to it.
On a personal level, I've been dealing with the negative fallout of having a memory foam mattress, which I finally got Macy's to take back (which I hear from others was a major coup, in that getting an outright refund is rare). I spent 6 months getting quite ill from the off-gassing of the mattress. I only slept on it 5 times in those 6 months, because each time it would cause significant upper GI tract distress, profound headaches and serious respiratory congestion. I ended up 'airing it out' for 4 months on my sunporch and still the off-gassing made me ill. Thankfully that problem is gone! I have a new mattress now, which doesn't have any memory foam, and I'm hoping it will solve the problem. What a medical nightmare! It amazes me that anyone can tolerate that material.
Well, that's enough for right now. I'll write more (or at least hope to write more), more often, with this different approach to my blog. If any of my readers has suggestions on how to access the WordPress zip file, I'd be appreciative of the information. I need to change the software, at least of the website and possibly this blog [to keep it as a whole package] and soon.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Bits and Pieces: Accumulated Perspectives on Recent American Culture
This blog is starting to gather cobwebs from lack of use and, given my devotion to men's emotional wellness, that is beginning to bother me. With the Dog Days of July upon us, I decided it was high time I wrote down a number of thoughts that have been running through my brain about events in the media during the last several months. Hence, while I haven't enough for one 'single issue' article, I did want to write down my thoughts about several disparate issues of interest to me -- and hopefully of interest to my readers.
Global Warming and Blistering Heat
St. Louis, where I live, and most of the rest of the nation, have been experiencing triple digit temperatures since late June and they are continuing into late July (who knows when they will subside). It's surprising how few 'brown outs' there have been in the country, given how many air conditioners have been running full-blast trying to cope with this excessive heat. Personally, I have kept my thermostat at 77°F for most of the blast furnace heat wave, both to keep my cooling costs down and to be a conscious protector of the environment. Amazingly, by keeping my house at that temperature, the local electric utility has informed me that my budget billing plan will drop by $10 a month starting the next billing cycle.
The paradox of extreme heat is that when we run our air conditioners to overcome the heat, those units and the coal-fired power plants that provide the electricity add further carbon emissions to the environment, which produces more greenhouse gases that further fuel problems with global warming, which in turn produce hotter temperatures -- sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. As a colleague of mine noted last winter, when we were having major snow storms in the Northeastern U.S., anyone who thinks that weather behavior displayed that global warming is not real confuses 'weather' with 'climate'. With the average temperature of the planet rising precipitously over the past decade, increased melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps and the consequent rising of sea levels, widespread extinction of species, profound droughts across our nation and the spreading of desertification in Africa and Asia, plus the destruction of coral reefs worldwide, if anyone still doubts that global warming is occurring, they have to be either living in a box or have their head in the sand. Clearly, 'climate change' is occurring and is doing so on a vast and disturbing scale.
Coming as I do originally from New Mexico, I've joked for years that when there's 25% humidity in New Mexico, people there think they're having a monsoon, whereas when there's less than 40% humidity in Missouri, people here think they're experiencing a drought. Every time it rains here, I let out a cheer, which makes people around me laugh in surprise, but they understand when I explain that I spent 30 years of my adult life in the desert where rain was a rare event. But, of late, there truly is a drought, both in New Mexico and Missouri, and in much of the rest of the nation as well. I've had few reasons to let out any shouts of joy for rain recently, because it has rained so rarely.
Hence, no matter how much we complain about the blast furnace heat this summer, we might be experiencing the metaphoric [and paradoxical] 'tip of the iceberg', with these extreme temperatures becoming chronic and worse in coming years. As much as I melt from the often extreme humidity here in St. Louis (and have taken to wearing a color-coordinated towel over my shoulder all summer), I have come to expect it in the 14 years I've lived in this part of the country. But that humidity hasn't occurred much this summer and the extreme dryness of New Mexico -- which is my 'benchmark' -- may become the norm here as well.
Tragedy in Aurora
The horrific slaughter in Aurora, Colorado this past weekend dominates the media at present. As with so many such events, there are a multiplicity of issues involved, not just the insanity of the shooter.
The news reports are rife with comments about how, during this presidential election season, while it is obvious that there are problems with our gun laws, very few candidates or members of Congress will be making many comments about that, because the National Rifle Association controls so many of the purse-strings of the various political campaigns. That civilians can legally go into a gun shop and purchase an assault weapon for personal use is, frankly, absurd. Except for killing large numbers of people (or animals), what purpose would anyone have for such a weapon? We have -- unfortunately -- successfully militarized our society to such an extent that there is little wonderment when we allow individuals to amass an arsenal of weapons in their homes. That the shooter in Aurora was able to purchase multiple high-powered weapons and copious rounds of ammunition online "because he had no criminal record" betrays the larger issue of why we allow anyone to purchase such weapons.
I read somewhere that there are something like 2 or 3 guns for every citizen in the country in the hands of private citizens. Given that I and most of the people I know personally don't have any guns, and many people in the society are in that category as well, that would mean that a small percentage of the population must have massive arsenals of weapons in their homes. This whole "right to bear arms" argument of the NRA is ridiculous in the extreme. I'm not so worried about people breaking into my house and harming me or stealing my possessions as I am about rogue citizens pulling out concealed weapons during traffic altercations or having 'legal' access to multiple weapons and engaging in the kind of behavior that occurred this weekend in Colorado.
As one headline I read noted the primary issue is not why it occurred, but why it doesn't occur more often. Given the easy and loose 'legal' access to weapons that is allowed in the United States, it's actually quite amazing that more such incidents don't occur.
Many years ago, when I lived in Albuquerque, I was dating a woman who was an anthropologist at the University of New Mexico. She told me about a paper she was presenting at a conference on urban violence. In her study, she noted that as horrible as the current statistics are concerning gun violence in inner cities in the U.S., around 1900 the statistics on weapons usage in the New York City tenements was even worse, and make our current statistics seem almost prosaic in comparison (though hardly minor for the people who have to experience them). Her paper stressed that the major difference was one of technology. In 1900, people had single-firing pistols, so when they were trying to murder a rival or mug someone, they largely killed only the person they were focused upon. Nowadays, though, with weapons that fire multiple rounds in seconds, when gangs are out to murder a rival they end up spraying the person and everyone around them with bullets, simply because the technology allows them to not be as accurate shots. The result is that while the level of urban violence may be less overall, the number of people killed in any one incident is greater.
There are two other elements about the massacre this last Friday that are equally disturbing. The first is why our citizens take such an avid interest in attending movies that portray the kind of extreme violence in "Dark Knight Rises". Our television screens are nightly filled with violent images, both of extreme brutality and gratuitous sexuality. While I am no conservative 'moralist' who believes that I have the right to pontificate about what kind of moral code our society must adhere to, I do believe it of value to 'sit back' and think about that. What kind of society have we created that allows us to view such imagery with dispassionate interest?
Personally, I rarely watch 'serials', for just such a reason. Such imagery is extremely disturbing to me and I have no desire to be 'triggered' by images which remind me so much about the violence I experienced as a child in my family-of-origin (which I've written about in previous articles). PBS is my cup-of-tea; I'd rather learn something of value, than be dulled into mindlessness by violent 'entertainment'.
The other element that made my skin crawl when hearing reports about the survivors of the assault was why were so many very young children in the audience? That they were in attendance with their parents was important, but why would parents take their impressionable children to such a movie in the first place? That in our society we believe it appropriate to expose young children to such violent images, portrayed in brilliant color and with the use of special effects (making them seem all too real) can't help but traumatize the children at some deep psychological level however much the kids may superficially delight in such images. In this case, of course, the 'reality' of the violence became, horrifically, all too real, and many people, including children, we injured or killed in the process. As a society, I believe that we should honestly question whether exposing children to such violent imagery is appropriate. I feel that exposing adults to such nihilistic villains has it's own psychological problems, but at least most adults can distinguish between fiction and reality; children have not developed such discernment.
The Sandusky Child Rape Trail
Given the emphasis of the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute on the issues of adult male sexual abuse survivors, the child rape trial in Pennsylvania has been on my mind since it began last spring. That the convicted perpetrator, Jerry Sandusky, could engage in multiple rapes of young boys over a decade or more, with the complicity or at least willful ignorance of the Penn State athletic program, is disturbing in the extreme. It's one thing to hear about child rape within families, when it occurs behind 'closed doors', wherein others, outside the home, have no idea it is occurring (until it is discovered by alert social workers, having family members break the familial silence or denial, or the survivor has the courage to step forward and expose the perpetrator). But when a 'system', which is supposed to protect their students and/or any other person from abuse, willfully suppresses the information to protect it's 'image', one's stomach can only turn in revulsion.
Clearly, the athletic program was far more concerned about the image it projected to the public as a powerhouse team than they were about the rights and moral concern for the young boys from poor families. It was as though, since they were economically deprived and, as a disempowered population, unable to protect themselves, the authorities willfully 'looked the other way' and covered-up the rape of the children. Their concern was for their short-term corporate image, rather than longer-term social protection of children.
This, of course, only continues the society's allowance of institutional coverup of male child rape so thoroughly exposed in recent years in the Catholic Church. Clearly, we as a nation have learned little or nothing about this widespread crime. That girls are not the only population that are subject to sexual child abuse should already have been obvious, yet the society continues to be shocked by such cases -- not shocked into doing much about it, but rather shocked that it occurs at all. Yet, given the statistics that 1 out of 4 girls and 1 out of 7 boys is being or has been sexually molested as a child, the phenomenon is far more common than the public perception of its occurrence allows.
The Miss Universe Canada Pageant
When, last spring, "The Donald" Trump, funder of the Miss Universe Canada Pageant, under intense public pressure, reversed himself and allowed Jeanna Talackova, a 23-year-old transsexual woman, to compete in the event, that was reason for me to both leap in joy and feel slightly queasy.
I felt joy because gender, which has been allowed (after many painful years of battling) to be seen as more 'fluid' than the strict cultural categories of male and female, has now allowed transsexual females to be viewed as 'culturally attractive', even 'sexy', at least in that contest's perspective. But also queasy: genetic females have, quite reasonably, attacked beauty contests as personifications of the kind of 'femininity' that demands that women fulfill a male-view-demand for a certain specific variety of attractiveness. Transsexual women, in their struggle to be allowed to express their inner sense of gender identity, are often denied 'validity' because they don't 'appear', after transition, to be the kind of attractive women that our culture demand that all women look like. That in my view is profoundly oppressive and unacceptable. I have written about this on the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute website, under the section "Gender Socialization".
One of the books that has strongly influenced my views on feminism over the last 20 years is Femininity by Susan Brownmiller. She wrote about the ways in which culturally-defined femininity is often incredibly oppressive to women. It's not that 'being or delighting in being feminine' is so negative; clearly, it can be very enjoyable for many females and very attractive to a number of men. But the demand that women fulfill a specific variety of femininity that constrains their ability to exercise their human completeness is the issue that is so troubling. And beauty contest-defined femininity is, hence, very oppressive to many females.
Further, I remember Helen Boyd's comment in She's Not the Man I Married, when she observed that her husband, in the process of acting out 'his sense of femininity', started behaving in what she termed "an über feminine" manner, where he was delighting in women's fashions (specifically shoes). As she noted, his delight failed to factor in that women's lives weren't simply about 'feminine fun', but involved childcare, cleaning homes, working, and taking care of boyfriends and husbands. While it's a reasonable and quite understandable 'phase' that many transsexual women go through, in trying to gain a clear sense of 'what it's like to be female', getting stuck in that phase is something that many feminists have, with equal reason, been fighting for the last 30 years.
Hence, while I honor the struggle that Ms. Talackova has gone through, and the mountain she has successfully scaled in her legal battle with the Miss Universe Canada Pageant, I am also bothered that females, genetic or transsexual, continue to be 'rated' on their attractiveness as human beings, their very value as participants in the culture, by a Playboy-style beauty contest-defined vision of womanly acceptability. Females, both genetic and trans, are more than their bodies, and we should be careful in making sure we honor their humanity with equal energy.
Global Warming and Blistering Heat
St. Louis, where I live, and most of the rest of the nation, have been experiencing triple digit temperatures since late June and they are continuing into late July (who knows when they will subside). It's surprising how few 'brown outs' there have been in the country, given how many air conditioners have been running full-blast trying to cope with this excessive heat. Personally, I have kept my thermostat at 77°F for most of the blast furnace heat wave, both to keep my cooling costs down and to be a conscious protector of the environment. Amazingly, by keeping my house at that temperature, the local electric utility has informed me that my budget billing plan will drop by $10 a month starting the next billing cycle.
The paradox of extreme heat is that when we run our air conditioners to overcome the heat, those units and the coal-fired power plants that provide the electricity add further carbon emissions to the environment, which produces more greenhouse gases that further fuel problems with global warming, which in turn produce hotter temperatures -- sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. As a colleague of mine noted last winter, when we were having major snow storms in the Northeastern U.S., anyone who thinks that weather behavior displayed that global warming is not real confuses 'weather' with 'climate'. With the average temperature of the planet rising precipitously over the past decade, increased melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps and the consequent rising of sea levels, widespread extinction of species, profound droughts across our nation and the spreading of desertification in Africa and Asia, plus the destruction of coral reefs worldwide, if anyone still doubts that global warming is occurring, they have to be either living in a box or have their head in the sand. Clearly, 'climate change' is occurring and is doing so on a vast and disturbing scale.
Coming as I do originally from New Mexico, I've joked for years that when there's 25% humidity in New Mexico, people there think they're having a monsoon, whereas when there's less than 40% humidity in Missouri, people here think they're experiencing a drought. Every time it rains here, I let out a cheer, which makes people around me laugh in surprise, but they understand when I explain that I spent 30 years of my adult life in the desert where rain was a rare event. But, of late, there truly is a drought, both in New Mexico and Missouri, and in much of the rest of the nation as well. I've had few reasons to let out any shouts of joy for rain recently, because it has rained so rarely.
Hence, no matter how much we complain about the blast furnace heat this summer, we might be experiencing the metaphoric [and paradoxical] 'tip of the iceberg', with these extreme temperatures becoming chronic and worse in coming years. As much as I melt from the often extreme humidity here in St. Louis (and have taken to wearing a color-coordinated towel over my shoulder all summer), I have come to expect it in the 14 years I've lived in this part of the country. But that humidity hasn't occurred much this summer and the extreme dryness of New Mexico -- which is my 'benchmark' -- may become the norm here as well.
Tragedy in Aurora
The horrific slaughter in Aurora, Colorado this past weekend dominates the media at present. As with so many such events, there are a multiplicity of issues involved, not just the insanity of the shooter.
The news reports are rife with comments about how, during this presidential election season, while it is obvious that there are problems with our gun laws, very few candidates or members of Congress will be making many comments about that, because the National Rifle Association controls so many of the purse-strings of the various political campaigns. That civilians can legally go into a gun shop and purchase an assault weapon for personal use is, frankly, absurd. Except for killing large numbers of people (or animals), what purpose would anyone have for such a weapon? We have -- unfortunately -- successfully militarized our society to such an extent that there is little wonderment when we allow individuals to amass an arsenal of weapons in their homes. That the shooter in Aurora was able to purchase multiple high-powered weapons and copious rounds of ammunition online "because he had no criminal record" betrays the larger issue of why we allow anyone to purchase such weapons.
I read somewhere that there are something like 2 or 3 guns for every citizen in the country in the hands of private citizens. Given that I and most of the people I know personally don't have any guns, and many people in the society are in that category as well, that would mean that a small percentage of the population must have massive arsenals of weapons in their homes. This whole "right to bear arms" argument of the NRA is ridiculous in the extreme. I'm not so worried about people breaking into my house and harming me or stealing my possessions as I am about rogue citizens pulling out concealed weapons during traffic altercations or having 'legal' access to multiple weapons and engaging in the kind of behavior that occurred this weekend in Colorado.
As one headline I read noted the primary issue is not why it occurred, but why it doesn't occur more often. Given the easy and loose 'legal' access to weapons that is allowed in the United States, it's actually quite amazing that more such incidents don't occur.
Many years ago, when I lived in Albuquerque, I was dating a woman who was an anthropologist at the University of New Mexico. She told me about a paper she was presenting at a conference on urban violence. In her study, she noted that as horrible as the current statistics are concerning gun violence in inner cities in the U.S., around 1900 the statistics on weapons usage in the New York City tenements was even worse, and make our current statistics seem almost prosaic in comparison (though hardly minor for the people who have to experience them). Her paper stressed that the major difference was one of technology. In 1900, people had single-firing pistols, so when they were trying to murder a rival or mug someone, they largely killed only the person they were focused upon. Nowadays, though, with weapons that fire multiple rounds in seconds, when gangs are out to murder a rival they end up spraying the person and everyone around them with bullets, simply because the technology allows them to not be as accurate shots. The result is that while the level of urban violence may be less overall, the number of people killed in any one incident is greater.
There are two other elements about the massacre this last Friday that are equally disturbing. The first is why our citizens take such an avid interest in attending movies that portray the kind of extreme violence in "Dark Knight Rises". Our television screens are nightly filled with violent images, both of extreme brutality and gratuitous sexuality. While I am no conservative 'moralist' who believes that I have the right to pontificate about what kind of moral code our society must adhere to, I do believe it of value to 'sit back' and think about that. What kind of society have we created that allows us to view such imagery with dispassionate interest?
Personally, I rarely watch 'serials', for just such a reason. Such imagery is extremely disturbing to me and I have no desire to be 'triggered' by images which remind me so much about the violence I experienced as a child in my family-of-origin (which I've written about in previous articles). PBS is my cup-of-tea; I'd rather learn something of value, than be dulled into mindlessness by violent 'entertainment'.
The other element that made my skin crawl when hearing reports about the survivors of the assault was why were so many very young children in the audience? That they were in attendance with their parents was important, but why would parents take their impressionable children to such a movie in the first place? That in our society we believe it appropriate to expose young children to such violent images, portrayed in brilliant color and with the use of special effects (making them seem all too real) can't help but traumatize the children at some deep psychological level however much the kids may superficially delight in such images. In this case, of course, the 'reality' of the violence became, horrifically, all too real, and many people, including children, we injured or killed in the process. As a society, I believe that we should honestly question whether exposing children to such violent imagery is appropriate. I feel that exposing adults to such nihilistic villains has it's own psychological problems, but at least most adults can distinguish between fiction and reality; children have not developed such discernment.
The Sandusky Child Rape Trail
Given the emphasis of the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute on the issues of adult male sexual abuse survivors, the child rape trial in Pennsylvania has been on my mind since it began last spring. That the convicted perpetrator, Jerry Sandusky, could engage in multiple rapes of young boys over a decade or more, with the complicity or at least willful ignorance of the Penn State athletic program, is disturbing in the extreme. It's one thing to hear about child rape within families, when it occurs behind 'closed doors', wherein others, outside the home, have no idea it is occurring (until it is discovered by alert social workers, having family members break the familial silence or denial, or the survivor has the courage to step forward and expose the perpetrator). But when a 'system', which is supposed to protect their students and/or any other person from abuse, willfully suppresses the information to protect it's 'image', one's stomach can only turn in revulsion.
Clearly, the athletic program was far more concerned about the image it projected to the public as a powerhouse team than they were about the rights and moral concern for the young boys from poor families. It was as though, since they were economically deprived and, as a disempowered population, unable to protect themselves, the authorities willfully 'looked the other way' and covered-up the rape of the children. Their concern was for their short-term corporate image, rather than longer-term social protection of children.
This, of course, only continues the society's allowance of institutional coverup of male child rape so thoroughly exposed in recent years in the Catholic Church. Clearly, we as a nation have learned little or nothing about this widespread crime. That girls are not the only population that are subject to sexual child abuse should already have been obvious, yet the society continues to be shocked by such cases -- not shocked into doing much about it, but rather shocked that it occurs at all. Yet, given the statistics that 1 out of 4 girls and 1 out of 7 boys is being or has been sexually molested as a child, the phenomenon is far more common than the public perception of its occurrence allows.
The Miss Universe Canada Pageant
When, last spring, "The Donald" Trump, funder of the Miss Universe Canada Pageant, under intense public pressure, reversed himself and allowed Jeanna Talackova, a 23-year-old transsexual woman, to compete in the event, that was reason for me to both leap in joy and feel slightly queasy.
I felt joy because gender, which has been allowed (after many painful years of battling) to be seen as more 'fluid' than the strict cultural categories of male and female, has now allowed transsexual females to be viewed as 'culturally attractive', even 'sexy', at least in that contest's perspective. But also queasy: genetic females have, quite reasonably, attacked beauty contests as personifications of the kind of 'femininity' that demands that women fulfill a male-view-demand for a certain specific variety of attractiveness. Transsexual women, in their struggle to be allowed to express their inner sense of gender identity, are often denied 'validity' because they don't 'appear', after transition, to be the kind of attractive women that our culture demand that all women look like. That in my view is profoundly oppressive and unacceptable. I have written about this on the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute website, under the section "Gender Socialization".
One of the books that has strongly influenced my views on feminism over the last 20 years is Femininity by Susan Brownmiller. She wrote about the ways in which culturally-defined femininity is often incredibly oppressive to women. It's not that 'being or delighting in being feminine' is so negative; clearly, it can be very enjoyable for many females and very attractive to a number of men. But the demand that women fulfill a specific variety of femininity that constrains their ability to exercise their human completeness is the issue that is so troubling. And beauty contest-defined femininity is, hence, very oppressive to many females.
Further, I remember Helen Boyd's comment in She's Not the Man I Married, when she observed that her husband, in the process of acting out 'his sense of femininity', started behaving in what she termed "an über feminine" manner, where he was delighting in women's fashions (specifically shoes). As she noted, his delight failed to factor in that women's lives weren't simply about 'feminine fun', but involved childcare, cleaning homes, working, and taking care of boyfriends and husbands. While it's a reasonable and quite understandable 'phase' that many transsexual women go through, in trying to gain a clear sense of 'what it's like to be female', getting stuck in that phase is something that many feminists have, with equal reason, been fighting for the last 30 years.
Hence, while I honor the struggle that Ms. Talackova has gone through, and the mountain she has successfully scaled in her legal battle with the Miss Universe Canada Pageant, I am also bothered that females, genetic or transsexual, continue to be 'rated' on their attractiveness as human beings, their very value as participants in the culture, by a Playboy-style beauty contest-defined vision of womanly acceptability. Females, both genetic and trans, are more than their bodies, and we should be careful in making sure we honor their humanity with equal energy.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Tenth Anniversary of Redundancy
April 1, 2012 marked the 10th 'anniversary' of unemployment for me. Some friends wonder why I don't simply say that I'm retired [to the extent that is accurate, it's clearly an unrequested and forced retirement]. In some ways that might be an easier designation for my employment prospects. I'm kind of partial to the British labor term redundant, in reference to being laid off or terminated, to describe my situation. I've surely felt quite redundant these last 10 years! As in 'too many highly educated, well-experienced, over-50 year old males for the present state of the American economy'.
I'm hardly alone in this predicament. The unemployment reports are continually rife with comments that, regardless of the 'official unemployment statistic', there are 4 - 6% more people who have become so thoroughly frustrated with looking for work that they have dropped out of the 'job market' altogether, and therefore aren't included in the 'official' unemployment figures. I've read other articles that note that, for many people over 50 years of age, they may never be hired again in any position that has the same level of salary and benefits that they had before termination, and may not be able to obtain any form of employment at all. The American economy is so battered and anemic that older, more experienced workers are facing the same dim employment prospects as many newly minted college graduates, many of who can't find work with which to either support themselves and/or pay off their massive student loan debt.
Whenever I read that someone has been out of work for 8 months, or even for a year and a half, and then found work again, far from seeing that person as someone who should be pitied, I see that person as being rather lucky. After a fruitless 10-year job search, during which I've submitted several thousand resumes and engaged in over 300 job interviews, I no longer even have the illusion that employment is possible.
On the other hand, it's not as though I'm starving. Actually, I'm in the rather unusual position of having some inherited income, enough that I own my house, have a good quality workable vehicle, adequate food in my stomach, and some flexibility in my income stream -- not enough to take many trips, but enough to adequately survive without profound anxiety. On the other hand, I haven't had health insurance since 2004, but do have access to a welfare health system which affords me a caring and competent physician for no monthly health premiums. If I ever end up in the hospital, though, the expense would probably break me financially, but I'm hoping against hope that I can maintain reasonable health until 65 when Medicare kicks in.
So, though I'd very much like to have some decent employment that engages me in something that stimulates my brain, I'm not desperate for employment (like I was between 2002 - 2004, before these other funds became available to me). Still, I am very much aware of the issues that are prevalent in the employment market and keep my knowledge on the subject quite current.
Back in 1997, when I was working on an MSW (Master of Social Work) in New Mexico, many professional people I knew there said "Oh, when you finish your MSW, along with the MPA (Master of Public Administration, which I had earned at the University of New Mexico in 1978) that you already have, you'll be an eminently qualified person for professional employment." Well, those were indeed positive thoughts, but life just didn't work out that way. I attended one year of graduate social work school in New Mexico in the 1995-96 academic year, then worked at my practicum agency as a contract employee for another couple of years. My supervisor, who had become a very supportive colleague, motivated me to complete my MSW education, saying it would come in handy later. During 1997-98, when I had a contract with the State of New Mexico as the statewide Shaken Baby Syndrome Training Coordinator [one of the most enjoyable and challenging jobs I've ever had], I applied to twelve different graduate programs around the country, hoping to gain admission so that I could complete my 2nd year of graduate school social work education. (I was most unimpressed and not sufficiently mentally or academically challenged by the graduate program in New Mexico.)
I'm hardly alone in this predicament. The unemployment reports are continually rife with comments that, regardless of the 'official unemployment statistic', there are 4 - 6% more people who have become so thoroughly frustrated with looking for work that they have dropped out of the 'job market' altogether, and therefore aren't included in the 'official' unemployment figures. I've read other articles that note that, for many people over 50 years of age, they may never be hired again in any position that has the same level of salary and benefits that they had before termination, and may not be able to obtain any form of employment at all. The American economy is so battered and anemic that older, more experienced workers are facing the same dim employment prospects as many newly minted college graduates, many of who can't find work with which to either support themselves and/or pay off their massive student loan debt.
Whenever I read that someone has been out of work for 8 months, or even for a year and a half, and then found work again, far from seeing that person as someone who should be pitied, I see that person as being rather lucky. After a fruitless 10-year job search, during which I've submitted several thousand resumes and engaged in over 300 job interviews, I no longer even have the illusion that employment is possible.
On the other hand, it's not as though I'm starving. Actually, I'm in the rather unusual position of having some inherited income, enough that I own my house, have a good quality workable vehicle, adequate food in my stomach, and some flexibility in my income stream -- not enough to take many trips, but enough to adequately survive without profound anxiety. On the other hand, I haven't had health insurance since 2004, but do have access to a welfare health system which affords me a caring and competent physician for no monthly health premiums. If I ever end up in the hospital, though, the expense would probably break me financially, but I'm hoping against hope that I can maintain reasonable health until 65 when Medicare kicks in.
So, though I'd very much like to have some decent employment that engages me in something that stimulates my brain, I'm not desperate for employment (like I was between 2002 - 2004, before these other funds became available to me). Still, I am very much aware of the issues that are prevalent in the employment market and keep my knowledge on the subject quite current.
Back in 1997, when I was working on an MSW (Master of Social Work) in New Mexico, many professional people I knew there said "Oh, when you finish your MSW, along with the MPA (Master of Public Administration, which I had earned at the University of New Mexico in 1978) that you already have, you'll be an eminently qualified person for professional employment." Well, those were indeed positive thoughts, but life just didn't work out that way. I attended one year of graduate social work school in New Mexico in the 1995-96 academic year, then worked at my practicum agency as a contract employee for another couple of years. My supervisor, who had become a very supportive colleague, motivated me to complete my MSW education, saying it would come in handy later. During 1997-98, when I had a contract with the State of New Mexico as the statewide Shaken Baby Syndrome Training Coordinator [one of the most enjoyable and challenging jobs I've ever had], I applied to twelve different graduate programs around the country, hoping to gain admission so that I could complete my 2nd year of graduate school social work education. (I was most unimpressed and not sufficiently mentally or academically challenged by the graduate program in New Mexico.)
In 1998, 5 of the 12 schools offered me admission, and after visiting several of them, accepted admission at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri (where I continued to live after graduation). I graduated in 1999 and then pursued a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management at the University of Missouri, which I obtained in 2002. I kept thinking (with an increasingly forlorn perspective) that all of this graduate education would ‘come in handy’ in a job search. But, alas, the reality was quite the opposite of my expectations. Upon graduating with my MSW in 1999, I could only obtain short-term, part-time contractual positions. I was able to finally gain a professional position as the project director for a statewide anti-smoking coalition, but after 7 months of administrative hell, willingly resigned from that position in 2002 (shortly after finishing the graduate certificate in nonprofit management). From that point on, I began a job search in earnest, but found -- much to my dismay and frustration -- that all of the graduate education I had obtained largely guaranteed continued unemployment. It turned out that the more education I obtained, the more slender my job prospects became.
I was increasingly confronted with the paradoxical ‘overqualified, under-experienced’ syndrome. I had too much education and experience for entry-level positions, and not enough professional experience for management positions. Plus, I was facing the unofficial [and illegal, but nonetheless widely practiced] over-50 age discrimination reality of the job market. Between the poor employment market I had faced for 25 years in New Mexico and several bouts of long-term illness, I had never really been able to manifest a steady ‘career’ in anything that was actually marketable. I was a veteran of over 60 electoral campaigns, but none of those skills were considered to be relevant by most employers (in spite of having wide-ranging experience in management, volunteer coordinator, budgeting, marketing, and all the other required skills for getting people elected to office in the United States).
For far too many jobs that I applied for, the candidate who was ultimately hired had considerably less education, experience, and skills, and was half my age. Or, if the person was equal in qualifications, the position went to a female, since increasingly social work and/or nonprofit management positions are obtained by women, given that the boards of directors are primarily female. (As a feminist man, I’m actually quite supportive of employing more women in management positions; it’s just that, regardless of my political or ethical position, I’m also the subject of failing to obtain management jobs for precisely those reasons. One of those great paradoxes in life!)
Hence, I was confronted with a most profound and frustrating obstacle: all my experience, education, and skill acquisition, combined with being a ‘seasoned worker’, actually operated against me, rather than being a benefit. But once you’ve obtained all of that, short of falsifying your resume (which has it’s own ethical and moral problems) and denying that you have this education or experience, there is no backing out of what you’ve gained in life. You’re stuck with what you thought would be of benefit, but which turned out to be seen by many employers as a deficit.
Therefore, the job search has since become an exercise in futility. To say that I’m a discouraged job seeker is to put it mildly; after a while, the act of looking for work simply drove me into a deeper and deeper sense of depression and desperation. I still apply for work on occasion when it seems that the position requires skills that I have, but I no longer have any expectation that I will be interviewed, and less hope that I will be employed even if the interview is completed respectably. I am now only too aware that all the talk about older workers being more respected for their experience is just so much hokum. And equally aware that the American job landscape has changed so radically that there is no telling what employers are actually looking for in terms of “what would make an applicant qualified for employment”. It’s all far too subjective. There is no longer any kind of stable ‘benchmark’ upon which to base a credible job search.
The one ‘anchor’ I had available to me was my work on men’s emotional wellness. In 2003, I applied for and obtained federal nonprofit tax status for Mariposa Men’s Wellness Institute, my own nonprofit organization (of which I’m the sole, unpaid employee). I searched for grant funding for the organization, but quickly realized how few possibilities existed for funding nonprofit ventures focused on men’s issues. It appeared, for a while, like there existed some possible funding from the Missouri Foundation for Health. My first application was rejected, but when I approached the foundation officer about what I could do to enhance my application for funds, their initial response was to note that they were actually quite impressed by the venture (“you’re the only organization in Missouri who is discussing these issues”) and to encourage me to apply again, after I had obtained collaborators and a fiscal manager (or pass-through accounting agency). They stated that they were willing to consider a grant of $1 million over two years (instead of $1.5 million over 3 years, as I had originally applied for) assuming I could manifest those added features to the organization. But when I returned, a couple of months later [in 2004], with those enhancements, first they said their Board had postponed consideration for several months, and then, the following year, that a new Board had a quite different agenda and men’s wellness was no longer ‘in the mix’ of their funding priorities.
So, here I am, 8 years later. As noted, I’m not starving, and in fact have been able to cobble together a reasonable life, with the help of my modest inherited income. I don’t have health insurance (and, unless or until the new health care law takes effect, can’t obtain any kind of health coverage, at any price, due to a significant pre-existing condition). But I have a roof over my head, food in my stomach, a joyously positive interpersonal intimacy with a delightful female partner, and a part-time staff position as an usher at the St. Louis Symphony. Plus, I volunteer usher at 6 other venues around town, allowing me a rich cultural life for no monetary outlay (between 150-200 performances a year). And I have a wealth of time to work on projects -- such as my Unitarian Universalist congregation’s Board of Trustees; writing blogs and maintaining the website for Mariposa Men’s Wellness Institute (plus a couple of other community websites); learning how to make competent use of various Apple software packages; and focusing on my continued emotional healing from childhood incest and torture. As my brother often points out, having time to work on projects I enjoy is a rare treat that very few workers have available in their lives, at any point.
A colleague in my church recently said his perception of me is that I’m “gainfully unemployed”, which I found to be (and which I’m sure was his intention) a most paradoxically interesting combination of terms. It’s true that I’m largely unemployed, in a ‘wage’ sense (except the part-time ushering position), and that all of my graduate education and experience presents an egregious obstacle to ever being professionally employed again, but I’m clearly not vegetating in the midst of that unemployment. I’m intensely gainfully engaged in marketing and spiritual support in my religious community, deeply engaged in work on men’s emotional wellness, and have served on several community Boards of Directors. I just don’t get any kind of payment for all that work (other than from my family, which is no doubt a profound blessing to me as an adult, especially after all the traumatic negativity of my childhood).
As a blogger, I never know what effect I will have on my readers, or even who is reading my blogs. (This is not to say I don’t get feedback -- indeed, I have received a fair amount, especially after the articles on my relationship with my father -- but that there are many people who read my thoughts and don’t respond or post comments.) What is important for me is that I’m engaged in work that I find intellectually and emotionally stimulating, even if I never obtain a dime for it. This is not to say that I wouldn’t be overjoyed to eventually find funding for Mariposa Men’s Wellness Institute; indeed, I keep my eyes and ears open for such possibilities. But whether that ever occurs will not, I hope, discourage me from continuing to pursue, via these articles and the MMWI website, a devotion to working on and discussing aspects of men’s emotional wellness.
Being paid for our efforts is helpful (we all have to economically survive), but I’ve been thankfully blessed with the opportunity to pursue my interests in spite of not being able to obtain employment. And in some paradoxical ways, it is that lack of employment which has placed me in a better position to pursue my intellectual interests. It’s most interesting how our lives turn out; often not as we expected them to, but then we can never be aware of all the potential possibilities when we construct our expectations. To be able to understand that time, in and of itself, can be an aspect of wealth and happiness has been one of the most profound spiritual breakthroughs of my life.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
On The Death Of My Father: A Postscript
Prologue
Since publishing my most recent article, The End of A Particularly Terrifying Era, about the death of my father last November, I have received a wealth of very thoughtful responses from many close friends and professional colleagues, both personally and online (via Facebook and LinkedIn). Generally, the comments have been positive, with many people saying the article 'spoke to them', that it 'mirrored experiences they had had in their own lives', and that it allowed others to understand me better, by opening up, for them, a window into my own childhood experiences that allowed others to realize how those experiences colored my view of the world around me.
Yet other people had quite different reactions. They noted it was just plain difficult to read the memoir, that they cringed and had to set it aside several times before finishing it -- or didn't finish it at all, because it was too painful to read in its entirety. Some noted how completely paradoxical it was for them: their own experience of their parents had been quite positive and endearing, and, as a result, they found it quite disorienting to hear from someone who had been in terrifying fear of their father (and mother).
At my congregation, during the 'Joys and Concerns' portion of the sermon, the minister, who had heard my story beforehand, said "Donald has a joy, but you need to ask him about it", knowing full well that saying that my joy was about my father's death was far too paradoxical for most people to stomach. When one of the church members asked me, a couple of weeks later, "what was the joy we should ask you about", and I said it was that my father had died, she raised her eyebrows and asked if I was joking. And I said "no, I'm not joking, it is a joy -- but rather than explaining it, read my blog", which she said she would do.
There was no doubt in my mind when I wrote the blog that the unexpected joy I felt at my father's demise would make many people queasy (I say unexpected, because for them it was unexpected, not that I ever failed to expect that I would feel true relief or satisfaction when it finally occurred). My experience flies in the face of the dominant cultural expectation that parents love their children, their children feel loved, and love their parents in return. But, of course, as noted above, from the reactions of some that they had had similar experiences, that sort of Father Knows Best kind of happy American family was not as common an experience as our culture would want us to believe. My reaction may not be common, but it is certainly not completely unusual either.
(1)
When I wrote that article, I wanted to see it as the end of a life of being continually tormented by a person who had made my young life a living hell and had visited his most venial destructive tendencies on a defenseless child. I wanted to view his demise as the end of that emotional wasteland. I hoped that I would now be allowed a reprieve, so that I could move forward unimpeded by those haunting memories. But 30 years of incredibly painful (though often enlightening) therapy, during which I worked through the outcomes of the post-traumatic stress syndrome [PTSD] that I had experienced, taught me that such hopes were at best wistful and probably unlikely.
We all wish that the process of emotional healing would be linear, moving from one phase to the next seamlessly, with logical gradations, and with a satisfying conclusion. But the reality is that it's more like two steps forward, three back, several to the side, and then eventually moving to the next phase, with periodic elastic bounce-backs to earlier points in the journey. In the same way, I would like to believe that the passing of my father last November -- and hence the death of my tormentor -- would be the end of my chronic panic anxiety. But that's just not how the healing journey works. My own experience is an example of how PTSD works it's way into every cell and fiber of one's body, and periodically, when it is exposed to the light of day, forces us to re-experience profound states of panic anxiety.
My father's torture and rape of my child Self was so unrelenting and so continually invasive that overcoming the resultant effects has been profoundly difficult. I have engaged in 30 years of psychotherapy and 'worked my ass off', plus have read hundreds of books on the subject and accessed many massages and other bodywork treatments. And yet, for all that effort, while the panic fears have been greatly 'bled off', they are hardly gone. Each time they arise again (as they do when I take homeopathic remedies or have acupuncture treatments or am 'triggered' by some stressful event) they 'feel' as terrifying as the original events that produced them.
I have, over many years of therapy, acquired more effective 'coping skills', in that I can usually tell the difference between 'the here and now' anxiety and the fear 'that this will last forever'. But the panic is nonetheless overwhelming when I am in the midst of it, with the panic spewing from my chest, throat, head, and guts at full force. And it doesn't, in that moment, feel like 'the past revisited', but like 'the fear that never went away, but was only temporarily sublimated'. Those panic releases often make me feel like I am 'dying', like the end is near, like there's no point going on and I just want to end the terror NOW! But so far the panic has eventually passed by, though my body is often exhausted and painful afterward.
(2)
For many years, especially when I sat in church services, when I heard a child crying, on one level I was irritated (in that the crying disrupted my meditative state), but on another, more terrifying level, I was in profound fear for the child's life.
Now, this second fear doesn't make 'logical' sense, unless it was my personal experience as a child. Crying, to my father, represented rebellion or rejection, and he simply could not tolerate being around it. Like parents who violently shake their crying infants and cause brain damage (as in Shaken Baby Syndrome), our father often beat us even worse if we cried, screaming "I'll give you something to cry about!!" Expressing discomfort or anger in our family was simply not acceptable to the Enforcer and our mother did nothing to impede that behavior.
It took me many years of first noticing my reaction, then analyzing why I felt that, and finally realizing that just because that had happened to me as a child, it did not mean that all parents would act that way toward their children. And then putting one and one together and being able to lower my own fear and paranoia for the child's life.
(3)
The same 'illogical' reaction arose when women I was dating would mention the idea of having children or a family eventually.
Often my experience was that the women I dated had no motivation to 'know me for whom I was', but rather were solely focused on 'shoving me into their Man Box', whether or not I actually fit. It was like they were talking to me, but looking over my shoulder instead of into my eyes, focusing on their dream of having a family. I was solely the 'potential means to an end', not someone with whom they wanted to engage in an intimate, connective relationship.
My 'objectively illogical feeling' was very much like they were putting a 45-caliber pistol to my head and threatening my very existence. My PTSD experience, the way in which I was 'triggered' by this hope for a 'family', was that I was being asked to support their dream of a happy family, of two adults who were parents of children, without their taking the time or wanting to invest the energy in getting to know me first as a friend, which would allow the two of us to work out such an arrangement collectively. I was simply, for them, a potential paycheck and 'a guy' with whom to have a child.
Now, frankly, it never actually reached that juncture. I was so thoroughly terrified of the idea of having children, given how frightfully painful my own childhood had been, that when such a subject was broached (and especially if it was continually stressed), I would simply back away from the relationship and let it wither on the vine. I was often asked to support and defend women when I had no template upon which to base such behavior, having never had the opportunity to experience loving support and protection within my family-of-origin. The vast majority of my intimate relationships with women (except for my present, quite respectful 4-year relationship with my female friend and partner) ended after 3 or 4 months, with my feeling a profound sense of emotional anguish, since it was obvious that my partners had no wish to know me for whom I really was, but rather only whom they wanted to see me as being.
(4)
The most lasting result of my father's terror (combined with my mother's complicity in the dysfunctional behavioral pattern) was a continual 'distrust of my own body' and a strong desire to dissociate from the 'here and now' reality. I've spent a lifetime of struggle trying to 'stay inside my own body', without feeling an overwhelming desire to 'go somewhere else -- almost anywhere else -- or be someone else' rather than having to face the omnipresent fear that pervades every waking moment. And a lifetime of coping with the suppressed anger at the way in which I was abused as a child.
Dissociation is a common defense mechanism for physically and sexually abused children, and I have fallen back upon that emotional defense throughout my life. It has taken much of my years of therapy to work through those fear and anger spaces, and it still takes much of my energy to fight with those dissociative tendencies when I am triggered by stressful events in my life.
I'll speak more about this in later articles; for now, I want to acknowledge that it has been a prominent emotional outcome of all the pervasive abuse.
(5)
My introduction to the men's movement in 1986, when I lived in New Mexico, and my devotion to working on issues of men's emotional wellness ever since, has given me a new 'lease on life' and has allowed me to find some degree of comfort with my maleness. My father's weird and bizarre views on gender and on what it 'meant to be a man' so profoundly poisoned my own satisfaction and 'comfort with my male Self' that it has taken me many years and countless hours of therapy to crawl out of that totally confusing abyss. At least I'm now on the path of solution orientation, on the healing journey of transformation, rather than wallowing in the profound victimization of so much of my earlier life. The journey to a 'healed emotional state of heart' continues to be difficult. But the respect and love of my intimate partner, competent guidance and assistance from my therapist, emotional support of my friends, respect from professional colleagues, confidence displayed by members of my Unitarian Universalist congregation, and my own developing knowledge and inner self-confidence about my many skills and abilities has allowed me, in recent years, to find a greater sense of personal satisfaction with my life.
As Lord Byron said "No one leaves this world without some pain." I'm slowly working through my own and attempting to assist many others with theirs, via the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute website and blog, facilitation of men's support groups, and work on issues surrounding men's emotional wellness. Though not a linear path (in fact, rather quite a zig-zag path), I am making clear and distinct progress toward inner emotional health. And that alone is a great testament to how it is possible to heal from such terrifying beginnings.
As I often joke "we live with our parents for 20 years and spend the next 60-80 years trying to overcome that experience." For some that experience is positive, but clearly it was not for me. But there is hope, and I'm an example of someone who has 'seen the light at the end of the tunnel' and known that it was not an oncoming train, but rather a manifestation of 'enlightenment'.
There is no perfection in this world, but transformation is indeed possible.
And, for now, that is enough.
Since publishing my most recent article, The End of A Particularly Terrifying Era, about the death of my father last November, I have received a wealth of very thoughtful responses from many close friends and professional colleagues, both personally and online (via Facebook and LinkedIn). Generally, the comments have been positive, with many people saying the article 'spoke to them', that it 'mirrored experiences they had had in their own lives', and that it allowed others to understand me better, by opening up, for them, a window into my own childhood experiences that allowed others to realize how those experiences colored my view of the world around me.
Yet other people had quite different reactions. They noted it was just plain difficult to read the memoir, that they cringed and had to set it aside several times before finishing it -- or didn't finish it at all, because it was too painful to read in its entirety. Some noted how completely paradoxical it was for them: their own experience of their parents had been quite positive and endearing, and, as a result, they found it quite disorienting to hear from someone who had been in terrifying fear of their father (and mother).
At my congregation, during the 'Joys and Concerns' portion of the sermon, the minister, who had heard my story beforehand, said "Donald has a joy, but you need to ask him about it", knowing full well that saying that my joy was about my father's death was far too paradoxical for most people to stomach. When one of the church members asked me, a couple of weeks later, "what was the joy we should ask you about", and I said it was that my father had died, she raised her eyebrows and asked if I was joking. And I said "no, I'm not joking, it is a joy -- but rather than explaining it, read my blog", which she said she would do.
There was no doubt in my mind when I wrote the blog that the unexpected joy I felt at my father's demise would make many people queasy (I say unexpected, because for them it was unexpected, not that I ever failed to expect that I would feel true relief or satisfaction when it finally occurred). My experience flies in the face of the dominant cultural expectation that parents love their children, their children feel loved, and love their parents in return. But, of course, as noted above, from the reactions of some that they had had similar experiences, that sort of Father Knows Best kind of happy American family was not as common an experience as our culture would want us to believe. My reaction may not be common, but it is certainly not completely unusual either.
(1)
When I wrote that article, I wanted to see it as the end of a life of being continually tormented by a person who had made my young life a living hell and had visited his most venial destructive tendencies on a defenseless child. I wanted to view his demise as the end of that emotional wasteland. I hoped that I would now be allowed a reprieve, so that I could move forward unimpeded by those haunting memories. But 30 years of incredibly painful (though often enlightening) therapy, during which I worked through the outcomes of the post-traumatic stress syndrome [PTSD] that I had experienced, taught me that such hopes were at best wistful and probably unlikely.
We all wish that the process of emotional healing would be linear, moving from one phase to the next seamlessly, with logical gradations, and with a satisfying conclusion. But the reality is that it's more like two steps forward, three back, several to the side, and then eventually moving to the next phase, with periodic elastic bounce-backs to earlier points in the journey. In the same way, I would like to believe that the passing of my father last November -- and hence the death of my tormentor -- would be the end of my chronic panic anxiety. But that's just not how the healing journey works. My own experience is an example of how PTSD works it's way into every cell and fiber of one's body, and periodically, when it is exposed to the light of day, forces us to re-experience profound states of panic anxiety.
My father's torture and rape of my child Self was so unrelenting and so continually invasive that overcoming the resultant effects has been profoundly difficult. I have engaged in 30 years of psychotherapy and 'worked my ass off', plus have read hundreds of books on the subject and accessed many massages and other bodywork treatments. And yet, for all that effort, while the panic fears have been greatly 'bled off', they are hardly gone. Each time they arise again (as they do when I take homeopathic remedies or have acupuncture treatments or am 'triggered' by some stressful event) they 'feel' as terrifying as the original events that produced them.
I have, over many years of therapy, acquired more effective 'coping skills', in that I can usually tell the difference between 'the here and now' anxiety and the fear 'that this will last forever'. But the panic is nonetheless overwhelming when I am in the midst of it, with the panic spewing from my chest, throat, head, and guts at full force. And it doesn't, in that moment, feel like 'the past revisited', but like 'the fear that never went away, but was only temporarily sublimated'. Those panic releases often make me feel like I am 'dying', like the end is near, like there's no point going on and I just want to end the terror NOW! But so far the panic has eventually passed by, though my body is often exhausted and painful afterward.
(2)
For many years, especially when I sat in church services, when I heard a child crying, on one level I was irritated (in that the crying disrupted my meditative state), but on another, more terrifying level, I was in profound fear for the child's life.
Now, this second fear doesn't make 'logical' sense, unless it was my personal experience as a child. Crying, to my father, represented rebellion or rejection, and he simply could not tolerate being around it. Like parents who violently shake their crying infants and cause brain damage (as in Shaken Baby Syndrome), our father often beat us even worse if we cried, screaming "I'll give you something to cry about!!" Expressing discomfort or anger in our family was simply not acceptable to the Enforcer and our mother did nothing to impede that behavior.
It took me many years of first noticing my reaction, then analyzing why I felt that, and finally realizing that just because that had happened to me as a child, it did not mean that all parents would act that way toward their children. And then putting one and one together and being able to lower my own fear and paranoia for the child's life.
(3)
The same 'illogical' reaction arose when women I was dating would mention the idea of having children or a family eventually.
Often my experience was that the women I dated had no motivation to 'know me for whom I was', but rather were solely focused on 'shoving me into their Man Box', whether or not I actually fit. It was like they were talking to me, but looking over my shoulder instead of into my eyes, focusing on their dream of having a family. I was solely the 'potential means to an end', not someone with whom they wanted to engage in an intimate, connective relationship.
My 'objectively illogical feeling' was very much like they were putting a 45-caliber pistol to my head and threatening my very existence. My PTSD experience, the way in which I was 'triggered' by this hope for a 'family', was that I was being asked to support their dream of a happy family, of two adults who were parents of children, without their taking the time or wanting to invest the energy in getting to know me first as a friend, which would allow the two of us to work out such an arrangement collectively. I was simply, for them, a potential paycheck and 'a guy' with whom to have a child.
Now, frankly, it never actually reached that juncture. I was so thoroughly terrified of the idea of having children, given how frightfully painful my own childhood had been, that when such a subject was broached (and especially if it was continually stressed), I would simply back away from the relationship and let it wither on the vine. I was often asked to support and defend women when I had no template upon which to base such behavior, having never had the opportunity to experience loving support and protection within my family-of-origin. The vast majority of my intimate relationships with women (except for my present, quite respectful 4-year relationship with my female friend and partner) ended after 3 or 4 months, with my feeling a profound sense of emotional anguish, since it was obvious that my partners had no wish to know me for whom I really was, but rather only whom they wanted to see me as being.
(4)
The most lasting result of my father's terror (combined with my mother's complicity in the dysfunctional behavioral pattern) was a continual 'distrust of my own body' and a strong desire to dissociate from the 'here and now' reality. I've spent a lifetime of struggle trying to 'stay inside my own body', without feeling an overwhelming desire to 'go somewhere else -- almost anywhere else -- or be someone else' rather than having to face the omnipresent fear that pervades every waking moment. And a lifetime of coping with the suppressed anger at the way in which I was abused as a child.
Dissociation is a common defense mechanism for physically and sexually abused children, and I have fallen back upon that emotional defense throughout my life. It has taken much of my years of therapy to work through those fear and anger spaces, and it still takes much of my energy to fight with those dissociative tendencies when I am triggered by stressful events in my life.
I'll speak more about this in later articles; for now, I want to acknowledge that it has been a prominent emotional outcome of all the pervasive abuse.
(5)
My introduction to the men's movement in 1986, when I lived in New Mexico, and my devotion to working on issues of men's emotional wellness ever since, has given me a new 'lease on life' and has allowed me to find some degree of comfort with my maleness. My father's weird and bizarre views on gender and on what it 'meant to be a man' so profoundly poisoned my own satisfaction and 'comfort with my male Self' that it has taken me many years and countless hours of therapy to crawl out of that totally confusing abyss. At least I'm now on the path of solution orientation, on the healing journey of transformation, rather than wallowing in the profound victimization of so much of my earlier life. The journey to a 'healed emotional state of heart' continues to be difficult. But the respect and love of my intimate partner, competent guidance and assistance from my therapist, emotional support of my friends, respect from professional colleagues, confidence displayed by members of my Unitarian Universalist congregation, and my own developing knowledge and inner self-confidence about my many skills and abilities has allowed me, in recent years, to find a greater sense of personal satisfaction with my life.
As Lord Byron said "No one leaves this world without some pain." I'm slowly working through my own and attempting to assist many others with theirs, via the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute website and blog, facilitation of men's support groups, and work on issues surrounding men's emotional wellness. Though not a linear path (in fact, rather quite a zig-zag path), I am making clear and distinct progress toward inner emotional health. And that alone is a great testament to how it is possible to heal from such terrifying beginnings.
As I often joke "we live with our parents for 20 years and spend the next 60-80 years trying to overcome that experience." For some that experience is positive, but clearly it was not for me. But there is hope, and I'm an example of someone who has 'seen the light at the end of the tunnel' and known that it was not an oncoming train, but rather a manifestation of 'enlightenment'.
There is no perfection in this world, but transformation is indeed possible.
And, for now, that is enough.
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