Independent Nurse Practitioner's straight scoop on medicines

[diteras]

My life as a pretend doctor. #1

I make no apologies for being involved in psychiatric medicine and diagnosis. I had better qualify that before the hatred comes at me - I understand the hatred.
I am an independent nurse practitioner non medical prescriber . I worked hard to be an IANP - my speciality is in older persons mental health. This includes the diagnosis and treatment of dementia - the classification of sub types and application of treatment - roughly 70% of my time is in ‘memory related work’.
First thing to say is that I object that dementia is thrown in with psychiatry - it is not, in my opinion, a mental illness. If ones brain structure changes for organic reasons, you are not technically mentally ill- symptoms may be similar - but not the cause. That aside I understand why this is so. If it were left to many of my colleagues in medicine dementia would be a catch all diagnosis for anything including the non DSM or ICD listed ‘’awkward old bugger’ condition.

The causes of reversible memory loss in aging which could ‘mimic dementia symptoms are many but commonly - B12 deficiency - hyponatremia - thyroid irregularities - infection (very common) and extended exposure to medications with anticholinergic/ antimuscarinic qualities - e.g.Bladder stabilisers, antihistamines and tricyclic antidepressants - amitriptyline is commonly used for neuropathic pain - because it's cheap - but plays havoc with memory.

We also see many older people with ‘brain fog’ caused by treatments such as methotrexate for autoimmune conditions - and the old favourite prolonged analgesia use. ( opioid or synthetic opioid) -

The lack of knowledge some poor folks have of their meds is staggering. The lack of knowledge we have sometime trumps them.

Her is a little case study as an intro to my world of pain.

- 85 year old lady - multiple medications - me- are you in a lot of pain? - her ( surprised )no --- me (pointing to one of her multiple medications on the GP’s referral letter)- - do you know what these are? Her - I thought they were for my blood pressure or something ----me - no they're not, it says you’ve taken them since 2006 is that about right? Her daughter --was that when you had shingles mum? --what are they anyway? Me - they are Tramadol capsules, (she was taking 300 mgs a day)which are prescribed for moderate/severe pain -,,,’’they are a synthetic opiate which is addictive and has a very bad reputation for side effects….some people experience long term issues which can be very dangerous but we can sort it out …..’’

Now here I should say that this lady had multiple co morbidity and two of these were red flags for Tramadol - asthma and renal issues.
Let's think about that two ways - These complications/contraindications were known in 2006 - so it might be that she didn't have the red flag problems then - so good - but when she was diagnosed with CKD and prescribed an inhaler surely surely someone would have checked? no ?……..so that is bad.

Then there is the other view --- shingles can be bloody painful and can linger. So maybe after having gone through a number of alternatives the doctor settled on this as the only thing that worked? Still not good - why? Firstly the pain from long term afters due to shingles would be neuropathic -- therefore opioids are pretty much useless -- ask any of your friends who may suffer from something like trigeminal neuralgia - if any morphine helped? They will say no. If they say yes they did not have it. (1)
So …. With option two we have total absence of basic physiological/pharmaceutical knowledge plus a failure to review a short term treatment and allowing it be repeated for eleven years. Note here that in addition Tramadol was re-classified as a (level3) controlled drug in 2014 (uk) due to high mortality associated. (2) So the community pharmacist was not exactly on the ball either then? It gets worse.
This could have caused the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Renal issues. In my opinion it did. No question.


The only issue which was remotely close to mitigation in the whole sorry mess was under ‘’allergies.’’
I read that a buprenorphine patch had been trialled and withdrawn 2 years ago - due to an unspecified reaction. It is known as BUTRANS
Buprenorphine is a partial blocker (synthetic opiate)It also is useful in addiction control - a partial blocker takes the sting out of heroin withdrawal without the buzz - a bit like non alcoholic lager if no one tells you? Best for my patients in pain control as a seven day ‘patch’ - for older persons an opiate bypassing the digestive system is a damn fine idea. Constipation can cause the most horrendous pseudo psychosis if left untreated and all things approaching that end. So she had been given this at least.

There was no explanation of this trial- but this is how I read this info…. a locum or junior GP sees her at home ‘’one off’’ they realise this is bad and try to avert the coming disaster--- it doesn't work and by that time they have gone- so we drift back to doing nowt. But the allergy was clearly marked !! well done someone.

So far...
We have created addiction and made someone worse in their health - we have as a side issue probably contributed to them being housebound and withdrawn and cognitively impaired- we have also not provided them with information and failed to effectively review dangerous medication even when it was reclassified - we have abandoned them to addiction and failed to explore ways to reduce the medication even when the person's pain symptoms have passed----- AND Then ---we have --- as a response to government prompts and demands from the ‘’court of public opinion’’ to sharpen up our dementia diagnosis rates ---trawled this poor woman up and had the unmitigated gall to refer her to a memory clinic with a letter which starts with ‘’I think this woman has Alzheimer disease ...and ends with ….would she be suitable for medication?’’
HA!

I made it clear that the memory impairment was drug induced and made recommendations to review - (I haven't even given the detail of the two other contraindicated meds which had been layered on top of this or that her grandson was a known opiate abuser.) I did not prescribe.

What happened I hear you say? Actually if you are still with me well done -- you now probably hate me as much as say James May or maybe John Dean (watergate) hate themselves.

Well I was off for awhile - and the nurse who was acting as care coordinator got jittery. You see I told you I was a reb (yeeehawww) She like many of her colleagues is steeped in the medical model.
So when she reviews this lady she drags in a junior doctor. What we call a Foundation Year 2 .
He writes a letter and is not aware of mine as the dictation was not yet on the system. He feels she does have Alzheimer's and prescribed medication - he also jumped on the Tramadol (so well done him)
His recommendations - ‘’please reduce Tramadol and replace with a butrans patch ……’’ Lets be fair - he maybe couldn't read eh?

What the actual ffffffff……... !!!!!!

What happened - well she did have an allergy to butrans we established that - patch caused severe rash ...oh....so that's what it was.
Medication for memory didn't work ( why would it as she didn't have AD?) caused side effects and was stopped after a week.

I have written enough but there you are - just one person pooped on by the system and left to rot.
I have a catalogue -this is just my opening shot so next will speak about the pharmaceutical lie in a way never seen by anyone before - I might be boring but I can try to convince myself I ain't. Indulge me. 3 ( I hate this band btw but best I could do.....


1 https://www.cochrane.org/CD003726/NEUROMUSC_tramadol-treating-neuropathic-pain

2 https://www.mims.co.uk/tramadol-reclassified-controlled-drug/surgery/article/1297952

3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsdUcpkcWig

[Seabreeze]

just a short note :

Alzheimer & Dementia and many other illnesses is often caused by metall storages in the brain. They found high amounts of metall (mercury and others...) in the brain of people who suffered from alzheimer....after they passed away. The information about this is suppressed.....

Mercury (Mercury is the most toxic, non-radioactive element on earth) often used for tooth fillings and other med......., does collect other metalls in the human body and it often gets stored in organs or the brain..because it can easily pass the brain boarder. The human body can not eliminate mercury out of the body, so it gets stored somewhere..and causes damages by time. Even if you never had mercury tooth fillings...you could got it passed over from your mother while she was pregnant....there are studies about this also....(suppressed)....

To drink 2 - 3 cups of plain gmo free coffee a day often helps the body to eliminate certain metals....which is helpful for people with alzheimer.....(Dr.med.Dr.med.habil Max Daunderer, toxicologist * 13. September 1943 in Landshut; † 7. Juni 2013)........

Dr. med. Dr. med. habil. Max Daunderer died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2013.

[snoman]

keep writing diteras, this is illuminating.
thank you.

[AutumnW]

Diteras,

A thousand thank yous! I take very low doses of meds for neuropathic pain and anxiety. I am trying to go off everything but that will likely not be possible, so will keep meds to a bare minimum. It's the best I can do. I was taking antihistamines to help me sleep once in a while until I read the study that suggested certain antihistamines could cause dementia, or I guess, produce a state indistinguishable from dementia. So I quit flat out and won't take them again. I went through the list of drugs and the two drugs I currently take do not qualify as a dementia risk.

I have a question for you. Do you think that some elderly people are medicated too heavily for high blood pressure? What are the impacts on the brain of having pressures that are artificially low. To me it seems that the elderly who may need slightly higher pressures to get blood to their brain may be at risk. It's like their brains are operating like a flat tire.

Keep posting and thanks for all you are doing for the elderly. People like you are heroic!

[Sue (Ayt)]

I will enjoy reading your thread here for sure, Diteras. I have been doing all I can to protect my own relatives and cohorts, as I see so many of them going down due to over-medications. It's scary!
The older generation was so ingrained with trusting doctors and doing what they say, and many don't realize what the medical system has devolved into. I first realized this myself when my husband went through a major medical crisis 10 years ago and wound up with a grocery bag full of prescribed medications from the VA - prescriptions added for the side effects of the side effects of the side effects for the original med. It was ridiculous, and I just know in my heart he would not be here now if he had continued being a "good little patient."

[diteras]

:facepalm:
just a short note :

Alzheimer & Dementia and many other illnesses is often caused by metall storages in the brain. They found high amounts of metall (mercury and others...) in the brain of people who suffered from alzheimer....after they passed away. The information about this is suppressed.....

Mercury (Mercury is the most toxic, non-radioactive element on earth) often used for tooth fillings and other med......., does collect other metals in the human body and it often gets stored in organs or the brain..because it can easily pass the brain boarder. The human body can not eliminate mercury out of the body, so it gets stored somewhere..and causes damages by time. Even if you never had mercury tooth fillings...you could got it passed over from your mother while she was pregnant....there are studies about this also....(suppressed)....

To drink 2 - 3 cups of plain gmo free coffee a day often helps the body to eliminate certain metals....which is helpful for people with alzheimer.....(Dr.med.Dr.med.habil Max Daunderer, toxicologist * 13. September 1943 in Landshut; † 7. Juni 2013)........

Dr. med. Dr. med. habil. Max Daunderer died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2013.





Thank you Whisper. Yes I have heard this. You are right of course and it is just another example of something which is a cause being not spoken of because it doesn't fit the paradigm -- who's paradigm I wonder?

I guess in broadening the discussion the issue of weather/environmental control which allegedly involves ''chem trails'' with heavy metals links into this.They end up somewhere ---- in us. Water table.

I also have seen one patient who had childhood (1950's UK)'pink disease' --see ref 1 below) he nearly died ---many did and for some reason this is not well known. It should be shouted about --don't you think?
Isn't it weird how state supported horrors are not often spoken of - especially when multi billion dollar corps are behind these? Almost think their was a conspiracy eh?

I guess when you refer to 'blockages' you are speaking of the post mortem beta amyloid tangles (2) which are found in some dementia patients?

Beta Amyloid is a toxin which is created by us all the time --- now its happening while I think --- and is removed by the cerebral spinal fluid --- this is why a CSF check should be part of a proper diagnostic exploration -- that it isn't has many explanations which I hope you can bare with me to get to later.--- So when we cant, for whatever reason 'get rid', it builds up and you get what you get --(that is oversimplification but I hope it'll do for now)
All the studies I have read inform me that sleep is the time when you process this - which is why a good natural sleep is so important ---maybe this is why Mrs ( I only need three hours a night) Thatcher got AD --(or maybe she was wacking up 'charlie'?-- what an image) ....sorry everyone....... Did she know John Delorean?-- I wonder.............

As another aside --i have heard researchers propose that the 'black triangle' SSP UFO's work through creating a anti-gravity magnetic field by rotating highly pressurised mercury in their reactor thingie (thingie???:facepalm:-- oh yes eat my shorts Bob Lazar:) )
Perfect eh? The pilots cant whistle-blow, because the exposure means that they basically cant remember where their ass is after a few flights?
Is this why grey aliens are naked?-- they just forget to put their kegs on?


1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3173747/

2 https://www.brightfocus.org/alzheimers-disease/infographic/amyloid-plaques-and-neurofibrillary-tangles

[diteras]

Diteras,

A thousand thank yous! I take very low doses of meds for neuropathic pain and anxiety. I am trying to go off everything but that will likely not be possible, so will keep meds to a bare minimum. It's the best I can do. I was taking antihistamines to help me sleep once in a while until I read the study that suggested certain antihistamines could cause dementia, or I guess, produce a state indistinguishable from dementia. So I quit flat out and won't take them again. I went through the list of drugs and the two drugs I currently take do not qualify as a dementia risk.

I have a question for you. Do you think that some elderly people are medicated too heavily for high blood pressure? What are the impacts on the brain of having pressures that are artificially low. To me it seems that the elderly who may need slightly higher pressures to get blood to their brain may be at risk. It's like their brains are operating like a flat tire.

Keep posting and thanks for all you are doing for the elderly. People like you are heroic!

Thank you so much AutumnW and to Ayt who I have mixed into this reply- you are both too kind to me. I have never been described as 'heroic' before and am quite blown away....maybe you should speak to me ex to get a more balanced view?

autumn w -I am guessing you are prescribed Lyrica or (generic) pregablin? Something like that--- maybe Carbmazapine /gabapentin?? or perhaps an old trycyclic antidepressant? The first three are used for seizure control (licenced) pain (sometimes licenced sometimes not) and mood stabilisation (ditto) depending on what you have. I can explain the concept of product licence to you if you wish? That is another topic.

The Lyrica 'catch all' medication is pretty commonly used for such symptoms as is gabapentin. The 'gaba's are originally an ant seizure drug which was expanded to other uses -- through the usual...''oh it does that too does it....hmmmm...well why not?'' experiential reality based work. It is a prime example of pharma gone completely ott too ---If anyone wants to look at how big companies ''work their thing'' I would recommend they have a butchers at this.... ref 1.... or this ref 2 ...or this ref 3.

You get the drift.

So yes, these things are as they say 'fraut with peril' But I don't know you and I can only give you general advice- you know you (and your hubby ayt) better than anyone, so do what you think/feel is right, having gathered all possible info is my best advice -- I am as likely to be wrong as the next man. If it does help you and clearly it does help some -- then great. Just be careful and be armed with some understanding - because quite often 'we' (medical professionals) base our understanding on faulty info -- my next post will cover this if you can stay with me.
Are older people over medicated? Yes, generally yes ---- there are reason for this and I will try to get this over later (targeting post 3) but sometimes there is a need which I cant actually argue with - quality of life is the key -- if you are chasing quantity first and find yourself keep having to come back to medics to try and find the quality after that, then you could be disappointed.

are BP meds overdone - in UK they brought out something called QOF (ref 4) a good idea in conception. In practice it encourages doctors to over use anti hypertensives to hit a target -- often by using one two or three from different groups - Now I am not saying that it doesn't work - but what I do know is that in reality what commonly happens is that every different med has a exponentially lower chance of making a significant difference and an exponentially higher chance of causing unwanted side effects --- that is true.

So if you have a family history of stroke etc then please take them but also look at lifestyle and particularity salt consumption etc.

The old adage about the operation being a complete success but the patient died springs to mind .....we are as much like mice in a maze as everyone else we just do not want to admit it

Do what you think is best but please ask questions -- we should not be harvested by medical/pharmaceutical conglomerates and kept alive just to consume is my more radical thought here --- but that is mine. Everyone else should please themselves.

thanks fr your support ---truly did not expect anyone to reply.. am amazed. love

1 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pfizer-britain-lyrica/pfizer-loses-uk-patent-case-over-use-of-lyrica-drug-in-pain-idUSKCN0RA1G120150910

2 http://drugbaron.com/the-real-scandal-of-drug-pricing/

3 http://theconversation.com/ambulance-call-outs-for-pregabalin-have-spiked-heres-why-106163

4 https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-tools-and-services/data-services/general-practice-data-hub/quality-outcomes-framework-qof

[Dennis Leahy]

This is not boring. This is informative, with information gleaned by experience rather than simply by reading. Carry on, please. :~)

p.s. ditaras, can I suggest that this thread be renamed? It will help with people searching forum titles for info. If you agree, what would you think would be a good title?

[Strat]

Thank you for posting this.

I'm supposed to be on BP meds right now but I'm somewhat at a crossroads. For 1 I have zero trust in my doctors considering my past experiences. I've had horrendous side effects in the past and I thank god they didn't end up sending me to jail or cemetery (lamictal or topamax, don't remember which one). I always asked about side effects but they more or less say to read the warnings which are more or less all the same. I've tried lots of other drugs to control the seizures and depekote seems to work the best for me. There was one other decent drug I can't remember the name of, but it made me sweat a ridiculous amount.

The other thing with my BP is I could definitely improve my diet and lifestyle. It seems somewhat silly to not address those things and take drugs that allow me to continue a harmful lifestyle. When I manage to stay healthy, (basically sleep better, improve diet, meditate and exercise more) my BP improves dramatically.

[Mike]

Strat ive been given all sorts of BP meds. almost killed me. toprol slowed my heart to such an extent that i feared it might just stop beating altogether. my lasting memory of that week i took it was the night i awoke and did jumping jacks till i couldn't stand....i was certain if i stopped moving my heart would stop too.

some meds *are* useful, as Autumn points out...but ugh, i would not recommend those bp meds to anyone.

[Strat]

Strat ive been given all sorts of BP meds. almost killed me. toprol slowed my heart to such an extent that i feared it might just stop beating altogether. my lasting memory of that week i took it was the night i awoke and did jumping jacks till i couldn't stand....i was certain if i stopped moving my heart would stop too.

some meds *are* useful, as Autumn points out...but ugh, i would not recommend those bp meds to anyone.

Have you looked into blue zones? In (I think) sicily they have an extremely high concentration of folks over 100yrs old who are active and yet they almost all smoke and have high BP.

[diteras]

gosh Dennis, thank you - truly ... if I had thought for one minute that so many folks would be so interested I would have tried harder with a 'hook'. I have no idea. You have just asked me the equivalent of the classic interview question ''so ..what do you think you are good at?''

I am very new to this remarkable forum - I will (classic cop out here) be amenable to any suggestion your experience suggests.

But once again ---thanks!

[AutumnW]

Strat ive been given all sorts of BP meds. almost killed me. toprol slowed my heart to such an extent that i feared it might just stop beating altogether. my lasting memory of that week i took it was the night i awoke and did jumping jacks till i couldn't stand....i was certain if i stopped moving my heart would stop too.

some meds *are* useful, as Autumn points out...but ugh, i would not recommend those bp meds to anyone.

There's a lot of politics in bp meds. The old diuretic types seem to work the best for most people. My husband and others I know had terrible reactions to the newer drugs. Husband and best friend, on one of the drugs, had pressures that would skyrocket and then plummet. Fortunately, I knew a bit about it, so suggested he TELL not ask the doctor to put him on the old class of drugs that are currently out of patent. They work FINE. I think they may deplete the body of potassium, so you take a pill and a banana! Perhaps they add potassium to the drug now. Diteras will know!

Gabapentin not only eliminates muscle pain but helps me achieve stage 4 sleep, which is the recuperative phase of sleep, so when I wake up I feel like I have actually slept. Without it, I don't know, really hard to function. But am very aware of becoming too dependent on a high dose so am taking under the prescribed amount.

[diteras]

:blushing:
This is not boring. This is informative, with information gleaned by experience rather than simply by reading. Carry on, please. :~)

p.s. ditaras, can I suggest that this thread be renamed? It will help with people searching forum titles for info. If you agree, what would you think would be a good title?

see above ----also not quite got the reply with quotes under control :blushing:

[AutumnW]

Diteras,

A thousand thank yous! I take very low doses of meds for neuropathic pain and anxiety. I am trying to go off everything but that will likely not be possible, so will keep meds to a bare minimum. It's the best I can do. I was taking antihistamines to help me sleep once in a while until I read the study that suggested certain antihistamines could cause dementia, or I guess, produce a state indistinguishable from dementia. So I quit flat out and won't take them again. I went through the list of drugs and the two drugs I currently take do not qualify as a dementia risk.

I have a question for you. Do you think that some elderly people are medicated too heavily for high blood pressure? What are the impacts on the brain of having pressures that are artificially low. To me it seems that the elderly who may need slightly higher pressures to get blood to their brain may be at risk. It's like their brains are operating like a flat tire.

Keep posting and thanks for all you are doing for the elderly. People like you are heroic!

Thank you so much AutumnW and to Ayt who I have mixed into this reply- you are both too kind to me. I have never been described as 'heroic' before and am quite blown away....maybe you should speak to me ex to get a more balanced view?

autumn w -I am guessing you are prescribed Lyrica or (generic) pregablin? Something like that--- maybe Carbmazapine /gabapentin?? or perhaps an old trycyclic antidepressant? The first three are used for seizure control (licenced) pain (sometimes licenced sometimes not) and mood stabilisation (ditto) depending on what you have. I can explain the concept of product licence to you if you wish? That is another topic.

The Lyrica 'catch all' medication is pretty commonly used for such symptoms as is gabapentin. The 'gaba's are originally an ant seizure drug which was expanded to other uses -- through the usual...''oh it does that too does it....hmmmm...well why not?'' experiential reality based work. It is a prime example of pharma gone completely ott too ---If anyone wants to look at how big companies ''work their thing'' I would recommend they have a butchers at this.... ref 1.... or this ref 2 ...or this ref 3.

You get the drift.

So yes, these things are as they say 'fraut with peril' But I don't know you and I can only give you general advice- you know you (and your hubby ayt) better than anyone, so do what you think/feel is right, having gathered all possible info is my best advice -- I am as likely to be wrong as the next man. If it does help you and clearly it does help some -- then great. Just be careful and be armed with some understanding - because quite often 'we' (medical professionals) base our understanding on faulty info -- my next post will cover this if you can stay with me.
Are older people over medicated? Yes, generally yes ---- there are reason for this and I will try to get this over later (targeting post 3) but sometimes there is a need which I cant actually argue with - quality of life is the key -- if you are chasing quantity first and find yourself keep having to come back to medics to try and find the quality after that, then you could be disappointed.

are BP meds overdone - in UK they brought out something called QOF (ref 4) a good idea in conception. In practice it encourages doctors to over use anti hypertensives to hit a target -- often by using one two or three from different groups - Now I am not saying that it doesn't work - but what I do know is that in reality what commonly happens is that every different med has a exponentially lower chance of making a significant difference and an exponentially higher chance of causing unwanted side effects --- that is true.

So if you have a family history of stroke etc then please take them but also look at lifestyle and particularity salt consumption etc.

The old adage about the operation being a complete success but the patient died springs to mind .....we are as much like mice in a maze as everyone else we just do not want to admit it

Do what you think is best but please ask questions -- we should not be harvested by medical/pharmaceutical conglomerates and kept alive just to consume is my more radical thought here --- but that is mine. Everyone else should please themselves.

thanks fr your support ---truly did not expect anyone to reply.. am amazed. love

1 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pfizer-britain-lyrica/pfizer-loses-uk-patent-case-over-use-of-lyrica-drug-in-pain-idUSKCN0RA1G120150910

2 http://drugbaron.com/the-real-scandal-of-drug-pricing/

3 http://theconversation.com/ambulance-call-outs-for-pregabalin-have-spiked-heres-why-106163

4 https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-tools-and-services/data-services/general-practice-data-hub/quality-outcomes-framework-qof

Thanks diteras! Am not on bp meds but did note a few years ago that the info radiating from drug companies suggested we ALL aim for 110/70 rather than the decades long ideal which was 120/80. It was around that time that my mother, in her late seventies had her bp meds increased. I have wondered though, since that time, if they lowered her pressures to the point that she developed ischemia from a lack of blood to her brain. I suppose it is a dilemma as a little too high can break vessels and capillaries.

I take the lowest recommended dose of prozac for anxiety. If I could exercise more this would be completely unnecessary, but I can't so stress is something I have to watch and medicate. And meditation doesn't work. Anyway...way too much info...sorry!

[diteras]

[/QUOTE]

Thanks diteras! Am not on bp meds but did note a few years ago that the info radiating from drug companies suggested we ALL aim for 110/70 rather than the decades long ideal which was 120/80. It was around that time that my mother, in her late seventies had her bp meds increased. I have wondered though, since that time, if they lowered her pressures to the point that she developed ischemia from a lack of blood to her brain. I suppose it is a dilemma as a little too high can break vessels and capillaries.

I take the lowest recommended dose of prozac for anxiety. If I could exercise more this would be completely unnecessary, but I can't so stress is something I have to watch and medicate. And meditation doesn't work. Anyway...way too much info...sorry![/QUOTE]

Please....do not apologise. You are most certainly not alone. I am sorry your mum has been a worry too . The business of control of hypertension is (in my opinion) just that. I would never suggest for a second that people shouldn't take medication if they have a condition which this may modify, but when drug companies make suggestions, there is a little fire engine which starts doing circuits in my head.
Now here I have to say that this is my observation - but....who benefits from lowering targets and by implication lowering treatment thresholds? If you take 10% off the lower gateway what does that mean in terms of treatment volume ....?

My other observation would be - if you are lowering bp with multiple meds and run towards hypotension - or postural hypotension/hypertension the most likely outcome is a fall. If you expose an elderly person (especially if they have a degree of memory impairment) to trauma and a procedure which requires surgery and inhaled anaesthetics,(fractured femur is most common) then there is a pretty decent chance you will press the 'fast forward'on any condition they might be vulnerable to (see ref 1.) There is - what I would loosely term ' a lot of academic obfuscation' about this atm - studies which say ....'more info required' and 'possible multiple issues affecting'....I will stick my neck out here - if there is a vascular problem it will make it worse - and there is another issue.
The systems (worldwide I guess) are increasingly driven by pathways and standards --- so if you are older and less resilient your recovery time is measured against that of a 35 year old. Anyone see the problem with that? So if you cant make a recovery in around the expected time .....then you block a bed ...if you block a bed then you are a problem.....if you are a problem then someone will have to apply a solution. I would NEVER agree to assess anyone for dementia who had recently had such difficulties. It happens though. You bet. Injustice isn't just a occasional event - its an everyday occurrence.

Fluoxitine? (prozac) like I said AutumnW - whatever gets you through the night. You are on it and you are informed. I am not sure it would be my first call for anxiety, but I don't know you so that's not a fair judgement. It works fr you and really that's all that matters

thanks


ref 1 https://www.neurologyadvisor.com/topics/general-neurology/anesthesia-and-long-term-cognitive-decline-is-there-a-link/

[Dennis Leahy]

gosh Dennis, thank you - truly ... if I had thought for one minute that so many folks would be so interested I would have tried harder with a 'hook'. I have no idea. You have just asked me the equivalent of the classic interview question ''so ..what do you think you are good at?''

I am very new to this remarkable forum - I will (classic cop out here) be amenable to any suggestion your experience suggests.

But once again ---thanks!


New title for thread.
OK, how about:
Independent Nurse Practitioner's straight scoop on medicines
(or maybe someone will come up with something better)

[diteras]

#2
My compatriot Richard D Hall who is an independent UK journalist of some conviction, always closes his items with the following statement ‘’remember, believe nothing that you hear and only half of what you see’’
Now you might not agree with many of his positions - but he does - in my opinion -put them forward with total sincerity. A man who travels the UK in a sparse little van on a shoestring production budget,(when he is working) urinating into a tupperware container, is committed.

There is a very good point made in his closing mantra. He is right. Many people suspect he is right and a lot of people who share those views here know he is right. How you shift the perception from suspicion to knowing is a journey which has many paths - and can have many restarts - The system is (any system, for I believe they are all the same) a maze with many false ends - which never seems to resolve when you are in it. Closer = more confused.

Eventually you come to see that everything is connected. Everything.

When I prescribe medication I am by implication endorsing something. Geopolitical world view of disease and disease as a concept? Probably. The perception of disease and the limitations we impose upon our response to it? Definitely. These issues are not dissimilar to the SSP v white space program or fossil fuel v free energy (same thing) discussion.

In a nutshell, whether it's deliberate or not, it is obvious that there aint no profit in curing anything - and - in terms of management by fear - again, deliberate or not - a lot to be gained.

The ways disease is arrived at as a concept is interesting. If anyone wishes to know how ‘new’ diseases are arrived at I suggest they ‘’weaponise their curiosity.’’ as Mr Corbell would say. Articles on the DSM/ICD ‘meetings’ are widespread and all find a route back to pharmaceutical mega corps through associations - but you know this. If you look at the numbers……(see ref 1) it will all make sense…...you can carry some ‘opinions’ with that wonga eh? But these are businesses and the world is a capitalist economy - so really whatydya expect? - ‘’here lies the last altruist -died of loneliness in poverty. ‘’ Ask Tessla...

This is not meant to be me being yet another little voice dissing ‘big pharma’ - no point.
Been done better by better men.

I wanted to give just one practical demonstration of how this is can be easily seen. Even by numpties like me.

I went to a University where ‘evidenced based practice’ was a biggie in the course. Most people hated this and I thought I would too - but I did not.

So I do look at recent developments as often as I can - I note some interesting trends.
1 - generally even quite major developments are not picked up by mainstream media until there is a potential to ‘sex it up’ (or an agenda) ...vaccines, new cancer treatments, drug ‘fails’ (see Lyrica in my opening shot) Sometimes years pass before research is pushed up - maybe on slack news days?

2 - when these things are made front and centre they are done so in a way which is either ill informed - deliberately or - (being generous) borderline patronising. I say this because most people who have a problem quickly become experts - they know, they are ‘on it’ every day - So stories about (for e.g. trazodone being a cure all for dementia ref 2) are at best based on no real evidence which has practical implications. --- Example from practice ---I do use trazodone to manage low level challenging behaviour in dementia --- bad drug if there is an unknown subdural haematoma (falls are common and unseen falls happen which are not attributed as causal if someone already has dementia -won't ref this but I can) certainly is a sedative (but not always) and certainly is likely to make anyone with a history of falls a higher level of risk. We can also list increased confusion as ‘likely’. So if you have a brain you have to consider and make known the risk v benefit ‘tension’ to all. So in reality where is the benefit?

I am droning on. (again) ….sorry

So recently I was confronted by a review of services which was focused on diagnostic rates. This badly written piece of nonsense used the expression ..’’benefit of treatment’’ so many times it was nauseating. Now I am not against treatment. But again from a practical point of view I would have to say that ‘’modest effect’’ is being generous. Why?
Ok. -We have four drugs licensed to treat Alzheimer's disease. We are told that 6/10 people with dementia will have AD. There is no licenced treatment for Vascular dementia UK and only limited value in using one of the above four in Lewy Bodies disease. There are many many other breeds of dementia but the first two are the ones we see most of. (allegedly says DSM/ICD)

The drugs- three - donepezil. Galantamine - rivastigmine (put simply) work by blocking the action of the substance which clears acetylcholine from the brain - so if you work on the theory that AD is a deficiency in the regulation of this neurotransmitter then Bob’s your mothers brother. These are called acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. - mild/moderate conditions
The fourth (memantine- moderate/severe) is a glutamate blocker - it prevents excessive glutamate from damaging cells - in US is also licensed for vascular conditions - why for I know not.


Problems -
(my opinion) the premise of 6/10 is wrong. WHO figures would support this at least to some extent.
In practice - the symptoms associated with AD, especially in the early phase are pretty much identical to those of cerebrovascular disease which (when you think about it from a lifestyle- age-span extended pov) should be much more common.
So….
Miss-diagnosis is common in my experience. --- you have treatment fails almost built in because of the paradigm we use.
And again-
Does anyone believe that the most complex acknowledged structure on this planet - the human brain - is, when in decay, the victim of one disease process? It might be. The Lord of The Rings might be a documentary too.

Getting to the end now…
I look for evidence to try to support ''treatment'' to the extent it is being pushed - I find this ( ref 3) hmmm.... very positive …. I say where did this come from?….Well it came from here…(ref 4) I have linked a summary but have read the full report - this is a meta analysis review - one of the biggest ever done - and well done too (thank you AGS) I will quote their conclusion verbatim... Nb they do find donepezil marginally better than t'others but the effects are small - very small.

‘’An exhaustive review of the literature involving 142 studies demonstrated that cognitive enhancers in general have minimal effects on cognition according to minimal clinically important difference and global ratings. The drugs appear safe, but this must be interpreted cautiously because trial participants may have less co morbidity and fewer adverse effects than those treated with these drugs in clinical practice’’


So the authors conclude that effects are tiny and risks are possibly greater for real people due to the construct of clinical trials.
Spin is everywhere.

There is also a balanced view here (ref 5)

Game over.

I could go on and on - and already have said too much. I hope I pitch this right for everyone - happy to give more detail but fear I get too involved.
This is my brain every day of my life.

Thanks for reading.

PS Denis how the heck do I change the title???? :o









1 https://www.marketresearchreports.com/blog/2019/03/11/us-top-10-pharmaceutical-companies-market-turnover

2 https://www.nhs.uk/news/obesity/two-older-drugs-could-be-repurposed-to-fight-dementia/

3 https://psychcentral.com/news/2017/10/02/study-finds-donepezil-best-alzheimers-drug-for-improving-cognition/126844.html

4 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29131306

5 https://www.cochrane.org/CD001190/DEMENTIA_donepezil-people-dementia-due-alzheimers-disease

[Cara]

Thank you for this thread diteras. I’ve been an explorer of alternative ideas about health and wellness for some years and it’s interesting to read your insights, thoughts and views here.

In your explorations of different ideas about health and wellness, have you come across the work of Ivan Illich?

Illich was an Austrian-Croatian philosopher-priest, both a conservative and a radical, and he had some remarkable insights on health and criticised what he termed “medicalisation”. The book in which these ideas are covered is Medical Nemesis, later published as Limits to Medicine:
http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386729756l/64713.jpg
A copy of the book is here: https://ratical.org/ratville/AoS/MedicalNemesis.pdf

Here is a brief summary of his ideas:

In Medical Nemesis, Illich challenged the fundamental premise of medical progress, arguing that institutional medicine is overwhelmingly pathogenic and actively sickening.

Health, argues Illich, is the capacity to cope with the human reality of death, pain, and sickness. Technology can help, but modern medicine has gone too far launching into a god like battle to eradicate death, pain, and sickness. In doing so, it turns people into consumers or objects, destroying their capacity for health.

The concept of medicalization is attributed to Ivan Illich, who first wrote on the subject in 1976. He proposed that modern medicine had become detrimental to society, by amongst other things, "launching ... an inhuman attempt to defeat death, pain and sickness".[5] By doing so, he argued, medicine had deprived individuals and societies of their ability to cope with sickness and death.

According to Illich, "iatrogenesis cannot be understood unless it is seen as the specifically medical manifestation of specific counterproductivitiy." Illich sees three levels of iatrogenesis. Clinical iatrogenesis is the injury done to patients by ineffective, toxic, and unsafe treatments. Social iatrogenesis results from the medicalisation of life. Cultural iatrogenesis is the destruction of traditional ways of dealing with and making sense of death, pain, and sickness.
From here: http://naturalhealthperspective.com/tutorials/ivan-illich.html

If you enjoy Illich’s ideas, David Caley has some radio programmes recorded for CBS in Canada on his website: https://www.davidcayley.com/podcasts/category/Ivan+Illich

[Dennis Leahy]

...PS Denis how the heck do I change the title???? :o...

Done. I hope that helps to give this thread the attention it deserves. -Dennis

[AutumnW]

Thanks Dennis and diteras, thank you SO much for taking the time to respond to me. It is much much appreciated! Would like to know if you have any thoughts on what seems to be an epidemic of hypothyroidism. I don't have it but a few people I am in touch with do. And a few members of my immediate family, too. I wonder if it is on the rise or is typical in an aging population.

[diteras]

Searcher - thank you very much for that - no I hadn't (to my shame) heard of Illich, but I am not so arrogant as to think that my views are original - there is a lot I don't know and all I will do is try to speak my version of truth - which may be right or wrong. Not that clever me.

''Medicalisation of everything'' is something I think I put on my Avalon application. It is something I see a lot of. Maybe I am best with practical examples ?- here's a couple - This happens a lot.

Imagine a lady for e.g. - in her eighties - living alone - a number of chronic health issues , she is increasingly aware of her life fading away - her friends are expiring or becoming less able - maybe some going into care - her family have moved away - she is proud of them and their success- she doesn't want to be a burden on their busy lives and family struggles - and like all of her generation sees asking for help as the beginning of the end-game. She is l being forced to confront the reality of mortality and worse - but she carries on. Then something happens - it could be a little or a big thing.
Maybe her pet dog or cat dies - maybe a good friend or neighbour is taken ill - maybe she just drops a treasured ornament or looses her keys? The trigger isn't necessarily proportional.
She becomes very unhappy - because she has a lot to be unhappy about. So she sees her GP. She wants to talk to someone really. But she leaves the practice after her standard 15 minute consultation with a prescription for a (usually) sub therapeutic dose of an antidepressant. Of course it wont work - because she isn't clinically depressed, she is chronically unhappy and that is different - plus - if she was depressed to the level she is apparently displaying - she would need a far greater dose of antidepressants than her physical condition would tolerate. She has no information about this treatment - she cannot remember what the doctor told her - because she is so embarrassed by her self perceived weakness. She now has a mental health profile. This can become the answer to any issue she brings up with health in her medical future. Any problem she now has that defies easy explanation will be put up as 'health anxiety' .

This can now go many ways and usually it doesn't end well. I meet people who have been taking antidepressants for twenty years and they don't know what they are or why they were given -

classic example -

Lady in her eighties comes to clinic (this is not a composite) with her daughter. I ask her why she has been taking dothiepin aka dosulipen since 1992. ''What is it ?'' I explain its an old school antidepressant which has such a bad rep that we cant even find a reason to re-invent it - reasons - lethal in overdose/and see below (I can never understand why we have so many lethal od drugs to give to people who might want to use them to that end - its like giving a child dynamite and matches and telling them to 'be careful' 1)

So when we discuss this med it appears two things happen in 92. Firstly her husband died and secondly she has a myocardial infarction (MI)

Either way this is bad. why - because dothiepin is known to be cardio toxic (2) this was suspected for many years - so no excuses
scenario 1 - she became depressed and GP prescribed then she had an MI - and was left on this drug despite the symptoms of depression (aka unhappiness/grief) having abated.
scenario 2 - she had an MI before her husband died and someone thought it a good idea to treat her grief with an potentially lethal medication - in her circumstances.

sorry - too much I know but yes.... it is not a good relationship we have with pharmaceutical products worldwide. They have their place but it is totally out of proportion now.

I will read and digest Searcher - thanks again !


1 https://bnf.nice.org.uk/drug/dosulepin-hydrochloride.html

2 https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/28/dothiepin-and-ischaemic-heart-disease

[diteras]

...PS Denis how the heck do I change the title???? :o...

Done. I hope that helps to give this thread the attention it deserves. -Dennis

ta buddy btw is that you or your younger brother on that photo? I need some of that elixir :)

[diteras]

Thanks Dennis and diteras, thank you SO much for taking the time to respond to me. It is much much appreciated! Would like to know if you have any thoughts on what seems to be an epidemic of hypothyroidism. I don't have it but a few people I am in touch with do. And a few members of my immediate family, too. I wonder if it is on the rise or is typical in an aging population.

AutumnW thank you again - I am pretty sure that levothyroxine was (if not the most then at least in the top few) prescribed drug in the US. Why is this I did wonder. The problem that I (again my opinion) am becoming increasingly concerned about is that 'we' as in the medical profession, are increasingly treating the human body as if it is a line up of disconnected buckets - of course it isn't - it is one big bucket with different compartments. You need to see the whole - and it aint easy.

Endocrine disorders (1)are not my speciality but they are very relevant to what I do - that is why any memory assessment should have current bloods as an accompaniment and you would be surprised how this is ignored in clinical practice ''mxyedema madness'' (2) is not as rare as literature would have us believe. I am aware of several cases.

I am not answering your question am I? Well - bit of a cop out, but we are living longer, so maybe that is part of the answer. Also we may be better at spotting these things and people are more aware of their health - so get checked more? There are also incentives for doctors to find and treat in UK - dunno what happens elsewhere. Is it something environmental would be another question - background radiation even?

The endocrine system is very relevant to many things - it includes the pineal gland for one thing - a source of endogenous theosophic experiences they say. Well covered by many, but certainly in lab rats a substance akin to Dimethyltryptamine has been observed. .Who needs to go to Brazil for a trip eh? Not rodents for sure.

I have some pretty clear but 'out there' theories of mine own. Related to your question if not directly

for consideration only -

If you have a treatment which is being doled out by the ton - imagine the number of tablets rolling out of some factory somewhere - by the million weekly. These are generally not coming from top ten pharmaceutical companies - this is the grunt end - the 'out of patent' production line. Can we be absolutely sure that every batch is exactly what it should be?I know they are tested but they cannot test every pill can they?
I have heard doctors saying this - it is worth thinking about - so if you can insist on non generic i.e.branded (by implication more expensive) meds - you probably have more of a chance you are always getting what it says on the tin.

not much of an answer but I will do some more serious research -promise

love





1 http://www.btf-thyroid.org/information/leaflets/37-psychological-symptoms-guide

2 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959026/

[Cara]

Searcher - thank you very much for that - no I hadn't (to my shame) heard of Illich, but I am not so arrogant as to think that my views are original - there is a lot I don't know and all I will do is try to speak my version of truth - which may be right or wrong. Not that clever me.

''Medicalisation of everything'' is something I think I put on my Avalon application. It is something I see a lot of. Maybe I am best with practical examples ?- here's a couple - This happens a lot.

Imagine a lady for e.g. - in her eighties - living alone - a number of chronic health issues , she is increasingly aware of her life fading away - her friends are expiring or becoming less able - maybe some going into care - her family have moved away - she is proud of them and their success- she doesn't want to be a burden on their busy lives and family struggles - and like all of her generation sees asking for help as the beginning of the end-game. She is l being forced to confront the reality of mortality and worse - but she carries on. Then something happens - it could be a little or a big thing.
Maybe her pet dog or cat dies - maybe a good friend or neighbour is taken ill - maybe she just drops a treasured ornament or looses her keys? The trigger isn't necessarily proportional.
She becomes very unhappy - because she has a lot to be unhappy about. So she sees her GP. She wants to talk to someone really. But she leaves the practice after her standard 15 minute consultation with a prescription for a (usually) sub therapeutic dose of an antidepressant. Of course it wont work - because she isn't clinically depressed, she is chronically unhappy and that is different - plus - if she was depressed to the level she is apparently displaying - she would need a far greater dose of antidepressants than her physical condition would tolerate. She has no information about this treatment - she cannot remember what the doctor told her - because she is so embarrassed by her self perceived weakness. She now has a mental health profile. This can become the answer to any issue she brings up with health in her medical future. Any problem she now has that defies easy explanation will be put up as 'health anxiety' .

This can now go many ways and usually it doesn't end well. I meet people who have been taking antidepressants for twenty years and they don't know what they are or why they were given -

classic example -

Lady in her eighties comes to clinic (this is not a composite) with her daughter. I ask her why she has been taking dothiepin aka dosulipen since 1992. ''What is it ?'' I explain its an old school antidepressant which has such a bad rep that we cant even find a reason to re-invent it - reasons - lethal in overdose/and see below (I can never understand why we have so many lethal od drugs to give to people who might want to use them to that end - its like giving a child dynamite and matches and telling them to 'be careful' 1)

So when we discuss this med it appears two things happen in 92. Firstly her husband died and secondly she has a myocardial infarction (MI)

Either way this is bad. why - because dothiepin is known to be cardio toxic (2) this was suspected for many years - so no excuses
scenario 1 - she became depressed and GP prescribed then she had an MI - and was left on this drug despite the symptoms of depression (aka unhappiness/grief) having abated.
scenario 2 - she had an MI before her husband died and someone thought it a good idea to treat her grief with an potentially lethal medication - in her circumstances.

sorry - too much I know but yes.... it is not a good relationship we have with pharmaceutical products worldwide. They have their place but it is totally out of proportion now.

I will read and digest Searcher - thanks again !


1 https://bnf.nice.org.uk/drug/dosulepin-hydrochloride.html

2 https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/28/dothiepin-and-ischaemic-heart-disease

Oh diteras, I am sorry if my post came across as inferring that you were not being original.... this is not what I intended at all! I was rather trying to say that you might find a “fellow traveller” in Ivan Illich. I should have been clearer.

I hope you find Illich interesting, I’ve been reading one of his books about reading :ROFL: (which is my vice, virtue and everything in between)... it’s illuminating!

~~~

I feel so sad when I read the examples you posted. Here are these people who have so much to share, so many stories they could tell and the only people who seem to be available to listen are in a medical role. The loneliness and isolation is heartbreaking.

I guess 50 years ago people might have found companionship in their local church but religion has faded from many people’s lives. I’ve read very depressing articles about how isolated some elderly people are in Japan, often dying in their homes and not being discovered for days or weeks.

There must be something awry in our society when the old have only clinic staff to speak to.

~~~

:flower:

[Akasha]

Dear Diteras (sorry for the misspelling but lower-casing your name seems somewhat demeaning), a very warm-hearted if slighted belated welcome. I didn't notice this thread until this evening, but I'm extremely happy I did. You have a unique and highly infectious writing style for which I fear there may well be no antidote. Book on the horizon or would that be a too much of a legal quagmire? Either way I'm looking forward to more of your tales and insights.

ps: prop's for bigging up Richard. D. Hall.

[diteras]

Dear Diteras (sorry for the misspelling but lower-casing your name seems somewhat demeaning), a very warm-hearted if slighted belated welcome. I didn't notice this thread until this evening, but I'm extremely happy I did. You have a unique and highly infectious writing style for which I fear there may well be no antidote. Book on the horizon or would that be a too much of a legal quagmire? Either way I'm looking forward to more of your tales and insights.

ps: prop's for bigging up Richard. D. Hall.

Akasha you are too kind. For what it's worth 'diteras' came about through me, with my first computer, circa 1998 (dial up modem -how did we eh? - old episode of Simpsons with Homer doing the impersonation still makes me roar) trying to get something which demon internet (anyone remember them?)would accept as a handle for e mail --- I got to about the nineteenth million attempt and hit keys at random.....and it stuck. People have tried to make something of it ever since....maybe it was something --- I could message Gigi Young? I am sure she would know :) .........having a Gigi moment now.......###sigh##........back. ..So a book ---- I am too lazy. Maybe one day eh?
I am so pleased that you find my stuff tolerable and I promise I will do my best to keep it 'real' . Thank you --- I really don't think too much when I write this down --is that obvious? ...probably is eh ? ...not trying to make out that I am anything special --- I am not --- just... cant stop seeing-- and cant help commenting on the bs of what is seen --in fact the people who work with me would likely say I am toning it down so far, Time yet.

RDH is a good man - glad you approve--not everyone's glass of tea but -damn is he genuine and hardworking (whether you agree or not )

[diteras]

Oh diteras, I am sorry if my post came across as inferring that you were not being original.... this is not what I intended at all! I was rather trying to say that you might find a “fellow traveller” in Ivan Illich. I should have been clearer.

I hope you find Illich interesting, I’ve been reading one of his books about reading :ROFL: (which is my vice, virtue and everything in between)... it’s illuminating!

~~~

I feel so sad when I read the examples you posted. Here are these people who have so much to share, so many stories they could tell and the only people who seem to be available to listen are in a medical role. The loneliness and isolation is heartbreaking.

I guess 50 years ago people might have found companionship in their local church but religion has faded from many people’s lives. I’ve read very depressing articles about how isolated some elderly people are in Japan, often dying in their homes and not being discovered for days or weeks.

There must be something awry in our society when the old have only clinic staff to speak to.

~~~

:flower:

Searcher --- no need to be apologising --- my tone was off and I wasn't suggesting that you were inferring anything - I apologise to you-- just saying (badly) that I know this has been said before and --in many ways that makes it more poignant.

I hate leaning on others wisdom - it always seems lazy-- but for some reason this Lawrence Durrell remark stuck with me (who?! I hear you say--quite right to say it btw---Sartre he aint) ''History is an endless repetition of the wrong way of living''

We have to stop this lemming rush --- if we can. Not easy.

thank you for being interested --it means more to me than I could say:)

[diteras]

#3

‘’Human beings seem to have an almost unlimited capacity to deceive themselves, and to deceive themselves into taking their own lies for truth.’’ (1)

Why do we do it and what for?

I think a lot about the business of living -- I did so before this job possessed me. I think life starts the minute after you confront death. I was very young when this meeting scheduled.
It happens.

After that (arguably still), things got a bit ‘J G Ballard’ (to borrow a phrase). I know that isn't unique -- coping with change and ‘’trauma’’ - especially in childhood experiences - is the equivalent of sliding down a knife edge. At least my knife was short-ish. It isn't always so - some knives slice more than flesh - some mutilate the soul.

Those that get cut to bits often never recover, while some use it somehow and it makes them. Success covering or masking an unpleasant reality is a strange thing - akin to building a luxury mansion in Centralia - there is no way of knowing how long if ever it will take,but you know one day it could end very badly -- but it might not - how would we know if it didn't? ‘No disaster today’ isn't news.--- I often consider that the most heroic acts of human sacrifice will remain forever unknown.

You wonder how they, these damaged fellows of ours, could have been -- what they would have done -for better or worse. You wonder if the visible casualties of this, the ones you see lying bleeding on life’s metaphorical roadside, are actually displaying emotional integrity or honesty. Like iconic martyrs to inhumanity.

I am willing to lay odds that there are many people with the most horrendous experiences, which they have buried beneath layers of self administered psychological camouflage.People who will never do the big ‘reveal’ . Ever. Is that strength or weakness - or is it some evolved coping which once learned became the immovable bedrock of their self? In abuse, it also could be the influence of the tormentor haunting them (from the grave) like a power vampire --- It (their contracted ‘front’)becomes the thing which normalises or apparently stabilises. It is the veneer covering the empty, betrayed and emotionally stunted spirit of a broken and frightened child that stays in the darkness ---forever.
Why do this? -again my opinion (but probably not original)
David Eagleman,(2) neuroscientist, professor at Stanford, spoke of death’s three stages - the moment of physical death - the ritual//funeral death and... - ‘’ The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.”
Maybe in keeping the name in the darkness with them, they are insuring that death is completed. Part of the complex motivational rationale for the actions of sociopathic serial killers is ’immortality’’. Notice I didn't use names. Shame on you Mr Effron --- stick to flashing your abs in future…

I grapple with mental illness as a concept because of these things (not Zac’s abs, although they do upset me) --- because I am aware of human experience as subjective truth, I can never stop asking why. Often this is in only an internal debate. You know when you have reached the limits of your security pass into someones very private inner sanctum.

Why this is important is because it’s important.

So...back to what is known.

I have touched on medicalisation and here is how it really can be harmful and downright divisive.

Case study -
Lady in her seventies. Living alone in a small, warden assisted older persons bungalow - She is on the radar of police, ambulance service, GP, social services, district nurses, housing association - and is a constant source of concern to her son and daughter who are both in their fifties. Lets call her Molly. She is recently widowed.
Molly has had several visits to hospital - taken by police when found out of doors apparently ‘confused’ - and several admissions. She has been treated speculatively for the standard ‘urinary tract infection’ the most common cause of confusion. She is assessed by psychiatric services on one admission because she is allegedly threatening suicide. - You don't have to do much in the world of ass covering, Chinese whispering, scared of their own shadows, public services for this to happen - a casual ‘’sometimes I wish I could go to bed and not wake up’’ is enough. Everyone wants to pass risk parcels on - even if their common sense tells them it is not required - I/we are often the ones who get to unwrap them.

She has three care calls a day - the carers control her medication and prompt meals. These calls are both helpful and unhelpful - dependent on who is making them and what Molly’s assessment of them concludes.

Why is she such an ‘item?’

Molly is also doing things which are seen as risky and (frankly) a damn nuisance. Ambulance and GP are clocking multiple calls daily -one week over fifty emergency calls to ambulance. - they have a checklist of symptoms and rules - if the boxes are ticked they have to go - which isn't entirely a bad thing. The GP is being similarly hit with calls - family are getting over ten calls a day each. If the calls get no response the stakes are raised - she is placing herself in the road, walking the streets in her nightwear, threatening self harm……. None are done with the obvious absence of control or awareness of consequence that someone with an acute or chronic mental condition would display - but to the tabloid sensibility we all have to take as our judge and jury they are close enough.

So Molly is seen by a psychiatrist. She has no psychiatric history prior. He thinks - not without justification - that she is suffering from depression secondary to an adjustment disorder. She has a vulnerability to hyponatremia (low sodium na+) so cannot be treated with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (class of meds known as SSRI’s which include fluoxetine aka prozac,citalopram and the ubiquitous sertraline) so commences a trycyclic.(lofepramine)-

Of course it doesn't work. Symptoms don't always match treatment if something else causes them. It isn't that simple even when it is.

The family are as mad as hell. They now have someone to blame.

Put simply this is what they feel/say- ‘Mum is mad and she is being treated by Mental health. Nothing has changed - we are not helping her them or anyone else - what has she got anyway - we think she’s demented - she needs to be ‘put away’ - we are giving her not enough/too much/the wrong medication -we (as in me) are useless - we don't care.’

I don't blame them.

So we have a meeting - all of the above are represented - even the cops -and before this meeting I read through her story.

I open the meeting with an admission that we have not helped Molly and I go on to say that I think I know why we haven't and cant. I ask her son about her and say that I realise she had some tough times - he says’ no she didn't ‘and his sister agrees.

So I go through what I have learned - her family tick each box for me in the ‘yes’ column.

Molly was the sixth child in a family of eight
When she was six years old her mother was imprisoned for prostitution
Her father then committed suicide
She spent the next ten years in care
When in care she was abused sexually/emotionally/physically
When she left care she met her husband
She had children and worked hard but had few friends
She never showed her children affection and was always distant - not a loving mother -’she never hugged us’
Dad was mum and dad to us - he took a lot of physical and verbal abuse from her all the time
Mum was always falling out with people and we had to move around a lot ………..I could go on but it is already sad enough eh?

Any wonder they were angry? At least dad modulated the pain a bit - but when he died the buffer went - she was exposed to something that she had only experienced as pain and betrayal with no trust or love - the planet of other people - she only saw the world as an emotionally betrayed child of six would -and she still does.

So ……...call it what you want - I would go for dis social personality disorder. Labels shcmables.

If you want a little sketch to help you determine the difference between ‘axis 1( usual mental conditions and axis 2(personality issues) - then here it is - take anankastic personality disorder - symptoms may be hoarding - compare this with OCD - symptoms may be hoarding - the person with OCD is tortured by their compulsion - they know they have a problem - the person with APD has no problem - they have a problem only with you thinking they have a problem. Another oversimplification but I am getting tired now

Back to Molly -

Can we cure it? Nope too late by about 60 years to even try.

Can we detain her for it or place her in care - Nope wouldn't work too disruptive

All we can do is explain ‘why’ and hopefully place some boundaries.

Poor Molly - all she leaves behind her is all she ever was given. Bad memories.

It isn't fair is it? What did a six year old do to deserve that ....speak up Mr Wilcock............nothing.

Can I now include some poetry? It’ll probably get me banned but here goes …..actually no here’s a link but warning you it has swearing ……

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/66966-they-****-you-up-your-mum-and-dad-they-may




I think I have said enough today - thank you for your patience




1 R. D. LAING, The Politics of Experience/The Bird of Paradise (1967)
2 David Eagleman Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives(ISBN: 9781847674272) (2016)

[Sue (Ayt)]

Wow - In awe of such powerful musings and expression, Diteras!

[Cara]

Thank you for writing of trauma and death. Not many people do.

I have been thinking about death for some years - not in a morbid or suicidal way, more as something that is an inherent part of life. Perhaps it comes from having grown up in a time and place where images of pain, suffering and death were present in society.

~~~

Thanks for the books you mention - “Sum: Tales from the Afterlives” by David Eagleman and “The Politics of Experience/The Bird of Paradise” by R.D. Laing - both look interesting.

It seems we have been exploring other worlds and what lies beyond death for many thousands of years.... I recently stumbled on a strange set of Ancient Greek artefacts: the (Orphic) gold tablet or “totenpass” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totenpass). These inscribed metal tablets have been found at ancient burial sites.

A little about these “passports for death”:

The objects in question are a series of gold tablets of very small dimension (they vary between 8 and 4 cm. wide and 3 to 1 cm long).

The writing that appears on them is minuscule in size and very careless ...

They are found in graves, but the limited number of graves that have yielded documents of this type, compared to the thousands that have been excavated, indicates that the users of the tablets were a minority group, with a certain unity of beliefs, probably initiates, or followers of a religious movement...

They have come to light only in a few places, and differ widely in date, with almost six hundred years between the oldest, the one from Hipponion, c. 400 B.C., and the most recent, which appeared at Rome and is datable to 260 A.D. The majority of them, however, date from between the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C.
From: p. 2, “Instructions for the netherworld : the Orphic gold tablets”, Alberto Bernabé Pajares; Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2008.


And here is what they say:

Tablet from Hipponion (c. 400 B.C.), Museo Archeologico Statale
di Vibo. First edition, Pugliese Carratelli (1974) 108 f.

This is the work of Mnemosyne. When he is on the point of
dying
toward the well-built abode of Hades, on the right there is a
fountain
and near it, erect, a white cypress tree.
There the souls, when they go down, refresh themselves.
Don’t come anywhere near this fountain!
But further on you will nd, from the lake of Mnemosyne,
water freshly owing. On its banks there are guardians.
They will ask you, with sagacious discernment,
why you are investigating the darkness of gloomy Hades.
Say: “I am the son of Earth and starry Heaven;
I am dry with thirst and dying. Give me, then, right away,
fresh water to drink from the lake of Mnemosyne”.
And to be sure, they will consult with the subterranean queen,
and they will give you water to drink from the lake of
Mnemosyne,
So that, once you have drunk, you too will go along the
sacred way
by which the other mystai and bacchoi advance, glorious.
From: From: p. 9-10, “Instructions for the netherworld : the Orphic gold tablets”, Alberto Bernabé Pajares; Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2008.

[diteras]

Searcher you have some fantastic insights - you are dragging me up to another level. Good. I need to process some of this as I feel very much like I walked into class half way through the course --- which is pretty much how Daniel List's (dark journalist on his you tube channel) 'X series' makes me feel. I have also enjoyed Gigi Young's (be strong here... no sighing).....~##..sigh..## .....Sorry..... back .. series on the occult ''in plain sight''. Link for last one #4 here -

ki_CMbpdScc

Which you may enjoy.

So need some entry point for this info stream and then will hopefully pick up the pace.

This Friday through Sunday will be in Manchester for ''Awakening'' conference. link -

https://www.awakeningufo.com/?lightbox=dataItem-jvgji42j6&mc_cid=be43fb7c3e&mc_eid=d98c342133

if anybody is going and wants to meet or say 'hi' let me know and I will wear something obvious or put up a flag

Thanks again everyone - for reading - for commenting and for adding such interesting possible sub-topics as Searcher.

Love.

[diteras]

It isn't difficult to look after someone.

That was something an ex colleague of mine used to say often. He used this observation in the context of a sad reflection on how we make it so fecking difficult to do so. It is only recently that I have realised this has implications beyond the personal interpersonal or even the humanitarian.

Of course you may not agree and all respect if you do. I try in these little flashes of un-wisdom to give you all something honest as my observations and if in so doing you feel that I am off message then we will never fall out. Life is too short to argue about seat positioning on a crashing aircraft….’’ I insist on being found horribly mangled in nothing less than an executive class velour….’’

I think language and history are exceptional things. Human behaviour too - we are not as unpredictable as we think. Mice in a maze is all.
I think about the corruption of language and the inevitable bastardisation of thought which follows that corruption - likewise the ways that thought and our story as people can be manipulated for ends which do not tally with reality and how we mesh these things into our everyday lives. Without question. - even although we know
These matters affect people and they make them affected and yet they blame something else -- we are a collection of symptoms who are in denial of the cause of them --- mice in a maze. - illness is not always organic sometimes it is mondo-organic - remember I said earlier that ‘everything is connected’?…..ok. Here we go…. Fasten your belts...

I am interested professionally - and as a human being - in what we would term ‘’personality disorders’’. Why? because it is a subjective terminology as much as a diagnosis - a descriptor of the human condition that is poorly understood and little discussed. I say again ...It is a subjective terminology . It is also ,in my opinion, a worldwide disease which endangers our species. It is a worldwide malaise would be more correct and it is encouraged. Of that I have no doubt.

Here's a little opener to chew on…..

‘’Personality is the supreme realisation of the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being. It is an act of courage flung in the face of life, the absolute affirmation of all that constitutes the individual, the most successful adaptation to the universal conditions of existence, coupled with the greatest possible freedom of self-determination.’’ (1)

Personality has also come to mean celebrity. So what does the jolly old dictionary say on that little variation/ change that CGJ didn't get to in his reverie?......

‘’The state of being well known’’

hmmm……..

Origins - ‘’ Late Middle English (in the sense ‘solemn ceremony’): from Old French celebrite or Latin celebritas, from celeber, celebr- ‘frequented or honoured’.’’


I give that up. Kim Kardshian’s unfeasible arse is ‘’frequented or honoured’’.
By Whom? ...By enough people to make it big (ohhh yerrr - I have no shame)---- big enough for it to waste precious seconds of brief existence that we have considering it’s relevance. ……. More than a distraction then --- a dark icon. An arse icon of despair. The buttocks of madness descending into the bum-cleavage of oblivion.

Now here is a digression from a digression ---- please be patient with my dumbosity. I will pull it together.

On Sunday I was in Manchester UK.

I had been to a conference and was filling in a little time before an appointment with friends --- so I went to the Imperial War Museum (north) ref 2 ---- it was ok... But like a lot of so called museums these days worldwide had a spun narrative --- you were told what to think, what to fear and the goodies and baddies were well defined …. Massaged the failures away, is what it did - and subtly excused the suffering as ‘required sacrifice’’ to some extent - although the holocaust was given some slightly higher prominence ….. (Yerr ok maybe it should be ---you think?? )---and what about Holdomor, Cambodia, Rwanda, Indonesia, Ireland, Bangladesh, California, Queensland…and on and on and on)...

Inhumanity is repetitive and relentless in ignorance -morally bankrupt and doomed if you consider it --- we allow these things to happen- in the past present and future. We do so through a total failure to understand ourselves. Madness or deformed views of self are not abnormal in an abnormal state of being --- how can they be? Madness or disordered perception ...where is the definition of what equals what?
I try to be calm in the face of such realisations. Subjective remember...maybe it's me who has it wrong….


So ….back to the museum. There is a special exhibition - the horrors inflicted upon the poor people of Yemen. No politics, but what/who the actual effing heck is letting (and I use the word advisedly) that happen? Not me I hope. I guess it is tho’. It is us.
While 'we' are looking at pictures of Kardashian arses and reading pointless badly written nonsense about Prince Harry and Megan, or what Trump said to his favourite pet carrot, our fellow human beings are dying like bleached germs in a public toilet...

…...…...so I get to nearly the end of this horror reveal and there she is -- an attractive lady who I would place in her early thirties - she has a guy with her who is tall and equally sharp - - - they are looking at a series of 'inset into wall' screens depicting the struggles of Yemeni children. I am frozen.

Here we are told (never mind the cholera and the hyperinflation causing the endless escalating cost of drinkable water) of a 6 fold increase in under aged marriages for girls. This a throwaway that fills me with..well.. utter despair …. The horror, the horror -- after a while you get used to it do you not …. That is something we should never be and yet we are-- …. enough...I am not even sure what I am doing here now - am I just some sort of pain voyeur who thinks its ok to look at this because the building has ‘museum’ in the title……??

Maybe.

Now I feel that crushing futility which I see in others - it is all too sad - the temple to repeated mistakes was a mistake for me ...why you say ...it happens... do something... then futility will be swept aside --- but it wasn't that that made the floor slope... - too simple
It isn't the unsubtle factionalised genocide of poor defenceless oil-less children, who our media have been told to regard as insignificant, that offends me most -- although it does offend me - make no mistake -but offence is what you see 'in vivo' - so in this moment I see the epitome of decadent disregard for humanity-

It is her ass.

This creation is beyond the description of biblical verse. It starts near the small of her back -it extends, horizontally, a full five/six inches outwards. It then curves in a perfect arc about a further two/three inches out and descends down for 9-12 inches before turning towards her upper thighs about two./three inches inward from its original vertical starting point. She is wearing quite large stack heels.Thank god.

You could rest a tray of drinks on that ‘thing’.

So I started to write of personality disorder as a concept - and I promise this is something which is close to me and something of which I will post again….. But first I ask you this…..
How can we, in this world of such bizarre cruelty, be surprised that people can't cope with life, when they are confronted by these visual assaults? - When they are made demands on by these twins of human inhumanity - a meta analysis of cruelty and despair (which we are doing eff all about btw) - juxtaposed with a personification of our stupidity and vanity. It's not even subtle and yet no one seems to see it.

If you want to have a brief touch-down on the planet stupid try looking at this ---(ref 3) normalise the abnormal -- ok.. I’ll just get on with it then shall I?


So…..it’s ok to kill kids as long as we pay them the respect of looking at it with solemnity in the right setting - and its ok to spend enough cash that would keep them alive on something you can only see in a mirror. I wonder what the little girls in Yemen who are being violated tonight think….

I am sorry if anyone is offended and if so I will withdraw - not usually so dark

Everything is connected.




1 [C.G. Jung, "The Development of Personality," 1932]

2 https://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-north

3 https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/personality-disorder/

[Mike Gorman]

Strat ive been given all sorts of BP meds. almost killed me. toprol slowed my heart to such an extent that i feared it might just stop beating altogether. my lasting memory of that week i took it was the night i awoke and did jumping jacks till i couldn't stand....i was certain if i stopped moving my heart would stop too.

some meds *are* useful, as Autumn points out...but ugh, i would not recommend those bp meds to anyone.

Yes, the blood pressure question is interesting, I was on Coversyl for a time, but I am not on anything currently, I eat a lot of Garlic/chilli and I walk regularly, this suits me better. A bit of Aspirin daily is good.

[Sue (Ayt)]

I have found that most of the medical professionals I encounter actually get a bit annoyed when they have you write down all the prescription meds you are on, and you have 0 to list; like either you are lying, or in denial about your health or something. It gets worse the older you get, too.

[Cara]

diteras, thank you for your post this morning. You raise important things.

How does one look at and really see what is happening? How does one see the suffering and the pain and the distress and not be consumed by it? Or look for an escape from it? How does one witness the suffering and yet, still take part in the world?

~~~

I am haunted by a couple of news stories I watched as a child of 8 or 9 growing up.

One was a story of how people travelling to work on the train were targeted by groups of freedom fighters and thrown off the trains (while they were moving). They were thrown off because they were seen as supporting the regime by continuing to work for it. I can never forget the shock and horror I felt on seeing this story: a kind of screeching wail that reverberated through me.

Another was a news report about a small group of people who had been necklaced (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing) by a group of fighters (who were associated with a soccer club). They had been tortured and killed because they were suspected of being spies, of having dual allegiances. I still cry about this today. It shakes me to my core. And I feel that perhaps I am the “witness” that this event needs.

~~~

Thank you for your posts.

[diteras]

diteras, thank you for your post this morning. You raise important things.

How does one look at and really see what is happening? How does one see the suffering and the pain and the distress and not be consumed by it? Or look for an escape from it? How does one witness the suffering and yet, still take part in the world?

~~~

I am haunted by a couple of news stories I watched as a child of 8 or 9 growing up.

One was a story of how people travelling to work on the train were targeted by groups of freedom fighters and thrown off the trains (while they were moving). They were thrown off because they were seen as supporting the regime by continuing to work for it. I can never forget the shock and horror I felt on seeing this story: a kind of screeching wail that reverberated through me.

Another was a news report about a small group of people who had been necklaced (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing) by a group of fighters (who were associated with a soccer club). They had been tortured and killed because they were suspected of being spies, of having dual allegiances. I still cry about this today. It shakes me to my core. And I feel that perhaps I am the “witness” that this event needs.

~~~

Thank you for your posts.

what can I say? ......really thought that I was walking a line here, as always you are too kind to me. The compulsion to witness? ....oh yes. I get that. I really do. Darkness needs to be stood up to - if not it will cover us all. I might need to row this back a bit before I lose everyone now - most folks will be having me as a real life doomsday salesman - I am not. Sometimes tho' it just gets overwhelming. Thank you for your tolerance.

[Valerie Villars]

diteras, your post touched me because it is so profound. Welcome to the club. You haven't lost me and I'll bet you have been understood by quite a few. I'll bet your shoulder blades (wings) are prominent.

[AutumnW]

Diteras,

Thank you for all of your profoundly moving writing. You are talented and compassionate. And thanks too for your thoughts on thyroid medication. :clapping:

[diteras]

I have found that most of the medical professionals I encounter actually get a bit annoyed when they have you write down all the prescription meds you are on, and you have 0 to list; like either you are lying, or in denial about your health or something. It gets worse the older you get, too.

I think that is quite a shrewd observation. I once said to someone in clinic who was considering anti dementia meds that - because they had no medication history (not quite as rare as you might think but a bit of a novelty) that it was akin to being a bank manager having someone apply for a loan with no credit history - in other words it is all a bit of a shout in the dark as to what might happen when and if you start messing with their brain chemistry.

I (obviously) have an interest in hearing alternative explanations for most everything - but this does not mean that the received info is always completely wrong --- It is the proportion or the balance of reasonable levels of treatment which is shades of black. What the answer is I do not know -- in my opinion the following factors are worthy of consideration-

1 everyone is different - but certain factors can be possible predictors such as family history of cardiac issues. What you need to consider is your level of risk against the NNT - numbers needed to treat when you are offered a drug. This NNT reference (on statins) is short but quite illuminating, (1)

2 the causes of hypertension are multiple (2) but the best approach, before you take medication (which I am not against) would be to quietly look at everything you can do to modify the condition - either before the treatment starts, or alongside it -- ''lifestyle'' covering diet, (especially salt consumption) booze, fags, exercise, stress reduction - but don't set the bar too high -- and if the BP is dangerously high get it down quickly however you can. That is where meds can be a life saver. The analogy that suits the scenario best is thinking of them as a life-boat -- very required in certain circumstances but not necessarily somewhere you would want to live in.

3 ask questions of the prescriber -- if they cant tell you how a medication works then I would say they are incompetent - it is a requirement. For e.g the meds Mr Gorman was taking are commonly known as an ACE inhibitor which simply work by stopping your blood vessels constricting. This by blocking the action of the endogenous substance which does this (angiotensin II) -- I say ''simply'' but the full specific product characteristics (SPC) and patient info leaflet are here..(3) ..please look at that link just to give yourself a taste of what is attached to every drug in pharmacy in terms of side effects potential contra-indications and possible interactions-- it blows ones mind does it not?

4 remember it is your body. It is your life -- don't say no on a point of principle -try to understand all of the factors and actors in this play-- that we are being pressured into taking medication is a fact-- it is all connected Even in an (seemingly) unconnected matter like acquired hypertension it isn't hard to see the politics of human control at work
... flow chart to the sausage factory of life like this------- scared/confused ---- confirmed and re-enforced by media and constant reminders in every area of existence --- unhappiness/ ennui ---- so need money/good food /booze/''any other trapping of luxury and stuff'' to take away the pain--- have health and beauty as an icon --- no higher values encouraged- materialism is smart and is all---- in denial of mortality----then have to start paying the price for the dysfunctional things we do to exist in this dysfunctional society ----- bingo! --this is where the pharmaceuticals come charging into our lives- making a little or big problem a matter for them and overwhelming us with the fear-of illness and offering us a few extra breaths---scared/confused

so be aware of what you do - and remember there is no profit in a cure....treatment ....a different thing eh?


1 https://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g3458/rr/761453
2 https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/risk-factors/high-blood-pressure
3 https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/6224/smpc

[diteras]

little explanation I think.

Change of pic to a Cindy Sherman this week - who is pretty much fantastic and the best photographer /artist ever -- . Originality, talent and creative genius. Not a bad trifecta. I have just realised that she has an exhibition in UK (1) --- see no. 4 on the list.
That will help my mental health. There is a wonderful moment -- and I know that you guys who have been kind enough to read my little musings will know this --- when you see, feel, hear, or learn something, which transcends the 'stuff'. Then you find yourself saying ''I cant complain''.

That someone can take this life with all its faults/challenges - and like Cindy. make it strangely beautiful without compromising or blinking, is a gift we should not take lightly or miss.

Her art is exactly the opposite of my Imperial war museum post while being exactly the same containing the same emotions . She does it so much better tho.

Its taken me a week to process it. I have.
Hope I haven't infringed her copyright --- sorry if I have.


1 https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/11398/10-extraordinary-exhibitions-to-catch-in-2019-cindy-sherman-dior-stanley-kubrick

[diteras]

Ever had a day when something is haunting you? --- a song, a line, a look ,a moment...Here’s mine. It comes from a song circa 1989 by Deacon Blue. I am not a fan or ever was, but sometimes it doesn't matter….it started when I was driving to work. It was as if someone pressed random replay in my head….

Song was - ‘Fergus sings the blues’ --- Rick Ross wrote those lines - I guess they were personal to him - but once you commit something to the public domain it is theirs to do with as they will….
OK Ricky. You asked for it son...here is what an average piece of art can do when an average anti-intellectual subjects it to scrutiny.

My life. His words.
The invasion begins ------

Fergus sings the blues --- in bars of twelve or less….

... a moment where I am doing or saying something which I know won't be appreciated by a multitude - if it is honest...it doesn't matter - as long as you say it like it is - so just do it …

’Blues’’ is a wonderful attitude descriptor. Abused. Or more accurately appropriated and manipulated to castrate its literal potency as an alternative emotion ....not just a music genre -- it is an indefinable thing which may or may not be sad - it may be bitter-sweet - it may be very dark or very light - It is the ability to see sunshine through a maelstrom of acidic faecal hail and know it will never be different but not blink - you withstand because ……? - it is strength in adversity without recourse to being nannied by a state or system -and therefore is dangerous to those who sell us their indispensability as our guardians - So they dilute and promote the corruption of it's true meaning - re pack it as as depression and milk its power for gain.

in open faith ‘blues’ must be an existential truth about you, what you truly feel and your comment on the human condition.
and...
…it must be brutally real and yet esoteric. Like an out of body experience at a hard core sex orgy.

I’m a stranger to this land / to this wilderness…

Being a stranger in strange places is the hook that destroys the fragile soul. Mental illness and the business of it is based upon that hook being sharp. Isolating an individual from human compassion and their own view of self worth is the main stressor and chief weapon -- it is the salesman for Pfizer and the love of their stockholders lives.. It says ‘’you need to be loved - or else’’...or else what? ….So you are taught to fear the fall and landing. We all fall and land and fearing it wont stop it happening...


All things are possible /…

Yes but …….
The esoteric mysteries say that we create our own reality. I would hope we do. I believe that given a chance we can. Possibility is only that. I’m possible is only a missing apostrophe away from…?

It is ok for someone to say ‘I create my reality’ but there are matters which cannot be ignored - faith is never enough - any faith is as bad as indifference if it is blind - it is the same as indifference to those without space to sparkle. We are overwhelmed by human souls so destroyed by want, by hatred - ask them to ‘connect’ their way out of the mess we made - ?... insulting …and yet all things are possible --- we are here, we are here ---- so maybe it can be better. It needs more than direction of travel tho’ -it needs revelation at an intimately personal level. Unique to each of us. All things are possible.
We ‘go mad’ when we see true reality - that is often the only reality of our paradoxical lives.

it happens less and less….

Bang - juxtaposition central ‘choo choo.’If you really look there are little messages everywhere…..

An example---it made me (and the ghost of Sartre- I hope) smile

This morning my little g...gr…..gran…. (sod it - can't say the word) my sons son, aged 3 was trying to ‘escape’. 7.45 a.m. -- naked, without his nappy (diaper) found him trying to open the front gate because he had seen some interesting sheep outside. Me - (his name) ‘’stop right there ’’ Him - removing his dummy (pacifier) from his mouth ‘’why?’ Me ‘’because you can't go out like that you look silly’’ Him - after a moment's self regard ‘’ is it because i only have one welly (rubber boot) on gr**d*d?’’ …….
So which of us had studied existentialism?. A pure soul sees only truth - the rest of us try to be that child again forever and we fail - we had it ripped from us by this thing we have allowed to happen.
To end up beaten down at least is to have tried …. I said to a patient recently, as a comment upon their desperately hard last twenty years, how much I admired their strength-- they were truly shocked ...

‘’For many have but one resource to sustain them in their misery, and that is to think, “Circumstances have been against me, I was worthy to be something much better than I have been. I admit I have never had a great love or a great friendship; but that is because I never met a man or a woman who were worthy of it; if I have not written any very good books, it is because I had not the leisure to do so; or, if I have had no children to whom I could devote myself it is because I did not find the man I could have lived with. So there remains within me a wide range of abilities, inclinations and potentialities, unused but perfectly viable, which endow me with a worthiness that could never be inferred from the mere history of my actions.” But in reality and for the existentialist, there is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving; there is no genius other than that which is expressed in works of art.” 1

:idea:

I feel I should place literature’s most inappropriate smiley face here now. Just because I can.
I also can say I will never be x - where x equals those I admire. I say this with less envy and wistful -ness but admit it is work ongoing) No I will not - I will be something else.

‘’One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, compassion. It is far better to live a fairly committed, fairly justified life so that one may go on in the same path even when all illusions have vanished. 2

Sigh - even his missus was pretty sharp. I bet he couldn't pull the existential polyester over her eyes. Good faith.

Back to Scottish pop /rock

Jump a line or two don't want to bore anyone more than I have to...

I'm lost In music /Sweet Soul music

I always see ‘soul music’ as being a catch all for anything -- poetry, art, prose something that you feel inside. It changes too - what moves you once might not again.. We have a capacity to change and I guess we should monitor ourselves to ensure the change isn't a result of us being changed subtly for the worse by ‘it’. How you do this idk. The tail should never wag the dog -- easier said...

That's enough of my bs anyway. Here's the song in case anyone hasn't heard it. Warning it isn't actually that good --maybe a Scottish thing...?

Ux02-aIvlLA

Love x


1 Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism 1946

2 Simone de Beauvoir (1972) from Severe Personality Disorders Kernberg O (Yale) 1984.

[amor]

Dear Autumn W: If you cannot sleep at night, you need Calcium/Magnesium (www.drnewtons.com or 1-866-906-9844) Cal/Max. Add this to your daily vitamins.
Now if you have high blood pressure. Here is what that is all about. According to genius Pete Peterson, now deceased, the government adds chlorine and florides(? sp.) to water which causes cholesterol to make the blood vessels stiff an restricts the pathway for blood to flow. This causes the heart to pump harder to get the job done and equals high blood pressure. Now the Prozac you are taking is deadly because it contains a fluoride compound which will make your blood pressure worse, harden your blood vessels and you can die of a stroke or heart attack. Stop the Prozac (meant to kill), take the Cal/Max along with other nutrients to help you to sleep, remove all cooking oils but olive oil (and that in miniscule amounts) from your diet and do your own cooking. Add ground Flax Seed to everything you cook/eat. It softens and lubricates all body tissues and is a wonderful, natural laxative and is wonderfully cheap. Get yourself a $60 automatic blood pressure reader and take your own pressure. It comes with a chart you fill in and follow your progress. When you go to the doctor, they make the thing so tight around your arm it seems they are going for amputation. This excessive pressure gives you a false, high reading. They tried that gambit on me and I did all of the above. I grease my fry pan for scrambled eggs with a light pass of a stick of butter. I eat fish and chicken and have not touched other meat in years. I am now 80 and take nothing more than vitamins. Take Yeast Flakes for complete B Vitamins plus one thousand or more Vitamin C crystals with other vitamins and minerals and enzymes. Vitamins do not work without minerals and neither work without enzymes. Pineapple is a nice enzyme container. Before and after menopause take BIOIDENTICAL HORMONES NOT HORSE HORMONES (TOO STRONG) OR PROGESTIN (NOT USED BY THE BODY TO OPPOSE ESTROGENS THEREBY CAUSING CANCER). USE NATURAL PROGESTERONE EVEN IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A WOMB, AS IT DOES OVER 300 JOBS IN THE BODY. GOOD LUCK.

I lived for 30 years in a house which had LEAD PIPES. I have read that this lead will also lead to hardening of the arteries. If you suspect this, you can be tested for lead in your body and it can be removed by chelation.

[amor]

For those people fighting cancer or merely fearing it, along with Nutritional Yeast Flakes take extra LYSINE. Also, send to Canada for the Indian Herb Mixture which Rene Caisse used to make a TEA which kills even the most terrible types of cancer. It is called ESSIAC. You can Google it for all the information.

[amor]

Last but not least, flouride takes the place of calcium (which moves around the body as needed) to and from the bones, brain, heart, etc. However, flouride does not move around. Therefore, it will settle in bones and teeth making them brittle ready for broken hips. Worse, the calcium will settle in your heart and tissues as it has no where to go now that flouride has displaced it. This causes hardening of the heart valves and d e a t h.

[Cara]

Thank you diteras for your latest posts. I particularly enjoyed reading the story of your single-booted but otherwise naked grandson escaping to go see the sheep. None are so wise as the young.


You might enjoy reading the work of Arpad Szakolczai, a sociologist at the University of Cork. Here’s his academia.edu page:
https://ucc-ie.academia.edu/ASzakolczai

Here are two short quotes from an email interview (https://www.academia.edu/38406317/An_Anthropological_Interpretation_of_Modernity_interview) recently conducted with him and his co-author, Bjørn Thomassen, of their recent book (From Anthropology to Social Theory:
Rethinking the Social Sciences (https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/anthropology/anthropological-theory/anthropology-social-theory-rethinking-social-sciences?format=PB))


We follow the tradition of those great thinkers, from Tocqueville and Max Weber through the ‘reflexive historical sociologists’ or ‘political anthropologists’ who had the courage to genuinely think modernity. Central for this is the idea that the great ‘values’ of modernity do not bring unquestionable benefits to each and everyone, but are rather idols and sacred cows which—especially together—are simply set to destroy the planet, our home. The central idols are indeed the economy and technology, but also mass democracy and the public sphere. Our position is not ideological and nihilistic, dismissing every single aspect of technology, or being hostile ‘in principle’ to democracy, but holds that something is fatally wrong with the current (self-evident, taken-for-granted) understanding of the economy, technology, and democracy. This is why we need thinking, and not some kind of ideological stance for ‘progress’, ‘democracy’, or ‘human rights’.


Let us put it as strongly as possible: modern knowledge as knowledge is simply institutionally and constitutionally deprived of wisdom; it is based on the deprecation of wisdom. In a very important terminology, propagated by Hans Jonas and Eric Voegelin, it is ‘gnostic’: is based on naïve, unlimited belief in the saving power of mere ‘knowledge’. This is of course not only dangerous but also completely absurd, as our entire cultural tradition, from the first chapters of the Book of Genesis through Plato and the fight of philosophers and Church Fathers against Gnostics and Sophists is based on the problematisation of mere ‘knowledge’; yet here we are, in modernity, proudly proclaiming the ‘knowledge society’, and marching forward into a brave new world dominated by the relentless pursuit and political application of context-free, universalistic knowledge.

The problem, the outlier, is modernity, and its reliance on Gnosticism, Sophistry, and similar kinds of alchemic (all-dissolving) universalizing tendencies, that destroy every cultural value—as everything that is worthwhile in life is always based on something concrete, especially something living, growing—and loving.

[conk]

Dear Autumn W: If you cannot sleep at night, you need Calcium/Magnesium (www.drnewtons.com or 1-866-906-9844) Cal/Max. Add this to your daily vitamins.
Now if you have high blood pressure. Here is what that is all about. According to genius Pete Peterson, now deceased, the government adds chlorine and florides(? sp.) to water which causes cholesterol to make the blood vessels stiff an restricts the pathway for blood to flow. This causes the heart to pump harder to get the job done and equals high blood pressure. Now the Prozac you are taking is deadly because it contains a fluoride compound which will make your blood pressure worse, harden your blood vessels and you can die of a stroke or heart attack. Stop the Prozac (meant to kill), take the Cal/Max along with other nutrients to help you to sleep, remove all cooking oils but olive oil (and that in miniscule amounts) from your diet and do your own cooking. Add ground Flax Seed to everything you cook/eat. It softens and lubricates all body tissues and is a wonderful, natural laxative and is wonderfully cheap. Get yourself a $60 automatic blood pressure reader and take your own pressure. It comes with a chart you fill in and follow your progress. When you go to the doctor, they make the thing so tight around your arm it seems they are going for amputation. This excessive pressure gives you a false, high reading. They tried that gambit on me and I did all of the above. I grease my fry pan for scrambled eggs with a light pass of a stick of butter. I eat fish and chicken and have not touched other meat in years. I am now 80 and take nothing more than vitamins. Take Yeast Flakes for complete B Vitamins plus one thousand or more Vitamin C crystals with other vitamins and minerals and enzymes. Vitamins do not work without minerals and neither work without enzymes. Pineapple is a nice enzyme container. Before and after menopause take BIOIDENTICAL HORMONES NOT HORSE HORMONES (TOO STRONG) OR PROGESTIN (NOT USED BY THE BODY TO OPPOSE ESTROGENS THEREBY CAUSING CANCER). USE NATURAL PROGESTERONE EVEN IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A WOMB, AS IT DOES OVER 300 JOBS IN THE BODY. GOOD LUCK.

I lived for 30 years in a house which had LEAD PIPES. I have read that this lead will also lead to hardening of the arteries. If you suspect this, you can be tested for lead in your body and it can be removed by chelation.

Good information, thanks, but I'd add a few comments of clarity. It may not be wise to cook with olive oil. It has a relatively low flash point and burns/oxidizes quickly. Olive oil is best eaten raw, as are most all fats. Raw fats are critical elements of the cell building process. Cell membranes are made of fatty acids and raw, unprocessed, unheated fats are required. The cell membrane is the brain of the cell, the method of communication with all other cells. Avocado oil is best if cooking with fat. It has a very high flash point, over 500 degrees. Or use ghee, lard, or tallow. Keep the heat as low as possible.

As for Prozac, many studies show that these types of drugs are no better than a placebo. Bad side effects too. Use your best judgement and expert advice on working it out of your processes.

Concerning flax seeds, don't buy them pre-ground. They oxidize very quickly. Grind them in a coffee grinder only minutes before consuming. Or you could consume high quality flax seed oil (Nobel Prize winners love it. Dr. Budwig and Dr. Warburg). So, back to fat intake. Do not be afraid of raw, unheated fats. They are critical for so many reasons and conversely, processed fats are downright dangerous. Vegetable oils, canola oil (industrial rapeseed oil - outright poison), or most any other processed oil is deadly. This is not an exaggeration.

Thank you diteras for this great thread.

[diteras]

couple of things from those informative replies -- anything processed --- bad. Not easy to find affordable unadulterated food - that is the economic reality. Diabetes is a modern epidemic. Partly because we see it earlier - but mainly lifestyle -- certainly would be one of the first indicators I would look for in a memory assessment as the vascular implications are obvious.

Advice I give - It makes sense and it is is simple - what is good for the body is good for the brain. Nothing wrong with moderation in all things. I guess we have to eat something but surely we could eat things that aren't actively destroying us? Maybe not.

Prozac (Fluoxitine) not often used these days and has been overtaken by other Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors as the standard, placebo, sub therapeutic, 'here take this and go away' option - it does have 'separation issues' and again it a med I often see tagged into a polypharmic nightmare - often one that the recipient is not aware they were taking or why.

To add a little voice of balance to the commonly held perceptions, I would have to say that these drugs if used correctly, for the correct reason (quite rare in clinical reality) and with regard to the proper indications, have a value -- but taking them because you have lost your cat or you feel people don't like you is utter bloody nonsense -- medicalising unhappiness is the most cynical fraud ever conceived.

the problem is this -

We have become accustomed to using language badly -- the language of psychiatry has slipped into everyday usage unchallenged and this is ... mental.

You just knew an example was coming .....

Nice lady living alone in a nice home --fairly isolated but not completely so --- diagnosis is vascular dementia. VaD Mixed cortical/sub-cortical

With this condition personality is well preserved -- deterioration is often like a step down, plateau ,step down ,effect --- when one drops down there may be a period of increased confusion, followed by recovery - but the recovery never goes back to the previous level. There is no treatment licensed in the UK --in the US the FDA do allow Memantine be offered -- might as well chew carpet slippers, but what do I know.

The issue with someone who is in the early stages of this condition is that they are often very plausible in the short term - intellect is intact. So conversations with them can often leave a person fooled into thinking a point has been made and understood - it has. Trouble is fifteen-twenty minutes later it is gone. Forgotten.

So this nice lady, among other things, is forgetting to eat. She will look you in the eye and say with genuine indignation ''I am not a fool of course I had breakfast' - she is sincere. She remembers having eaten but it might have been yesterday- last week- - last month even. So it goes on.

So - as she is not a fool - I sit with her and her daughter and explain to her honestly what is happening to her and she gets it -- she agrees that she needs help - so we arrange care calls twice daily.

About a week later I get a call from her doctor (GP) - carers have been in touch as they are worried about her --- she is '' depressed and paranoid''........!!! Wow -- that escalated quickly?

I unpick this -

As I said intellect intact and plausible. Lives alone.

Often when the carers call her she isn't letting them in - she is scared of them and tells them to '' go away'' she says they are intruders and threatens them with a stick from the window - she locks her door and tries to ring police. ----- paranoid
&
when she is letting them in or they get in she is often in tears crying because she is abandoned and desperately alone ---- depressed.


In reality she has forgotten the reason they were asked to come -- her plausibility when she is seen by them fools them completely into thinking she is having sudden mood swings - she has simply forgotten the conversations. So in the context of someone who is living alone and suddenly has two clowns in tunics miming instructions to her while peering through her double glazing, her reaction is not only understandable it is pretty justified. --- so paranoid? - no.

- on to the next

Most days her daughter or another family member will visit and spend anything up to six/seven hours with her. Trouble is that fifteen minutes after they have gone she will not only forget they have been she will not remember seeing them for months - so she feels abandoned -- she is unhappy as her family have left her alone. - depressed?......eff me sideways

So for paranoid and depressed read forgetful and unhappy due to this. I did not prescribe.

Language misused is like giving a child a harpoon for Christmas.

Of course those of you with experience know there is a lot more to it than that. I isn't easy to care for a person with these problems - memory is us - to lose it is horrible.

Cara - as always I am so amazed by your insights and knowledge - everything that is worthwhile in life is always based on something concrete, especially something living, growing—and loving.
I nearly cried. thank you

[Perdido]

Listen to the book on CD.. UnDoctored... He exposes the Food and Medical industry.

[Perdido]

Many old people need their pills place in daily dosages in plastic containers.. Otherwise they can not keep track of what they took.. and will not take it or over dose.

[diteras]

Hi Perido - thanks for that

depends what you are treating and what 'pills' they are. UK pharmacies can supply weekly 'nomad' blister packs -- which on the whole are not a bad thing but do not work just because they are there. Some meds - anything dispersal either orally or extra orally cannot go in them - Some cant be 'exposed' to atmosphere or in contact with other tablets - as an aside ,it is also a fact that you have to think carefully about co-administration as you can, by combination, accidental or otherwise, create a 'new' medication which is not actually prescribed. This is why any medication administered 'covertly' in food for e.g. is ''off or outside of product licence'' and should only be done after very careful consideration, a legal establishment of a 'best interest' principle and a full discussion with multidisciplinary teams including a clinical pharmacist and family. You cant just crush tablets and shove 'em in anything basically. They cease to be what they are if you do.

Then we have the challenge of new. If someone has dementia people often think that simplifying their lives is a good idea. It is. But if that simplification requires them to learn a new process then it isn't.
To give you a flavour - my record, which was last year - was bringing back 38 unused and twenty two partially used 'nomads' to a pharmacy. The GP said prior that they (the practice) was sure that she was compliant with medication and could not understand my reluctance to prescribe anti-dementia meds before I had got a home visit done. She hadn't been taking her stroke prevention regime for a year. Strangely enough(the diagnosis was a mixed dementia (VaD/AD) family had noticed her memory worsening over the past ten months. This is not unusual.
Often family think they can prompt by phone --- it doesn't work --- ever. Put the the phone down pick up newspaper ...now what was I doing ....oh yes ....walk away and water flowers. OR-- family say ''write this down mum'' ....T..A..K..E T A B L E T S...so every time they see the note what happens .....>>?? yes you guessed. I once had a twenty eight day script last ten. Plus if you have days of the week on a med card or box and you don't know what day it is.......???

So yes useful but .....no substitute for careful assessment and well targeted least restrictive care. There are no shortcuts to intelligent kindness. None.

[diteras]

I have been quiet.

Actually not so. I have been to Edinburgh for a week - ‘The Fringe’ arts festival. Did my best to see and take in what a week let me. I say ‘take in’ because there is - which you will know if you have been - more than anyone could see in comedy alone over the month of August. 554 registered venues ( some of which are multiplexed) not counting street performers, who are all day every day in numbers - counted seven different acts on the royal mile alone - and pop up venues which fall outside the official. There is a lot to see. (I could have just left it at that….)
Stayed in a self catering flat which was ok but ££££’s over the odds. Always thought it was worth it ……. Eat when I want, keep my own hours. Be alone with my disillusions and triumphs - sleep little, drink much, think different thoughts ….?

Anyone ever had the classic brush off ‘’its not you it’s me’’.....?

I like to go to places like this alone - it affords me an extra option to observe and play detective games in my head. Wondering about people isn't just my job it’s a lifelong habit.

Clearly the above is only partly true. I go on my own because there is no one who I want to take with me. I then ‘enjoy’ an internal monologue which is effectively a discourse with an imaginary perfect companion. Who does not exist. Probably now, never will.

The effect of this can be similar to an observation of walking over a neglected cesspit. Outwardly the thick crusted covering looks solid enough, but place your foot in the wrong place at the right angle and a stinking world of **** emerges.
This is what two fairly decent young male students discovered when they stopped me at a makeshift stall in George Square.They asked me if I was ‘aware of world events’
Suffice to say that around twenty minutes later (having subscribed to their offered publication) I left them with (I would expect) raised eyebrows and maybe some new info . I don't think they had ever considered the connections before - those connections between everything that they railed against, perhaps believing they were contending against diverse and disconnected adversaries in their quest to make this world a better place’.
Of course they also could well have thought I was a random nutter. I am both things of course, but then again isn't everyone who has a shred of insight into this world and what we do in it.
I am not clever or insightful
I am only on the path approaching the foothills - the mountain is for those with more commitment - so my sadness was the assumption from them that they had a greater knowledge and were preparing to pitch some drivel-ous neo-socialist claptrap, which would be as stilted and as much of a blind alley diversion, as the system they were contending against. More smoke no fires. Lives ticking away discovering nothing new and self-congratulating their endeavour in so doing. We don't even know when we are playing the game anymore do we?

Two things struck me in the days that followed.

Firstly I am not as interested in experiencing things which are basically a repetition - that way you become worn down and ultimately either doublethink your way into accepting the world as it is (and decide to play the game) or become so same and predictable in your rhetorical that you can even stop listening to yourself.

In that context the arts and performance are meaningless trivia - here I am at an arts festival.

Secondly when the amorphous thing which is overseeing our lives gets a grip on something diverse it owns it -- firstly like a sadistic hunter it lets it run. It lets it shock. It lets it be dangerous - then it uses it to control through fear.
Then it assimilates it.
Examples? - I am old enough to remember punk. In principal much more than its shallow and exorcised shadow. A chance missed to change -doomed because it’s lack of ambition was intrinsic to its cultural message -in my opinion - but fun.
Two years after the scare of punk hit the tabloids in the UK they were selling safety pin earrings in M&S.
Assimilated castrated and safe it stays in memory like a ghost door to an alternate universe. Dead and finished.

Then we had Paris 1968- and the beauty of the last great western chance for individual self determination. Bought out.

I without thinking of the irony of this I will admit - wore a tee of my own design to Edinburgh which was with hindsight inspired - I had the phrase Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible printed - which of course is a secondary quote from Che Guevara

Think of me what you will.

In the context of my second point, the arts festival or fringe is now a pair of M&S earrings and my little tee was the subtle result of the same thing. All examples of defeated ambition and assimilated culture totally without danger. There is no fringe, it is not a fringe, it is a commercial mainstream playground-- a Disneyland for the chattering with as much sincerity and meaning.

So …. I don't think I will be going back again.

Dear Edinburgh/arts/fringe culture
I am sorry. I won't be seeing you again --it's not you its me. Please let me know if you ever get your soul bought back and I will go looking for mine in the interim

So sorry everyone will get back on topic next time -- of course this is all connected - but you guys in Avalon land knew this right?

Love.

[Cara]

Thanks for sharing more of your thoughts diteras.

Your musings reminded me of an interesting article by Thierry Meyssan called “How the West Eats it’s Children (https://www.voltairenet.org/article204208.html)”. It’s more about geopolitics than societal and cultural issues but it touches on some areas you mention.

A culturally-oriented perspective that might add a broad historical context is that of sociologist Pitirim Sorokin. Here (https://morrisberman.blogspot.com/2012/04/pitirim-sorokin_28.html), historian Morris Berman outlines Sorokin’s ideas:


Pitirim Sorokin, the Russian sociologist ... immigrated to the United States and founded the Department of Sociology at Harvard, where he taught for nearly thirty years. His four-volume Social and Cultural Dynamics was written over 1937-41, and rereading it at this late date, one has to marvel at the prescience of the man. Much of what he predicted regarding the cycles of civilization is coming true in our time.

Sorokin distinguished between what he called Ideational cultures and Sensate cultures. The former, he wrote, are spiritual in nature, focusing on the inner life of human beings. The latter, on the other hand—of which the West for the last five hundred years is a classic example—are preoccupied with the material modification of the external world by means of science and technology, and are the opposite of the Ideational ones. The Sensate culture of the last five centuries, he claimed, is now in crisis; in its dying phase.

...

So Sorokin believed that present-day Sensate/scientific culture was in a state of fatigue; that it had run its course. When you have the excessive domination of a single system, he wrote, eventually it begins to exhibit signs of self-destruction. The pendulum starts to swing in the other direction because each type of culture contains only part of the truth, and is thus an untruth. But this partial truth is mistaken for the whole truth, and becomes the basis for culture and social life—which is the untruth of the situation. The false part of the culture tends to grow, and eventually, the whole thing goes out of kilter. In other words, the untruth evokes a strong reaction, creating a dynamic of change and disintegration. (Cf. Hegel, or even Aristotle: any reality contains its own negation within itself, producing its antithesis over time.) Cultures dominated by one-sided mentalities, said Sorokin, fall victim to their own narrow-mindedness. He goes on:


The great crisis of Sensate culture is here in all its stark reality. Before our very eyes this culture is committing suicide. If it does not die in our lifetime, it can hardly recover from the exhaustion of its creative forces and from the wounds of self-destruction. Half-alive and half-dead, it may linger in its agony for decades; but its spring and summer are definitely over….I hear distinctly the requiem that the symphony of history is playing in its memory.

Sorokin’s predictions for this end-game scenario (remember, he’s writing this nearly seventy-five years ago) were as follows:

1. The boundary between true and false, and beautiful and ugly, will erode. Conscience will disappear in favor of special interest groups. Force and fraud will become the norm; might will become right, and brutality rampant. It will be a bellum omnium contra omnes [the war of all against all], and the family will disintegrate as well. “The home will become a mere overnight parking place.”

2. Sensate values “will be progressively destructive rather than constructive, representing in their totality a museum of sociocultural pathology….The Sensate mentality will increasingly interpret man and all values ‘physicochemically,’ ‘biologically,’ ‘reflexologically,’ ‘endocrinologically,’ ‘behavioristically,’ ‘economically’…[etc.].”

3. Real creativity will die out. Instead, we shall get a multitude of mediocre pseudo-thinkers and vulgar groups and organizations. Our belief systems will turn into a strange chaotic stew of science, philosophy, and magical beliefs. “Quantitative colossalism will substitute for qualitative refinement.” What is biggest will be regarded as best. Instead of classics, we shall have best-sellers. Instead of genius, technique. Instead of real thought, Information. Instead of inner value, glittering externality. Instead of sages, smart alecs. The great cultural values of the past will be degraded; “Michelangelos and Rembrandts will be decorating soap and razor blades, washing machines and whiskey bottles.”

4. Freedom will become a myth. “Inalienable rights will be alienated; Declarations of Rights either abolished or used only as beautiful screens for an unadulterated coercion. Governments will become more and more hoary, fraudulent, and tyrannical, giving bombs instead of bread; death instead of freedom; violence instead of law.” Security will fade; the population will become weary and scared. “Suicide, mental disease, and crime will grow.”

5. The dies irae [Day of Wrath] of transition will not be fun to live through, but the only way out of this mess, he wrote, is precisely through it. Under the conditions outlined above, the “population will not be able to help opening its eyes ... to the hollowness of the declining Sensate culture…. As a result, it will increasingly forsake it and shift its allegiance to either Ideational or Idealistic values.” Finally, we shall see the release of new creative forces, which “will usher in a culture and a noble society built not upon the withered Sensate root but upon a healthier and more vigorous root of integralistic principle.” In other words, we can expect “the emergence and slow growth of the first components of a new sociocultural order.”

From: https://morrisberman.blogspot.com/2012/04/pitirim-sorokin_28.html

[diteras]

Cara- you must be bored of me heaping praise upon you and your sources - but I cant help but do so. You are wonderful.

I can only say this -

Meyssan's observations are entirely in line with my own gut felt and uneducated fears

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

my hero Eric Arthur Blair was indeed an important prophet.

I think I will put up a flag and declare myself. This will be fun.

;)

Thank you.

love.

[Cara]

diteras - it’s a pleasure and you’re welcome. I am sure I found Thierry Meyssan’s site through some kind person posting a link somewhere :flower:

If you’d like to read more of Meyssan, Hervé has been posting chapters of Meyssan’s book “Right Before Our Eyes”, which is a modern history of the Middle East, here in this thread: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?107711-Thierry-Meyssan-s-Right-Before-Our-Very-Eyes

[diteras]

The funny thing about loss.
I have lost. We all have lost. Life is loss. What is loss? Here's mine.

I have to say sorry to you guys. Sorry because I havet been here. Sorry because some people who I never met and who I never will were kind about things I thought and I left them without explanation. Unforgivable. A lot is unforgivable. Life is a **** sandwich - old joke.

So what?

So can I share the story with the world. Well yes, I have to now. Not because of any ego (well a bit if I am honest) But not , I hope, bad faith.

I had four sons on 1/11/ On 3/11/ I had three. Simple mathematics not requiring the input of Green or Tyson will tell you all you need to know.
He - James -my second born bo dob 1/1/1986 ( his mother clenched until 4.30 a.m. so I couldnt go for a drink -typical of her the mad woman she was and is), was someone who I never had the slightest issue with as a ‘worry’ - yes he hadnt chosen the life partner I would have hcosen for him but as a two rtime loser in the marriage whirlygig what the actually **** do I know eh? Quite.

So he has three children all under 10 years old 3, 7, 9. b, b, g. Three more he had effectively adopted. Older.
James was a builder and he specialised as a plasterer. He was smart but not academic.. His own business and good at it - liked to dabble in farming on his down days - that’s what they do these country types- work and money - - didn't get that from me - his own man always. He didnt drink he couldnt drink - drink made him stupid - he was not a drinker -so he reasoned that he wouldnt. Not much of the fathers Scottish gene there eh?

He didn't tell me that he felt unwell - although most of the time according to my youngest who worked with him occasionally (joiner) he didn't feel unwell and he certainly looked ok - when I saw him last we laughed and joked about what a ****witt his mother was/is - when I saw him the last time we spoke of … I can't recall what else .. So ****ing bad when you cant recall the detail of the last time you spoke to someone - I wish I could replay every word and find something more...meaningful?
But there probably was nothing.

He did tell my ex he was seeing a specialist and she took him - she works at the hospital so it made sense - I didn't even know - he didnt ever tell me or ask me about what he had been told by the gastroenterologist nor did he tell my ex exactly what the preliminary diagnosis was. It was Pbc (suspected) primary biliary cholangitis - To be exact. Liver. Usually manageable. Not great but manageable.

So the specialist - says ‘we need a biopsy’ - now here I divert you to the guidance on management of pbc- note that this states ‘no biopsy’ unless certain complications are suspected. Apparently and retrospectively I think these were suspected - long story but trust me I got it and I got them too. C***s.
So they forgot about him and then they remembered - then they did the biopsy and sent him home - then he haemorrhaged and was dead before his mother and I got to his house two miles away from where we both still live (in different houses) End. 32 years old father of six no insurance - why would he?

So that was that.

I could tell you about the time which has passed since then - not all bad - it never is. I could tell you how unbelievably kind all my work colleagues and friends have been since - I could tell you of the inquiry and how I challenged the autopsy and the care he received and how these bastards attempted to divert blame… my own issues too which have surprised me ..none of that matters . If you want to know I did what I could at the inquest and they ( the hospital) are taking the blame - as they should - well at least in part - these things are much much deeper and much much worse - but this is what we are against isn't it?

Hiis life will be bought off - by the algorithm - think Fight Club.

So. I am tempted to detail but am resisting - that is enough.

Never stop fighting and resisting this ****e - my story is nothing - a million worse since - my life my hurt. Not yours - I will deal with it or not

Thank you

[amor]

We have all been SETUP by the PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY"S
DISPENSARY OF DEATH, DOCTORS: This is addressed specifically to Autumn W. and anyone else on PROZAC. Prozac is a (poison) constructed with the Fluoride molecule. It is in the same family of chemicals as Calcium on the Periodic Chart of Chemicals and as such easily fits into the SLOT of Calcium in the Bones. Now Calcium moves from place to place in the body as other organs require it to keep an operating balance. Such places are the HEART and BRAIN along with the BONES and many other parts of the body. Bones in which Fluorides have taken the place of Calcium becomes brittle (broken hips at $10,000 by Medicare for replacement joints). Along comes the purveyors of death to the rescue of those with problems which may be safely addressed by other means not requiring a hearse. They quickly supply PROZAC to anyone with a suggestion of anxiety. This is a long-term prescription for which KICKBACKS to the doctor and revenue to the industry promises fat returns. In the meanwhile, fluoride bonds itself to members of the brain, including that gland which connects us to the spirit world and many other parts of the brain basic to its function (with Alzheimer's the result). In addition, it binds itself to the HEART VALVES, which when bound to CALCIUM does not turn the valves HARD like stone and stop them from functioning, opening and closing, but deposits just that needed by the body at the moment and THEN MOVES ON to some other part of the body needing it. FLUORIDE COMPOUND BINDS STONE LIKE AND STAYS PUT! I believe it does the same thing to the blood vessels everywhere AS WELL AS IN THE BRAIN. Don't be surprised if you are on this death drug that you develop High Blood Pressure and Strokes. If a doctor wants to hook you on their poisons, say, "You First."

I have read that Atherosclerosis, narrowing and hardening of the blood vessel passages comes about by drinking water laced with Chlorine, also separately with Lead. I have also read that atherosclerosis may be addressed by very small doses of a chemical taken only once a week (EDTA). It dissolves the plaque inside the blood vessel; therefore, if this is over done, strokes by broken vessels and death will ensue; and therefore, it should be very carefully monitored medically. Also, only water free of Chlorine and Fluorine and its compounds should be consumed thereafter.

Chloride and Fluoride used against us in water, is said to have been not only a move to control us mentally, but to bring about our early deaths to ensure that we would not be around to collect our Social Security which has been stolen by the government and no doubt engineered by the Genocidal Bankers.

A warm shower or bath at night, with no radios or lights on would provide us with a good night's sleep. Since I have tried both, I can vouch for this statement. I personally have been docked by Doctors because I WILL NOT use pharmaceutical medication when common sense will do. Try introspection to find what is really worrying you and use common sense but not chemical death. Autumn W, take note.

[diteras]

this is my thread so... sorry if anyone thinks it is out -connections are not always obvious...

There comes a time for every man when he must turn his back on the crowd ‘’ (Heron 1968) 1 -
I should also cite the famous line about ‘turning one's back on a crowd to lead an orchestra’ blah blah - by god bothering Texan, Max Lucado - one little ‘gem’ from one of his 100 published works of fiction, all on the subject of his relationship with a mythical deity called the Christian god.
Lucando also famously said ‘’ A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.’’ Thereby suggesting his fantasy, all seeing, infinitely wise object of faith, should turn his hand to pimping.

Interesting - or maybe it is a logical position, one that a nocturnal cuckold-maker and despoiler of women would assume. Max pal, your god is a bit of a ‘’see you next tuesday’’ mate. You get 20 years for that you know. Good thing too. That is the evolution of moral values at its best eh?

Personally, if I had to, which I do not, I would prefer to put my faith in Gandalf; at least we all know where he hangs his pointy hat - His choice of closeness with innocent child-like adults and liking for ‘rings of power’ notwithstanding.

So what has all that to do with anything?
Seniment 2

Twins of concept, they both are born of the same strange facet of the human condition - watery eyed human belief that we are special. This cohesion of fantasy and subtle arrogance is undeniably the main support pillar which holds these twins of nonsensical sentiment and maintains their position.

Heron and Williams, writing and playing their hopeful sitars ,against a backdrop of , with hind and contemporary sight, mid sixties counter-cultural hopeless naivety, were wistfully searching for ‘a log cabin home in the sky’ - no consequences explored. I hope they have forgiven themselves

Lucado, preaching his diatribe of hopeful belief, based upon a concept or allegorical account, severely edited, often challenged and missentrpeted by its followers- one historically and presently responible for duplicity, mass control of minds, genocide, torture, hatred and divisions - all consequences ignored. May god forgive him.

You have to stack up quite a lot of benefits to even consider promoting either.

If you stop and consider the outcome of following any thing or ‘one’..., with a cold reason? ...

Well let's say neither have much going for them.

A definition supplied by the International Classification of diseases which -like the Diagnostic Statistical manual is written at the behest of mega pharma so they can sell more products, has one classification especially relevant -

3 F24 -Induced delusional disorder
A delusional disorder shared by two or more people with close emotional links. Only one of the people suffers from a genuine psychotic disorder; the delusions are induced in the other(s) and usually disappear when the people are separated.

Well I guess we are all in this together eh? Except no, we are not. We have been emotionally blackmailed (linked) by a corrupt and useless media and now are being led - not by a benevolent prophet out of the wilderness - but like that same benevolent prophet would lead the sheep he is preparing to sacrifice on the altar of his own deranged ego

We have bought into the lie that we are powerless. To be fair the manipulation which has been deployed has been formidable. Our conditioning - we have to suspend and to exist in relative comfort are required to suspend, our natural instinct to ‘enquire’ - we find ourselves questioning ourselves.

Even in places where ideas are more freely discussed there are boundaries, unseen and unstated - but the group conditioning we all accept and expect defines them - it defines them in ways which actually - if you stop to think - is proof of the way a collective consciousness may work - it proves our latent empathy and understanding - but we never speak of it - it has been subverted to repress us - a magnificent example of control - or linked psychosis - you choose.

Back to the theme

Positions of faith have consequences and both examples above require suspension of common sense in order that their dogmas work- so what are those consequences - and if we understand them would we be better placed to understand exactly what is going on now?

Yes we would.

Religion - not going to quote Karl Marx ..ah go on then..

Because this famous position is often, as the learned will know ,misunderstood and misrepresented -I will quote...

But...

You cannot reduce complex ideas to unreferenced ‘one liners’ - that is the first rule of understanding - effort is required - anything else is propaganda - one liners are a danger sign - they are modern magic - often black.

translated it goes exactly like this - 4

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo’’


If that had been read properly you would think no one would have had an issue. The problem was and is that it was and is. It is just a little example of massaged and modified - - interpretation and distillation made it into something else - by those whose sphincters twitched when they recognized that someone had got them.

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools…..5

In the established mastery of thought-precis, you have the nutshell - the whole relationship between masters and slaves defined in an instant - one of undeniable revelation - like the turning on of a bright light in a cockroach infested dungeon - it is our dungeon and the shadows on the walls are our choices “On the walls of the cave, only the shadows are the truth 6

The linguistic hacking and intellectual ‘changing thought through language compression’s parallel to Orwell's 1984 are not to be dismissed either - Ministry of Truth?

There are many things which can become required to face our ‘struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion’.

Looking at figures for US alone, opium is the opium of the masses anyway - a not exactly ‘to the minute’ research article covering 2011-13 informs me - 7

Prescription data from IMS Health indicate that at the beginning of 2006, there were 47 million prescriptions dispensed per quarter in the United States for the opioid analgesics included in this study. Prescription volume peaked in the fourth quarter of 2012 at 62 million prescriptions dispensed.

It also states ‘’The number of deaths per year attributed to prescription opioid medications reached 16,651 in 2010’’

It has gone up, be sure of that.

Of course it is relevant, all things are connected - but I digress

We then have the sweet naive counter cultural take.
Is it as dangerous -? Well - a child with a crossbow is as dangerous as a psychopath with one -they are essentially the same thing when you are in the cross hairs.
No wonder then that in these times of fear we see people rushing for lifeboats of absolutes - an example easily checked -

David Wilcock 4/18: New Intel and Celebration of Imminent Freedom!
237,703 views
Daniel Liszt (Dark Journalist) Gurdjieff Fourth Way: Crisis In Human Affairs Deep State Lockdown Vs. Conscious Freedom 16474 views
LIVE AMA WITH THE DOLANS: COVID, POLITICS, UFOS, AND THE FUTURE
37,940 views•
COVID-19 updates, Atlas Comet breakup, Dead Seals in Canada, Viewer Q&A
37,100 views•

Point made?

So what does that tell us?

Perhaps it proves as Marx said that - ‘Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again’

A need for certainty certainly (ha)

I feel we would all do well to consider the perceptive genius of Hunter S Thompson when he reflects upon the death of naive dreams - 8

‘’ History is hard to know, because of all the hired bull****, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.’’

And of course in this you have to include the most moving stanza he ever produced at the end of this reflection -

‘’So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

Makes you want to cry.

Speaking of HST-

There is a saying which I have always used referring to drug use - a subject which has more than once in my life become a problem - ‘’nice place to visit but don't try to live there’’

I try to abide by that - but I need more - I know I do - what I will not do is let it in with a free pass to my essence. It aint always easy. This empty hunger is one which I am sure others share - is it conditioning? - Well, I am saying I think it might be - and am sure that the flames of it are fanned by those who wish to control. Maybe giving yourself over to hedonism and madness is the only choice -but that has proven limitations. Thompson did not stay young forever.

Another famous observation in full - this time from the great Albert Camus 9

‘’There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer. And if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher, to deserve our respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act. These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect.’’

I would recommend anyone read the ‘’Myth of Sisyphus’’ and ‘’Fear and Loathing ‘’- if advising the order to do so did not trouble me

When I think about all of this maybe between them Camus had seen the problem and Thompson chose his solution.

We can choose ours and it (that choice) doesn't have to be made for us.

So back to the sweetly simple petulia scented musings of Heron with his ‘home in the sky’ - it could be argued that this little harmless wistful wish list is just that - or it could be that it has the same relationship that marijuana has to crack cocaine and paracetamol has to oxycodone?

Critical thinking is the gift we are born with - it is our own autonomy - it is the manifestation of our essence.

That is the target now of every oppressive interest group - to eradicate it, to subvert it to destroy it to monetize it .

Lucado would have us use his manual to inform it, Heron would take us to a place where its use would be passively repressed.

Don't let it happen - but don't ask me how to stop it either.

So - didn't want to end on a low. Have a dance - and be free


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjTV8i_KjXM














1 The Incredible String Band – Log Cabin Home in the Sky

2 Sentiment - Exaggerated and self-indulgent feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia.
‘many of the appeals rely on treacly sentiment’
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/sentiment
3 https://icd.who.int/browse10/2016/en#/F22.8

4 Marx, Karl. 1844. A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, February.
5 ― Plato, The Allegory of the Cave http://www.mesacc.edu/~barsp59601/text/lex/defs/a/allegoryofthecave.html

6 If Rudyard Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if---

7 https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMsa1406143

8 Fear and Lotahing in Las Vegas - Hunter S Thomson https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1074-strange-memories-on-this-nervous-night-in-las-vegas-five

9 Suicide, Absurdity and Happiness: The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus 1928
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/#SuiResAbs