29. August 2009 by Frank.

Years ago there was a comedian who performed his routine with a grocery bag over his head, he called himself the unknown comic.  That’s all I remember, just his gimmick.  But it was enough to trigger thoughts of being an unknown atheist.  (I did a quick search and didn’t find anyone using “unknown atheist” as a name online but if there is, I apologize.  I just want to use the idea not steal your name.)

What brought this on was that I was at a wedding in a Seventh Day Adventist church the other day.  The ceremony and the reception were very religious as were almost all the people involved.  The thing that’s unusual about this is the rather extreme interracial nature of this particular church.  It is in the middle of an SDA university which boasts one of the most racially diverse student bodies you’re ever likely to see in a smaller college.  It is actually very refreshing to see such diversity in action compared to all the racism so prevalent in the news.

One of the guys who gave a toast even made the comment that the food was an unusual combination of Chinese and Hispanic dishes.

I did my heart good to see all these various peoples interacting with each other without any signs of prejudice.  I have been in the church several times and this openness and acceptance of differences is always striking in contrast to the current white terror over a black president crap that’s in the news all the time.  It’s a very good thing and the way it should be.

But there is a flaw.

While the SDA folks are as nice as they can be and friendly as all get out there is an undercurrent of religious bigotry that isn’t readily apparent.  You don’t see them blatantly putting down other denominations but if you listen long enough you start hearing the “we have the truth and you don’t” doctrines that they adhere to religiously.  (Sorry, bad pun.)  Basically, when god reveals the real truth to you, you will join us because we’re right.

Baptist fundamentalists are much more blunt in their prejudice towards the SDA, however.  Many of them unequivocally consider the SDA as a cult not a denomination.  This is a very blatant contradiction to the unity of the faith the bible teaches.

Personally my experiences with the SDA over the years has shown me that they are far more open to opposing ideas and actual debate than anyone I have met on the Baptist side.  This may be strongly influenced by the fact that this church is in the middle of an university.  Unlike most Baptists these guys actually study their bibles cover to cover and know why they believe what they believe.

But they still say amen when a preacher declares their beliefs are the “real” beliefs.

I couldn’t help but think of all these things as I sat there at the reception.  We were definitely the minority group in attendance but it obviously didn’t matter.  We were all friends of the newlyweds.  But like I said it was also religious, very religious.

As far as I know, I was the only atheist in attendance.  A simple fact of which there was no need to declare.  That’s when the image of the unknown comic with his grocery sack over his head popped into my mind.  I was the unknown atheist.  A sack on my head would set me apart and identify me as being radically different than everyone else.  But as it was, I was just part of the diverse crowd.

I’m sure my face didn’t give it away but inside I was cringing during the ceremony.  The ceremony wasn’t about the couple, it was about Jesus.  According to the preacher their entire marriage was supposed to be about nothing other than Jesus.  What I find so repulsive about that is simply that it isn’t true for anyone.  No one actually believes that, not even the preacher.  So why say it?  Why make it part of the ceremony?  Is god really so petty that he has to have credit for literally everything?  A human being with an ego that needed to be fed that much would be an unbearable monster.  Seriously, I don’t know why the couple even needed to be there, it was that god oriented.

I don’t have any problem going to religious ceremonies, they won’t kill me.  Unless, of course, I whip out my sack and start shouting there is no god.  Personally, I have no desire to end any relationship just because we don’t share beliefs.  Although I will take a stand if pushed into a corner.

It’s just really strange to be in a world of believers and not be one of them.

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27. August 2009 by Frank.

(I’ll give you 1000 Brownie  Points if you can identify where I got the title of this post.  On the other hand, maybe not.  I just checked BING and GOOGLE.  (Would you believe I actually forgot all about BING and GOOGLE?)  BING actually has it but the last word is hear instead of think.  The mighty GOOGLE doesn’t have it at all (at least on the first two pages of results.)  My brain is not working tonight.)

That quote is the answer to the question, “Do you know what I think?”  or “hear?” as the case may be.  It works either way but not the same way in either circumstance.

Do you know what I hear?  The only correct answer would have to be no.  Two people could go to a town hall meeting about health care.  One could hear a reasoned set of ideas being discussed and the other could hear, “Let’s kill grandma!” just as clearly.  I remember back when the original STAR WARS came out in ‘77 that it was one of the first films to really use surround sound to great effect.  I remember clearly a famous science fiction writer utterly denouncing the movie because of the godawful noise it made.  All us fanboys loved the sound but this woman found it so offensive and distracting and loud that she wanted to leave the theater.  Hearing is a totally subjective experience.

The bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of god.  That seems to be a simple enough statement, “faith comes by hearing the word of god.”  I have listened to faith preachers who focused on the words “hearing and hearing” to the exclusion of everything else in the verse.  Their bizarre conclusion was that the verse meant faith comes by hearing the same verses over and over and over again.  Then they made the leap to since you pay the most attention to the sound of your own voice what it really meant was for you to recite the verse over and over and over again to yourself hundreds, thousands, or even more times until you convinced yourself it was true out of sheer repetition, then faith would come.  Maybe that isn’t so bizarre, look how churches cover the same stories repeatedly throughout the year.  Think I’m making this up?  Check out Kenneth Copeland and others like him.

Essentially faith comes by hearing yourself chanting magic words.

I bought into this teaching for awhile until I gradually realized that the faith I had had never arisen from nor depended upon any kind of repetition.  Indeed it came naturally just by believing something.  The easiest thing for me to believe was that I was hearing god telling me what to teach.  It was not until after I lost my faith entirely that I realized that god was answering my prayers for teaching guidance simply because of the amount of studying I was doing.  I could come up with a multi-point sermon or lecture with no effort because of the work I was putting into studying, I was immersed in it.  Not because of anything supernatural.  The proof of that was the fact that none of my prayer endeavors in other areas ever produced any results.  But what to teach always got an instant response.  I rationalized this discrepancy away by telling myself god gave me the lessons because they were for the benefit of others, nothing selfish in my desires to do that.

I heard what I wanted to hear.

It may not be obvious but that was not what I intended this post to be about.  After I couldn’t find the quote the way I remembered it (using think instead of hear) I began doubting my memory.  I am quite sure the original word was think.  At least I think it was think.  I can’t verify it.  Oh, well,  you can have the Brownie Points if you can tell me who the quote is from.

But if the word was (and is) think then what is the proper and only answer to the question?  Again, it has to be no.  How can I know what you think?  I can only know what you tell me you think.  If there’s anything that sets people apart it’s how they think.  Or don’t think.

Getting back to politics, I can’t comprehend the thinking process that allows people to buy into the birther movement.  How is it that there are more than just a few fringe lunatics promoting this crap?  What kind of mindset do you have to have to think Obama is a Nazi?  Granted the health care reform bill is deeply flawed how is it that so many are resorting to anger and violence over it instead of actually debating the real issues involved?  What kind of thought process leads to all this uncontrolled rage and anger?

Oh noes!  Whitebread America is gone!  It’s not the America I know and love anymore!  The people I hate have taken over.  We’re doomed unless we take it back.

How in the world did so many people get so small minded?  Don’t they teach critical thinking skills in schools anymore?  Are human beings no more than huge lemmings, following the biggest loudmouths?  There was a Tea Party rally here back on the 4th of July (I missed it unfortunately) that their signs asked people to be civilized and polite so that their message could be heard.  Do the yelling, screaming, violence provoking rubes not know they are being fed lies and deceptions by shills for corporate interests?

Are we hearing what people are actually thinking?

In my way of thinking all this links together quite nicely.  My memory of a quote may or may not be accurate.  I may or may not have heard it correctly to begin with or else my memory is far more faulty than I think it is.  Current events clearly indicate people are hearing completely different things regarding major issues.  And thinking or the lack thereof is being influenced by all sorts of people all too eager to tell other people what to think.  And ultimately, all too many people are willing to be told what to think instead of actually thinking for themselves.  Religion, politics, old comedy routines, everything except the kitchen sink.

So how can I know what you think/hear?

Only what you tell me and then that’s colored by how well or how much I know about you.  And vice versa.

So, yes, it is metaphysically absurd.  And so are my Brownie Points.

Posted in interpretation, communication, humor, wild guesses, listen, emotion, education, hearing, religion | Print | 3 Comments »

21. August 2009 by Frank.

And I won’t be able to replace it.  So sad.

I just drove by a church sign a few minutes ago.  It did not have a trite pseudo-clever slogan or saying on it.  No, indeed, it featured a stunning question that stopped me dead in my tracks.

It simply read, “Green Christians?  Are there any other kind?”  WTF?

After I WTF’d, my first thought was that they must have meant green as in green behind the ears.  Knowing, as I do, that churches constantly keep going over the basics time and time again, I thought perhaps that was the suitable reference.  But I knew it wasn’t.  I was only fooling myself.

No, they meant green as in ecologically green, environmentally green, let’s stop global warming green.

Which does not in any way shape or form line up with what you see churches promoting on the issue.  Back in May I wrote a post about “The Stupid Arrives In My Small Town” which featured another church sign that made it clear only god controls the climate.  This seems to be the dominant religious view on the subject.  How can mere men think we can interfere with god’s control of the climate, global warming my ass.  (OK, maybe they wouldn’t say my ass.)

Obviously not every christian is in the global warming denial camp, nor is every church.  But a significant number of them are and essentially their message is god is not mocked, man can not affect the climate therefore we don’t need to worry about it.

That’s what floored me about the sign.  “Are there any other kind?”  Hell, yes, there are.  Talk about making broad unsupported claims. 

I get it.  “Evil Atheists?  Are there any other kind?”  Substitute wretched, miserable, angry, empty, sad, Satan worshipping, vile, militant, mad at god, god hating, scum of the earth, for “evil” and there you have the general description of our people.  Amazing how we all share those qualities.  But all christians are green?  That flat out does not compute!

I wonder if this church knows there are other churches in town?

Posted in communication, humor, interpretation, signs, emotion, hearing, religion | Print | 4 Comments »

18. August 2009 by Frank.

Today is the 2nd anniversary of my mother’s death.  I spent most of the weekend sitting in small examination room #22 with my step father.  He called me at 1 AM Sunday morning and told me he needed to go to the hospital in a hurry.  His heart was racing, he felt like he was going to pass out, and his vision was severely blurred.  We got right into ER, they don’t waste time when you’re having any kind of chest pain.  He had the doctor and four nurses hovering over him.  They had him wired and injected with an alarming array of tubes and sensors.  But they got his heart to slow down and beat right.  Then they left us alone until 10 AM when they announced they had a room ready for him.

Having this happen on the same weekend mom died was definitely a strange coincidence.

I went for 29 hours without sleep because of this.  My wife and I were watching LOST on HULU when he called.  I had just drank three big cans of beer and was in a relatively mellow mood ready for bed.  Lack of sleep, sitting for hours on end in a cramped little room, and a nice buzz turning into a vicious headache is not conductive to positive thinking.  I had already been thinking about mom’s death and this was eerily similar.

(Dad’s OK, they released him today.  He has to go see the cardiologist again on Thursday.)

So I found myself in a rather bleak mood.  I got home around noon and fell asleep before my head even hit the pillow.  But first, I called my sisters in Louisiana.  They had also been thinking about mom so the news freaked them out, too.

Talk about hearing it through the grapevine.  The news spread through them calling everyone under the sun.  When I got my dad home today his neighbor came over because my sister had called him!  When dad was in the hospital yesterday he got between 30 and 40 calls from family and friends.  Of course his whole seniors group knew about it in short order.  This was not my doing, I only informed my sisters.  They made me promise to let them know if anything at all happened to dad after mom died.

This was indeed very serious but they over-reacted.  Because they’re so far away and can’t do anything.

Naturally, when there’s an emergency there’s well meaning christian friends and a lot of praying going on.  After 11 years of non-belief, it never even crossed my mind to pray.  I never had a flashback to my praying days.  What I heard and saw was some really good nursing staff and a doctor that obviously cared about this total stranger suffering.  They did their jobs very well.  I thank them.

I am a listener and an observer.  When other people are around I usually shut up and let them do all the talking.  During the course of dad’s church group visit I heard examples of racism (against other church members with different skin color), bigotry against other church members with different views on church music, the desire to have someone removed from their position, total misinformation, and praise to god for making everything all right and being the only reason dad was OK. 

I’m glad I don’t go to church.

Pandora is playing COMFORTABLY NUMB by Pink Floyd right now.  It suits my mood.  “Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying.”  If only that were the case.  I heard all those people loud and clear.  I wonder where all the right wing hysteria comes from that you see in political news all the time.  It comes from people just like these, the backbone of most small town churches and denominations.  Racism, prejudice, antipathy, resentment, hostility towards fellow believers.  This is against everything I believed in when I was a believer.  And not a one of these people thought anything wrong with any of it.

There is something very wrong with the world when the ultimate in high moral standards and values so casually dishes out hatred for others of their own kind.  It is depressing.

On the way home from the hospital my dad wanted to go to the cemetery to visit mom.  He doesn’t do the talking to her routine like some, he’s more concerned with the flowers looking nice.  But obviously, she was on his mind this weekend, too.

Sometimes life really sucks.

Technorati Tags: hospital,emergency,heart,death,mom,dad,friends,family

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14. August 2009 by Frank.

Just an early morning quickie:

One of my favorite comics is NON SEQUITOR.  You can find it here.  This morning’s strip seemed oddly on target after the sound bite talking head comment I heard on the news last night.  I was picking up my wife at her dad’s house and he was watching MSNBC.  They were talking health care reform.  The head said, “Many Americans don’t know Medicare is a government program.”

I said,”Many Americans are frakking morons!”  I mean, seriously, how fucking ridiculous has this country become?  When did ignorance gain such prominence?

Anyway, the comic reads, “Yeah, I used to get depressed watching the news, too.  Then I discovered the miracle of apathy …”

How appropriate.

Posted in communication, humor, wild guesses, listen, hearing, education | Print | 2 Comments »

12. August 2009 by Frank.

If you don’t eat meat for religious or other reasons why on earth would you make a faux meat meatloaf or a meatless hot dog?  Why would recipes for these things even exist?

In the same way, what is the purpose of non-alcoholic beer?  Or decaffeinated coffee?  Both of those are acquired tastes in their natural form, they aren’t for everyone.  But take out the alcohol and there’s absolutely no justification for beer, same with caffeine and coffee.  Who needs it?  For what exactly?

I’ve had the misfortune of being subjected to all those unnatural things at one time or another and my response is always the same, “WTF is this swill?”  I guess the faux meat thing gets me the most especially when the vegetarianism is because of religion.  Eating meat is sinful and unhealthy so why would you want to make something look like meat and sorta kinda taste like meat?  Are you fooling god?  You’re not fooling me.

If you drink a whole 12 pack of faux beer and still don’t have a buzz but smell like an unflushed urinal what good is that? 

I like coffee but it sure isn’t because it tastes great.  Why would I subject my taste buds to that if I wasn’t going to get an early morning energy buzz going?

(OK, I admit I like fake (SOY) ice cream but that’s because of medical necessity; “real” ice cream or milk is like drinking a can of Drano to me.  The Drano would hurt me the least.)

For that matter, what’s the deal with christian swear words?  You know; darn for damn, shoot for shit, geez for jesus, golly for goddamn, freaking for frakking.  (Well, actually I like frakking since I’m a big BSG fan and it sounds cool.)  Christians use these words in the exact same manner and for the exact same reasons everyone else uses the real words.  But somehow or other these substitute words are soft core instead of hard core and god doesn’t frown on them as much.  Why not?  They have the same intent and purpose.

I didn’t use the real “F” word because my wife hates the real “F” word and throws a fit anytime I use the “F” word.  But if someone says it in a very funny manner in a movie she still laughs at it.  What The “F” word is that about?

So why the substitutes?

Christianity is all about substitution.  A substitute punished for your sins.  An all powerful enemy who makes you do things you don’t want to do instead of owning up to your own desires and behavior.  A fear of hell and eternal punishment instead of actual morals and ethics.  An ancient book written by primitive men instead of reason and thinking for yourself.  A pastor/preacher who tells you what to think and believe instead of studying for yourself.  Watered down words instead of what you really want to say.

I’m not sure why a substitute is more acceptable than the real thing.

All I know is that if I could score some butter pecan soy ice cream I would be in a substitute for heaven.

Posted in interpretation, communication, humor, wild guesses, hearing, religion, emotion, Uncategorized | Print | 3 Comments »

7. August 2009 by Frank.

Last night I stopped by my friend’s house to fix his computer.  It turns out his modem is fried but in order to get another one from his ISP I had to call them and go through their whole tech support routine which took 45 minutes.  45 long agonizing minutes.

The phone was in the kitchen, the computer was in the living room, and my friend had dozed off while watching TV.  So I’m running back and forth doing all the checks tech support wanted done before they would admit the modem did it.  The TV was on a 7th Day Adventist network because my friend is a christian religious fanatic.

During the 45 minute call there must have been 4 or 5 preachers either showing clips of sermons or discussing religious matters in an interview format.  I didn’t catch any of their names but it’s safe to assume they were all 7th Day Adventists.  I only caught bits and pieces of what they were saying so I can’t offer any direct quotes but they were more than enough to get some outrage going.

Did you know that all us godless are mad at god?  We’re all evil, morally bankrupt, miserable and wretched?  We’ve rejected the love of god and brought damnation upon ourselves.  We’re all going to hell.  We’ll never know joy or true happiness.  Our lives are torment day and night and we will never know peace.  We’ve left god no choice but to burn us forever in the fire that can’t be quenched.  We deserve our place among the murders and rapists and guys like Hitler.

You know, all the standard stuff.

Then there was the guy giving his testimony about how he was an uncontrollably violent man until god saved him.  Naturally he became a preacher.  It amazes me how many christians like this openly declare that if god didn’t restrain them they would kill because of their temper.  Even my friend, who was alert enough to hear that part, said he felt the same way.  I told him he knew that wasn’t true, he would stop himself, but it didn’t register.

Then there was some hyperactive preacher practically going into spasms as he denounced atheists trying to use logic and reason to refute his precious beliefs.  Calm, rational, humanists are pure evil, trying to destroy the faith of the righteous.  He almost had a hissy fit defending god’s habit of genocide.  He said that atheists asked why god killed so many people in the old testament, his example was 185,000.  I have no idea which incident that refers to but I don’t find it surprising.  Nevertheless he rattled off a list of excuses trying to justify god.  He’s holy therefore his actions are holy, who are we to question or judge his behavior?  He was providing clear object lessons to everyone who refused to believe.  He was demonstrating how much he hates sin.  All those people deserved to be slaughtered.  This guy was slobbering and spitting all over himself by the time he got done.  His behavior is one reason christianity gets a bad reputation, it was despicable.

The corker was next.  I’m really sorry I didn’t get these people’s names.  In no uncertain terms the next preacher declared that the purpose of science is to lead people away from god.  Of course, he referred to “evil”-lution.  But he didn’t stop there.  I have never heard such an anti-science, anti-reason, anti-intelligence rant before.  Practically everything science has established has only one purpose and that purpose is to lead gullible people away from god and truth.  To prevent them from seeing god’s glorious truth as written in his word.  That’s why we need more christian schools so these secular lies won’t infect all our children.

My friend tends to agree with these preachers wholeheartedly.  That’s disturbing to me more than you might realize.

My friend is a school teacher.

Posted in wild guesses, interpretation, communication, listen, hearing, emotion, education, religion | Print | 5 Comments »

6. August 2009 by Frank.

So today’s the day when everything changed.

Ho hum.

I did manage to score an $11.50 Maxtor 500GB external hard drive on clearance (obviously) at work yesterday.  That’s really pushing the budget to the limit but what the hey, I don’t ever get to celebrate much.  In fact, my air conditioner died Monday after the coldest July on record here in my corner of Michigan.  Which means that it will be the hottest August and September ever recorded here.  I will be losing some 25 pounds due to sweat alone so it’s all good.

The thing of it is I really do have to deal with the stroke induced changes on a daily basis.  A number of people including my wife used to get onto me all the time about their perception that I needed to get over it and get on with my life.  They couldn’t comprehend the constant pain or the still severe mental desire to just give up and drool on myself for the rest of my life.  I battle that all the damn time.  I had gotten over it and had gotten on with my life but my struggles did not magically go away.  So I kept talking about it and kept getting condemned.

Eventually I gave up trying to get any sympathy or compassion from anyone.  I write about it but I don’t talk about it.  I look at myself in the mirror and I see the lifelessness in my eyes.  That isn’t just a saying.  One of the doctors who examined me after the stroke said that stroke damage is visible in your eyes.  He’s also the one who correctly told me that I would never feel “right” again.  Have you ever had a bad headache that lasted 11 years?  If they ever film a zombie movie near here I can get the part without even acting.

(My new back up drive just finished backing up my 55,663 photo files (103 GB!)  Wow!  I take a lot of pictures!).

For that matter, I could play the Wolfman without a costume because as Gaston sings, “Every last inch of me is covered with hair!”  Well, except for my head.  I only mention this because the play at the local college this Fall is Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.  I was in a production of it 32 years ago and it was such a horrible experience that I gave up acting for 17 years.  The egomaniac director thought he was so good he cast himself as the lead character.  He then proceeded to go on an all out drunken binge in Kalamazoo a couple of days before the play opened.  He got arrested, spent the night and the next day in jail, and didn’t get released until an hour before the play was supposed to open.  He was still bombed out of his mind and arrived about fifteen minutes late.  He rushed out on stage, forgot his lines, made up something about leaving his notes in the car, left us on stage to cover, and came back in with his script poorly disguised in a stack of papers on a clipboard.  I would really like to do it right this time.  I have had the lead in almost every show I’ve been in and have had to memorize 300 – 400 lines for each of them.  I do it to challenge myself, to keep my brain functioning.  Not to mention to pretend to be enthusiastic, fired up, and full of energy.  Auditions are the beginning of next month.

There was a very beautiful girl, who had suffered a fall off a high wall that had caused brain damage, who was in the first play I did after the stroke.  She was there for the same reason, to challenge herself.  We got along real well because of that and we both felt we accomplished our goals.  We beat something that wanted to stop us cold and make us give up for the rest of our lives.

I could use some more people like that in my life.  My wife is partially paralyzed and has epilepsy but she fights it tooth and nail.  I always admired her for that but for some reason she never had any sympathy for me.  Somehow I was supposed to just get over it and go back to being myself.  Even after 11 years she still doesn’t get why I have no interest in church.  And I can’t go back to being myself because that guy is dead.  I am version 2.0

Sorry for rambling all over the place but I just felt like writing and this is what came out.  But you’ve learned some new things about me, read my most memorable theater story, and now know that I am a picture taking fool.  I didn’t have the slightest interest in photography before the stroke, now it’s all I really want to do.  Some changes are really good even if they seem bad at first.  All you have to do is hang in there and never ever give up.

No matter how much you may want to.  Or for how long.

Posted in interpretation, communication, humor, wild guesses, listen, religion, emotion, stroke | Print | 2 Comments »

2. August 2009 by Frank.

It’s contagious!

Run for your lives!

Am I talking swine flu?  No.  I’m talking alienation.  One of the aftermaths of surviving a stroke.

Family and friends frequently treat survivors as if they had a highly contagious plague instead of what doctors call a brain attack.  You can’t catch a heart attack from someone who had one (that even sounds foolish), but people act as if you could catch a stroke by being near a survivor.

I once collected 32 survivor stories from real stroke survivors.  They varied wildly in the details but the most common result of stroke was what seemed to be a bizarre phobia of the people nearest to them.  You’ve all seen, heard, or read about people who have suffered horrible diseases or accidents who manage to make it through because of support from family, friends, churches, even the whole community.  With very few exceptions, most of those 32 survivors reported  their closest friends and families backed away from them in some way or another.  They did not receive an outpouring of support.  In some cases they got outright hostility.

One woman in particular reported that her husband lost all interest in her and began treating her as if she had suddenly become stupid and helpless deliberately.  He treated her as if she had lost all value as a human being.  Her stroke had made it difficult for her to speak and move but instead of support he blamed her for becoming a useless burden.  What an asshole he was.  She died soon after, depressed and alone.

Even my own dear wife informed me that I had better get back to normal because she wasn’t about to support the family.

About 10 people came to the hospital to see me after I had the stroke.  They came one time.  After that they never called, visited, wrote me a letter, or contacted me directly.  I belonged to two different churches (one Baptist and one Pentecostal) and I got one visit from each pastor; at the same time no less.  They competed to see who could say the best prayer.  After that nothing from either of them.  The love of god church people like to talk about is nothing but a joke.

My first real experience with a stroke was my mother-in-law.  She had a series of them, each one making her condition progressively worse.  At first the only effect appeared to be some minor personality changes.  Her doctor decided she was depressed and put her on antidepressants.  This turned out to be common practice amongst every story I collected.  Apparently it’s in the medical text books so everyone’s doctor diagnosed every survivor with depression.  It didn’t matter if it was really depression or not, you got Prozac or something similar.  It might have helped some.  It didn’t help my mother-in-law.

It didn’t help me, either, it made me want to kill myself.  When you find yourself sitting in a chair thinking very seriously about how hard you would have to push a knife blade into your wrist to cut the vein you can only hope you’re not so far gone you’ll actually do it.

After that I did some heavy thinking and studying.  I decided I wasn’t depressed at all.  Something else, something much more profound had happened to me.  Something very deep in the core of my being had been radically altered and I didn’t know how to cope with it.  So it may have looked like depression but I decided it wasn’t.  I decided doctors were idiots and didn’t know everything.  I decided my doctor had no experience with strokes and was just going by the book.  I was right.

I believe that is what happened to my mother-in-law as well.  The stroke had altered who she was on a very deep intimate level and she couldn’t adjust to it.  She couldn’t find any way of expressing this and so it was interpreted as depression.  This is a very common theme in all the collected stories.  Some were helped by the drugs, most were not.

Since my mother-in-law couldn’t express what was happening to her we didn’t know what to do to help her.  More often then not we decided she just didn’t want us around.  So we left her alone.  That was incredibly stupid.  But that seems typical, the survivor can’t deal with what happened so loved ones don’t know what to do so they back off because of uncertainty.

I had to learn to deal with constant pain and the complete disappearance of my faith.  Some survivors become paralyzed while others can’t speak.  Some lose their emotions, some can’t make decisions.  Many can’t remember things.  Most get stuck with some combination.  And there is some very primitive level of awareness that you have been altered. And some like my mother-in-law lose all ability to move or communicate for 8 long years before death comes.

Beside my mentor and me there were four other early members of the survivors group.  All five of them are dead.  That makes 6 stroke survivors I have known who have died from second or multiple strokes in the last eleven years.  The odds seem to be stacked enormously against me.

But I am a stubborn bastard,

I fight this with everything I have.  It’s apparently fortunate that I was always a loner from a very early age.  The support wasn’t there except for my daughter, she was only a teenager but she was there for me the whole time. 

A lack of understanding all the way around seems to be the main problem of giving survivors the help they need to make it through.  If you know anyone who had a stroke don’t abandon them.  They need you.  You may not understand what they’re going through but I can assure you that they don’t either.  Don’t back off out of fear, you can’t catch “teh stroke”, they aren’t contagious.

Even us cold hearted godless bastards can use some support now and then.

Posted in wild guesses, communication, listen, hearing, emotion, education, stroke | Print | 2 Comments »