A very personal post from a member of the Sandwich Generation.
“The doctor concluded that I am one of those rare cases where a person’s blood pressure rises for no apparent reason. I don’t totally buy that—there is no effect without a cause—but we have ruled out every potential cause known to the medical community at this particular moment.” As I said before, unless you address the real cause of high blood pressure, which is repressed aggression, everything else you do to bring it down will just be cosmetic. Thank God, the very first doctor I consulted on my high BP was not a quack. He immediately suggested I start blogging to release some of my pent-up anger.
“And I personally don’t find Obama’s domestic policies very enlightened, even if he could get more of them implemented. For example, why doesn’t he champion public education? Could it be because he never went to public school? I think it matters that he was educated to be a member of the elite. He shares the views of people who attended private schools and the Ivy League universities.” I agree with this blogger’s opinion on Obama but I want to point out that I also went to and Ivy and then taught at another Ivy. These experiences made me realize that public education is a lot more important than I could have ever imagined. We all choose what we do with our experiences, so I’m not ready to let Obama slide on this one just because “he was educated to be a member of the elite.” It was his decision what to do with his education.
Children should not be used as billboards for political ideas.
“What I was taught growing up in the anti-abortion movement, that every woman instantly bonds with her fetus as a mother to a child, is incorrect. The idea that every woman can’t help but mourn a lost child after an abortion or a miscarriage is simply wrong. Some may, but not all do. For some women, in contrast, the fetus remains a potential child all the way up until birth. Indeed, even now, as I approach that point, I still see my fetus that way.”
An interesting insight into the Canadian healthcare system.
If you are a fan of Paul Fussell, read this. I remember how eye-opening his work was to me many years ago. What a great scholar!
Canada, sometimes you suck something fierce: “Lyndon Dorval, a high school physics teacher in Edmonton who has been suspended for giving students zeroes on missed assignments/tests. (He actually does give them a chance to make up the work, but he enters a grade of zero until the assignment or test is completed.) This contravenes his school’s “no zero” policy, where teachers are expected to give students interim grades based on averages of any work students have turned in (i.e., not include any assignments the students have failed to do), and then pursue the students to turn in incomplete work by the end of the semester OR “find alternate ways…to show they know the material.” I don’t know what I would do to anybody who’d suggest I can’t give zeros for assignments that were never even handed in. Idiots.
When college graduates have to move back in with their parents, it’s not a cute new phenomenon. It’s a tragedy, you stupid jerkwad from the Washington Post. Believe somebody who comes from a culture where parents and adult children lived together as a norm.
This is the only kind of ice-cream that I like. Can anybody explain to me why I can’t find it anywhere in the US? I found something like it but it came in a big tub. It’s not the real thing, though, until it looks just like on the picture I linked to.
“There are certain issues where there is no middle ground: either the Biblical version of God exists or He doesn’t; either abortion is murder, or it’s not: either I am a person deserving the full range of Human Rights or I am not. You can whine all you like about my “black and white mentality,” but you know what? At least I’m not seeing the world in a single uniform, mushy shade of grey.” EXACTLY! I’ve been accused of “black and white mentality” too many times by people who are simply too stupid or to chicken to voice any opinion at all.
If you are past 40, play this fascinating game. I promise I’ll do it in 4 years.
“If psychiatrists’ inability to agree among themselves on a diagnosis threatened to make them a laughing stock in the 1970s, the relabelling of a host of ordinary life events as psychiatric pathology now seems to promise more of the same. Social anxiety disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, school phobia, narcissistic and borderline personality disorders are apparently now to be joined by such things as pathological gambling, binge eating disorder, hypersexuality disorder, temper dysregulation disorder, mixed anxiety depressive disorder, minor neurocognitive disorder, and attenuated psychotic symptoms syndrome. Yet we are almost as far removed as ever from understanding the etiological roots of major psychiatric disorders, let alone these more controversial diagnoses (which many people would argue do not belong in the medical arena in the first place).”
Clarissa's Blog 
Liked the 1st post. It may be very personal, but it’s quite representative.
You had an unusually good doctor. I would guess, most wouldn’t say anything of the sort.
I agree with this blogger’s opinion on Obama but I want to point out that I also went to and Ivy and then taught at another Ivy.
There is a world of difference between an initially poor immigrant from FSU, who has to work super hard to achieve this, and somebody born into it.
Now I want to try this ice-cream too. 🙂 I found a bit funny “Ice cream should not look like a brick” comment since in Israel I see Russian Plombir usually sold in this form. Don’t you like white Plombir? There is a tasty kind.
LikeLike
“There is a world of difference between an initially poor immigrant from FSU, who has to work super hard to achieve this, and somebody born into it.”
– Obama’s early life was not much easier than mine. Have you read about his family origins?
“Don’t you like white Plombir?”
– I really really do. But I can’t get to the Russian store often enough to buy it. They often don;t even have it there. And do you remember that fruit ice-cream, 7 kopeck a cone? Oh, I loved it.
LikeLike
You can’t find any Neopolitan ice cream? Hmm not sure where you could find any. I thought it was just in most grocery stores, but maybe it’s going out of style!
LikeLike
Oh, I hope it isn’t going out of style for good!
LikeLike
Me too! When I was a kid, I remember it was almost a scientific endeavor, trying to make sure you got the right proportions of whatever two (or three, but usually two) flavors you really liked. For me it was mostly chocolate with about 30% strawberry…except that it never fit the description in this article, it was GOOD ice cream and the strawberry had actual strawberry chunks in it. But now that you mention it, I haven’t been able to find it lately…
LikeLike
As for Neapolitan ice cream, I’ve mostly only seen it in the “value” ice creams — the ones that are part ice cream, part ice milk and, as you mentioned, often come in the big plastic tubs or cheaper cartons. Though apparently Breyer’s does make a version of it. But I’m not sure if it’s exactly what you’re looking for. And even if it is, of course, there’s no guarantee that the grocery stores by you will stock it.
Speaking of food, this week I wrote about school lunch changes I would like to see. (I eat school lunch. This matters to me.) 😉
LikeLike
I thoroughly agree with this: “Yet we are almost as far removed as ever from understanding the etiological roots of major psychiatric disorders, let alone these more controversial diagnoses (which many people would argue do not belong in the medical arena in the first place).””
Really, read Judith Harmon’s TRAUMA AND RECOVERY. ALL of the traumatic psychiatric disorders are based in a sense of abandonment. ALL of them. She categorizes this as Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. We, as humans are social creatures, relying on each other for support. If we get that support, we can put up with almost anything, but if it’s not forthcoming, we will eventually succumb to a “disorder”. People need to grow up and stop labeling each other and start to act effectively in relation to one another.
LikeLike
“We, as humans are social creatures, relying on each other for support. If we get that support, we can put up with almost anything, but if it’s not forthcoming, we will eventually succumb to a “disorder”. ”
– I think you just diagnozed me as non-human. 🙂 The blight of my existence has been that I can’t find a way to be left alone, and here you tell me I need more “support.” Thanks but no, thanks! 🙂
LikeLike
Oh, I think you misunderstand something here. Actually everything I’ve said. The book is about people who attempt something in life, like going to war, or doing something for their political beliefs that lands them in prison. These people go nuts if they feel the last lifeline to society has been removed from them. An example you might be able to relate to would be those returning vets from the Vietnam war. I know this is not a good example, but I have no idea what you could relate to.
In any case, I’m not talking about normal society in the cities where people are hippy dippy or whatever. I’m actually not sure what you thought I was talking about.
LikeLike
Since you said “We, as humans”, I thought you were talking about all humans, including you and me. There was no way for me to guess that this was about political prisoners or anything of the kind.
LikeLike
Yes, all humans are this way. But you drew a conclusion from what I said that wasn’t in the statement. Just because we do, at the most fundamental level, need support, doesn’t mean we need it all the time, that it is the palliative for all ills, or that more support is better than less support. Those kinds of ideas, which might have been the ones you had when you read my statement, had nothing to do with what I said.
Rather, when you strip the human psyche down to its barest bones, at that point, the question of having or not having support makes all the difference. I think it’s because we psychologically regress under extreme pressure, and the adult coping mechanisms are no longer available to us.
LikeLike
“Rather, when you strip the human psyche down to its barest bones, at that point, the question of having or not having support makes all the difference. I think it’s because we psychologically regress under extreme pressure, and the adult coping mechanisms are no longer available to us.”
– I’m not a war prisoner or a soldier. But I’ve had too much damage done to me under the aegis of support that I was told I needed that I cannot be expected to react well to the word. My problems are not as grave as those of prisoners of war but they are near and dear to me. I’m not planning to stop talking about what ails me because torture victims have suffered more. Yes, they have but does that mean I should stop solving my issues?
LikeLike
Um…I totally agree with your position. I wasn’t trying to imply a comparison of any sort. My whole views are totally abstract. In fact, if you got to know me, you’d find I think in terms of systems and abstractions all the time. I make no moral judgments, or if I do, they’re tentative and only after a long time of deliberation. Ok, I was a little bit facetious in my earlier reply to you, when you misinterpreted me, because I don’t liked being viewed as a hippy airhead, when I am making statements about systems. 🙂
I do agree that it’s important to be able to address problems without having to justify one’s efforts with the claim that these are “the most serious problems evva!” I think that is where a lot of people go astray, all the time, for example in imagining that there cannot possibly be a system called “patriarchy”, because men suffer worst abuses than women in many instances. The fact that men suffer is often completely unquestionable, but men can suffer in truly horrible ways and, nonetheless, there can also be a system in place that treats people according to their genders.
LikeLike
“The fact that men suffer is often completely unquestionable, but men can suffer in truly horrible ways and, nonetheless, there can also be a system in place that treats people according to their genders.”
– When commenter Tit for tat understands him, I suggest we all give me a medal. 🙂 🙂
LikeLike
We all await that glorious day when Tit for Tat can transcend his emotional view of reality.
LikeLike
“We all await that glorious day when Tit for Tat can transcend his emotional view of reality.”
– Have you noticed how this “there is no patriarchy, no don’t talk to me about no patriarchy” approach is always deeply emotional? Whenever you try to challenge it on a rational level, it dissolves in emotionality.
LikeLike
Yes, I’ve noticed it. Strangely perhaps, I have also noticed it with the term “Western”, especially in postmodernist circles. People will do anything not to be identified as part of the “West”. Or else, they will do mental summersaults, saying, “Okay, there is such a thing as the West, but the whole world is part of it!”
I’ve noticed it with both these terms. It’s like people feel guilty, but they don’t know what to do about it.
I guess it’s natural. Identities are very emotional aspects of our beings.
I’m going to write a blog post at some point to indicate why I think “intellectual shamanism” is useful in giving methods and training to live without the imposition of an identity. The social construct of identity can be useful in many ways, but it is ultimately a limit, a cage, both in terms of freedom and in terms of the ability to see the world more broadly (closer to how it actually is). Identity is a very narrow prism through which to see the world.
LikeLike
“Strangely perhaps, I have also noticed it with the term “Western”, especially in postmodernist circles. People will do anything not to be identified as part of the “West”.”
– Yes, I know. That is something I really don’t get.
LikeLike
They see Western as being indicative of colonialism. A thorough analysis would indicate that also much colonialism does originate in the “West”, especially the western part of Europe, that all sorts of wars and systems of domination also originate outside of the West.
The problem with “the West” is its tremendous guilt complex — a complex that is taught in schools and universities.
This means people are stuck at the level of traumatic vision, which makes them immature in terms of understanding international relations.
When you reduce everything down to an issue of good versus evil, you’re not really understanding much of anything at all.
LikeLike
“A thorough analysis would indicate that also much colonialism does originate in the “West”, especially the western part of Europe, that all sorts of wars and systems of domination also originate outside of the West.
The problem with “the West” is its tremendous guilt complex — a complex that is taught in schools and universities.”
– I SO agree. This guilt complex annoys me to no end. It takes forever to convince Western people that the reason why UKraine is so piss poor has nothing whatsoever to do with them. They keep insisting that they victimized us in some way when the reality is that we did that all to ourselves.
LikeLike
They need to make themselves the center of everything, so that all the goods and evils of the world revolve around them. It’s a form of unhealthy narcissism, although it looks like its opposite.
LikeLike
Also, I didn’t tell you that you needed more “support”. I have no idea what that means. I’m talking about the way people can give support to each other when they are on death row for their political beliefs. They sing songs through prison walls, apparently.
LikeLike
I loved that “some things are black and white” post. It kind of contradicts the “Dreams of a Miscarriage”. Yes, women react to miscarriages differently. Some women believe they have lost a potential child, while some believe they have lost an actual child. But they can’t both be right.
If fetus is just a potential child, then you shouldn’t treat it like an actual child. Giving it a name and a tomb is an overreaction. On the other hand, if a fetus is an actual child, you shouldn’t treat it as if it were merely a potential child. If a fetus is child, then the death of a fetus should be mourned the same way you mourn the death of a child.
LikeLike
Yes, naming fetuses is bizarre. But I hear some people do that with other body parts. There was that story about a person who buried his lost leg or something.
There are many weird people.
LikeLike