This page is for comments
Recent Comments
Our Links
Email us at: primalinstitute@gmail.com
if you want to reach us privately feel free to email!-
Join 98 other subscribers
Blog Calendar
September 2014 M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Meta
Primal Institute 
👍 Thank you Gretch. 🙈🙉🙊😉
[Set up for Margaret]
Larry: Thank you for your last post. I realize people might get tired of what I have to gripe about, but who else in the world is going to speak my case now except for me? No one. There are no verbal advocates for me except….me.
Staying focused on what I have to finish is a horrible struggle for me right now.
Guru, didn’t the insurance company pay?
Regarding that $10 mil – I haven’t lost a parent in an accident, but still, with both of them making it to 88 years old there’s no way I’ll ever get to have that kind of money.
Daniel & Margaret:
Daniel: My mother only made it to 30 years of age. She was a busy career woman trying to raise little toddler me, so I think sudden mortality was the very last thing she would have ever expected to have happened to her at the time (so no insurance). The workday world probably seemed like a reasonably innocent place to her when in reality it was far more dangerous than she could have possibly imagined.
I’m a little surprised at your not believing you can become rich. I do think it’s possible for most anyone if s/he really wants it, but it’s much more difficult for some people to achieve than others for a lot of different reasons.. Also, many people don’t even want to bother trying to get rich, anyway.
Margaret: Thanks a lot for reading my grandmother’s story. I do have some experience with geriatric care issues, but I was a bit too young & ignorant at the time to fully appreciate exactly how I should have worked with her. “If only I knew then what I know now.”
What’s going on with your mother right now is much more urgent and my grand mother has been dead for more than a decade, so I will leave this one be…
In many countries such auto insurance is mandatory when driving a motor vehicle, and its coverage for bodily injury/death is in the millions. Perhaps it was different back then in the states, which anyway was never big on social responsibility.
About getting rich – I used to have a business that did alright (and mostly taught me how to think about value) , but now I’m in a line of work where to make an extra buck I need to work an extra hour. And there are just so many hours I can do this. You don’t mean the Rich Dad Poor Dad stuff, do you?
Daniel:
I’ve actually heard of Rich Dad, Poor Dad (Robert Kyosaki?, not sure) from a long time ago.
No, that’s not what I was thinking about.
A long time ago I asked Gretchen here on the blog how someone like Michael Dell could accumulate a net worth of $300 million by the time he was 26 years old back in the 1980’s. I remember reading about him in “Forbes” magazine at the time. How in the hell does a kid start from scratch and make that kind of money when most people his age back then were still trying to put their wits together??
It left me asking all kinds of questions about creativity and brain plasticity, etc.
Daniel and Guru,
thanks so much for your kind comments.
they both touched me.
Guru, that is such a sad story about your grandmother.
M
Guru,
I don’t think it helps you to consider yourself in terms of slavery.
I get where it comes from, but maybe your mom would be proud of you if she sees how you do take care of yourself and your dad as well.
this does not deny at all the enormous loss you had and have to deal with, hope you don’t mind what I say, I mean well..
M
Margaret: No, I don’t mind at all, thank you for that. I don’t need a lot of attention lavished on me about it. I’m ok!
I just…am having a lot of difficulty finishing a current project is all..
Falling prey to too many distractions…
Avoiding the harsh difficulty of finishing this project….
As I get closer to finishing it the procrastination gets worse and worse..
Everything else is mostly idle conversation, really.
My only reason fot this comment is such that I will be subscribing to part 6 … and hopefully get the emails of all comments.
Jack
a good day today.
when I called mom she was about to wash and dye her hair before going with her boyfriend to a meeting of the hiking club direction in the evening.
it seems to lift up my own mood significantly when she is ok like this.
a good thing too before my brother will leave on a biking trip for ten days to Spain.
also managed to summarize almost 30 pages of course ‘biological basis of cognition’ so feel satisfied.
should soon restart on statistics but am procrastinating…
Patrick your reply to Gretchen of ‘ or was it Gary or Mary’ is not even that of an 8 year old anymore but more like a 4 year old’s ..
what has gotten into you?
why the vicious and unfounded attack on Larry after he wished you a good life?
so much resentment and bitterness, where does it come from really?
you must be feeling really bad for some reason, very unhappy if I may guess.
is it again a case of turning against the ones you feel ind of close to?
what would the vulnerable Patrik have to say?
M
Margaret – you seem to have me confused with someone else at least in this business about ‘Gary or Mary’ I have NO idea what you are talking about but I can assure you it was nothing that came out of my mouth. About the other stuff – I dunno in my expierience ‘primal people’ in many ways worse than average first of all they or course have a lot of ‘pain’ but then they have their ‘primal ideology’ whicn in my expierience makes them ‘worse’ it’s often a sophistocated way NOT to feel. I have seen it more than once so I am not sure here is even a good place for me anymore. Plus anything here is on the surface the real mayhem starts once you get close to them………………
Patrick: Isn’t that the fun part when the real mayhem starts?
Don’t go, OK? There’s still lots of fun to be had in the mental health ghetto. I have a warm fire going over here in this rusty old barrel so we can cook some pork chops & corn-on-the-cob I found in the back dumpster from the nearby inner city grocery store. I’ll even lay down some old prison blankets on the wet alleyway asphalt so you can avoid the broken glass and used syringes, fair enough?
If your heart’s really into it I’ll share this half of the Colt 45 malt liquor bottle I have in this crinkly brown paper bag with you, too. We can get drunk and I will read you some passages from Art and Jack’s books while you nod off to a good snoring sleep.
Maybe I could find some other inviting knick-knacks for you to use from my shopping cart here, too?
Guru – about the fun part being when the real mayhem starts……………it COULD be but even there it takes two to tango and in my expierience though ‘primal people’ may SAY they want to elicit emotions in themselves and the other person the problem often starts when they do (in you) and oops then it’s Houston we have a problem. Someone is no\w all of a sudden ‘actiing out’ or ‘ranting’ or ‘raving’ not doing things in the correct and approved primal way. Kind of the ultimate ‘head trip’. (But then to make up for the lack of emotion in their lives they traipse off to retreats on a regular basis) Of course anything that makes emotions the object of ‘study’ or objects in any way runs the danger of being a ‘head trip’. Reminds me once I saw a video of Janov doing the so called UCLA ‘experiment’ showing a guy so called ‘writhing in pain’ and there was Janov with a michivous grin on his face as if to say ‘see it’s happening, see it’s real’. It was really quite an absurd and even sickening display at least that’s how it struck me.
About your ‘offer’ keep in mind though I might be borderline homeless I AM demanding………….all your stuff has to organic, paleo, etc etc etc any meat you have must have been slaugtered with the animal facing the magnetic North and done by a Himalyan goat herd and NO alcohol please so if you can fullfill those kinds of ‘demands’ I will consider your offer otherwise NO! Got that?
Oh! so you read it … yeah! How about giving it a critique … and don’t be shy … I don’t bite whe genuine critisim is offered.
Jack
Jack: No, I currently have a self-enforced agreement only to read your book after both Barry and Gretchen have:
a) Read your book
b) Submitted a written essay exam displaying a thorough comprehension & mastery of your book’s contents, and
c) Have given your writings their tacit seal of approval.
Have you arranged this with them first so I can be next in line?
Plus I think Barry HAS read Jack’s book or at least Irena’s ‘digest’ of it. I KNOW he has I SAW him reading it as he mumbled something about how Jack might finally make a sale.
No! I made no agreement with them. I gave them a copy some two Christmas groups ago … and signed it and asked for their comment after reading it. Some three months later I sent Gretchen a private email asking if they had read it … but didn’t get a reply. I can only assume they hung it up in the toilet and used it for toilet paper … or lost it. Who knows??????
A short history of Jack’s book.
Jack
I look forward to reading YOUR book one day, UG.
I am sorry if what I did was “vicious and unfounded attack on Larry after he wished you a good life?” I took it as ‘sarcasm’ on Larry’s part the have a good life comment. But I apologise it was a bit over the top I suppose when someone say’s ‘have a good life’ they could mean it but to me it usually connotes sarcasm and not a nice thing to say. It always kind of hits me like a relationship is just broken up and the ‘unhurt’ one says to the ‘hurt’ one have a good life. Llke NO don’t have a good life!
I really do wish you a good life Patrick, but I don’t see any evidence that you’ve shared that you are making any progress that way. Could that be why it’s easier for you to talk about what’s going on in Scotland, or in the middle east, the same kind of stuff talked about on lots of other blogs and coffee shops, rather than talk about your own life (I’ll concede you have on rare occasions shared your life here and endeared yourself to us). Does this blog distress you so much because people talk here about their lives and difficulties and the progress they are making!
Hi Margaret
Your struggle to succeed with your mum, studies etc is truly heroic in my eyes.
Tom
Well it seems Scotland is going to stay with the UK so “Great Britain” can still be ‘great’. I thought myself it was a pretty silly idea Scottish Independance but I did like the irony of how the UK ranges around the world (with the US and Israel) smashing and breaking up these countries – Syria is next on the ‘hit list’ – if it was to come home to them in the form of a referendum. BTW I think that might be some kind of solution in the US if the country was to break apart, then who would ‘own’ the Pentagon? Something like that may well happen in time and maybe sooner that we think. And it would have the ‘advantage’ of getting rid of Social Security something near and dear to the Right for a long time…………….
Good god, I resent when I lose sleep – haunted by your posts Patrick. You spew your poison and then waltz back on here as if nothing has happened!
I cannot ignore your pompous ignorance anymore. Who in their right mind lambastes all the people that you do – that’s right – Gretchen, Barry, The Institute , Art Janov, Primal people as you insist on calling us – both collectively and so, so many individually, Jewish people… and then continues to stalk and spout forth on The Primal Blog.
The real irony is that for all your talk of being there for the underdog, and to set things right – it is you who is the biggest Bully ever.
You’re right Leslie, but Patrick “waltzes in as if nothing has happened” because he’s not letting in anything we say — ever since the one retreat he went to, where he didn’t like what people said to him, especially Barry, so he stormed out in anger, rejecting the whole Primal process and everyone along with it, ever since. Then he went to Ireland for his mom, and we heard about what a relatively good time he had — but for some reason, he decided not to stay there. And although he was asked, he hasn’t said why, just like he avoids every other real question put to him.
And since coming back here, he has increasingly been angrier, if that’s possible, and burning more and more bridges to any and everyone in the Primal community. His attacks have deteriorated to chronic bullying. Just that little kid throwing rocks over the fence at everyone who he feels hurts him (which is everyone!).
Yet he doesn’t just “leave”. Margaret said something that made me think, if we are all so weak and a waste of his time, and PT is so defective in his view, then why doesn’t Patrick just “leave” the blog, and go find something else wonderful to do, there are a million options in life? But he stays here, it must be because he still “wants something”, he still “needs” this place for some crazy or healthy reason, or both.
And of course it would be a lot better Leslie if we were all nicey nicey like you and all so unreal. Constant empty nattering about how we support each other, are we that ‘weak” we need so much support – to stand up?. We could all trade little x/o x/o with each other ad infinitum. That would be useless and boring indeed and it is mostly when you are around. It’s maybe good you lose sleep maybe a different thought might edge itself across your controlled and propagandised brain.
The world is a troubled place I understand I suppose the desire to keep it all nicey nicey but it not so at least for most of the world. And while we are slaughtering whole countries the best seemingly we can do here is talk about ‘holocaust movies’ but NEVER mention actual holocausts going on daily and a lot of it ‘inspired’ by these very holocaust movies and other propaganda.
Should this comment gets posted up there somewhere lost in the mix and there is any doubt, it is directed to Patrick.
The bulk of what you write on the blog, since you’ve been here, is largely devoid of substance. Almost all of it, especially recently, is blind rage, using any flimsy excuse you can muster even if you have to inflate it, against people here and against Primal Therapy, rage that has little or no direct connection to the reality of the moment. Most people here have been open and friendly, generous with their time in trying to get to know, understand and support you. You turn around and call us weaklings and attack us.
What kind of monster attacks weaklings.
I see a movie with a friend, based on a true story that took place in Hungary during WWII, that stirs up memories and feelings for me of my early life, that expands my sensibility of what life was like for my parents’ generation, that gives me greater appreciation for what it would be like to be stigmatized and oppressed. It gives me greater comprehension of how fear provides opportunity for thugs to manipulate and take advantage of vulnerable people and rise to power, to take control, to suppress opposition and force their agenda. The movie made me think of my friend Tom. It gave me deeper insight into what his growing up life might have been like. I hoped he’d be willing to talk about his experience of his recent trip to Hungary. With a bully like you on the blog though, trying to take control, trying to belittle everyone else and force your agenda only, I doubt that he’ll want to.
At first I hesitated to post about the WWII movie because I was pretty sure you’d explode on the scene in reaction to it and I didn’t want the hassle. Then I realized I’d be letting you be the dictator of my agenda, that you’d be oppressing my free exchange here with Tom.
This blog is about risking openness, risking trust, risking self exploration, reaching out for support, risking honesty and directness, risking being vulnerable, risking being seen, risking being ourselves, risking making friendships or enemies. Your bullying, your wanting talk about only what you want to talk about, sabotages all of that. You make people not want to be here. The irony is that you almost never say anything except to rage against what we have to say. You rarely engage in any real discussion with anyone about anything. You mostly just hurl what you hope will be insults.
Without ever having brought it up in any prior discussion, you automatically assert and rage, because it suits you, that I have no thought or opinion on the Palestinian issue or what is going on in the world today.
Your recent behaviour on the blog smacks of pompous self-righteousness, of dictating your agenda and being dismissive of other people who’ve tried to befriend you, of callous disregard for people you deem to be weaklings…all characteristics of the oppressive bullies in power in the world, throughout history and right now.
In a way you have hijacked my agenda. In writing to you I used up the time I wanted to devote to writing to everyone else. Then again, I feel I am writing this for myself, for you, and for everyone else.
In the 4th paragraph from the bottom, “your wanting talk about only what you want to talk about” was meant to be “your wanting us to talk about only what you want to talk about”
Larry, this is clear. And very good, especially because you seldom have wanted to say so much, in response to Patrick’s posts. Margaret also has some great things to say, but she does it more often, so I am more used to it, with her. I like it when you “stand up”, too.
Patrick’s callous tirades against everyone here and their sharing of their lives and their feelings, and his insistence that we only talk about the news, goes against the premise of the blog and destroys it’s atmosphere, to the point where I’ve come close to giving up on the blog. I feel I’m fighting for the blog, for the group dynamics that the rest of you create that is very important to me. I feel if Patrick continues his loutish behaviour, the blog that I love will die and there is no alternative to it, whereas I am informed about the news and health issues from many, infinitely better, far more in depth sources than Patrick.
Patrick, it is Sooo unproductive on this blog to keep talking globally, unless you can reveal that you are going to help change the world? ….and why, exactly, ( or even approximately) are you raging and being nasty? You’re so missing the point, if you see Leslie being unreal.
For a few months, when I read your comments that just ooze anger and spray vitriol, Patrick, I always think of you like a barking dog in the night. who doesn’t know why he’s barking, except fear. Which reminded me imperfectly of David Lynch’s long-running cartoons (1983-1992). In ‘The Angriest Dog in the World’, he wrote: “The dog who is so angry he cannot move. He cannot eat. He cannot sleep. He can just barely growl. …Bound so tightly with tension and anger, he approaches the state of rigor mortis.”
The emptiness is yours, Patrick. Hollow and ringing. And has nothing to do with the “whole countries” you imagine you really care about, more than all the mundane and personal things that go on here, that you pretend you don’t need.
Vicki – I consider you a pretty flawed messenger and therefore pretty much discount to a large degree whatever you say to me. You can talk a good game and fit in with the crowd and get a feeling of agreement and support but to me at least your body tells a whole different story. That goes deeper than the kind of surface agreement you get here.
If can get a bit personal and excuse me if it is too personal. When I against my better judgement thought about going to a retreat again and I decided ok I would based really on some of the people here who were very kind to me…………..I met you as you remember I am sure about helping me with the mechanics of the retreat etc. I met you and I have to say I was shocked, shocked by your seeming state of extreme physical enfeeblement. You could hardly stand up or sit down or once sitting down you seemed to have a hard time even getting out of the chair.
Then you told me you had a session once a week with Gretchen, you went to group and you went to all the retreats. Right there my misgivings were majorly re-awakened I mean I could not square what you were doing with any concept of health mental or physical that I ahd any understanding of. I did end up going against a lot of my better judegement and I don’t regret it for some of the people I have met. But Vicki I am being honest here with you I found your condition shocking and I see no much change in anything you have done since. So you may ‘feel your feelings’ or do what you consider the right things as opposed to me who do all the ‘wrong’ things but in all honesty Vicki I would not change places with you. You toss off words about me llke ‘delusional’ to me you are delusional in the true sense. I was also shocked that Gretchen would leave a situation like that continue without seriously questioning what good it was doing you.
I may get a lot more flack for this but I see you as a good example of the kind of extreme ‘delusional’ thinking of some primal people. To any casual observer you are falling apart at least physically and yet you believe in this ‘theory of feelings’ that you somehow have convinced yourself is doing you good. To my way of thinking it is doing you a lot of harm because for you to be realistic about yourself and even begin to make some kind of start on your problems it might really help to sweep away comforting delusions which I see your ‘theory of feelings ‘ as being exactly that. Sorry if I am too ‘honest’ here but I get sick of biting my tongue and being lectured to by the likes of you who obviously have no idea how to take care of yourself. Your ‘critiques’ of me I pretty much discount totally and doubt that would change. It’s a free blog and you can say what you want about me just know I pay it little or no attention. It pretty much always feels like someone going along with a crowd and deriving some ‘strenght’ from that. That kind of thing I have no respect for
Patrick, you have no reluctance to attack other people here who DO take good care of themselves physically, and you don’t listen to what they say, any more than you listen to me. You simply find the most convenient excuse, to dismiss whatever anyone says. As a bully, you resort to cheap shots — and pick up whatever stick or rock is handy.
That said, your comments about my physical problems do get to me, and make me feel bad, because I am not happy with my health either. But apparently you erroneously imagine I do or have done little or nothing to improve myself, and therefore you have one more supposed illustration of the “failure” of PT, like your “suicides”, the homeless shelter guy and the Croatian guy . I am a flawed messenger, indeed.
You must believe if only they let you run the place, then we would all be so much better off, with your successful therapeutic example to follow. So if you don’t need therapy, then why are you still here?
Vicki – I give you some credit for looking at yourself here but as to the ‘failure’ of PT yes all the examples you mentioned and there are many many more. There are two ‘old patients’ I run into around Venice sometimes and they are both destitute and borderline homeless. Again nothing against them but put this up against Janov’s ‘promises’ I don’t know why this seems to always have to be referred back to some quality of mine. I now sense more of an impatience here and not only from you that I should just clear off. No more un-welcome reminders of the myriad ‘failures’ of PT.
As to if I was running the place……………..I believe I could start to point people to a different and better place without sacrificing Janov’s key insight. Which I believe is probably best left as something in the background kind of informing things without trying to focus on it or make it the explicit point. That has been tried and yes I would say the verdict is un-ambigous it has failed. The PI persists in doing things in a way it must be quite clear to them is not working……………….as to reasons for that I would guess partly just the inertia that makes change very hard and partly to just continue the ‘family business’ Also as James Kunstler calls it ‘the psychology of previous investment’ which is a fancy way of saying if we have invested so much in a ‘belief system’ the costs of changing or even abandoning it go up and up. This applies to a personal and societal level also.
Patrick
A big PS.
When Barry called you a boorish person at the retreat, I thought that was a very strong reaction to you. But now, I fully concur with him. He saw you, like no one else saw you, or wouldn’t want to acknowledge to themselves what they saw. You are beyond belief.
The saying of “bite the hand that feeds you”, was written about you.
Have a nice life. Do not bother replying to me.
Tom
Patrick
That was a nasty, cheap shot at Vicki. Lower than the lowest.
You are totally despicable. I would’ve never thought you would sink this low. Disgusting.
I don’t understand why anyone even bothers with you. You don’t deserve it.
Why don’t you take your own advice and start your own “Therapy”, whatever that may be. God save the patients though. At least we would not be exposed to your constant drivel.
I am amazed that anyone even takes you seriously by responding to you.
Sayonara.
Tom
Thanks, Tom. Your words make me feel more, how it did hurt me — not always easy for me to feel that. I was so “used to it” as a child, it became like armor… even though that doesn’t really “work”.
I would trust you Tom to ‘get the wrong end of the stick’ from believing Israel is a force for good to seeing a bit of straight talk as ‘despicable’ What exactly is sinking low about telling someone (Vicki) something pretty much everyone ‘thinks’ anyway but never says so. I was only at 3 retreats and Vicki reliably sits in a chair (can’t get on and off the floor?) and ‘analyses’ and ‘points stuff out’ all about OTHER people, just as she does here to me. Now that’s the way I see it, I find it utterly unconvincing on every level. It’s so weird we have gone from Janov’s original idea of ‘over-throwing the defence system by violence’ to this to where nobody is ‘honest’ at all. Like a 180 degree flip. But it’s ‘marketed’ as the SAME therapy………………now that’s a pretty slick ‘bait and switch’. Sell it as the original but since that did not work either do a ‘safer’ version, a version that bears almost no relation to the original. Both ‘wrong’ IMO, it shows how tricky a good foundation is or a bad one is in this case……………
I put in a lot of overtime again at work this week. I completed the harvesting of our far away research plots, and with that the busy field season is coming to a close and work and overtime won’t dominate my life so much as it has been since Spring. In fact, I’ve accumulated so much overtime and unused vacation time that I’ll be taking Fridays off through the winter. The extra long weekends, the extra free time at my disposal, will help me adjust to what retirement will be like and will help inform me what I will need to do to make my life meaningful in retirement.
Last week was my first Friday off. I volunteered my time to help a committee whose aim is to reduce our impact on the environment. The committee has been together for a while. It’s all women. I’m the newbie, and not sure if I have anything to contribute, and feel out of place, but they welcome me, so far.
This Friday, I’ll join 5 other photographer guy friends and acquaintances on a weekend trip to photograph in a wilderness park. I’ve never done anything like this with them. They are very good photographers. Two of them make a living at photography. I feel like I don’t belong, but they welcome me, so far.
I joined ballroom dance class again. The first class was last night but I missed it because of work. I feel like I’m not much of a dancer and no one would want to dance with me, but I’ve always discovered I’m welcome and I usually end up having some fun.
I’m getting to know a singles group. I’ve gone to movies and plays with them, but I was the only guy from the group at these, and I felt kind of out of place. One outing in August evolved to holding a pot luck at one of their homes and watching the weekend football game on TV. I felt relieved that a couple of other guys attend. Usually there are 5 – 8 ladies and us 3 guys. I almost never watch football. The game is kind of interesting, but mostly it is such relief and feels much healthier to spend time with people and not be constantly alone. They have been getting together for quite a while and know each other well. I’m the newbie, quiet and shy, feeling out of place, but they welcome me. I’m learning how afraid and insecure I am, and how to relate in a group of people and not just wall myself off and isolate.
Even though I feel I don’t fit in, I’m glad for these outings because otherwise I have nothing but my work, and when I’m retired I won’t have that stable reality any more. I feel fragile and alone but have no choice but to put myself out there to try to create a community, a life for myself besides work. Lots of feeling come up. Several times a week I’m screaming for Noreen, then descend to being a terrified little kid screaming because I have no one.
My plan this morning was to get ready for my photography trip with the fellas that begins this afternoon, and get some chores done before I go. To my unease I’ve got none of that done thanks to devoting time instead to the blog this morning. I’m not sure that Patrick is worth it, but the rest of you are.
Larry,Your weekend photography trip to a wilderness park sounds like fun. I hope it goes well. Its great the way you are putting yourself out there to get all these social things going.Phil
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 15:45:34 +0000 To: phiban@msn.com
🙂
Patrick,
for the Mary or Gary thing go back to your reply to Gretchen when she said she thought she kniw why Barry called you what he called you at the time.
Boarish if I remember this one well..
M
Margaret:
This is going to be embarrassing, but I was the one who responded to Gretchen about “Mary or Gary”. Patrick didn’t do it.
It was extremely subtle humor that no one understood, so it fell flat on its face.
Patrick,
you are not completely stupid, so what makes you persist in behaving like some lunatic?
will you contunue to do so and them add the occasional apology and then rant again?
just ranting about any subject you can think of is not expressing your feeling, you should know the difference between what is an act out and what is not.
or maybe you don’t, come to think of it..
you do sound crazier than ever for some reason.
Gretchen is so right you only answer with insults and ignore all the questions.
do you feel like it leads you anywhere at all?
you keep trying to depict us all as ‘weaklings’ without any basic knowledge of what people do or have achieved in their daily lives.
it seems a recurring theme for you that to be ‘weak’ is the most despicable of all things.
weak or vulnerable?
M
Patrick, Barry used to say to people, “right feeling, wrong address”. I always took it to be a hierarchy where the “right feeling” takes precedence over the “wrong address”. So The way I explain it to myself is you’re bringing up to everybody’s attention a catastroph, and that catastroph is very real to you and you need it to be recognized and for us to stroll the grounds – your ground zero if you will – of this ‘place’ with you. Perhaps there are no other means to have an-other be there with you.
I guess for you PT was a crack of light under a door but the door nevertheless remained shut. That is indeed tragic.
Daniel: your analogies I found to be very appropriate … providing that one sees clearly the context of the analogy. In my attempt to put Barry’s analogy into it’s context I would rephrase it here:- “The feeling is correct … it’s being addressed (expressed) in the wrong manner”
The other was your final line where you suggested there was a crack of light under the door. I didn’t personally accept the door had to remain shut … I just knew I had to open it … and enter therein.
Neither, being always obvious … especially after getting our brains twisted out of shape when we were too little to do anything about it Now in hindsight we’ve bought into the inevitability of what happened. However, there was this ‘guy’ that said we didn’t have to accept the status quo …. we could change it … if we were prepared to look at it all afresh.
Therein lies the psychological problem. We’er all too invested in the way it is … on the outside..
Daniel – yes I have had a big personal set back recently but here for a number of reasons is not the right place to talk about it. I am not being ‘cute’ about it it just isn’t possible here.
And I do focus outwards there was some VERY bad news again about global warming. I mean I know all that it’s not news to me but each time it can send me spinning into a kind of abyss. And I focus on the endless wars it makes me feel so frustrated and angry the mindless destuction and the waste of lives. I am aware that could be considered ‘projection’ but my problem is that is never enough, it is ALSO real cannot just be ‘primalled’ away or explained away as a ‘projection’. Anyway I felt better later and thanks for your concern. I could see you would be a good therapist your understanding can be quite deep and accepting.
Patrick has talked about suicides a fair bit in recent months.
He is also of a prime suicide demographic (white male, 60’s).
Lots of people are seriously dogpiling on Patrick here these past couple days.
…If Patrick is under a lot of undiscussed despair won’t all this dogpiling on him send him closer to the edge of the actual abyss?
I am starting to become concerned that Patrick may decide to go out with a bang.
I have to start questioning the wisdom of what it taking place today with the combined fury of multiple people are brought to bear upon someone who may already be under a lot of psychological strain.
I really feel it would be a great idea for everyone to quietly back away and let Patrick take all this in and speak with a little bit of space.
I also say this with a great deal of trepidation, but I’m not a big fan of Janov either in a lot of respects (which is why I chose Viv’s place) and that’s why I sympathize with Patrick here a bit even though I understand where everyone is coming from with the bullying and insults.
If I pissed anyone off today with this post, please give me a “mulligan” as a birthday gift today, OK? Reading this blog today has left a feeling of “dark clouds” to start off a nice little gathering I have to run to. So, goodbye.
Thanks Guru, that’s very nice and thoughful of you. But I’m ok I would say people piling on me doesn’t bother me so much. I actually had a good day I felt I got deep inside myself for a while so felt better later. Thanks again though.
Guru, Is it your birthday? Happy Birthday and I hope you can leave the clouds behind and have a nice celebration! Gretch
Is it really your birthday UG?
Gretchen & Margaret: Thanks for your birthday wishes. It was fun, but just a bit much peer pressure to drink lots of wine..And thanks for the future hopes. I see a lot of ultra-hard challenges along the way, though.
Larry: Yes, it was Friday. Some new lady I met asked me the same thing you did and I had to ask her if she wanted to see my driver’s license. Do people lie about their birthdays for strategic reasons or something? I understand some people (such as Estee Lauder) not saying which year, but why would month & day make any difference, I wonder?
I think you did well on your birthday, UG. Mine makes me uncomfortable. No one gives mine much attention, and that’s the way I’ve unconsciously orchestrated it, except when it falls on a Retreat where I decided to let people know and then I walk through the fire.
A little late because we returned a few weeks ago, but I am feeling inspired to share more about my vacation in Spain, which has been
the source of a lot of issues in the past, as I have talked about here and at the retreat. The problem has been that while in Spain I can easily feel ignored
by my wife as she is busy with her numerous family members and friends. It has usually been
impossible to get her to make adjustments. Also, all her family is there and she only came to
the US as an adult, so our vacations mostly take place in Spain as a result. On my part, I tend
to build up this trip in my mind as a wonderful time for the two of us and our boys, rather than
the family visit that it really is. When that wouldn’t happen it would became a huge disappointment for me. This issue has often contributed to problems for us weeks and months after we’ve returned, and in fact has seemed to sum up all the difficulties we experience as a couple.
I’m happy to report that everything went very smoothly for us, maybe the best ever. There was
only one incident that came up one evening, and it was forgotten by the next day. I think what happened is; our relationship has been in a better place, I’ve had more success at expressing
what I want and need (which is a really big thing for me), and my wife responded well to this. Also, I think I have made progress on some feelings which get triggered in this type situation, so things didn’t get blown out of proportion. Of course, it won’t necessarily be smooth sailing just because of
this, but it is very encouraging and positive. It even has me feeling that the prospect of a future retirement where we would spend a lot of time in Spain as something which could work out.
I didn’t do any better with the language however, and ended up staying quiet too much of the time.
I came home resolved to study this year and have Juana give me lessons, as she is of course,
a native speaker and actually a high school Spanish teacher. We gave up a similar effort many years ago because too many feelings got in the way. It started happening again that way last week.
I noticed that being corrected when I make mistakes speaking feels like receiving punishment,
I connected this with receiving punishment from my mother (spanking) when the only thing I was doing wrong was trying to get her attention. I have some big scenes like this.
So, maybe there’s a chance we’ll be able to continue so I can finally improve my Spanish beyond the level it’s at.
Phil
Phil, it also might help to take lessons with someone you’re not so emotionally involved with, if the triggering of feelings is just getting in the way of you actually learning Spanish. But perhaps you have already thought of that.
Vicki, Taking a Spanish class with a different teacher has problems too because my wife wouldn’t understand about this. My plan is to continue with her, as well as to study on my own. Maybe this weekend I’ll get started again. Phil
I’m glad to hear the trip was better this time. You deserve it, Phil.
still have to read 8 more comments but already want to say thanks Guru, that explains, and Patrick, do you notice how you are still accepted here despite the fact we do not like the way you process your feelings of anger?
it makes me wonder if that is what you have been testing all along, if you’d be rejected here too for being so angry?
well, you haven’t really been rjjected here, have you, none, noone has told you to fuck off or drop dead, we all try to help you, if only you would allow it.
M
Margaret, I’m at the tipping point. I feel I’m in the stages of giving up on Patrick. You continue to struggle with him if you want. I can’t. I’m sad to say.
Guru, happy birthday!
hip hip hip Guruay!!
hope you have a nice day, and a nice year too until the next nice birthday etc.
M
Patrick,
primal therapy as it is now has never claimed to give a perfect solution for anybody with any problem at all.
you keep refusing to look at the actual practice and the large number of people who found great benefits in it, and lead successful lives, to only focus on the drop outs or the people who give up.
it is too bad they could not or would not get helped but in my own long experience they form a minority and I am sure all primal therapists care very much and do all they can to learn from each experience.
you keep throwing away the child with the bathwater here despite then still mentioning there are some good ideas in pt nevertheless..
nobody denies your focus on physical health does have a lot of value, but you seem to need a struggle of some kind at all cost for some reason.
safe distances needing to be kept maybe?
you also seem to use the reality of world problems as an excuse not to explore the other reality of your inner monsters.
we can repeat it over and over to you but if you don’t want to see or hear or take emotional risks it is entirely your own decision.
i also feel some concern but well, at some point all we can do is wish you a good life and let go, if you choose to remain stuck in your defenses.
M
Too true, Margaret.
Larry,
I must say I have felt like that a number of times already, smiley
M
Hello Guys
It’s been a while since I’ve been on the blog. I got back three weeks ago tomorrow, from my trip to my class reunion in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I can’t even remember if I said anything about it before. If so, forgive me, as I may repeat myself here.
I was away twelve days in total. I travelled four days altogether, on planes two days and two long days on the train to reach my destination and to return to Sydney. It was exhausting, to say the least. I am just starting to recover.
So, how was it? Well, it was all that I was afraid of. I was afraid the people will be nice to me. And they were. Beyond anything I ever imagined.
They remembered me. One woman looked at me and asked if I remembered her. I said no. She smiled and told me that we went to school together, every day, holding hands. An other woman walked up to me and started to talk to me, as we were life long friends. I asked her, who are you? She looked at me and said that she was my piano teacher’s granddaughter. And then, as we were talking, an other woman approached us and started talking to her. She is the wife of a class mate of mine. It turned out the two women were cousins.
We spent three days up in the Mountains in Transylvania, at the organiser’s holiday home. Had a huge BBQ on the third day.
A guy walks up me to say hi. I extend my hand to shake hands with him. He pushes my hand away, gives my a very affectionate hug, a kiss on each cheek and asks me how am I? Where have you been ” my Tom”? Needless to say, I broke down and cried. Cried in front of all these people, unashamedly. And there were many who approached me, in the same manner.
Kept asking myself, Tom…..what have you done? Why did you cut off from all these nice people? Why? Why? They were all so nice to me, so affectionate, caring. why did I stop communicate with them?
And then on a Monday we all went to the school. As we started to walk up to the assembly hall on the third floor, I started to have flashbacks of the school. By the time I walked into the assembly hall I was reeling from the experience. Inside, I met an elderly gentleman. he turned out to be one of the teachers, 90 years old. Three teachers came to our get together. And a Unitarian Priest, who blessed us all. What a man, what an intellect. What warmth emanating from him.
Then we each got up and said a few things about ourselves. This was the class’ 50th reunion.
I got overwhelmed telling them how much I was affected by their acceptance, kindness and thoughtfulness. My friend whose wife found me, jumped up to tell my story. I couldn’t talk. I was crying in front of all these people, class mates, their spouses, teachers and the priest.
Nobody laughed at me. They took me seriously. some of them have written to me since, proclaiming that it was the best class reunion ever. This was my first. I am now planning to go to the next reunion in two years time. Yes, they do not want to wait an other ten years. Some have already passed away. Some are ill.
And do you know what keeps coming up for me?
I want my MUM!!!!!!!!!!!
I was thinking to go out to the cemetery again, drape myself over the grave, and then perhaps I could feel my mum. It even crossed my mind that if that isn’t working, I will dig up the grave and find my mum six foot under. Maybe she will hug me, kiss me, smile at me. SHE WILL BE THERE FOR ME. I WANT YOU!!!!!!!
Tom
Tom: Tears are streaming down my face as I write this immediately after reading your comment. It was almost like I was with you there on that journey to the reunion. What a great joy what a great comment, what a great experience I just know you will give many reading it also.
That you were able to cry in front of all those people is such magnificent progress in your therapy and in your life. You bought your ticket and now you seem to be getting some of the rewards from this therapy.
I remember very clearly your re-action to my Serbian friend’s comment when you were so open enough to say you were jealous.
Tom you have made my day … THANKS … for that great and magnificent comment.
Jack
What an incredible trip Tom! A journey that started so long ago that you then had the courage to remember, hold dear and follow thru on. One of the richest 🙂 experiences of your life – I am sure – and the awesome thing – it continues!
ox L.
Hi Leslie
Yes. I am still reeling from the experience. I wake up in the middle of the night not quite knowing where I am. Am I in my class mate’s home sleeping in his lounge room in Budapest? Or, in the reunion organiser’s home in Clu-Napoca, or in her holiday home in the Transylvanian mountains?
And the incredible train ride from Budapest to Cluj. Crossing the border into Romania from the flat lands of Hungary into the undulating, lush green mountains of Transylvania.
And no, Dracula wasn’t there waiting for us at the train station.
Oh, and the people…… how could they be so nice to me? And they are still nice. They are writing to me, declaring it was their best ever class reunion. (I wish I was vain enough to claim credit for that).
And my class mate, who found me, calls me on Skype and shows me the T-Shirts he was able to get for my son and his family, as they do not have T-Shirts in Cluj with motives on them. He is looking after me as a father would.
On and on and on.
Tom
Your reunion sounds amazing Tom 😂
Very moving reunion Tom
Good for you
Guru , happy birthday
Miguel
Miguel, thanks and welcome back to the blog.
I hear Phil could use some Spanish lessons….hmmm….
Happy birthday Guru Phil
Primal Institute wrote:
Howdy,
THE Ultimate Guru commented on: Behind the Scenes part6.
Comment URL: (https://primalinstitute.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/behind-the-scenes-part6#comment-17246) Post URL: (https://primalinstitute.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/behind-the-scenes-part6)
This was in response to Miguel:
Phil: Thank you, but just so you know I was trying to drop a hint about Miguel & Spanish lessons….buddy-buddy potential, that sort of thing.
Hi Jo
Have you moved yet? Or are you still in transit?
Tom
If ‘primal people’ would actually do more ‘retreating’ in real life maybe they would not need to do the whole symbolic retreat thing as in actually going to those. Retreat is a valuable notion but to me maybe limited mind set about it it would make more sense to ‘retreat’ constantly moment by moment and ‘advance’ constantly moment by moment too. In my expierience ‘true believers’ in primal tend not be ABLE to ‘retreat’ in any real sense…………..hence the ‘symbolic acting out’ by going to reatreats. And like all ineffective rituals it needs to be repeated year after year after year………….meanwhile the ‘therapists’ make a living the ‘patients’ not so much more kept in a symbolic limbo land of ‘retreating’………………….all the while being able to maintain a mind like a steel trap……………………..
I saw this joke
A neurotic builds castles in the air
A psychotic lives in them
And the psychiatrist collects the rent
Tom,
I was very touched reding the story about your reunion.
so nice you already plan to go back in two years, M
Vicki,
forgot to say to you a little while ago, when you said something nice about some comments I had writtin, how much such words of you mean to me.
I realized myself coming from you they seem to mean even more than from someone else, much more in fact.
I think the reason is I know you as so basically honest in what you say.
therefor I can rely on your words to be sincere and a compliment from you feels truely good, so thanks for what you said up there.
M
Patrick,
I think you are the only one you desperately are trying to convince
M
as a matter of fact, Patrick, you now going off against retreats makes me feel you’d actually like to be able to participate and to feel part of it.
M
Depressed, tired, and broke. The guy next door has his hammer and saw out and is building a stairway to the stars. My backyard is full of dog crap; it finally cooled off here in the Valley but I am too frazzled after working a second week of 6day-workweek, so too f’ing bad. Let the shit pile up to the stars. I am going back to bed. Sorry for being negative, but that is who the fuck I am, or at least, that is who I fucking became. On a lighter note, I believe somewhat in Astrology. This time every year, when the Sun goes into Libra, no matter what kind of crappy music plays on the radio, the shittiest most godawful slow woman crying how her boyfriend is a towering fourplex or the most boring hiphop, it still sounds good to me. ha
Neighbors building stairs to the stars, shit piled to the stars…pretty funny. I have a neighbor who plops a noisy yakking dog on his back deck and it’s killing my sleep. Time for a confrontation soon. When I start having fantasies of using the dog as target practice it’s telling me that my quality of life is being affected by yap, yap, yap, yap, howowowowow, yap, yap, yap, yap…..
Where astrology is concerned…I think it’s another way for someone else to write the rules of my life for me rather than being permitted to write my own rules.
yap, yap, yap, yapyyapyapyap, bowowowowwowowow
Hi UG
A Happy belated Birthday wish for you. How many is that?
As for the dog next door, shoot the owner.
Tom
Tom:
I will figure out something with the doggie situation.
Where your other question is concerned, I will only say I think of a little kitchen towel hanger sign my great-grandparents once had: “We grow too soon oldt, and too late schmart.“
Hi UG
Did your grandparents have a Yiddish accent? Or German? Or what? Intriguing
Tom.
My, my…you’re just brimming with questions, aren’t you Tom?
They were just standardized, cookie-cutter Germans that emigrated to the US in the 1800’s. About half my ancestry is German.
Elephant Man – or whatever you are calling yourself now I give you big credit for honesty and not wall papering the truth. You don’t ‘have tears streaming down your face’ to show what a ‘winner’ you are, a winner in the primal leagues where ‘crying’ has some kind of iconic magical value but more important puts someone ‘top of the class’ in the primal sweepstakes. But I am or I would be concerned about you if I knew you, from previous things you have said it is clear you believe if there is any solution to your problem(s) it would involve ‘getting to feelings’ IMO you might check that belief at the door, because in the end that’s what it is a belief and a belief that does not seem to be helping you at all. It is even this ‘belief’ that has helped to lead you to where you are now. You might come to a bad end and I suppose Gretchen and Vicki then might have to revise their ‘statistics’ I used that word quite sarcastically oh well it would be just one more ‘failure’ and probably would be explained by something you are doing ‘wrong’. You might be taking drugs or something in which case the PI is off the hook and PT still stands as the ‘fix it’ to most problems. Ignore the fact you are just another one it is not working for. It will be YOUR fault nothing about the therapy – how different is that to say a doctor who does kidney replacements and every time a patient dies it turns out it is something the patient did wrong.. (I use the example of kidney surgery since Daniel quite smartly I though used this example of something that is ‘dangerous’ and comparing it to Art Janov’s ‘warnings’) This is the kind of closed system you are dealing with and I would be concerned for you these ‘closed systems’ can encircle you and drag you down and kill you. Be very careful if you can.
You are crying out for a treatment to help create well being…………..trying to dig into the pain that ruined your life might have a romantic even heroic appeal but I would be very concerned it might also even do you in. Your posts have a very painful and as I say a very truthful ring about them there ARE ways of increasing your pleasure and sense of well being and not to deny your pain also. But this is where proper treatment would come in based on the best science and it is ‘out there’ if people have the curiosity to look (it is ‘professional negligence’ not to IMO) but you won’t get that from Barry he is just mostly reading from the primal gospel of 40 years ago. I wonder if he has a ‘plan’ for you. I keep wanting to say please be careful people have fallen off the cliff before. But you do seem very brave and have a great ability to make it through.. I wish you all the best and hope you will be ok.
Patrick, you’ve gotten so negative maybe the “debunking primal” website would be a better place for you. Phil
Phil: Patrick doesn’t want to go onto the “Debunking Primal Site”. They’d all agree with him and that’s not what Patrick is looking for. Patick wants an argument and hopes, on this site, to make at least one convert. Then at least his ego would remain intact. He needs to be RIGHT (he invested in righteousness), otherwise his world would fall apart.
I’ve been watching him for 34 years, and that’s twelve time longer than 34 months. Of couse, equally, he’s been observing me for that long also.
Jack
Phil – yes well that kind of ‘club’ does not appeal to me either. I guess I have a problem ‘belonging’ anywhere really. If I can try to sum up my attitude towards PT I don’t think simply debunking it is quite right though it deserves a lot of that. What kind of haunts me is the ‘promise’ in it that I cannot let go of and that also accounts for my disgust at what I see as the ‘degenerate’ version of it I at least think I see most all the time. What makes me most ‘mad’ is what I see as ‘hypocricy’ and just the lame uses it is ACTAULLY put to esp compared to the ‘promise’ inherent in it. I honestly think for most ‘primal people’ PT is actually very much part of their ‘defense system’. So it’s like another layer of ‘defense’ on top of all the rest. This also unfortunatly applies to myself a lot of the time.
Patrick, It seems to me the problem is you’ve lost whatever trust you might have had in the PI and the primal community. The “promise” of primal is in each one of us including you, and that’s the place to be looking. Phil
WordPress.com
Patrick commented: “Phil – yes well that kind of ‘club’ does not appeal to me either. I guess I have a problem ‘belonging’ anywhere really. If I can try to sum up my attitude towards PT I don’t think simply debunking it is quite right though it deserves a lot of that. What k”
I think you hit on something there, Phil. I think Primal Therapy is a red herring though. I think at the core your problem is, Patrick, that you just don’t trust people.
God, you two are creative, EMan and UG.
It’s fascinating to me what you are going through, Tom, reconnecting with school friends who you haven’t seen in the intervening 50 years since childhood. I hope you talk about the experience more. I relate to it in an oblique way.
I spent the weekend in a wilderness park with 6 photographer friends and 3 new photographer acquaintances. Over the two days and nights the 6 of us who are part of a Saturday lunch group, shared two cabins in the park. Most of our time was spent together, and some with the 4 other photographers. Many of us are amateur picture takers. Some of the fellas make beautiful art. Two of the guys make their living through photography. I’m intimidated by some of these guys and their ability and confident no-fear go-do-it attitude.
I was afraid beforehand of being left out, of not fitting in with the group. I discovered that the fears are in my head, are feelings that I carry that I look for a present to be the cause of, fused into my being by long ago events. The fellas were considerate to each other and everyone in the group. They made every effort to make sure I felt included. They’re outgoing and fun to be with, sensitive to my needs, and they took care of me. I enjoyed being with them, learning from them and just sharing with them the experience of outdoor photography and being together, socializing, eating and resting. I saw how my paranoid fear of being abandoned almost kept me from spending time with them, and how the fear is always there not far below the surface.
One of the fellas is a retired documentary film maker. In the past when he told me he liked my photography, I didn’t believe him and retracted into my shell, pained that I was being patronized and wanting to escape attention and become invisible. Of all of the people in the group I admire his photography most. My tendency is to shy away from my idols, but on this trip I shared a cabin with him and another fellow, and couldn’t avoid him. He talked to me about his approach to photography, which is the approach that I aspire to. On some of the photography hikes, we ended up together talking and photographing the same subjects. He treated me like an equal.
I completely enjoyed the weekend with them, but I can only take so much of it. As good as it feels and as much as I want it, it hurts to be accepted and cared for, to be welcomed into the group. It’s sort of like being at a primal retreat and getting warm attention from people. Eventually I can’t take any more and am glad it’s over and can get back to my numb isolation. But now that I’m home, alone, I’m in a daze. After this weekend I can see my isolation more clearly, that it’s self imposed and is no good, and it is sapping any opportunity for joy in my life. It ruined my life, just so that I would have a way to rationalize unconscious feelings embedded by long ago events.
Working my way out of my isolation, and opening to the truth that generates the feelings that are the rationale for my isolation, is going to hurt, but I can’t isolate any more. It would be sick to, a dull waste of the last portion of life remaining to me.
Nice going Larry💫
How are things going for you, Jo?
Larry, It sounds like your trip was a great success. I’m very glad, but also hear how difficult it is. Tom, your trip sounds like it was amazing. Has had me thinking why I have never gone to a high school reunion even though it would be easy for me to do so. High school was a very painful period for me. I excluded myself at that time and now it seems something too late to overcome. Phil Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 04:17:47 +0000 To: phiban@msn.com
I’ve never gone to mine either, Phil. I avoided them. Same for me, high school was a painful time. I think I would go to a reunion now, but I doubt very much that anyone is tracking me down to invite me to one. I would go now for the therapeutic benefit, to recall how it was and to see what a waste that I kept myself apart from everyone, to understand why and feel the pain of what could have been but was lost.
Phil
“I excluded myself at that time and now it seems something too late to overcome.”
My experience is that it is never too late to overcome your childhood experiences in school, excluding yourself.
I urge you, after my own experience, for you to reconnect with your school mates. It doesn’t matter which way it goes, either way, it will be an unexpected experience, says I.
Tom
Tom, I suppose you are right and that I should go to the next reunion of my class which would be the 40th in two years. But I imagine that as a terrible experience. I’d prefer to go with you to your next event. Phil Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 23:27:52 +0000 To: phiban@msn.com
Hi Larry
Wow. As if you just opened a Pandora’s box, that has been waiting for you, for ever.
My anxiety of going to my class reunion was exactly what you are writing about. At some level you know getting in the present will hurt like hell.
But I take my hat off to you because you stayed with it. Eventually, hopefully, this will turn into a strictly pleasant experience for you. You deserve it and I barracking for you.
Tom
Larry – You and all your posts are amazing! Your writing is brilliant, as I feel you so eloquently expose what is taking place in your life, your heart and your head in a way that not only resonates, but helps me accept the feelings, insecurities etc. that I want to ignore.
ox L.
No one has ever called me amazing and brilliant before, Leslie. I don’t think I’m either, but I’ll absorb your nice words and thank you for them.
I like to read what you have to say here, Leslie. I hope you don’t disappear for a long while again.
Thanks Larry.
Elef,
if you do love those dogs clean up their shit or ask your second half to do so or help you.
M
That makes sense.
I am doing ok, thank you, though I answer out of built in courtesy!! I feel reluctant to talk, as I am in introvert mode, and frankly, I find it difficult to know where to start, what to say. I know I am hurting as my head is full of stuff/conversations/ideas,,,,anxiety is never far away.
So, my current life is thin on the ground with social activites, and I have taken steps to change this. My belongings are mostly packed, and I am in limbo (rather than in transit, Tom!) while I await for a completion date on the sale of my flat.
Most domestic/practical/social things needed to be done here have the added layer of being in another language, which adds to the frustration I’ve felt of being held up.
I have had some great moments too, this Spring and summer, these being when I have had the chance to connect with family and friends…this is when I’m happiest. Like you experience, Larry, I also hurt when I receive warmth, and always have that feeling of wanting to run and be back in my “safe” bubble!
Practically speaking, the plan is to be out of here before the winter sets in, and enjoying some time in LA. I am doing all I can to make this possible.
It’s so grounding to talk/write 😊
Yes, I find writing is grounding. So is having you here Jo. 🙂
😊
I have been away, so realize my post is delayed, but for me I want to write. It really was something for me to say what I did to Patrick – as it became clear he could not hurt me any more than he had already by hurling all the horrid accusations and insults at my friends, therapists, primal beliefs, sweeping racist generalizations etc. After posting I felt so free that I had come from feeling terrified of him to truly not worrying what he nor anyone else thought.
My father’s cruel words had ‘killed me’ in my pre – teen years + I never stood up to him, but left instead and still carry the damage of feeling so hurt and inadequate…
Anyway, as I tried to imagine how Patrick might attack me I felt even better as nothing fit, nothing hurt. I was sure he would call me a Bitch and I know I am not / maybe he’d say poor B. for having to live with me – and I know that isn’t true. My nationality or homeland being attacked – well I am fortunate to be from Canada, and South Park and many Canadians have beat him to it! (BTW The Rick Mercer Report can do a funny job of it). I did however think that it could surprise me – but never in the way it has. It is funny really – that my crime is being too lovey dovey, too unreal and god forbid using a sign off that encourages others, and me as well to be dependant on support, love and caring.
Yup, guilty as charged! You see I spent a lot of painful periods of my life being so isolated and alone. High school was horrible for me too, like Phil and Larry have divulged. No one was good enough, strong enough etc. for me to trust. Its not like that is all gone as I still have lots of work to do – but I do love a lot of people and care and love that I do. There are ALL the ones that I know here on the blog, and then there are even ones that I haven’t met yet that I often feel I would like to get to know. I am definitely moved and touched by so many more posts than I actually get it together to comment on.
Truly, I’ve never felt more real in my life – and I’m not stopping here… bring on more retreats and closer connections – oh yeah.
And finally your last scathing critique of Vicki was not honest Patrick – that was just being hurtful and there is a big difference.
Good bye Patrick
Leslie – I am kind of amazed that speaking out to me is such a big deal. But since it seems it is I am glad you allow yourself to do it. I think that is very good. I suppose each of us have out ‘hard to do’ things that would not be one of mine but that is obvious by now lol. But since it seem to be one of yours again I want to say good for you.
The “Goodbye Patrick” part I find interesting. I have come up against that a few time from ‘primal people’ and honesty I find it odd. An ‘argument’ to me has no need to ‘leave someone behind’ or ‘finish with them’ etc. My initial understanding of primal or one aspect of it was like the old kind of Irish thing where you have a knock down drag out fight say in a bar but later you walk home arm in arm. And I still kind of keep to that that is way I have been surprised more than once with ‘primal people’ taking or trying to take that kind of stance. It seems very like ‘regular society’ like you hurt my feelings and I will be talking to you no more except with ‘primals’ it is backed up by some kind of ‘ideology’ as in I am finished with you I will no longer ‘struggle’ with you etc. I find that bad, I find it based on a fantasy version of life as in chopping people off and ‘moving on’. Again I think this is partly a cultural thing the old Irish would never think like that to me nobody can escape life and people but the modern way of thinking is more like ‘I can move on’ people are more disposable literally they can be disposed of and we know all about disposing, look at all the thrash cans everywhere, we just dispose of things we just throw them away. Primitive societies or dare I say it primal societes would never imagine living like that.
And that is another thing I see about ‘primal people’ they are so imbued with the cultural values of the moment I do not find it inspiring. When I first came to LA to primal I was immediatly hit by the kind of ‘conventional thinking’ that ruled. Individualism, look out for No 1 (yourself), get a job, get a relationshiip, fit it…………….anyway that is now me just ‘thinking out loud’ thanks for your comment.
I don’t understand what you say about Vicki to me it is ‘honest’ and the kind of ‘honesty’ she rarely gets also don’t you think she can ‘defend’ herself why does she need you to speak for her but of course it’s fine that you do if it hits you that way. See I never once called you a “Bitch” that is a word I would never think in relation to you.
Qute:- “Leslie – I am kind of amazed that speaking out to me is such a big deal.”
It is a big deal when speaking out is merely “acting out”. If you were merely expressing what YOU FEEL; that would be no big deal … for the rest of us … BUT when your speaking out is telling us what you THINK the other person is: is OFF. We can all of us make out what we feel the other person is doing … that’s relatively easy … though not the FACT of the matter Going into ourselves and saying what it DOES TO US is the essence of Primal Therapy … seemingly something you Patrick have not yet gotten into.
You’re invested in your THINKING as being the universal REALITY.
Jack
Addendum:= My last paragraph/line should have read:- “You’re invested in your THINKING as being the universal REALITY, is what comes across to me..
“
Leslie, Your honesty and directness in your posts is inspiring, and feels good to read. XO
Leslie, that should have immediate followed your post xo
I find this x/o business annoying because to me it is fake intimicy. Grade inflation or whatever you want to call it if you this ALL the time when is anything special. Answer: Never
Thank you Jo. I appreciate hearing that.
ox L.
Good bye Leslie lol (you liked Van Morrison I remember)…………….and he does mention one day he’s gonna be back……………….
Oops that’s doesnt work oh well its “Goodbye baby” by Van Morrison if anyone cares to follow it up. Come to think of it the “Goodbye Patrick” thing really annoys me like some kind of (fake) grand gesture of leaving. Like I am DONE with you. Nice gesture I suppose but not real life. We CAN’T say ‘goodbye’ to most people we can thrash them and throw them away like we do with most everything…………..that’s why there is nothing much left………….
Leslie, it’s good you have reached this point, I know it has not been easy, and it does feel so much better, not afraid all the time. And thanks for your comment about what he said about me.
Of course – you are welcome Vicki.
before I continue to read the rest of the comments, Phil, I want to say how much I liked what you said about the promise of primal being inside all of us. that was so well said and the nail on the head I’d love it to be framed and hung up at the PI!
M
Margaret, thanks for saying this. I was trying to make a point about something Patrick said. I’m afraid he isn’t seeing what we’ve been talking about and further efforts seem useless. Phil
Patrick,
I find your endless generalisations very tiresome .
we primal people.
Margaret – it seems very typical you would focus on that part and not the content of what I was trying to say. Of course I am speaking in generalizations that’s basically what talking and thinking is. But ‘primal people’ lol have a fantasy based on Janov’s sloppy writings that they can get beyond all that. I have not seen it. A friend told me this morning something Freud said about how whatever was not valid in his writings would quickly be torn down by his ‘followers’. And my friend mentioned how we never heard that from Janov, Janov’s stuff is cemented in place partly because he WAS a very poor thinker. And his ‘followers’ tend to be ‘religous’ about it. I see it here every day. And Margaret yourself is one of them IMO to run the gauntlet you do just to get to the retreats betrays a very ‘religous’ mind set to my way of thinking……………..religous bordering on fanatical and every single time you criticise me I mostly ignore you because you never have nothing much new to say but this time I don’t for some reason……………
Patrick,
one more thing.
noone so far has ignored you or told you to fuck off, while I think you’d love someone to do so.
still you accuse the primal people of not being open or whatever twist you give it, and at the same time seem to expect you should be able to insult people as much as you feel like without it having any consequeence whatsoever.
that is what I would call one major primal error or more so a huge error or mistake about primal concepts.
it is just an illustration of how distorted your views are about what primal therapy is about.
i think you have had alll the prooof one could hope for here that people are supportive with you and try to help, but that does not mean you do not carry any responsibility, on the contrary, it makes it all the more important to open up and show your ttrue colours yourself and your fears and vulnerabilities instead of ignoring what comes too close under your skin and pick out stuff you can keep ranting about endlessly to ventilate and act out your rage without processing any of it on a deeper level.
it does not help you one bit and you tend to alienate everyone.
a lot of people still want you to move forward but if you choose not to you might get more and more silence.
now you think you know what would be best for someone, elf you insulted more than once from the very moment he wrote on this blog.
i still feel somehow you mean well, but you are on a track that does not seem to get you anywhere.
haave you ever in your life given in about anything?
to admit mistakes or to reveal fears takes courage, and I hope some day you will feel better.
M
Margaret – you know very little about me.
Margaret, I no longer believe that Patrick “means well”, I think he believes he does mean well, and that’s what can fool you. But he actually consistently says it all means nothing to him, it’s all just a bar-room brawl that he forgets about the next day. These aren’t real interactions or real relationships, our concern for each other is all fake.
Margaret, I believe he’s kidding himself, that he doesn’t care. We all saw how incredibly hurt and angry he was at the retreat, when someone else refused to pretend to be friendly to him, after being insulted. So this bravado is just a big defense. But as long as he wants to go in that direction, and myelinate those defenses, then nothing here will ever mean anything to him, and he does not at all “mean well”.
Vicki – that’s a kind of typical attempted ‘slam’ by you. I stress ATTEMTED! Attend to yourself you are literally falling apart and yet and yet you seem to feel you have some authority to go here and analyse me. That is not only beyond you but you are way beyond yourself which is more to the point. If I was putting on a slide show of the failures and atrocities of primal therapy you just might be Exhibit 1.
well, Patrick,
all I can say now is you seem way too full of yourself to be able to see all the crazy and stupid conclsions you make about any of us and any of our motives.
funny you say I don’t know anything about you, that is exactly what all the time goes through my mind reading your comments, how presomptuous and judganental and very wrong they are about people.
you are to be pitied more than anything, you are bound to end up without friends at all, if you aren’t already.
you are on the wrong track but have your nose so high up in the air you can’t see it.
you are a hundred times blinder than I am in this stage of your life.
let’s hope it is transitory but I am afraid it might not be unless you learn to look at yourself with that bit of humbleness that is needed to get some reality.
rant all you want now, I think we all have seen and heard what there is to hear from you, as there does not seem to be much of an evolution there.
M
Margaret, it seems to me this last post of yours invites more crap.
Margaret – at least the way I see it I have quite a few very good friends going back over 30 years………………most of them are ‘lapsed primallers’ which I suppose I am too. Lapsed in the sense of not ‘true believers’ or ‘total believers’ in the particular way it is ‘done’ now either at the PI or Janov’s centre. That why I came up with that poster “Save primal therapy from these men” Janov and Barry. Whether it has something to be ‘saved’ most people dont thing so that’s where I kind of differ with my ‘lapsed friends’ they just forget about it pretty much totally I am unable to do that for some reason. So as I said before I am in some kind of ‘uncomfortable middle’ but maybe that’s my own particular lonely road. We are all different Margaret, as Guru says the brain and body are ‘complicated’ and I hope this does not come under the heading of ‘crap’ as per your ‘greek chorus’ here…………
(I’d like to pre-emptively note that I am working on some very delicate things outside the blog, so if anyone has a negative reaction to what I am about to post can you please pound a pillow elsewhere instead of directly bringing it up to me right here and now? Don’t criticize the proverbial scalpel-holding brain surgeon with emotional maelstroms when he is busy at work, thanks!)
Vicki: I am really sorry to hear that you’re having more physical impediments now than during the times I saw you many years ago when you were very healthy and robust.
Please note I am only saying this because Patrick brought it up. I do think Patrick violated your privacy in doing so without your permission in a similar vein as to what Jack did to me about naming names earlier.
I sense a fine red line here as I bring this up, but how else can I let Vicki know I am sorry to hear what has happened if I didn’t know about it myself?
Something for Patrick to consider: If I have 50 big feelings and I felt 45 of them while the remaining five unfelt feelings are dangerous to my health over time, does that mean the therapy itself is a failure? The human body is an incredibly complicated machine, and things can go wrong for all kinds of reasons not even remotely Primal-related.
Guru – I agree the brain is quite ‘complicated’ but you thing about feeling 45 out of 50 feelings to me harkens back to Janov’s ‘pool of pain’ in many ways a poor image IMO. Years ago a friend used to joke about how he was down to only having to feel the ‘big 3’ feelings. I asked him what they were he said ‘oh life and death and I can’t remember what the other one was’. So even if you ‘do’ 47 out of 50 you still have a long way to go lol.
I suppose I may have violated Vicki’s privacy but I get tired of mincing my words in relation to her esp as she seems to have no compuction at all about ‘lecturing and analysing’ me. I find all this high faluting ‘analysing’ ridiculous and so misses the point so I hit back. I do that not such a ‘nice’ quality I suppose but how else to even start to get through to someone when they are on a ‘lecture tour’ I suppose I could say something like ‘physician heal thyself’ but I like something with a bit more oomph to it. Something personal.
UG,
You have made excellent points here! It was not until I read your words that I realized it was the judgemental breach of Vicki’s personal life that made it so horrible to read. I really appreciate the risks you have taken.
ox L.
Oh please Leslie just stop all this. Here is someone (Vicki) who analyses and analyses me who posits all kinds of ‘theoretical’ nonsense (about me) and I am making a simple point about the reality of her life. Whatever happened to ‘radical honesty’? Would you rather tut tut tut for decades skirting around anything actually true and un-comfortable. Obviously you would and the most salient point is you HAVE! Yes you HAVE it doesn’t matter how many ‘retreats’ you have visited. That’s why is still a huge issue for you to assert yourself in any way it seems. Talk about Janov’s promises of what people could and would be able to do and your reality. This is pathetic and as usual now you will go around in some kind of ‘jihad’ against me and only see bad in me and mostly because I crack the fragile egg of your ‘belief system’. Like a lot of others here. I am sure my time here is almost up which will be a big relief to many I am sure. But at least I can have my say this primal movement’ is so amazing to me really how very little it does good for anyone and yet the lack of results are kind of in direct relation to the fanaticism of the ‘belief’. A book should be written about that!
Patrick, what you have been doing here is viciously attacking people not pointing out any reality. Phil
I never before heard the term “Radical Honesty” I turned to Wikipedia for a definition, which concludes with:
“People who practice Radical Honesty employ a collection of techniques to shift them out of acceptable norms of “white lying” for the purpose of having a more truthful relationship with themselves and others.”
To me it looks like what is called radical honest is really just honesty. If people aren’t honest with each other there is no relationship.
There is the blunt honesty of a child who can’t manage anything more complex, and there is the tactful honesty of an adult. There is constructive honesty which I would use if I wanted to grow a relationship, and there is destructive honesty we use against someone if we’re angry with them…too much of which will whither the relationship.
I see anger, hpperbole, and destructive honesty happening on the blog, and relationships whithering or barely begun and now petering out. Lots of disappointment and hurt.
Patrick, In spite of how you came on the scene out of nowhere blasting away at Jack, you were welcomed and people took the time to try get to know who you really are. What went wrong?
U.G., perhaps I can clarify things. I am in better physical health than I was many years ago, when I last saw you, partly from steadily working on improving my diet, and partly from getting more exercise and working with a physical trainer regularly. On the other hand, I had two accidents happen, one in which I injured my foot and ankle, and the other in which I injured the opposite knee, and it cannot be easily repaired, as the meniscus is torn. So I am struggling to compensate for that with physical therapy. I have made some progress, and have a long way to go — it is ongoing. Primal therapy has helped me with all of it, as well. Thanks for your concern, I feel some of that for you, too.
I did not feel much of a violation of privacy, but more of a simply personal attack from Patrick — because he can’t stand to take in any of the actual things I have said or asked him, so he made a personal attack, hoping to stop my questions and comments, since he is unable to respond not only to me, but also to questions from Gretchen, Leslie, Larry, Phil, Tom, Margaret, Jo — and I’m probably forgetting others who have asked him simple and direct questions — and Patrick has chosen to ignore them all, as if putting his fingers in his ears and going, “La, la, I can’t hear you!”. He never answers the questions, but must still feel hurt by them, because he attacks in return.
He makes wild statements about Primal theory, therapy, practice and all participants, dismissing all of it as mostly worthless, out of his own demonstrated inability to stay in therapy and deal with his feelings, and he is completely unable to support his so-called arguments with anything verifiable.
I know people here it seems don’t like much talk about actual events right here in the present (holocaust movies are fine and should be encouraged) but here is something I wrote to a friend this morning
“And as I predicted they do end up bombing Syria anyway they will bomb it more and more and ISIS as much as we ‘hate’ them now theywere fine when attacking Assad. Now though even though it is clear Assad is ‘better’ than these so called ‘rebels’ we are supporting ‘different’ rebels and STILL go after him (Assad) still want to get him and will just like Gaddaffi throat cut in a ditch. I wonder what Assad’s end will be like? Horrible thought. . One aspect of this that is little discussed (I can really say NOT discussed) at all is getting Assad is VERY much an Israeli agenda, for over 50 years they have wanted to get Assad’s family before in was his father. They represent the kind of strong Arab leader they do not want also a leader with ‘memory’ memory of their crimes. Israel in the devil behind the scenes egging this stuff on, during the Summer people were appalled at their behaviour in Gaza we could SEE that but with them what is worse is what you don’t see…………and there is a whole lot of that. Call me ‘anti-semitic’ if you want to me it is just the reality nothing to do with so called ‘anti-semitisim’. In Ireland at least people talk out against what they are doing, people there has memories of what it is to be fucked over by outsiders so they relate to the plight of the Palestinians. At least someone does here and the UK the propaganda is almost total”
Ever wonder why you only talk about that Patrick, and what you get out of it? Ever wonder why you are either behaving like a bully, or you’re finding a bully to rant and rave about?
How come you never talk about this?
http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/popupaudio.html?clipIds=2523979511
Add in global warming, which is only going to accelerate, and in a few decades institutions and social conventions will collapse, yielding to hoodlums ruled by despots and anyone still alive will all be at each other’s throats.
It’s bad now and everything is going to get worse.
But now that I’ve written about it, the problem is solved. Satisfied?
Why are you comfortable spewing vitriol and disgust, and distrustful of caring and tenderness?
And Larry why do you act like a smug priest who has all the answers?. And telling me what I should think and feel and write about? And expect me to channel all my rhoughts and reactions in some kind of ‘approved’ direction? To me that is kind of ‘neurotic’ where everything all the time has to follow the SAME direction. I particularly don’t like your kind of ‘taboo’ on talking about current affairs in the world meanwhile you are always up for a ‘holocaust movie’………safe in the past and something we can all agree on a kind of colorless reality drained of real life. Reminds me of ‘religion’ growing up.
Wow the blog is so, so alive and it’s all bubbling onto the surface. Just in passing I would like to mention one of the great, great successes of Primal Therapy:- Gretchen who, form what I gathered through ‘the grape vine’, started off in a very bad place.
Meantime I feel the need to talk about myself.
First off, I am undenieably not the popular kid in the block (blog), but it doesn’t deter me, cos I have someone that love me dearly. However to repeat myself (an obcession of mine) I am aware of the good, the bad and the downright ugly of me:-
1) The downright Ugly about me. An unutterable conciet, An unrelenting arrogance, Inconsiderate of others, A sting in my tail (being a scorpio), My ability to put people right off me. and many others that for now elude me
2) The bad about me:- Being a ‘know it all’, Too talkative, Thinking I have all the answers for everone else, Fanatical, Not looking into myself nearly enough, Being intelligent and not feelingful enough. Too old, A smart arse, A fart arse, Also others that elude me right now.
3) The good about me:- Off hand I can’t think of anything, but if I come up with something I sure will mention it. I’m not shy.
Jack
I like that, Jack, kudos to you. For the good about you, I can say that you can be kind, I have seen you that way (when you’re not boiling up with doing the “ugly” or “bad”).
Vicki: Great to know that, but I obviously am not that way too often. Doing the “bad” and the “ugly” seems to be the dominating part of me. Least ways that’s what I keep being told by many … so there is no way I can be in ‘de Nile’ about it all.
Jack
3) I’ve seen,and experienced your kindness, Jack.
Vicki,
you are absolutely right and hit several nails right on their heads!
M
Jo, Vicki,
I have also come to the point I stop caring as Vicki’s last comment was so right on and made all the sense of the world to me.
by Patricks reaction it seems like the trutth did hurt him, as a Dutch saying says. but of course all he does is throw around crazy insults.
Vicki, again, as it seems my reply to your coment got lost yesterday, I agreed with every syllable you wrote and found it so insightful and eye-opening, it made my last jgsaw puzzle pieces fall into place .
it was one great comment you wrote there!
And Jo, if a certain someone keeps throwing shit I’ll do my best to walk around it from now on smiley with wrinkled sniffing nose..
M
Thanks, Margaret, I am glad the point resonated with you. I do appreciate it, but had to laugh, too, as I start feeling like I’m getting a “fat head” when complimented by anyone, and it feels weird.
guru,
very well spoken!
succes with your work you are busy on,
M
Patrick,
the fact you use a word like ‘weak’ with respect to Vicki shows you don’t know anything about her at all. if there is anything she is not, it is weak, not even physically. you have no clue and no interest, all your rants merely show the ugly bitterness you carry inside.
poison and hatred, you behave like a real bully and it is not a pretty spectacle at all.
I wish you’d disappear by now, it is hard to believe you can’t see how crazy you are really becoming.
just a bit more and paranoia or psychosis will be a next step for you.
you have already some good company to hang out with as some of the people you surround yourself with are already in that stage surprise surprise. who else would go along with your crazy mindsets? some of them rabiate antisemits if I recall well, with serious symptoms of severe paranoia.
why do you hang out here and what do you hope for? it is painful to keep watching and reading as all of it is merely negativeness without any real meaning or resolution.
nothing of what you say makes real sense Patrick, despite the fact you do your best to word it in clever ways, it remains pure bullshit.
M
I agree with Jo, Margaret. You do seem to be inviting it. Feels similar to the back and forth between Patrick and Jack, inflaming each other.
I guess the difficulty is in accepting there may never be meaningful resolution.
Margaret said “just a bit more and paranoia or psychosis will be a next step for you”………..you might even ‘wish’ for that Margaret it would at least prove you ‘right’ But I have to tell you though I have had my troubles recently I have rarely felt so sane and so lacking in paranoia as you put it. Strange huh? And really you still play the ‘anti-semitism’ card I thought that was mostly disposed of during the Summer or were you not paying attention? It takes courage and smarts and studying the issue to see what is really happening in the world but I understand you tend to take the cheapest most manipulative headlines as the ‘truth’ Maybe you don’t have time to study it in a bit more depth.
I think you need to study it in more depth, Patrick.
Larry,
you say you agree with Jo I am inviting Patrick to pile shit on me, and say it reminds you of the back and forths between him and Jack.
i am always aware and wary of the risk to receive a serious attack in return to what I write, but I do think the difference between my comments to Patrick and Jack’s former comments to him is that mine come out of genuine care and more recently pure frustration.
I have shared a house with Patrick for a while and got to know him a bit and his nice sides. so now it feels painful to see what feels like he is deteriorating to me, coming farther and farther cut off from his gentler feelings seemingly.
and then in your next comments you seem to do the same as what you ‘accuse’ me of,, I guess I felt criticized by you in some way.
but I agree it is hard to let go of trying to get through in vain to someone I still care about because I have felt some connection with him at the time.
I guess part of what is hard is the sheer unaccessibility as well.
have to let go I know, but then again it becomes hard to do when other people I care about are attacked or hurt.
M
Margaret – I think it is nice of you to honor the time we spent there. I really like you can do that apart from ‘disagreements’. And I always do feel you care, that’s why I am a lot less hard on you than some others here I do feel you do it out of caring. But to put your mind at ease then a bit I would say you have nothing to worry about me, I am not going to join a neo-Nazi gang, I am not going to shoot up the blog except in the way that one CAN do that, I am not going to lose my mind in paranoiac fantasies, I am not go to ‘retreats’ ever again…………………
Patrick, It seems to me you’ve already shot up the blog and have gone (verbally) postal here. After the things you’ve said about the therapy, therapists, primal people, and many individuals I don’t know how or why you continue to hang out here. You said in an earlier post that your time here may be coming to an end, or something like that. I guess you are going out with a bang. But why? Was there some recent change in your feelings or thinking? Or just the way these discussions have gone. Phil
Patrick,
good to hear you feel ok.
just out of interest, what are your hopes or plans for the future?
and I hear you when you say you will never attend a retreat again. what are the good things you still associate with primal therapy as there must be something that keeps you here despite all your criticisms.
what are the positive things that keep you going?
M
I got a call today from a caretaking service they can start up a household help for my mom for one morning each week.
so I told her when I called her they would start up next week, and of course the same usual discussion started all over threatening to escalate rapidly after a few attempts for calm reasoning and reminding her she had already agreed to it several times.
at one point I told her one more time to stop arguing and then just told her if she’d continue to argue I would hang up the phone. it did work!
for a moment she was surprised and just muttered a bit, and then the whole atmosphere of our talk became more constructive.
I could tell her it was not only about her but also very important for me and my brother to relieve some of our worries while helping her to live by herself as long as possible, and finally she seemed to hear what I said and responded to it.
in the end she even apologized in a smiling way to be so ‘troublesome’ and I could smile back while saying it was ok.
finally we seem to move forward, small steps at a time.
I talked with the chief caretaker they might get some resistance but she assured me they were used to it and could cope.
whew one sigh of momentary relief..
M
Patrick,
as usual I woke up early, at the first crack of dawn, and found myself thinking about things you said.
you seem to be kind of a loner in some ways.
it reminded me of that choice you made on such a young age when you decided you wanted to go to boading school still being quite young.
that seems like already back then you felt like you felt you better took care of yourself on your own, without relying anymore on others. I mean it sounds like such an ‘on your own’ thing, very lonely decision really.
do you feel there is any connection there?
M
Yes Margaret the short answer is yes. The more I think and delve into that it even amazes myself how ‘lonely’ it was such a lonely thing to do. Of course many people are hurt by being sent to boarding school I choose it. Yet at the same time it made all the sense in the world still makes all the sense in the world when I think about it even now. I was a child with a ‘vision’ of a better life actually of what life should be or could be and I was not finding that at home or at the regular local school. So in a sense I ran away from home but did it in a ‘respectable’ way a way that was disguised even from myself. I remember my first time back home at the Christmas Holidays that year and we were all sitting around the table as we used to as kids and I was in ‘my’ place at the table and my Mom said ‘isn’t it great to have padraig home again with us’. And I cried in a very deep way but was also so busy keeping it ‘hidden’ from the others. I felt ’emabarrased’ to be reminded on ‘child like’ things and our time as children but I was only 13 y.o. So yes I had to grow up too soon and I was too serious for my age and I was lonely and mis-understood and not seen for who I really was……………much like today in many ways. Or at least in primal therapy world my attemped ‘second family’ I suppose you could say.
Sorry, Jack, I disagree. One does not have to “play therapist” to just be interested in a good conversation with anyone about how they feel about something. I think you are reading too much into it. Margaret is most often just “being a friend” even with anyone she often has disagreed with.
thanks Vicki
Margaret: you seem to be pandering to Patrick, after your outrage with him I get the sense that you are playing therapist with him Patrick is not interested, as he has stated over and over again, in any type of psychological therapy about himself. Jack
Margaret: you seem to be pandering to Patrick, after your outrage with him. I get the sense that you are playing therapist with him.
Patrick is not interested as he has stated over and over again, in any type of psychological therapy about himself, unless nice things are being said about him.
Jack
You are a Major League Idiot! You would be my Exhibit 2 on ‘evidence’ that primal therapy achieves precisly nothing.
Patrick,
it was indeed a huge decision to make for a young kid, must have taken courage and guts but also a lot of sadness and aloneness must have been kind of ‘put on a shelf ‘ to be able to do it and function.
your story about that Christmas is very full of important feelings it seems, thanks for sharing it.
people seem to be projecting on me in different ways here, smiley, Jack, I am not trying to play the therapist, some things are just natural caring.
sometimes those things just overlap and are not that different really.
after all a good therapist also simply cares in a genuine and honest healthy way.
so anyway, Padraig, keep delving, you are onto something there, good to hear you are aware of those things and still moving forward in your own personal way.
M
This blog, since it’s beginning, since my wife died, has been priceless in helping me to carry on, to grow, because of all of you and the exploration and sharing of our lives and feelings, except for one person.
Because of that one person, I’m losing interest. I can’t help it. Patrick’s rampages, vilifying anything that has to do with feelings, rebuking people who risk sharing their lives here, sickens me. I once believed in him, was willing to be patient and give him time to trust, but no longer. He’s too quick to explode in anger at the slightest whim, too ready to cut to ribbons anyone who he feels the slightest threat from, never willing to search for mutual understanding, never taking a moment to self-reflect and consider the other person’s reality, never willing to explore deeper reasons for his destructive behaviour.
He’s calm now because you soothed him Margaret. But he’s never remorseful, never feels bad about the hurt he’s inflicted on people. I believe you are right, he may be a step away from paranoia or psychosis, and he doesn’t seem to be taking any healthy steps to avert that. He is just going to keep on complaining about anything to do with primalling. It’s become apparent to me that he doesn’t understand what subconscious feelings are, and will ridicule anyone who tries to access them, because he’s unable to access his (or won’t). Even if someone has difficulty accessing old feelings, there is still benefit from the therapy in shaping our lives toward a healthier outcome. Patrick shuns any therapeutic attempt.
When Noreen and I had arguments, I tried to fight fare. I never wanted to hurt her, ever. If I did, I felt awful and tried to find what weakness in me let me lash out at her. I never wanted to destroy the closeness and trust we had.
Patrick doesn’t care that he hurts people. He doesn’t even know that he hurts people. His thinking is weird. He’s impossible to reach. He says this blog is his second family. He’s destroying it.
I could forgive him his hurtful outbursts if eventually they helped him access deeper feelings at the root of his anger, but he shows no inclination to go there, and shows no capacity to be sensitive to other people’s feelings. When I see other people here, I want to be part of this blog. When I see Patrick’s comments here, I’m repulsed and want to walk away from it. I can’t help it. I can’t condone his behaviour.
With Patrick here, any talk of feelings is too threatening and conversation drifts to safer intellectual discussions, and I feel the blog will die. I wish I was wrong. I hope someone could tell me I’m wrong and that an old feeling is at the root of my despairing view.
Larry, I like what you say here. Patrick did just go on a rampage and shows no remorse. It’s like we are supposed to ignore it just happened. If we have someone here who continually ridicules primal and is unable to see or believe how people have benefited, then it won’t be a safe place to share. I start to wonder if this group should have some basic guidelines to prevent an individual with bad intentions from ruining it. I’m not sure Patrick has bad intentions, but from everything I’m hearing he doesn’t want to be part of the program. Patrick, I’d like to give you a little push to leave and to maybe come back at a later date when you can show consideration to people and have renewed interest in primal. Phil
OK Phil I can take that hint, I don’t have a problem with that. You are a ‘balanced’ person which I respect. Larry as a parting shot I honestly think you feel ‘theatened’ in that your safe little playpen here is not exactly to your liking. Also this business about having the SAME feeling all the time……………I feel that with you, for that reason I am not a ‘fan’ of your writing I find it boring and repetitive for the most part. Nothing much ‘new’ ever seems to happen you seem to pound over the same ground over and over. Even ‘politics’ might be something ‘new’ for you………………..see 2 can play the ‘analysing’ game also but that’s ok I will take Phil’s advice and the play pen is all yours for a while. Hope you have fun and you find something ‘new’
I just want to add to what I said in my last message. It is my own feeling about liking Patrick to leave. It isn’t my place to say such a thing and I’ve been here a short time, but just the same, that’s how I feel. Phil
Philip Banco wrote:
Larry, I like what you say here. Patrick did just go on a rampage and shows no remorse. It’s like we are supposed to ignore it just happened. If we have someone here who continually ridicules primal and is unable to see or believe how people have benefited, then it won’t be a safe place to share. I start to wonder if this group should have some basic guidelines to prevent an individual with bad intentions from ruining it. I’m not sure Patrick has bad intentions, but from everything I’m hearing he doesn’t want to be part of the program. Patrick, I’d like to give you a little push to leave and to maybe come back at a later date when you can show consideration to people and have renewed interest in primal. Phil
Phil, I think it’s everybody’s place here to say what they feel, short time or not. Patrick has done a lot of that, himself. But I’d like him to be gone, too, as his rants are so poisonous and painful to see someone in that state — it reminds me of the times when my own anger has sometimes become acidic and self-destructive, and I feel in some way insane in those times. I do not like that feeling at all, but just have to endure and get through it without actually destroying myself or all around me, which feels like a real danger.
Larry,
As always your writing is true and heartfelt. You are a kind and patient person who gives to others. If Patrick had shown any signs of looking at himself, his anger and violent demeanor – you, me, and others would continue to be there for him.
Anyone can check the blog for the past year and see that the situation has become increasingly worse. We should no longer tolerate being terrorized and mercilessly ridiculed and then expected to accept it.
There are consequences to behaviour, and that too is something Patrick refuses to accept. Having his tirades continue here are not healthy for anyone – including Patrick.
I do not want the very people like you, who I can count on, to leave the blog. We are the ones reaching out, wanting to connect, and trying to evolve in a way that is not always available in typical everyday life. Please don’t go.
Larry, this was great — it is the point of the Blog, regardless of who “gets it” or who doesn’t — and that’s not something you can control. You can only decide what you express yourself, and when it’s this good, there is no reason to leave. Otherwise, haters and bullies win.
Patrick left therapy, and has told us he’s never coming back to therapy, & tries to bully us that we’re failures for continuing in our therapy. He ridicules us for not agreeing with his views of therapy, us or his politics, and he can’t really say why he comes here to throw rocks and sticks at us every day — except when he has seemed to say that he really still hopes to convince all of us of the truth of his vision, wants the P.I. to let him run the place, save Primal Therapy from itself (i.e., from all of its therapists and patients), and thereby save the world.
Larry: I quote your last line:- “I hope someone could tell me I’m wrong and that an old feeling is at the root of my despairing view.” I contend that you are wrong about the demise of the blog. I also know that it is within you Larry to know the root of your despairing view. No one else knows that … but you. Jack
Well….Jack also certainly didn’t show any remorse for violating my privacy earlier.
Since both Patrick & Jack have been around the Primal scene since time immemorial, perhaps remorselessness is an acquired trait of advanced Primal patients?
U.G., I don’t think “remorselessness is an acquired trait of advanced Primal patients”. “Time immemorial” is not the determining factor, rather feeling one’s own pain is connected to being able to feel the pain of others. I think that to the extent any of us can’t feel our own hurt, we can’t feel when we’re hurting others.
Nicely said, Vicki. Also, I don’t think time in therapy is necessarily a good indicator of one’s primal advancement, especially if a long-termer feels the need to constantly berate others.
By the way, Patrick…
In case you are reading this blog still…..I believe the reason the news media keeps a hyper-huge front page focus on ISIS is related to some sort of nexus of power between the mainstream media and the federal government’s agenda.
The United States spends over 4% of its GDP on the military. We spend four times as much on our military as China, and China has four times the US population!
A continued focus on ISIS helps to keep those rich, fat, lucrative contracts flowing to private military contractors that are well connected to the iron grip stranglehold the military-industrial complex has on US Government spending.
The contractors can only milk the sweet, sweet cash cow from the 9/11 hysteria for so many years before being forced to switch to a new agenda to maintain the power stranglehold (hence, now a hysterical focus on ISIS instead of deadly matters here at home).
As a Vietnam War vet who has actually been on the front lines against the Viet Cong once told me: There’s lots and lots of money in war, and certain people make a shitload of money by maintaining a hyper-focus on any perceived terror threat no matter how existentially small in the actual scheme of things.
Hi UG
Can you substantiate your statement above, or are you doing a Patrick.
Ever since my parents took me out of Romania, the then a communist country, I heard nothing but various similar claims. However, never have I ever seen any substance to these claims. Not to say that they are not true, but a bit of proof would go a long way.
Tom
Tom: Can you prove to me it’s not true?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37361.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
Start there. It’s all about the money. The brainwashed soldier’s life is cheap and the money is grand.
There’s much more to be said here, but alas I have my own little life to worry about.
Vicki, your sentence “I think that to the extent any of us can’t feel our own hurt, we can’t feel when we’re hurting others.” hits the nail on the head.
I’ll be attending a West Coast Swing dance workshop this afternoon, beginning at noon. Later in the afternoon I’ll be picking up a long time good friend at the airport, who is arriving for a national entomology conference being held here until Wednesday. My friend and I will maybe go for a hike this afternoon, and then have supper together, and then I’ll drop him off at the hotel where the conference will be held. He needs time this evening to prepare talks he will give. After I drop him of, I’ll try to make myself go to a dance this evening. From Sunday to Wednesday I’ll be at the conference on a photography team, participating as a volunteer photographer of the events, which go all day and in the evening turn into social mixers and on Tuesday a banquet.
So I’ll be pretty busy over the next few days, out of my routine and comfort zone, and maybe won’t be finding time until later in the week to explore my percolating feelings and thoughts and share them here.
What I wrote here yesterday wasn’t easy for me to post. My tendency is to shy away from turmoil, and sometimes it’s healthy to stay out of struggles that are neurotic and hopeless. The delicate balance is trying to sense when is the time to walk away, and when is the time to stand up for what matters. Yesterday I needed to stand up for what matters to me. I appreciate your replies of support. Involving myself the way I did is cracking something open in me, awakening troubling feelings and truth.
You’ve got a great opportunity this week Larry, engaging in a conference that interests you, being a photographer, and connecting with people, let alone your friend! The retreats will have stood you in good stead! ( English does that sound!!)
I’m at the other end of the spectrum currently, having had minuscule connection with anyone…. My friends are abroad, my family busy. I have to force myself to do constructive things, like art, or walking in the countryside. Then I’m home watching tv, distracting myself from the loneliness.
I know this is temporary, but it feels hard to get through.
I’m glad you are sharing this Jo – While you are enduring it. It is always so much easier to talk in hindsight about the hard time we have had. (You hear so many celebrities open with that on talk shows, but then again how could the audience handle “I feel so alone and insecure…” in the present moment.)
You are definitely doing big things. I hope you get to continue with the balance of doing the good things that you are, and then get some relief for releasing the old stuff that arises.
Hope you keep us posted!
ox L.
It’ll happen -your encouragement is much appreciated Leslie. 😊
I’m glad you pointed that out, Leslie, about how Jo is relating to us her loneliness while it’s happening, I had glossed by that in reading. I find that very hard, and seldom can do it — while I’m feeling bad, and “feeling sorry for myself”, I’m also ashamed of where I’m at, feeling there’s something wrong with me, that it’s “happening because nobody likes me”, and so saying anything about it feels extremely vulnerable, and god-forbid needy. It’s risky — people may run or walk away, or start to feel bad and not want to hear, or overdo a pathetic response — making it all more painful.
I think I usually have to feel bad enough alone to “get past the worst of it” before I start feeling a little better, alone-ok, and not so gawd-awful needy, in order to “let the cat out of the bag” about it to anyone. I feel too bad about it, otherwise. Scary, like I might get hit. It makes me think about getting hit for “moping”, or crying when hurt. No exact memories, but I think it happened.
Anyway, I’m sorry you’re feeling so bad, Jo, desperate for options, too much like the past (as you wrote about later below).
Well, Vicki, it IS hard to say it in person, in the present, but I feel relatively ‘safe’ here ( on paper). I write because I feel a bit desperate, the feeling pushing passed distractions.
And it sounds like you have something similar on occasion.
Hi Jo, I hear what your saying, that it can be hard to be alone even if it is onlytemporarily, something I go through too. I hope you can get some reliefsoon.Phil
WordPress.com
Jo commented: “You’ve got a great opportunity this week Larry, engaging in a conference that interests you, being a photographer, and connecting with people, let alone your friend! The retreats will have stood you in good stead! ( English does that sound!!) I’m at th”
Thank you Phil ☺️
feel exhausted.
went to mom with food to cook and even took some pans with me and oil as to not to have to search in vain for her stuff.
cooking and lunch went fine and then we went for a hike.
it was nice for a while, but then on a very familiar path she could not find the right path back home and I ended up directing her more or less in the right way on several occasions relying on the sun for orientation and on my inner map.
it was troubling, even while knowing we could not be far away from home, it was very distressing to notice how my mom loses some of her capacity to recognize familiar paths. it seems she can still get around when there are large landmarks as the castle nearby but even on a track she must have done a thousand times, only a mile from home, she started getting lost.
it is so sad and it was scary too.
it was more distressing when she started to minimize what happened but finally she did admit it might be safer not to go in the woods even near home, but to stay even closer to home still if unaccompanied.
she also ended up letting in the idea more her future household help might come handy after all, to cook and organize her stuff etc.
so it was a useful day with nice moments, but also so very exhausting and scary, and sad in some ways, letting go of stuff together with her.
it is good she is more outfront now with the mere getting older fact with all its impacts.
things like household help. losing some abilities and future staying in a home become possible to talk about.
so I feel both satisfied but also hurt as it seems a kind of goodbye, a kind of slow ending.
feel like crying right now.
M
Sad sad sad….food, walk, food, tv, no relief today either..soooo alone, but no car, nowhere to express it but here. Except a tiny quiet (just like at B school) outburst of tears every now and then. Roll on nighttime…safe for a while.
So descriptive Jo…I know you have probably said before – but I forget – how old were you when you were sent to boarding school?
Its always too young when I hear about it. Absolutely soul destroying for the child. Also I often think of all that huge loss for the child, and then the parent too – of those precious ages and stages being totally bypassed and re-routed…
ox L.
Your support is painful in itself, as you will understand 😥 but welcome, because it pushes me a little to go there.
I was 7 ish till 14…7 years of institutionalisation. 😥
The worst was the first four years: first bewilderment at being left on my first day, I couldn’t understand what happened. I felt ‘not there’ most of the time. I (silently) begged begged ‘God’ ( we had to kneel by our beds in the dormitory for several minutes each night to say our prayers) for mummy and daddy to take me home. Time stretched endlessly…
No complaints could be made, what you wrote home once a week was censored. Yes it was horrible.
And I did feel “what are they doing at home? What am I missing? ”
It made me feel unloved, unwanted, which I carry today.
Jo, It’s hard for me to imagine boarding school for so many years and starting at such a young age. What a terrible thing to do to a child, so unfeeling. Phil
Yes
hi Jo,
I relate to how you feel.
can you fall asleep easily at nigt?
how long will it be until you really move?
M
wow Jo,
that sounds reallly terrible.
i would never have imagined those details but they sound like torture under those circumstances.
Margaret, I get to sleep easily, but I have very disturbed sleep…partly because I’m alone.
jo, that sounds familiar.
at a retreat I sleep like a log and fall asleep while people are chatting right next to me.
alone at home I have trouble relaxing enough to be able to doze off or I wake up in the middle of the night and often also have trouble going back to sleep.
completely related with being alone.
even my cat jumping on the bed, which she rarely does in summer, makes a lot of difference to relax me.
i don’t like the idea of maybe having to stay alone for the rest of my days but I guess that is a very real possibility.
right now can’t invest much energy in searching for company, am surviving and coping with all the actual problems and trying to make my present life worthwhile and pleasant.
at least right now I have the feeling I am doing all I really need to do.
maybe in a later stage there will again be more room for some extra options..
next week I should go tango dancing again, has been more or less a year since I have done so, my feet might hurt, smiley..
M
I’m a great admirer of the Tango!
I slept very restfully on that trip to the wilderness park a couple of weekends ago, sharing a cabin with a couple of other fellows and spending time always with many people. I don’t sleep so soundly now, alone at home. I can imagine how having a pet cat in my life would ground me.
You do have a lot on your plate Margaret. I hope somehow you are able to find time to search for company, but yeah it’s a lot of work, and for me a lot of feelings.
Just wanting to pass on a recommendation – a sweet movie, very non Hollywood, from India with sub titles – The Lunch Box.
I am in the throes of feeling really good, and yet in a huge struggle with being in further yoga teacher training. Everything I get from doing yoga myself – the relaxation, a confidence, security & acceptance of where I am at doing it , wanting to do it and making that happen – is in complete contrast to how I feel teaching. Why teach then? Yeah, that is the dilemma!!
(1st world issue I know – so often I feel so self indulgent going where I need to – and yet it is all I have – to go there to unravel my long thread of masked insecurity etc.)
I have been feeling about it – with some help, and as painful as that has been, it has eased some acute, overwhelming feelings, thoughts and actions of inadequacy…
Why isn’t it enough to have yoga – finally an interest that I am passionate about – just for me?
Again, I have had some big feelings about my dad. ugh. I will have to detail some later, as sabotaging my yoga training with lack of both sleep and practicing (since I have not quit my day job 🙂 and don’t even want to!) is an act-out I have to avoid!
Just wanting to stay in touch with my stuff, if I can by talking to you my friends – to avoid a huge crash as it is a horror when all the things I have not dealt with pile up…
Glad you’re writing here, Leslie. And I know what you mean about things not dealt with piling up — headed for a fall, and not always even aware it was brewing.
That’s what I find, when stuff builds up; it doesn’t seem to come naturally to me to express insecurity and hurt, because of my past.
Today I had my car for a few hours, and found I was yelling with pent up frustration, and then
sobbing for my mum. I’ve bitten my lip during that process
I hope you get some relief Leslie.
Margaret, I sleep better at retreats too, or when someone else is in the house.
tomorrow important
t day of going to have a look at a small private retirement home, with my brother and mum..
probably only result for time being will be to put her on the waiting list there, but at least hope she does not dislike it..
on thursday she should receive the first visit of her new household assistant who wil come one morning a week unless my sweet mom tells her not to come back..
suspense in other words..
Leslie,
I think you might make a pleasant yoga teacher as you probably won’t be one of those that take themselves much too seriously or make their pupils chant and stuff like that.
well, just talking for myself of course I am not too keen on that style, prefer the less esoteric just relaxation and stretch and gentle workout style where one is allowed the occasional giggle.
prefer no irritating boring flutes either and no incense that is said to provoke cancer, but hey, maybe I am a kind of a difficult pupil, smiley
jo, auch,I hate it when iI bite my lip or tongue, there is noone else to be able to be mad at on top of the hurt
M
very tired after afternoon with mum.
went to look at a small nursing home with my brother and her, but although on their site it looked very nice, in reality it was kind of claustrophobic..
good we checked it out and it gave us also more information about conditions etc.
mum of course not convinced at all, understandably so.
we went for dinner afterwards, and back home I ended up in another frustrating discussion with her about her wanting still to go on hikes in the woods by herself etc.
only when I went to another room refusing to go on and showing my distress she came around and apologised and said she did not want me to be scared about her so she promised to follow my advices.
so that shows she does understand really, but is merely very stubborn and pigheaded and always tends to want the last word about everything..
but well, it ended ok and seemed a useful phase after all.
I later on apologised to my brother for again having ended up in a discussion and having lost my patience, but he reacted very nicely and in a supportive way, not blaming me at all.
we will soon check out another nursing home nearby which seems more suitable.
in the meantime we will try to organize things to make it safe for her to remain home.
tomorrow another big day when the household help will come to my mum for the first time, will have to call her and give her some extra instu
ructions about the food we left there today for tomorrow, call the niw helper I mean, after calling my mom to wake her up and remind her..
and then keep my fingers crossed they get along well..
nice my brother and me are still forming a good team in all of this..
exhausted now..
M
Margaret, I hope the household help scenario goes well.
I wondered, though, with regard to nursing home visits, if it will save some energy for you and your brother to visit homes initially without you mother? It means you both can refine your options and choose what you feel is best. At the end of the day, it is ultimately your assessment and decision.
jo,
that is true and we wil do so.
this one looked so nice on their website we had hoped it would reassure our mum to see it.
this morning when I called her to wake her up for the household helper, she told me she had a hiking appointment with her boyfriend at ten…
she did not want to cancel that now, so I callled her boyfriend myself who had forgotten about the household helper and he called my mom to cancel the hike..
she called me back and kind of reluctantly accepted, but when I called her place an hour later to have a chat with the helper she told me my mom had told her she would go out at ten.
but luckily after some more phonecalls they had settled the hiking time for ten thirty and agreed the helper would stay until that time and come back next week, which is what matters most to me, that she was not ‘fired’ so to say by my mom.
I can assure you my blood pressure took some very high leaps this morning, and is now slowly descending hopefully…
if my mom would have sabotaged it all I might have felt like not going to her anymore but luckily some arrangments were made everyone can be happy with..
phew, all that stress is not good for me, smiley.
do you know more by now about a specific date when you will move?
this wait must be difficult, kind of an in-between stage, or not?
M
Margaret, what a horrible stressful complex morning, and it’s not even 10.30!
I am still in limbo with regard to my move. No signing date yet, held up by syndicate man needing to provide a document.
Nothing I can do about that.
I have, however, arranged for removal and storage for the 17th, based on tenuous hope of the signing being around then.
I am reassured the sale will go through by the Notaire, and would prefer to have sounder knowledge, to avoid the feeling of unsafety!
I feel so angry and frustrated right now.
yesterday I sent a mail to the household service to thank the new lady for her flexibility and patience on her first day with my mom.
they mailed me back to let me know my mom had called them yesterday to cancel all help.
but they added they will just ignore it and continue to go there, to my great relief, so I sent them a second mail to thank them for that as well.
sent their mail through to my brother to let him know what happened.
feel so frustrated right now and pissed off and also powerless confronted with the stubbornness of our mom I don’t even want to call her.
might not do so for the next few days or even more than a few days.
M
I called my halfsister this morning , because I needed to ventilate wsome of my frustration about my mom’s attitude.
she is older than me, a daughter of my dad’s former relation and was not raised with us, but she knows my mom very well.
i told her about the mail I got in reply to my thank you mail to the household caring service, in which they had warned me my mom had called them to cancel all help.
luckily they assured me at the same time they would ignore it and just go back to her next week.
but talking with my halfsister enabled me to let my frustration and anger and sadness coe up to the point I was actually crying.
she was very supportive and promised to call my mom for a ‘casual’ chat and that she would tell her again she should not behave in such an egoistic way with her children trying to help her.
it helped me very much she spontaneously confirmed a decision I had already made, by giving me the strong advice not to call my mom until she called me herself.
it makes all the sense of the world, as I will only end up in another struggle and feel unhappy and frustrated.
we talked for hours and will meet fro ow on on a regular basis to go shopping or to go to a movie together.
it is amazing how the problems with our mom not only bring me and my brother closer together but now also me and my half sister.
we talked for a long time about our dad, and she told me some heartbreaking experiences she had had with her horrible mother for example taking her back to her dad one day with the bag of eastern eggs he had for once been allowed to give to her, and how in the iddle of the street and with the little daughter on her hand crying, she had hit him on the head with the bag of chocolate eggs yelling and screaming at him.
for the first time she seemed to be open to admit my. our dad, had treated me differently due to his separation from her, and how it must have afffected my childhood.
with her he had been very cuddly taking her on his lap and playing with her, and even as an adult she still felt free to go sit on his lap occasionally.
she had suffered terribly with her mom shutting him out, her mom being a drunk and borderline psychotic, and had not been allowed to see him for years and years.
he could not do anything back then as she was not registered on his name.
so it is a very sad story for all involved specially made worse by the horrible and mean attitude of my halfsisster’s mother.
that woman is still alive and my halfsister really hates her.
I sent an e-mail to my brother about my mom’s attempt to cancel the help, and for now will leave it as I am momentarily done with her.
will see what the future brings and if we talk warn her I will take distance if she behaves like this again.
sad and distressing, but for the moment I will have to put it aside and focus on my own life and specially on the statistics.
feel sure my halfsister will say everyting to my mom that can possibly be said, in a clear and direct way.
M
Margaret, since your mom’s memory is becoming erratic, I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t always remember at times agreeing to have help come in, or that you and she discussed it, or why she can’t just make her own decisions all the time. She may not always remember that she is losing her memory and competence to care for herself. It may be a quandary, beyond stubbornness. You may still be angry, but it may not help.
Margaret, This ongoing situation with you mother just sounds so difficult to deal with. That’s great that your half sister will give some help. Also that you’ll be meeting up with her for fun things.. Phil
WordPress.com
Margaret commented: “I called my halfsister this morning , because I needed to ventilate wsome of my frustration about my mom’s attitude.
she is older than me, a daughter of my dad’s former relation and was not raised with us, but she knows my mom very well.
i told her “
after finally having managed to review a minimal amount of statistics exercises it feels good to have restarted, but having a break now also suddenly makes me be aware of how it feels lonely not to feel able to give my mom a call just in order to get something, some good feeling and some feeling of motherly care or connection or whatever.
it feels right though to take some distance, for my own sake.
it feels like a healthy thing to do, even while it means facing that kind of lonely feeling.
M
Vicki,
of course I know that is the case, but also it seems really true the rest plays as well.
just one example.
my halfsister adressed the fact my mom had tried to cancel the help service.
at first my mom denied and acted as if she had no clue what it was about.
my sister did not give her any hint but just said to her ‘you know very well what you tried to cancel’, and then my mom went ‘ooooh, you mean the girl that comes to help here ..’
I mean my mom is a real actress, full of tricks.
her most obvious thing that really shocked me was that when we went for a hike and i asked her to lock the door, because all my stuff was inside, she firstinsisted to leave it open in case her boyfriend would come by and maybe he would have forgotten his own key etc.
I insisted she locked the dooor, she could still leave the key in the letterbox for him, and then she just pretended she locked it.
as I was suspicious she might try to fool me and have it her own way, I tried the door and it was indeed still unlocked.
so I made her lock it and put the key in the letterbox.
i felt so bad about that attempt to deceive me I had to adress it and told her I felt really very bad about it.
she just brushed it off by saying I should not be so scared, meaning she was right and it was stupid of me to want the house to be locked when we would be out for more than an hour.
thiis is not a question of forgetting, it is stubborn igheadedness and wanting to have the last word and things done her own way, wanting to have the lead.
you probably mean well, but it feels bad you seem to doubt my judgement about this.
I feel grounded about this now after the long talk with my halfsister who said a lot of things while expressing her own view, that completely backed up my own feelings.
didn’t I explain it well enough before that you feel like pointing this out to me?
I think I gave enough details like the story of how my mom suddenly adjusted when I got out of patience with her and all of a sudden was able to promise all the things she did not seem to ‘get’ before while arguing, or kept denying their logic or sense.
when things became serious she quickly adjusted her behavior.
I have all the patience of the world when she forgets or loses her capacities of any kind, but it is the attempt to manipulate us that trigger me and the disrespect for all the efforts we make and for our side of things.
this is not black and white of course, and half of the time she really can’t help it but believe me or not some of the time it remains manipulation and self-centeredness.
wish I would not feel like i have to defend yself here to you, but well I am probably oversensitive right now.
or maybe something, some feeling of yours makes you say this to me?
I know by the way, or knew in this case it was useless to get mad at her, which is exactly the reason why I did call my sister and not her as that would only inflict more stress and frustration and hurt on myself as it would not help at this point.
I am not that stupid you know.
but thanks for the reaction in any case, M
No, Margaret, sorry, I did not realize the details of the extent of her deceptions and manipulations of you. That makes it hard to even know what the truth is, from moment to moment. I would not be wanting to help someone who does that. Or if I felt I had to, I would avoid taking risks with her, limiting her opportunities to hurt me in any way, as she’s not trustworthy. That’s a tough situation, as your own need propels you toward her, just because she’s your mother.
When I wrote about the memory failings, I was thinking of how it was with my own mom, whose memory was variously reliable and unreliable, throughout the day.
Vicki,
thanks, and you are right with what you say about having to protect myself.
that is what I am doing now by taking some distance and trying to figure out what I need to say when my mom would call.
it is difficult to need to make sure she is safe at the same time as not wanting to get into more frustrating struggles .
time will tell Iguess.
keep giving me feedback it is always welcome as I feel very lonely on a deep old level, while feeling I am doing ok in the present and doing what I need to do.
M
sorry to go on about this, but I hope it will help me in exploring what exactly goes on for me..
as much as I dislike the idea of my mom maybe ending up canceling the household help, and agin getting things her way and ‘winning’ over me, somehow I think it would be easier to accept it if only I was involved.
then it would be easier to just sit back and let her get in enough trouble to admit eventually she can use sone help.
but now she also affects my brother’s life and I even worry about his health, he might end up with another stomach ulcer or even a heart attack or something with all the added stress about our mom on top of the enormous stress of his job.
still am not clear about what I can do.
maybe there will come a moment when I can warn my mom I will hold it against her if she cancels the help, because it feels like she does only care about her own interess and not about how we feel.
still I am so fed up with useless struggles and all the energy they consumme I am very reluctant to do or say anything unless it clearly expresses how I feel. and maybe makes a minimal chance to reach her.
i have never felt so close to saying ‘fuck her’..
M
despite a slight migraine, focusing for a while on statistics and my cat having joined me on the bed helped me to put things back in perspective and feeling my focus back into my own life instead of into my mother’s sort of..
much better!
M
mom called and asked how I was.
told her not good and told her why.
after not too much discussion she seemed to get what I was saying and promised not to cancel the household service anymore and she seemed to mean it.
she might forget again but the main thing is she adjusted as she did not want us to feel bad.
M
I wish my neighbors next door had a cat like Margaret does.
Shut up dawg! Just SHUT THE FUCK UP!
(LINK) Barking dogs. Bowwow….yapyapyapyapyap
(SECOND LINK) Dog is killing my nerves
How am I going to sleep and be on top of the game with a horribly yapping dog right outside my bedroom window? I can hear the damn thing a block and a half away, and it’s right outside my fucking bedroom window!!
This has been a very difficult summer for sleeping for me because of that stupid dog that won’t shut up. .
The sad thing is the neighbors used to own a cat, and it died. I even had the cat walk around inside my house to leave a scent to scare off any potential mice that would want to come in during the winter.
Cats don’t bark. Nice cat.
Guru, Have you spoken to your neighbors about their dog? Phil
Phil:
Not yet, no. One big reason is fear that, even if I show them my bedroom and how their little nightmarish noisemaker is howling its emotional distress a mere 5 feet from my bedroom window, they still will not take any constructive action.
Then what do I do? Write letters? Keep knocking on their door? Call the cops?
It’s a strange tradeoff between suffering in silence or running a risk of having to escalate the situation further if they don’t do something about it if they don’t cooperate with my first request for help.
Shit, why do people keep howling & barking dogs around, anyway? Do they even recognize they are acoustically wrecking their own nervous systems day after day?
Why can’t they put this thing outside Arthur Janov’s or some sensationalist terrorism reporter’s bedroom window, instead?
This is just bullshit, man.
Come to think of it, there are quite a few different peoples’ bedrooms I’d like to plop this barking doggie next to. Bargaining with my fantasies won’t solve the problem, though.
UG, I read recently that some communities have dog-noise laws, e.g. if the dog is barking longer than 10 min. it’s not acceptable. Check your local law. And years ago, I knew someone here in West LA who called the city on a neighbor’s dog, and the neighbor had to get a bark collar to mitigate the problem. Someone else told me they had a couple of dogs “de-barked”, which doesn’t remove the vocal cords, but surgically changes them to reduce the volume, because it was causing too much of a problem in the neighborhood.
Vicki:
I live in a libertarian’s paradise with relatively few city codes, but I’ve called Animal Control on a previous owners’ pair of barking beagles (If you look at that barking dog website I linked earlier today, you will see that beagles are the absolute worst barking breed).
I’m not wanting to surgically alter dogs or pets, but why can’t I strategically place them next to people I dislike on a long-term basis? *waah, waah* (Bargaining with my fantasies again)
I seriously would like to know why I can easily handle a whistle-blaring train going by near my house (almost a soothing sound sometimes). Stereo music from a car is tolerable sometimes, too. I can handle all that.
Barking dogs? Forget it. I’ve reached my limit there. I can handle loud man-made noises if they are temporary because I know that most semi-intelligent beings will eventually stop the ruckus, but the random canine distress calls? Yuck. The only thing that comes close to it is a leaf blower.
Anyway, that barking dog website I linked above is really valuable & comprehensive. I loved how it clearly articulated exactly what agonies these barks put me through.
Guru I quote you:- “I’m not wanting to surgically alter dogs or pets, but why can’t I strategically place them next to people I dislike on a long-term basis? *waah, waah*
It’s my feeling that someone that has a “dislike of you”, that might have strategically placed the dogs right next to YOUR bedroom window’. It’s worth a thought.
Jack
You’re wrong, Jack. It has nothing to do with that at all. Didn’t you read where I put their cat in my own house to leave a scent before they descended into nerve-wracking acoustic idiocy and bought this yapping dog? Why would they allow that if they didn’t like me?
MY feeling is that you simply didn’t like my daring to propose placing this noisy yapper next to the Great Megalomaniacal Grand Poobah of All Humanity’s 7 billion children, The Glorious One and Only Arthur Janov.
Vicky: I am not a fan of making any animal into something that it naturally is not. My feeling is more akin to people that seemingly need little yappy dogs in the first place.
Jack
UG, It might also be therapeutic to address the source, your neighbors, when you can talk to them in a reasonable way and phrase it as a request. Better to do that before calling any authorities, I think. Phil Sent from my Virgin Mobile phone.
Primal Institute wrote:
Howdy,
THE Ultimate Guru commented on: Behind the Scenes part6.
Comment URL: (https://primalinstitute.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/behind-the-scenes-part6#comment-17623) Post URL: (https://primalinstitute.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/behind-the-scenes-part6)
This was in response to Phil:
I thought that a few years ago you found a technical solution to your noisy neighbour dog problem.
Larry: I did, and those were the two beagles I was referring to earlier. Those people moved out in 2011, and now the Daschund family has arrived. The ultrasonic device is not working on this one.
UG, How will your neighbors know the dog is bothering you if you don’t tell them? Since you don’t speak up they probably assume everything is fine. Barking dogs bother me too. This past summer at a campground I had to complain to a neighboring camper about his dog that was ruining my camping experience. He promised to try to keep the dog quiet and things were better after that. I also had other incidents like this at my house with neighbors in past years and found them to be cooperative after I complained. Much better to voice your complaint even if the effort doesn’t lead to action taken by your neighbor. It may relieve some of your frustration. Phil
Primal Institute wrote:
Howdy,
THE Ultimate Guru commented on: Behind the Scenes part6.
Comment URL: (https://primalinstitute.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/behind-the-scenes-part6#comment-17623) Post URL: (https://primalinstitute.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/behind-the-scenes-part6)
This was in response to Phil:
UG,
are they home while teir dog yaps and yaps?
or does it only yap when they are not home?
I’d certainly go talk with them and tell them how it bothers you and ask them to call the dog in or something when it goes on for to long.
or maybe you can throw a big yummie longterm greasy chewy bone out into their garden for it to keep busy with instead of yapping?
sounds in any case you better go talk with them before your irritation gets higher still or your blood presssure gets too high.
maybe they are cooperative, I certainly hope so cause I know how nervewracking those ongoing sounds can be.
M
Hi Margaret & Phil!
Margaret: It does most of the yapping early in the morning and when they are not home. They leave it outside on the back deck.
The dog already has plenty of toys, and I think it’s yapping for other reasons than needing a “big yummie longterm greasy chewy bone” (great phrase Margaret, LOL)
Yes, it’s pretty obvious that I should talk to the guy about the problem. There are some small things that have been stopping me from doing it right away which I didn’t explain on the blog.
Some days it’s really quiet and I feel like a whiner for even talking about it here. Other days are like nails on a chalkboard.
I really wanted to vent about this on the blog because my own frustration finally boiled over about it.
I know it’s not a life-and-death issue, but I have enough things in life already to make me go: “GRRRRRR!”
The doggie feels like the straw that breaks the camel’s back for me.
I’m not expecting most people to care about this….but I really wanted to vent, that’s all…
Just vent a frustration.
Maybe we can ship the dog out to California for some Primal Therapy?
No!!!! the dogs are out there for a very real purpose.
Jack
Animals can be traumatized. This dog might be suffering from past abandonment. Maybe if Guru would go outside with the dog and act as a buddy, by being s good listener. Phil
Phil: Just off the top of my head I can think of three other reason the dogs meant to be in that ‘nick of the woods’:- a) They are loving companions to his neighbors. b) They are in their own habitat. c) They are there to drive Guru to LA to do more therapy.
A little story as an aside. My next door neighbor has a little yappy dog and out across the driveway a neighbor has two little yappy dogs. My next door neightbor was complaining to me about the other two yapping dogs and asked me if it bothered me. I said “No; not at all, not even my sleep. I can sleep through droning helicopters as well as yappy dogs” It was ironic to me that she, my next door nieghtbor, compalins of other yappy dogs … not her own.
I ask myself “Is this cos I’ve done Primal Therapy???” According to Jim he claims its more to do with my getting old and decrepit. He has a point.
Jack
Jack, your words clearly remind me of why I am so glad don’t read Art’s blog at all. Given what I know now I realize what a tragedy it was for me to analyze too deeply into Art’s megalomaniacal mind.
Whenever someone mentions Art anymore I just think “ticktockticktockticktock” with a slowly increasing sense of glee each passing day. I am very content with this *smiley*
I really, truly don’t give a shit whether you or His Majesty Arthur thinks it’s normal or not to be forcibly subjected to listening to this yapping. It’s a bullshit annoyance for me that needs to be removed. And it will be one way or another.
Plus the owner…dogs stress being on their own (I’m not projecting haha), they’re pack animals.
Guru,
another option is, as the dog probably barks out of frustration, boredom and loneliness, that you ask the neighbours if you can occasionally bring the dog over to your place when they are out and it is yapping away.
then you both would have some compaany that hopefully would be more pleasant if alone by being less loud??
it might also keep the potential mice and even te adventurous rat away???
M
Margaret: The doggie is a cute little daschund that many people would love to snuggle with and so forth. I just hate the noise as I said earlier. I don’t think I will bother taking it into the house, though, because I am already too irritated with the animal.
Your idea was pretty good, though. I just don’t see it working out for me that way. Besides, I don’t want it to poop on my carpets.
I don’t have a bad vermin problem. It’s just one or two mice per winter. Sometimes a lucky winter goes by and there are none at all.
I got an e-mail from the householdservice my mother called them up to cancel it.
when they tried discussing it with her mentioning her children she said she is the boss in her own house and decides who enters or not.
I called her up and kept it really short, told her I really resented what she had done, after having promised me not to do so.
I noticed she was not about to give in at all so kept it very brief and told her she should not count on my help anymore in this case.
she mutterd something like oh ok, then that is how it is, and then I hung up the phone.
actually I feel good about having expressed my anger really, although of course I know too tha that if she really would need help of course I would help her.
but for the momet I have had it with her, and so far she has not called back either.
will not call her myself and will not go there in the nearby future.
will call her boyfriend not to go walking with her still on the days the help should come, and will ask the help to give it one more try this thursday.
they offered to do so and to ignore what our mom said, so that is not a roblem, but they also said that if my mom would not let them in they would stop going.
so I will ask them nicely to just give it another try, that is all I can do I guess.
and to let it go before it messes up my own life!
sent an sms to sister and brother, and my sister gave me this advice which sounds reasonable.
aaaarggh!!!
M
I contacted my mom’s boyfriend and he insisted with her she keep the household help.
she admitted to him her fear is not to be able to go hiking with him while the help comes, but only once every two months there is a hike on a thursday morning so that fear is irrational as then we can cancel the help for that one day.
so now just sent a mail to keep it going, and me and my brother will step back for a while and focus on our own life a bit more.
f.. her for all that trouble, no wonder for years I am having nightmares about chaotic and messy houses full of rubbish and dirty dishes that I desperately want to clean up, mostly in vain as it is too much..
maybe now having the boyfriend in our team we make more chance to get somewhere with our pigheaded childish mom.
M
I don’t really know what I feel, empty I guess, vaguely sad and vaguely needy.
I think I always expected that if ever I’d allow myself to be angry at my mom in a direct way like I did yesterday, she would react, feel hurt, defend herself, try to make up or whatever, express her own indignation but always it would lead somewhere..
now of course my mom can simply have forgotten it all and be happpily going on with her stuff..
the silence feels kind of lonely and empty.
hard to figure out what is due to the dementia and what is because I don’t matter that much?
my rational mind reminds me of her presence during three months by my hospital bed in the past.
my present adult self stil carries the young self inside needing a real and present mother. with real and caring responses. an adult mom that takes responsibility.
writing makes the sadness come closer to the surface..
will need my concentration tomorrow for four hours of private statistics class.
have a headache and feel down and tense right now.
bottom line seems the need of a sane adult mom, not a crazy childlike person like she has always kind of been, it only becomes more clear now.
it seems all so much about her need, her needs..
feel beat down, sad, sad about my brother too whose natural father is dying or maybe already dead by now.
sad.
Sounds like an important, difficult insight, Margaret.
gave mom her wake up call.
spoiled my whole day. or at least that is how it feels right now.
have to process things as I have to go to university this afternoon for my statistics class.
she is stubbornly decided to cancel all help, says she was happy so far and is not happy anymore now with all the intrusion of her privacy..
still insists she can do it all herself.
when told she might get ill she saus she will start up the service then.
she passes by the fact there will again be a long waiting list.
I have to let go, told her it does not make me happy but that I don’t want a fight.
told her I find it a selfisch dicision of her but that she can do as she pleases as she does that anyway.
we will have to cope with visiting her and finding her without toilet paper occasionally or without dish soap and with a house in disorder.
so be it I have done my best.
will respect her decision even if it feels wrong, but I feel it created distance.
and a feeling of loneliness.
now still have to focus on my day, fucking shit feeling like this while having such a challenge ahead.
am not gonna call her at all for a long while now I think.
M
How did your day go, Margaret?
I have decided to limit myself here to the occasional ‘guest appearance’ in deference to Larry and Leslie etc who desire a nice and peaceful playpen where everything is ‘safe’ and yet still nothing much doing……………..anyway this sentence from Art Janov’s current blog caught my eye
“For example, there is more and more evidence that some cancers and Alzheimers derive from womb-life and infancy”
And I thought ‘really hmmm’…………….more and more evidence how about SOME evidence to start with? ‘Some’ cancers he says but does not specify which ‘some’ are does that mean other cancer’s are not? About Alzheimers here are some common sense observations……………my Mom who recently died age 88 had as far as I could tell not a trace of AZ (Alzheimer’s), her memory and judgement were pristine and accurate, she told me stories from her own childhood and young life, how she met and courted my Dad, my own young life including the circumstances of my being born and on and on memories, reflections wtc and not a trace of memory loss or distortion of any kind. So if Janov is correct she must have had negligable trauma from her own ‘womb life’ and birth but then I’m thinking most people around there in the West of Ireland are similar it is common for old people or at least it WAS common to grow old without massive mental impairment.
But is is NOT common now, not here in the US at least and more and more in Ireland also. So if Janov is correct does that mean there is some kind of huge increase in ‘womb life’ problems and birth. Unlikely I would say. What there IS an increase in is processed food, ‘dirty’ water, electro magnetic radiation of all kinds cell phones, wifi, cell towers etc and huge reliance on drugs etc. Why not look there look at the more obvious ‘culprits’ to begin with? This reminds me also of doctors who like to put a lot of disease down to ‘genetics’ cancer is ‘genetic’ we are mostly told……………….so did our ‘genetics’ suddenly go bad, genetics that has brought us this far billions of years and they suddenly go ‘bad’ in the late 20th Century and early 21st Century? Blame what has kept us alive through thick and thin and ignore what is in front of our eyes and what we are responsible for. Divert attention from the REAL cause of disease. And I hate to say it but it seems to me Janov is in a very similar position. Ignore the obvious and the current in favor of some mumbo jumbo either ‘genetics’ or ‘womb life’
Janov also says this in the current blog ” You fate is sealed in the womb and at birth”…………….now there you have it you fate is sealed!………….and I suppose all his ‘therapy’ or primal therapy that does not touch ‘womb life’ is useless too??………….what happened then to all his ‘promises’ all his ‘claims’ is that up in smoke too. Or oh well wait…………….if you go to him he might just take you there, you might just ‘unseal’ your fate. This reminds me of Scientology where you have always one more ‘step’ to go one more ‘level’ to reach. Just pay a bit (lot) more and wait and hope……………..you might get there………eventually. It’s like someone who is ‘wrong’ about chemistry, molecules etc and whose theory is failing says ‘oh wait it has to do with what is INSIDE the atom, you guys don’t understand, wait , I have something amazing to show you I know what I showed you in the past did not fullfill it’s promise but I promise I really do just go deeper and further and you might get there eventually……………..
I can imagine people will say they do not read Janov nowadays and so on but still his ‘theories’ are still what guides us and maybe Barry has a different idea or ‘plan’ but he is mostly not saying………………….
Patrick:
Although I think you are an asshole sometimes and I see why people have a problem with your proclivity towards insults, I’m not going to totally ignore you on the blog. I explained a long time ago about why many connections between birth trauma and suicide are illogical. Phil & Donal even acknowledged my point.
However, unfortunately, I forgot the fucking argument I made at the time! It will take some serious old blog research to find my good post on it. Arthur Janov has his credibility heavily invested in going gung-ho with birth trauma. And we all know what the intransigence the psychology of previous investment can lead to, right?
By the way, I was the one who introduced Jim Kunstler to Jack and the others way, WAY back in 2008 or so. I’ve read Mr. Kustler’s amusing gonzo style of writing for many years and he makes a lot of brilliantly salient social commentaries for sure. Unfortunately for him, fracking technology in oil drilling has put his alarmist Peak Oil views on hold for a while.
*correction: “And we all know what intransigence the psychology of previous investment can lead to, right?” (remove a “the”)
–“psychology of previous investment” is a brilliant phrase coined by Kunstler years ago, and it gives solid clues as to why Janov will continue to stay the course on birth trauma’s profound effects until his dying breath. (ie. Too much to lose now if he suddenly gives up on it)
Guru – I appreciate you saying you will not ignore me. From what I have seen you have an ability to get over ‘insults’ (to me sometimes it just seems plain truth telling but whatever that seems to have gone out of style) I do like that about you I still think a lot of people here are way too ‘precious’ precious about themselves and their ‘image. Anyway………..I think Janov’s emphasis on birth and ‘womb life’ is a total bust. And I am not saying in principle that it is a bust but the WAY he approaches it I really think it is. With him it always seems to involve a ‘session’ and where some know it all therapist (himself!) helps the patient ‘relive’ his birth. NOT! from anything I have seen or heard. I do not discount it as a possibility and I even think I delve into some of that myself but my feeling is primal therapy needs to be ‘liberated’ from Janov and his ‘followers’ and I believe one day it will be. Maybe it can be seen as a kind of ‘first draft’ but from what I perceive a very rough first draft that needs and I belive one day will be ‘liberated’ from the currren practisioners.
I believe I was the one who introduced Jack to Jim Kunstler I read his book “The Long Emergency” when it came out in 2005 and I know I talked to Jack about it and even lent him the book which he read. Not that we need to ‘compete’ about all that but just to be accurate. But yes his idea about the ‘psychology of previous investment’ is a brilliant idea and I think you are right it ‘explains’ Janov a lot. For him to ‘climb down’ from his claims and really a lot of his nonsense is it seems impossible. Now I know from myself that is HARD to do and yet it is what needs to be done for any progress to be made. It is probably one of the hardest things to do……………..on the other hand it is a simple as admitting you were ‘wrong’ or it starts with that something that does not seem to be in Janov’s nature. So big fail there and I am sure it will continue.
You know the way ‘religion’ often curdles into it’s opposite I am thinking about Christianity and say Marxism. I see primal in that light but in the way everything seems to move faster nowadays it has happened in the space of 30 years what used to take centuries. What do I mean by it’s opposite? What I think of as ‘primal values’ like speaking your mind even if it hurts, dealing with things AT THE TIME, being direct to the people in one’s life has mostly all been ‘captured’ by opposite values as in don’t be honest, hedge your bets, tell the ‘pillow’ dont tell the person, don’t deal with things NOW do it LATER in sessions, buddying whatever, All of this tends to make primal just another ‘head trip’. And as I said before though primal people have the advantage that they ‘know’ more in practice it is mostly just another head trip. To me the results show all this…………….by their fruits you shall know them……………………….
Patrick: Even though I have to let this blog go for the evening I will leave some parting words. You said the insults you hurl is truth-telling, but from my experience it seems like sadism in many cases. Some of the stuff you told me were not even accurate. I don’t know for sure about the others, but you do really want to pile it on. Throw the kitchen sink at someone even if it’s not true, just so long as it hurts them in some way.
I’ve been that way before myself when I was really drunk many years ago…
I won’t argue with you about Kunstler for now. Let’s just say we were both early adopters, fair enough?
As for Janov, well…..animalistic atheists will say lots of things to maintain a forward advantage to be sure. I will leave it at that for now…
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been very busy socially. I’ve been involved in more projects and activities than ever, connecting to more people than usual, participating in, enjoyng and getting fulfilment from life more than ever before. It feels good, and inevitably it brings up lots of emptiness and fear.
Ebola spreading exponentially out of control, military solutions that only seem to exacerbate the never ending turmoil in the middle east, and shutting our eyes to warnings that our CO2 emissions are heating up the planet, are all really really getting to me. Watching the following video tonight tipped the balance for me. Like in some horror movie, I feel that by the time we wake up and see the danger it will be too late. As the lifestyle that we’re comfortable with, our civilization and it’s institutions, even the natural environment itself with it’s heretofore predictable cycles, as all irreversibly collapse around us, whoever still has their health and wits about them will enter a struggle for sheer basic survival. I feel it’s not Ebola that’s the problem. I feel we are the pestilence run amok on the planet and there is no vaccine or cure.
Of course, beneath it all, on a more personal journey, I feel my life is collapsing. People I’ve worked with for much of my life are getting old and retiring. A way of life that I’ve known, that gave me purpose and meaning, is fading away. I’m getting older and don’t feel ready for the next phase of my life, without the work that anchored me, without Noreen who grounded me, without children or grandchildren to centre me. There is just me, facing the perilous unknown and if I don’t manage it well, it could be disastrous. I feel that the life I’ve known will soon come to and end, and old and alone I’ll be trying to find my way on a hostile alien planet.
I expect in the next day or two to break down and succumb to the feelings of frightening desperate helplessness. The feelings are rising up tonight, filling the spaces between my cells, building pressure and weighing me down. I can’t run from them any more than I can run from the changes in my life that are coming. I know that at the heart of the intensity of the feelings is a small child, me, too alone, too afraid and too mistrustful of life.
http://www.upworthy.com/they-took-a-camera-to-a-remote-area-in-greenland-and-what-they-recorded-is-simply-terrifying?g=2&c=reccon1
I don’t want to watch the video as I am already aware of the bad news and it won’t be helpful. I do what I can to help but it can’t make a difference. Our civilization is riddled with problems. I went to my youngest child’s last school open house as he will graduate high school this coming spring. It feels sad that my kid’s childhoods are over. It went by so quick and I don’t feel ready. I don’t even feel done with my own childhood. For their sake I hope the future of the world doesn’t turn out as bad as it looks now. I read an estimate that wildlife populations have been reduced 50 percent since 1970. That’s a depressing statistic. Phil
I heard that too. It is sobering.
Larry: I saw the entire video. The view was awe-inspiring, but otherwise I shrugged my shoulders. I know many people will dislike me for it, but where global warming is concerned I’ve pretty much resigned it all to: “Burn, baby, burn”. It’s not like many people care about auto traffic fatalities, so….yeah…enjoy the spoils and forget the rest.
Laughing while Rome burns:
Ha ha.
I don’t follow links unless they are personal Larry. Your description articulates your fear well enough 😉
I don’t understand why Larry & Patrick get so upset about global warming. There really are no direct fatalities and it’s a perfect opportunity to go into the air conditioning business, is it not?
Guru – It seems it is that kind of ‘entrepenurial spirit’ that has got us into this problem to begin with………………maybe if I dare to say it an example of some of your “crooked thinking” lol I very much agree with Larry I think it is a huge problem probably our biggest. I met someone and she says try not to worry about it we are just entering a massive “extinction event” she says she calms herself down by watching about previous ‘extinction events’ this apparantly in the 6th so called major one. One thing though I wonder if I wrote what Larry just did would he find it too ‘political’ or not eneough ‘personal’. It seems ok for him to do it but not me…………….just saying………………..
I’ve finally got my completion day – the signing away of my apartment! It’s been a long stressful process. This is a big relief. Other stresses leap up immediately to deal with, like I have to prove I’m a French resident, and I’m not a rich person with a second home in France! (Otherwise they will tax the amount I receive). There are “contract ending” letters to write in French to utility companies, an unexpected tax demand received yesterday (they still have my old address, even though I told them 6 months ago!), and many practicalities to sort.
I have booked my ticket to LA – yay!
I won’t have to tolerate the angry sociopath who lives above me, who made me feel very frightened on a regular basis. Or struggle with the co – proprietaire “syndicate” to try and get the damp fixed, thus avoiding breathing in the mould spores. (he never responded).
Progress 😛
That’s good news Jo. I don’t know how you are able to hold together having to wait in limbo for so long for the signing. I’m taking Fridays off work. Today is my 4th consecutive Friday off. Friday is turning out to be the most difficult day of the week for me. While most of the world is at work, I’m at home at loose ends. I begin to feel somewhat overwhelmed, alone and afraid. I have trouble deciding what to do with myself. So far I’ve managed to cobble together a day that is sufficiently meaningful to me, but I’m discovering I need a lot of self discipline to make myself do what I need to and what matters to me. Fridays are making me realize what a big challenge retirement is going to be for me. I think being in your situation would have pushed me over the cliff.
There’s a lot still to do, but I seem to be doing ok. I had to cancel a flight this morning by telephone IN FRENCH!! No way round it..I did it! The motivation was I’d have lost €490 so it must have sharpened my focus!
Jo,That is great about the progress with your moving. I hope it all goessmoothly. I can see how the whole thing would bring up a lot of feelings.Phil
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 05:16:09 +0000
To: phiban@msn.com
Phill, Larry Margaret, thank you. 🎢
PS.. This is a Happy feeling! 😉 winking smiley
Is it a smiley in French?
Ouais
just back home from four very stimulating and intensive hours of private statistics class!
it wiped all the cobwebs about my mom and her troubles out of my mind and restored a very good feeling!
have an appointment for another four hours next month and a lot of exercises to start working on now.
M
I always say nothing turns a bad day into a good one like a dose of data analysis does, ha ha. I’m glad for you that you met and overcame the challenges that were ahead of you, Margaret.
Jo,
that is great news!
Larry,
as you must have read by now I had a really great afternoon working on the stats with my teacher.
this morning called my mom as today the cleaning lady would show up and at the same time as making sure my mom was awake I wanted to find out whether she was also going to cancel her or not.
to my great relief she wil keep the cleaning lady, so the dust has setttled so to say, smiley.
M
Just thought I’d like to write a bit about what is going on with me at the moment. It’s a cloudy Friday morning and I sure miss the clear blue skies and sunshine (always was a bit of a sun worshipper). Swept the leaves off my patio at 6:45 am then had breakfast, read my emails, called Jim (it’s his free-day today as he calls it) We do have a lot of fun and joke quite a bit with one another, go for walks on the days he’s here (5 per week), he makes my lunch then we cuddle for a while and then he goes home. I go a couple of blocks with him in his car then walk back, always with a tinge of sadness on the way back and even sometime cry a little. I have a little squirrel freind that visits me most morning and begs for peanuts which I give a handful each time and he makes a mess all over the patio with the shells, that I then have to sweep again, but he/she is worth it. She/he’ll sometime stares me in the eyes from several inches from my face. I find it a very lovely experience
About what is taking place in the world I find extremely sad, but I don’t unduly worry about it and try hard not to forecast the outcome. The situation with regards to the Trailer Park closure is still pending and 5 of us (homeowners) are holding out. Had a unlawful detainer severed on me and went to court about it and the the Judge did not give me a chance to respond. Apparently she always rules in favor of land lords (but what’s new pussycat). Their attorney afterward talked about a settlement and one of hold-out’s sons went to negotiate for us, with him. Mmmmm!!! suddenly I found myself with a greedy urge rising up in me. How I dislike the consequences of money.
None of this stresses me and I do not suffer even the slightest depression (I cry instead and it works for me). My contention:- the promise and reward from Primal Therapy. I’ll be hitting 82 very soon and I do from time to time think about my own death, but looking back I feel lucky … I got a good deal out of my life. Yeah! there’s plenty of sad moments and quite a few angry ones and every now again there are the terrors, specially from the distant past. I do have someone that loves me deaarly, as I do him (each in our own different ways). For now, to you all: take care.
Jack
Lest anyone askes how I was able to get the promise and rewards of Primal Therapy, all I can say is that, that promise is contingent on reliving ones past. Short of that one is merely left with trying to figure it out in ones head … something I find many endevour to do (not only on blogs, but in the outside world also). I contend that manner will NOT deliver one to the promised land.
Complaining about ones sadnesses, frustrations, angers or even depression will not IMO resolve anything.
Reliving, by its very nature, puts us into that state of mind in childhood, whereby we automatically expressed the feeling … and hence resolve it. Jack
Complaining about ones sadnesses, frustrations, angers or even depression will not IMO resolve anything.
I have to call bullshit to that one. I’m not going to deny that it’s a long, arduous route towards healthy insight during the process of complaining, but I don’t want to bother arguing this any further. Just making a note of my objection here.
So what’s the point???? You are already arguing it, and it’s my bet you’ll continue with arguments of one form or another. How about talking about your feeling on the matter instead??????
Jack
Get a good night’s sleep in your little trailer, Jack.
You should call yourself the squirrel whisperer, Jack. I’ve been wondering where your dealings with the trailer park owners are at. So 5 left out of how many? What sort of settlement have the rest of them received?
Larry: Yeah!!! I didn’t want to bore you guys with minuscule details before there was something definite to report. Not all that definite yet, but on the way one way or another.. Just heard this afternoon from the guy running for Mayor of Santa Monica that the current drought taking place in California could perhaps put a stop to all developments. That would be good for us in that we could stay.
The settlements offered were puny in the sense that we were about to lose such a beautiful environment here, with the trees and open skies and low mobile homes an the plethora of birds squirrels and purdy chats and some yappy dogs, and plenty of parking. There were 109 homeowner/residents before they started on the plan to oust us all, seven years ago. Two committed suicide and most left not wanting to go through the hassles they were putting us through. Many felt a lot of stress and depression which didn’t occur to me as i said earlier, but many others did. Most signed an agreement to be relocated (all terrible choices as far as I was concerned) but the final clause had us sign to waive any right to sue after signing. I refused as did the other four (they reported in the Santa Monica Daily Press designate as ‘cohort’).
“It’s not all over” as the saying goes, “until the shouting stops”, and I ain’t being co-hearsed into repressing the expression of my feelings. C’est la vie apres Primal Therapy.
Hope it all make sense Larry. Jack..
speaking for myself I am so glad primal therapy helped me to live my life in a deeper feeling way, being more open.
that is why I was able to express my feeling and share enoug of it with my brother, sister, and even with my statistics teacher.
it did not take much and was not dramatic, merely being able to express what went on in the moment in a natural way, even when it was making myself as vulnerable as sheddding a few tears, it also meant connecting on a much deeper level as I would have done without therapy.
it is not the factual ability of sharing something, it is a much more subtle deepening of the level of connection and openess, which is a personal channge on a personal scale.
it also enbabled me to deal with a girlfreind that I also shared some feelings with, and who responded often by giving me too much advice of how to get ‘over’ the hurt.
I told her I had the impression she feared I would stay stuck in the painful feelings I talked about, and added that while I worded them I am in a process of exploring and processing them.
that cleared up any possible misunderstandings and she really heard and accepted what I said and was glad for it. she also saw how it was true as the hard feelings of the days before had been dealt with.
i notice some people here use a lot of words and croooked logic reasoning to prove their emotional points, while using very black and white assumptions on whether the relation between say birth traumas or other unresolved feelings and cancer or other later problems are ‘bullshit’ or ‘religious truth’.
it seems so childish and pointless and a waste of everyone’s time and attention to argue in such a meaningless way. it for me has no sense at all and seems merely to be about fullfilling some emotional need , an attempt to obtain something.
tiresome as I keep reading it all anyway, smiley.
M
Margaret – you have you ‘interests’ in life other people (me for example) have DIFFERENT ones. Why do you feel the need to it seems always want to shoe horn things into your own area. God knows you talk eneough about your mother and I never say anything. But you do (about what I say) and all the time. It seems you never miss a chance to rule ‘offside’ so many things that all they have in common is you don’t like them.
You may not think it interesting or important but I do, I think it is worth noticing that Janov the ‘avatar’ of this movement is mostly saying things that are not that sound. Exaggerated, sloppy self serving yes but not ‘sound’. So I point that out and I am not the only one who sees that. He is I could say almost universally reviled as a ‘thinker’ of any serious note. You should even know this from your ‘studies’ if you are not too bogged down in ‘statistics’
I quote part of this comment “……..I think it is worth noticing that Janov the ‘avatar’ of this movement is mostly saying things that are not that sound. Exaggerated, sloppy self serving yes but not ‘sound’. So I point that out and I am not the only one who sees that. He is I could say almost universally reviled as a ‘thinker’ of any serious note. You should even know this from your ‘studies’ if you are not too bogged down in ‘statistics’”.
I say:- “Kettle calling the frying pan black”. This blog is primarily about the expression of feelings being the liberator from that terrible disease that we humans suffer (mostly… the others being the domesticated ones). The psychologist that made this very profound discovery (Sure enough has not YET gotten universal recognition, but there is progress on the horizon). Many, historically never gained recognition until after their demise.
What I find amazing from almost all your comments is that you are all hell bent on demeaning the discovery … seemingly becasuse you did not GET it … and trashing the messanger. I personally know little or nothing about the man, but I am very cognicente of his work and delighted to have done his therapy. I am suspicious of your motives for remaing on a “Feeling” blog. It came out of the fact that you hoped (seemingly) you’d found a forum and maybe a girl freind or two. Now that, that seems to be on the blink there seems little point (other than perhaps saving yourself from boredom) to remain.
Tell us: what DO YOU GET out of this blog??????? Jack
I don’t like talking to a wall (you)
Jack – I think it is quite wrong to say I ‘demean the discovery’ I would agree it is a profound discovery and very important…………..what I question is how has it been bollixed up so badly then. My ‘issue’ with it is the very fact of the ‘promise’ of the discover which I believe is valid versus the actual results. So I would say yes I am ‘demeaning’ the messenger but not the discovery. I am on my own path with this (Dr Kruse and primal) and I have to admit I was more productive and had more peace of mind when I was ‘off’ the blog for a few weeks. So I suppose I should listen to myself here and follow my own path which to me is quite different than ‘standard primal’. I find that thin gruel indeed and time will tell how it goes. On the outside it is ‘failing’ and I feel that reflects the reality on the ‘inside’. But your’e right in a way, I am throwing stones and after all I STILL live in a glass house. So for now I will try to keep that in mind and let people here do whatever they are doing even if I think it is pretty much ‘nowhere’
“what I question is how has it been bollixed up so badly then. My ‘issue’ with it is the very fact of the ‘promise’ of the discover which I believe is valid versus the actual results”.
Little do you seem to know it, BUT all that is you Feeling, I repeat; FEELING. you still haven’t caught on to the fact that you make your feelings into FACTS and then spew them out from your (assumed) intellect.
You missed out on the promise cos IMO you were stuck in your head and had no concept of “The realm of a feelingful life and NOT a thinking one. Hence you assume (which most of here don’t) that it was “balluxed up”. If I were to throw out insults as you seem for ever to do, I’d be tempted to say that the only thing that got ‘balluxed up’ was your life. However, I will refrain from that, since I feel you are the expert on your feelings … about your life.
If you genuinely feel the results were such a fiasco then I feel you should be in a conversation with Gretchen perhaps Barry, and If he’d read you, Arthur Janov himself. Trying to battle it with the rest of us bloggers seems forlorn to me. Get to the source of the ‘practitioners’. Jack
Jack – that’s fair eneough but the thing is I feel I have found a ‘better way’ and what bugs me today is why don’t I just concentrate on that then. I know it is good for me and healing in the real sense and yet………………I go on here fighting it out with people I can’t win with (my feeling). Like I am addicted to the negativity or fighting with bullies (my feeling again) I also realized to day as kids we were given so little and something really good can be laid out in front of me and I turn away. Feels like a deep disturbance in me and I say it here now hoping that I can kind of ‘exoricse” it and more go towards the good from now on. If you don’t hear much from me I would say you can take it as a good sign.
Interesting:- ….. but you seem obsessed with physical health and ignore your mental health, which in this very comment you acknowledge. Real health is total. Physical and mental and in the primal sense is inseparable. One without the other is not good health.
However, the question that might be posed is:- can a very good mental heath totally support physical health. My take:- a resounding YES. The reverse does NOT, and many example out out there, demonstrate that. You can be physically healthy and suffer Alzheimer or other forms of dementia.
I would suggest that the animal kingdom supports my argument. You may find others. c’est la vie.
Jack
I am not sure how a person can be ‘phsically healthy’ and suffer from Alzheimer’s. AZ is a disease of the brain which is after all another physical organ. Seems a bit typical of your ‘sloppy’ ways of talking (and thinking)
I was thinking this morning of where Janov ‘fits’ in say the history of psychology/philosophy/biology whatever. And I would compare him to people like Wilhelm Reich or Tesla. All of the ‘geniuses’ but all of them also went ‘off the rails’ especially in the later part of their life and work. Reich was an amazing thinker but he ended up fooling around with ‘orgone boxes’ and basically going insane, Tesla also was an amazing inventor and thinker but again basically lost his mind. Has Janov lost his mind? In a funny way I think it is sort of worse than that……………he has KEPT his mind and that’s maybe a bigger tradgedy……………….
The blogs articles Janov writes are mostly about advanced topics in primal therapy like the womb experience and birth. This is appropriate I think. Why would he waste his time repeating basic concepts. I’ve always found his more speculative statements as interesting and valuable and didn’t take them as the literal truth but something to consider. For example, epigenetics is amazing recent finding in biology showing that when environmental factors effect an organism those changes can be passed on to offspring. This is certainly relevant to primal therapy where we have a deep understanding of how the environment (our parents for example) has warped us. I have no doubt about the power of primal pain and that it could be the cause of a lot of physical ailments. On another primal forum I am on there is an individual who has been sharing with us about his womb primals which he says are tremendously relieving. He is not the first person who I’ve heard this from. So where Janov talks about that, it isn’t a theory or speculation. Not all of us are going to go there or maybe even need to go there. But that is different from denying it exists. I can understand that reading Janov’s blog can be discouraging. It isn’t necessarily therapeutic to read, that’s for sure. But I wish more people would receive his message, and the truth of primal pain, as he really is a genius. Phil
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 13:54:10 +0000 To: phiban@msn.com
Very interesting post Phil. It seems to be an exponential increase in the number of findings bubbling up these days. The knowledge and insight we are amassing is astounding. And the more I feel my historical pain and I open up, the more I’m able to absorb and grasp of the picture our discoveries are painting of intricate, wondrous, infinite and ever so austere reality.
By the way I connect with your sadness over your offsprings’ childhoods being over so soon, and feeling even not done with your own childhood yet. It bothers me that time marches on and doesn’t wait for our fulfilment, and eventually our time is over regardless of whether we got a fair chance or not.
This morning it appears to me this blog can be bad for me. I need to exert some self discipline here. It’s too easy for me to live through this blog instead of through my life. Because group social situations stress me, I’ve used taking time here this morning as an excuse to not have breakfast with my photographer acquaintances. That’s not good. If I’m not careful I could put a lot of time here on the blog but be otherwise alone all day. At the moment I feel like I’m here so as to avoid some reality in my life. So I’m going to try to limit myself and not check back in until this evening or maybe not until tomorrow morning.
A new friend has invited me to attend a meeting of her book club this evening. It will be a social mixer for me. I hope I don’t chicken out. Their topic of discussion will be whether air strikes in Syria and Iraq is the right strategy for solving terrorism.
One more thing Phil, you say there is another primal forum. Do you mind sharing?
The other forum I was referring to is the Yahoo Primal Support Group. It has been around a long time and there is a constant trickle of new members, some of whom are long time primallers and others who are interested in primal but don’t know a thing about it. I see what you are saying about possibly spending too much time on the blog and the greater priority live social experiences should have. That is an important goal which I should be working on as well. But I hope you will continue to spend some time with us here as I appreciate what you write and to maintain the connection. Phil
I have no intention to leave the blog, Phil. I just want to be sure to use it to help me with life, and not to use it to hide from life. I like what you write here too. You’re writing more and more, and becoming more and more interesting as we get to see who you are.
I got out and did some living today, and had a cry this evening, about stuff that being on the blog was distracting me from, stuff about getting on with my life and making something out of what is left, but hurting a lot because Noreen’s chance is over. I’ll never experience her again, and I need to live and be understood and cared about yet need time alone to cry, because the hurt can’t be fixed, it can only be felt, and the hurt keeps getting deeper and I feel like I’m still learning to cry. My childhood taught me very well how not to cry.
If I can use the imagery from the movie Zero Theorem that I watched last night, our lives eventually become nothing more than photographs swirling in the dark universe, drawn into the vortex of a black hole, sucked into its monstrous furnace and there reverting to the energy and elements that constituted us, leaving only memories in the generations we touched and then nothing, as did the lives of the billion or so before ours. If only we could know and feel how special and ephemeral our time is, and how brief and very precious our time together.
Margaret:
On my side of things I just wanted to say “hi” to you here. Also, I noticed you said you felt that the cobwebs of your mind were cleared and you felt good about doing statistics. I’m really happy to hear you are taking to it well.
For some reason, I always feel like I am “turning to stone” when I am making computer programs. It’s really hard to explain. It’s a really harsh feeling that I would have to go over in some therapy session, I guess…Something feels REALLY constricting about it to me, but at the same time the end product is an incredible expression of creativity.
Horribly constricting as a process, yet creatively liberating as an end product…
I’m aware of that same phenomenon when I tackle data analysis, UG. I have to block out my emotions, turn down awareness of everything around me, and dampen other thought processes, to focus my thinking capacity, working memory and energy on juggling abstract concepts and logical reasoning. The focused effort isolates me from people and life around me, and shuts down my emotions.
Sometimes it’s a relaxing reprieve from the stresses of life. On the other hand too much of it becomes stressful isolation from life. I get satisfaction from solving a problem and pulling clarity and understanding out of a mass of confusing data. The more challenging the problem, the more satisfying the endeavour. Interestingly, walking away from the computer to take a break and immerse in the emotions and distractions of life recharges me and helps me to solve an intransigent data analysis problem, because focussed attention suppresses what my unconscious is trying to tell me, whereas when I walk away from the problem, my unconscious keeps working on it and freed of my conscious restrictions eventually delivers the answer to my consciousness while I’m returning from coffee with someone or about to lay on the couch for a nap.
Excuse me Patrick but you have in the past sneered about me writing about my mom’s stuff too much to your taste.
I do not hold eternal grudges about things like that but want to mention it as you use not having done so as an argument against me mainly pointing out how the logic upon which you base your conclusions, specially referring to Art Janov, is not sound logic at all.
and here I do not even discuss the contents but merely the reasoning you do.
that is all I wanted to say, that it is tiresome to read long expanded attacks based on poor premises.
on other occasions I have given some of your comments more positive reactions so it is not a personal struggle, it is an honest reaction to what you write.
but hey, I don’t want to be sucked in to whatever discussion just for the sake of it.
maybe if you are so touchy about what I said it is because you are smart enough to know there is truth in what I said.
why all that talk about Janov, you and Jack are the only ones seemingly obsessed by that subject.
no offense, smiley.
M
To be clear Margaret I have no problem with you talking about your mother…………..it was just I feel criticised by you because of what I talk about so it’s a kind of ‘sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander’ situation. That may be a saying that is mysterious to you but it is a saying in English
Guru,
I guess I am very lucky to have a teacher who I can connect with so well that he can take me along in a challenging expedition of what used to be for me very alien and scary and even repulsive terrains.
his enthusiasm is catchy and specially the focus on not so much the general use of statistics which is too often misused in the wrong way, but the thorough focus on the main goal, which is checking if th the probabilities the results give are really wellbased and trustworthy.
it is revealing to learn how much checking and doublechecking of all possible mistakes in the setting up of a survey or in the gathering of data and then in the analizing can be made, and how they can or shoud be avoided.
it is the thoroughness of the reasoning that appeals to me, and against all my expectations to be able to follow more or less for the moment despite the fact of having to do so without any visual or graphic tools.
it is a thrill to have a good teacher learning me the tricks of the trade of how to check the many pitfalls that can sabotage good reasoning and are responsible for wrong conclusions.
i find it interesting, to my own surprise, as it makes a lot of sense and does not claim when dused properly, to come up with Truths, but merely with mathematically wellfounded probabilities.
it is enjoyable to learn a new skill.
i think I might not be able to do this if it would not be for my teacher who makes me feel he also enjoys the challenge of opening the road into statistics in a new kind of way, for me but also for eventual future blind students.
i feeel very privileged to have a teacher who is able to turn learning new and complex scary mathematical reasoning into fun.
I’d never have thought it possible least for me who hated most maths in high school and dropped out of the logics course in my short time in university as a teenager..
if it feels that constricting to you writing the programs, do you think it would help you to take more breaks?
i find I have to plan carefully when to take up statistics as I can’t do it when too tired or distracted or under sharp time pressure.
any progress with your yapping little neighbor?
M
Phil,
as a child I have had expericnces that felt like nightmares but that also sometimes occurred while awake, mostly when I was ill and with some fever, that only later on, when once it occurred again a few years before even having started therapy, suddenly clicked together to very clearly being a very physical and highly ‘concious’ reliving of part of the birth event. in my case the moment of ‘my world’ being the womb but of course not being aware of that fact, ‘shrinking in repeated stages that became more and more frightening as the squeezing feeling became harder and harder to cope with every time.
always a crucial moment of panic made me snap out of it, scrming in terror. as a smal child with a fever I’d scream to my mmom in the other room then in fullblast panic to for example turn off the radio turn it off turn it off as still its sound felt like unbearable noise overwhelming me togehter with all the other sensations of the ‘nightmare’ having led me to the moment of pure and utter panic and terror of being about to die.
it is impossible to translate the clarity of those moments and their vividness and utter state of consciousness, a consciousness without words or ‘comcepts’, but so very very real.
it is almost to compare with how a memory of living say on another planet as anothere being might be.
sorry if this sounds farfetched and weird, so be it, but it is such an accurate description to say how it felt like ‘my world’ started to close in on me.
my mother told me later on how during birth I had started to come out with a foot first, got stuck of course and had to be pushed in again to be turned around by the physician, while my mother scrmed her lungs out in agony all the time.
aftr starting therapy so far I have had none of these feelings yet, only once a dream about falling out of a roller coaster, suddenly dangling high up in the air only attached by my ankles, scared like hell to fall down as I dangled with my head towards the floor.
still in the dream I looked ‘up’ to where my feet were and what I saw was a mass of bloody material on my chest and belly, before I finally woke up.
does this sound familiar to some birth situation?
although I personally know patients that have gone through birth primals, I think they are hard to access as all the rest of the old stuff tends to lay on top of them in our conscious mind and needs to be adressed first often.
as for all feelings I think they are stricktly personal and the ways they are dealt with are specific for every person, although there also seem to be v a lot of commmon aspects and mechanisms to the feeling process we all share.
the ‘primal’ journey is such a fascinating journey into one’s own past reality. i feel sure there are other ways to access that reality than primal therapy, as my own pre-therapy experiences showed, but primal therapy finally gave me a solid tool to reconnect and rebuild some of the damaged emotional pathways in my brain.
it seems so trivial to lose time and energy on discussions about which frase Art used that might be ‘wrong’, while we can be searching for what is valuable and true in any given theory to use the best of all worlds to learn more about ourselves, the others and our surroundings.
maybe that is what I mean when I call something ‘tiresome’, it is all about the negativity of merely criticizing seemingly for the sake of it, without searching for better solutions.
and yes Patrick, don’t take this as an attack on you, I know you do have some other options like living in a more healthy way etc., which is fine, seriously.
but why should one aspect exclude another?
i am more into picking out what is useful everwhere I can find it instead of focusing on all what does not appeal to me as there is way to much of that to go around anyway.
specially generalizations are not only useless but also often seriously distort reality in mostly negative ways.
and if you ask again why I ‘comment on you, maybe it is because you are the one always coming up with strong and mostly provocative declarations and opinions here, seasoned with the odd dismissive sneer here and there to people and the primal community, concept or therapists.
what do you expect in that case, you poor victim you?
M
Larry,
ha, that is reassuring to read how you kind of said something similar to guru I ried to say. you did it in a clearer way giving your own experiences and examples, but we must have been writing more or less at the same moment.
never know when my comment appears on the blog of course.
i must say I am glad the cases I use for statistics are all psychological surveys, which makes the reasoning to explore hypotheses less abstract.
it would probably all be much more difficult for me if it were mainly more meaningless numbers.
of course you data must also be in your field of interest luckily.
M
hi
Hi All
What’s going on?
Here I go again.
Hi All.
I’ve been trying to catch up with the blog.
You guys have been very busy.
I feel weighed down the last few days with some old issues. We went away for a couple of days north of Sydney, a place called Terrigal. Very pretty. We talked. And we talked.
It is 1977.
I am working for the worlds most successful shopping centre development and investment company. From humble beginnings as nipper/gopher, I learned my trade and rose to becoming a project/construction manager of shopping malls and high rise commercial buildings, My rise in the ranks, in hindsight, has been meteoric. So has been my renumaration.
So what the fuck compelled me to start to feel that I can’t go any further? Why did I start to feel that I’ve reached a ” ceiling”, and I am butting my head against impossible odds. I cannot go any further. I can’t see past my inability to go any further. The fact that one of the founding directors of the company has been considering shifting me into Mall Management, was totally lost on me. I felt constricted, with no hope of ” making it”. Sounds familiar?
I just HAD to reach out and ” grab failure from the jaws of success”. I had to throw away all my achievements to date. I felt stuck. Nowhere to go. Nobody there to help me. No one to talk to. Talk about what? My physical sensations? I didn’t even know that, that’s what is taking place.
So better to go for something familiar. Yes. I can fail and i don’t even have to recriminate myself for it. After all, I am stuck, my head constricted, no words, no understanding.
And that was the time I went into failure mode.
No matter what i touched, went pear shaped. I could never quite figure out what’s best, which option to take, as i never saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
Metaphor, after metaphor.
As the years gone by, I made all loss making decisions.I went from one bad investment after the other. After all, the feeling was always familiar. The only thing i am capable of is to struggle, to make it. I have no prior experience having made it, only the struggle.
It is 1992.
After returning from LA and my beloved Primal Therapy in late 1988, I attended a weekend work shop in Canberra. We were asked to close our eyes, and imagine what we would have inscribed on our headstone, once we have passed away.
You’ll never guess what popped into my mind. Wait. Here it comes.
” He tried as hard as he could, but he could never make it”. Why this? More importantly, why didn’t I understand what i was going through, and experiencing.
This was the year when i started to go into business, which I am still in, not producing any income whatsoever. And then I went into three other businesses in the last ten years, just so that I could loose a ton of money.
Why? I ask you, as I ask myself, what the fuck possessed me to loose my head, and end up loosing. All that mattered, was that I was able to ” STRUGGLE” to make it.
But I couldn’t and can’t make it, as I do not have any experience what that feels like.
Now it is 2014.
Now that I am 68, what am I going to do?, How can I trust myself, my instinct, that I will ever make the right decision. That, I will ever make the right choice and get into a new endeavour that would bring me joy and satisfaction.
I can’t go on. I will write again, soon. My life is soon over. And I still didn’t ” make it”.
How come, that nothing, and I mean NOTHING in the present, makes up for what I missed out on.
I am even afraid to dream. After all, everything may still end up in a struggle to survive. It’s as if i am pushing, with no clue where I am going.
And I can’t rest. Don’t sleep well Keep waking up many times during the night, wondering what’s missing? What is it that I could try to get, to finally get some comfort, satisfaction……that I made it.
Tom
Tom; I know you know where all this comes from. It is such a vivid story. I do hope and feel if you continue with your feelings about all this, and just express it as simply as you are able; that you will get through it.
I sure know also that, that is not what it feels like cause the old feeling was that you were never going to make it.
Easy for me to say all this, but hope in the saying it, somewhere, somehow it gives you some encouragement. Meantime just writing it as you did was so revealing and so, so vivid …. to me least-ways. Good luck Tom
I hear you telling us that you were/are too afraid of success Tom. If I was your buddy, my advice to you would be to succeed…in small steps at a time…and the feelings in the way will surface.
Easy for me to say.
Tom, Wow, it sounds like it’s so important for you to “make it” and I guess the only thing would be to keep trying. Are there current things you’re working on? Phil
being awake since 4.30 a.m. and now reading Tom’s comment, made me reflect on therapy and how it does not solve all our problems.
and sstill I understand why Tom refers to PT as his beloved therapy.
even while still all too often having to face painful stuff from our pasts, it feels right, and in its way it feels good.
I guess it is the healing process itself that is the answer, the details of the outcome are different in every personal story and often happen while it takes us a while to notice their impact and change for the bettr on how we live our lives.
speaking for myself the reward is the deepening of my awareness of who I am, the reconnection with myself, and therefor also the increased capacity to connect with others.
no, therapy does not solve it all, nothing can solve all life’s problems, but it is almost a litteral feeling of being able to be myself on a deeper level that makes it all more worthwhile .
if I compare myself to who iI was in my own past, quality has increased as my feelings and decisions are less shallow, less ‘out of my control’ in the sense I understand them better instead of being directed by impulses mostly rooting in meed I did not understand but that kept me going often messsing up my life big time.
now that need is not really gone, but incorporated in who I am in a more baalanced way.
that enormous reward of primal therapy might for some people be hard to detect looking at it from the outside, but I think all people that have really gone through a number of feelings know what I refer to.
even while a lot of healing work remains to be done, the healing process is its own reward for me.
M
I have a reaction to Tom’s post also………………I would say it is very honest I would give him major props for that and I would also say I can relate to a lot of it. The ‘regret’ about past desicions, the confusion of endless second guessing and regret…………….but I would also ‘implicate’ primal therapy in that, in that this kind of ‘regretful’ personality is often made WORSE by primal, the tendency to look back, to second guess is yes made WORSE. Again no need for Jack to rise to the defence of PT we KNOW his point of view and great that it works for him but I think Tom is more typical of an actual primal person. As I say I can relate quite a lot to what he says……………BUT I take a different lesson, my take is things could and should be done better, it CAN be done better but while the primal leadership just sails along year after year just harvesting what little is left of the ‘primal movement’ well things will not get better, they will stay the same for a while and then dissapear altogheter. Whether it can ‘rise again’ in a better form who knows……………….my feeling is we don’t have much time, humanity seems to be on a headlong rush to disaster to think a renewed primal movement can ‘save’ much is probably un-realistic
I find you so irritating: You say you can relate, but it seems to me you don’t or can’t. Ok Mr brilliant … stop telling us it could be better and tell us (if you dare) HOW it might be better. Or better still, how YOU, if you’d have come up with a feeling therapy HOW YOU would have implimented it.
Being so highly critcal in hindsight is one thing, but hiding your talents (or is it ‘talons’) behind the bushel is no-where … repeat NO-WHERE.
There’s something “CREEPY” about your responses
Jack
I HAVE tried to tell you as much as I can……………or per your advice I have tried to tell Gretchan and Barry (if you remember take a month off and STUDY Dr Kruse) so it’s not like I have not tried. I admit probably not in the best way but ‘facts’ remain. Facts are stubborn I know to you ‘facts’ don’t exist it’s all ‘feelings’ well I consider that very unbalanced and the results or lack of them in this case are plain to see. Tom is suffering just like ‘elephant man’ is suffering we are all suffering in one way or another except it seems you. As I say good for you I think your ‘secret’ if you have one the secret to your ‘success’ if I may call it that is you never did primal therapy. But and I am not being sarcastic here I give you your props on that you were ‘smarter’ than people like me who took it all too literally. Jack you are a very ‘smart’ guy and I think instinctly you ‘knew’ rummaging around in the past or ‘looking for pain’ was not a good way to go. So seriously to say it again I give you your props you ‘knew’ better……………..on the other hand I have never seen any ‘change’ in you at all in over 30 years but who knows maybe you did not NEED to change you came here with your ‘lover’ the same one and maybe and I say this seriously your life was ALREADY on a sound basis. If so good for you but I would honestly question if you even ‘changed’ anything which primal is supposed to be about. Also you were very ‘smart’ in your choice of career even if it was all financed and supported by me – stupid me. So again you are ‘smarter’ …………………
Patrick .
I’m tired of your criticism about Primal Therapy. If you want to do therapy or not is up to you. But it is for men to accept the consequences of their decisions. But if you do not agree with this therapy, this is not the place to express your disagreement. The best disagreement is to leave.
This therapy is well directed. A. Janov, Barry Bernfeld, Vivian and Gretchen are persons of recognized solvency both in the personal and professional. Also both Barry and Gretchen have been particularly generous with you to allow you blogging and support your criticism. In my country we say it is of well-born to be grateful.
To do Primal Therapy is not easy. You have to touch painful feelings, go to groups where it is not easy to be. To do individual therapy and then come home and do homework, that is to fit all those feelings and insights in your daily life. It takes courage to do it. So primal therapy is not for everyone, maybe it is not for you. If that it is the case, please I ask you to leave
The problem is not A. Janov, or Gretcehn Bary is the neurosis. It is a damn difficult issue. If you do not understand that well, if you do not agree I would go. Or maybe it is you want to sow doubt among us? Then I consider you a bad person.
Miguel
Miguel – see below what I wrote to Margaret no need to repeat myself. But one thing and I have said this before I DO appreciate Gretchen allowing me on here. I am sure you could make a case that I should be banned but she has never ‘threatened’ that. I think it is very good she allows all this anyone can say anything and it was the very atmosphere NOT present at the PI at least in my time. Or I suppose even then you could SAY anything but it all went up in smoke and nothing much was ever done about changing things at least IMO. BTW a final question for you Miguel I asked you during the Summer how come you were so much on the side of Israel and sort of wondered if you were Jewish. You never answered that question and I do still wonder about that. I don’t think it should be taken as an objectionable question no ‘anti-semitism’ intended. You can ask me what my ethnic or religous or geographic background is anytime. I will not consider you ‘anti-Irish’ lol
Miguel – one other thing I wonder why ‘sowing doubt’ would be considered to be bad. In ‘science’ doubt is considered good even a requirment for advancment and development. In religion on the other hand yes doubt is considered bad. Do you think/feel primal therapy has religous aspects for you? I notice this a fair bit I consider a lot of ‘true believers’ in it to be of a quite ‘religous’ mindset not at all ‘scientific’.
Patrick, It’s patients themselves who have to assess the benefits of therapy don’t you think? So, when you judge people’s progress I’m just not seeing that as valid and what is the point of doing that? If you complain about your own experience that is more to the point. Phil
Phil – I don’t think anything should be ‘taboo’. If I have impressions of others I think it is valid to say it. I have the impression also that I sometimes say things that a lot of other might be (secretly) thinking. I could be wrong about that but I doubt it.
Patrick,You seem to express a uniformly negative impression about anything anyone says they have achievedthrough primal therapy. My point is how can you think you know better than the person sharing thatinformation? You just can’t. Phil
WordPress.com
Patrick commented: “Phil – I don’t think anything should be ‘taboo’. If I have impressions of others I think it is valid to say it. I have the impression also that I sometimes say things that a lot of other might be (secretly) thinking. I could be wrong about that but I dou”
Phil – so let’s say you are at a Convention of for example born again Christians. And they are very sincere and full of the joys and salvation of being ‘born again’. Can I think I ‘know better’ than the person sharing I would say whether I ‘can’ or not I would and I imagine so would you. You might find this a cheap shot but I see definite similarities. Not a perfect example but hopefully it makes a point.
Patrick, why would you even be at that convention of born again Christians in your example? What are you doing here? Phil
WordPress.com
Patrick commented: “Phil – so let’s say you are at a Convention of for example born again Christians. And they are very sincere and full of the joys and salvation of being ‘born again’. Can I think I ‘know better’ than the person sharing I would say whether I ‘can’ or not I “
it might be true that there can be a certain risk of focusing more on painful feelings than the average non primaler, but on the other hand, I prefer to do so and then on a regular base to make progress by processing some stuff, than to live how I used to live, which is as most people do either in denial or in some chronical state of unresolved feeling causing the same kind of mistakes over and over without a clear understanding of what is going on.
it is a free choice for everyone to make, for me primal certainly has added a lot of quality to my life, a regaining of part of the quality of openness and awareness small children still have, but with the added value of adulthood.
maybe pt can still be improved, but that goes for almost anything.
most everyone here seems glad about what it has to offer, and if you have a different opinion Patrick, that should be no problem.
the question is who are you trying to convince and of what?
if you’d want to combine primal processes with changing some other aspects of your life, your food, electromagnetic hygiene or whatever, nothing keeps you from doing so and proving your points by your own example, does it?
you even got a free forum here to share all your ideas and still you lash out to the primal therapists who offered you al of that.
can you only appreciate people if they fully accept every detail of your own views?
otherwise I don’t understand what your goal is here, it should be clear you have not found anyone so far to agree with your criticisms.
noone denies the values of what you have said about living in a healthier way, but you seem to still want something else.
any idea what that is?
M
Margaret – a lot of (good) questions there, can I just say for now ‘it’s complicated’ I know that’s a way not to answer but I am tired (of controversy) even if I do bring it on myself.
I would ask you (and others) to consider something else if I did not ‘care’ or if I thought PT really WAS a hopeless case or if I thought there for nothing to it I would not be here. I think like a lot of things my attempts at changing or improving it are a mixture of the good and the bad. The bad would be I like to ‘stuggle’ I like to ‘fight’ I have spent a life time starting with my parents trying to make people ‘see’ (unsucessfully pretty much always). I want to change the world because I can’t change myself. This even ties into a lot of Catholic brain washing think of others before yourself etc. Which kind of leads into the ‘good’ if I can even call it that. I would say I have a generous nature, I think of others I think of the greater good. The kind of ‘American’ individualism does not appeal to me. Someone can say ‘save yourself’ and well for some of the reasons listed about it does not quite do for me. Even say about global warming people have said often to me why are you worried you will be dead by the time it arrives, I find that utterly unconvincing to me we MUST care about the greater good the future etc. So I could go on but that’s as Jack says ‘my good bad and downright ugly’ for today at least. But I appreciate your question and I suppose one more thing I do believe I am ‘working something out’ through all this…………..
Thinking IS complicated … Feelings are simple, natural and the REAL part of our nature And all other creatures nature..
Stop trying to figure it all out … look what happened to poor Stephen Hawking who seemingly got it all figured out.
Jack
Jack – saying ‘it’s complicated’ is a sort of joke. There was also a movie of that name so it’s kind of in the culture. Maybe stop taking things (and yourself) so seriously and you have said all this what 10,000 times already – extreme repitition I don’t consider a good sign. It’s also called being a ‘broken record’
Tom I am glad you felt safe enough here to write about your struggle. It is painful and there is no getting away from that, as you open yourself up to yourself and others. That’s the beauty here that I want encouraged. In regular life you are a success – we know that, and here and in the Primal Community I see you as even more of a success that you are willing to expose what’s really there for you.
So glad to also hear that things are moving along – in every way for you Jo :).
Margaret, thank you so much for what you wrote way up there about my struggles teaching yoga. It was sweet and meant a lot to me. I couldn’t write here then as I had to really feel the horrible, awful feelings that doing the course triggered – and then even with that work on what I needed to to complete the course. Teaching yoga can be just a window into what I need to unearth and deal with. I am coming from a place of having suffered for so many years with a huge, hidden eating disorder with the background of an abusive in every way father… To then be in my mind, body, and soul and expose that 1 step ahead of yoga students is a huge challenge!
Today, I finished my 5 week course and feel so good about it. My mentor described my final class as “comfort, soul food” – which I loved! Yes, there is still lots to work on, but to have it that I feel mostly at peace with this feels so good.
I love that I have my true, intuitive responses to what happens in my life now, and give that all to having Primal Therapy in my life. There is so much more to explore and find out about with all the good people – yes esp. B. – in my life.
I love it – and don’t want anyone nor any of it taken away…
ouch. exponential ouch.slip sliding away….but still alive.until ebola comes to town. old dog is going to go soon, so i am depressed.
Patrick:
I am on the side of democracy, on the side where people can live and let live, believe in what they want without the police come get you because you have these or other ideas. If somebody knocks on your door at six in the morning it is because it is the milkman.
It can not be sayed the same for other countries that still live in the Middle Ages. In these countries neither live nor let live.
You know til recently in your country you could be shot depending what ideas you had, in what side you were. Fortunately that is finished.
Maybe you’ll be attracted by the conversion of a singer called Cat Stevens. You remember that one of “the year of the Cat” •
Only I would ask you to be consistent with your ideas and beliefs and do not blame others for your “Shortcomings”
Miguel
Miguel – I know Cat Stevens became a Muslim, he wrote some very beautiful songs and he seems full of integrity and many good qualities. “The year of the cat” I don’t know isn’t that someone else Al Steward if my memory serves me well. You still don’t answer the question if you are Jewish or not. I suppose if you don’t I will take it as a ‘Yes’……………
Miguel – mention of Cat Stevens now Yusuf Islam reminded me of this……………..
Patrick,
you say I ask you some good questions, but that you are too tired (of controversy) to answer .
then next thing you do is writing a whole set of controversial comments to others.
so maybe when you said to me it is not so that you try to avoid answering, mmm, I don’t know, do you even remember what I asked?
and I know you do care about pt and other people, although that last thing might be deeply buried and out of reach a lot of the time..
M
Margaret – It’s not that I don’t want to answer your questions or am avoiding it or whatever. It’s just these are big questions so do you want me to kind of go over stuff I have done many times already and get in trouble all over again !?! You KNOW what I think/feel about a lot of this stuff so no point in banging on about it unless it feels ‘fresh’ to me. Also one thing I like about this blog is I will or can do as much or as little as I like at any given time so if I don’t feel like going into some long explanation I won’t. And I do get tired even though I admit I kind of invite all this ‘controversy’ it does get tiring and draining on me too so I will not put myself through some long explanation yet again just because someone asks. But I did answer you to the degree I felt able to at that time. So honestly I dont think it’s a matter of avoiding anything.
About your comment below about how ‘born again Christians’ has nothing to do with primal I do not see it that way.This idea that primal is beyond all ‘ideas’ is not convincing to me. In fact I think it is mostly the ‘idea’ of it that keeps people kind of doing the same thing year after year even in the absense of much of any ‘results’. The ‘idea’ itself can be very enchanting why do people feel so threatened and offended when I point out some even possible holes in it? Jack and not only him will ‘defend’ the idea to the death it seems. It is ironic to me in spite of all the advice against ‘head trips’ primal itself is in large part just that.
p.s. the whole issue about ‘believing’, and specially your example about reborn christians has nothing to do with what primal therapy is.
there is nothing one should believe in, patients who have never even heard of Art Janov and the theories do equally well in therapy.
M
She says it stinks in your room. I say, if you put dogs in crates because they don’t like to shit in their sleeping areas, why the fuck are they shitting in here then. This 16 year old dog wants to eat something more before we go to bed. Every night before we go to bed. The hard part is, that he is so old, and been around us so long, that he is almost speaking English when he is begging for food. The other dog doesn’t beg for food. I put a pizza in the back seat of the car once, next to her. Then a few minutes later I heard what sounded like smacking lips. I asked the person that I still know, who was sitting next to me, “Is Sophie eating my pizza?” She thought that was hilarious. I didn’t. I have to beg to be allowed to get pizza, since I am old an diabetic.
I saw an old blog yesterday. BB was saying something about how great it was to have know warm people over the years in PT. Which is great! Except it reminded me of how much I am on the periphery of PT, because I have never been able to afford it due to my weakness as a living being; and 2. because it is very hard for me to engage with people or be around people, especially if they happen to be people. Dogs I can be around. So today I feel worse than yesterday, which John Lennon might have said in different words, one time or another.The person that I still know just bothered me with a turtle in a shower video. I just want to be left alone so i can vomit up my angst. My asshole boss is sticking his dick up my ass again. I told him under my breath to go shove it down his throat. Or something like that. I am having a great time in this life. Anyone would say I am lucky. At least compared to a jihadi or Kurd who is getting 9 inch bullets tearing through his lungs, or a jihadi-captured woman, who has to fuck that stinking jihadi asshole. Hmm, am I just seeing that the glass is half-empty, or is it all the way empty? I never really cared for Barrack much, but I hated how the Republicans were always saying shit about him. Well now, what the fuck is wrong with him? Why wont he stop flights to and from Africa before the whole country gets Ebola? Why wont he bomb the shit out of the Jihadis when they are out in the open desert, napalm or something? I feel bad that that would happen to young men, but those assholes need to be blown to pieces. Please.
As a form of PSA (Public Service Announcement) there is a musical called “The Primal Scream -The Musical” playing this Friday Oct 17th in Pepperdine University in Malibu. And it IS based on Janov’s work and my understanding is the words of the songs are written by him. Anyway below is link about it and my understanding is you can buy tickets there etc. I am saying I will not be going so if anyone in LA is interested and no need to ‘worry’ about running into me lol. But it might be interesting and I am just trying to be helpful here as people may not know about it
http://primalscreamthemusical.com/
ha, thanks for that link.
for a dying therapy it sounds still pretty lively.
so far have not been able to find a link to an extract of a song or poem, that’s too bad, seems like an interesting night out sort of.
why won’t you go an and listen and have a look?
wish I could go, feel curious enough and it can’t be all bad, or at least will still be interesting in some way.
curious about the public as well and their comments!
nice to know it will take place in a university.
too bad though the Primal Institute is not mentioned.
i do wonder if they are allowed to put a link to ‘primal therapy’ on their site..
well, any publicity is good publicity I guess
M
Margaret – would it kill you to use my name?. I won’t go and one reason is it costs around $70.00 the days are gone since I could splurge around money like that without much thought. Also I feel I have contributed enough for one lifetime to Art Janov retirement account. But if someone is prepared to take me and pay for me I would go. I am sure it will be interesting in various ways and yes I do believe primal therapy as presently constituted is comatose bordering on rigor mortis.
One small step. After 38 years of marriage, the one I still know admits that maybe she has a problem with using money to soothe herself. But I know that it is really my cold dead persona that has driven her to drink at the root of all evil. I hate to be a disparaging asshole, but unfortunately I am one. I would attach a picture of my beautiful old dachsund to this post, taking his 2 inch stroll in my overgrown back yard lawn, in the cool night air with the crickets chirping and the stars trying to shine in L.A., but that is too much for me to figure out. Anyway,at least it is hump day. I am not going to beg for overtime at work, I am too damn exhausted from being alive.I finally re-loaded my pc, so that now the sound works, now i can listen to music instead of watching the Big Bang Theory. or not. I am going to go the boob tube with the wife and dogs, beautiful cancer people in some kind of red band fox thing. Life definitely is worth living.
😦 😦 😦 Sounds like it is.
‘elephant man’ you posts remind me of this…………….is it you or is it really me……………..
Hi there seems to be that the Primal musical has been a succeed.
Anydody else knows about Janov´s musical? Jack what do the newspapers say about . will the musical play reach broadway?
Hear is a Malibu newspaper.
Patrick I believe in primal because is a wonderful and powerful tool. and there is a biological truth in it.
Otherways I believe in myself and sometimes it is difficult.
The link for the malibu paper.
http://www.malibutimes.com/malibu_life/malibu_seen/article_624897be-4f38-11e4-a61f-b37459c98d19.html?mode=jqm
Miguel: The Musical “Primal Scream” is opening tomorrow night at a theater in the University of Pepperdine, Malibu. I will be attending along with a buddy of mine and afterwards I will report on it here on the blog … of course, from my perspective.
I have known from the early days that Art was into music and also that he wrote poems which have now become the lyrics for the musical. All this is in collaboration with David Foster Art’s friend and a master in music.
If you followed the site the story is about a young couple not able to get their relationship off the ground, owing to their early lives and how they settle this through therapy. Of course the actors with not be having real Primals as Art says, as it is a theatrical event.
It will be interesting to see how full the house is and what the reaction will be and if it takes off then there is a chance that it could hit Broadway New York (always a long shot).
I am looking forward to going and have got good seats. Having once been heavily engaged in the theater in London in my early days I will be doubly interested, but in my late 30’s the theater gave up on me and have neither been to many theater event, nor participated in more than a couple of amateur events since.
So be reporting. Jack
Miguel: Trying to convince Patrick that Primal is a wonderful and powerful tool isn’t getting across. In-spite of my 9,999 times of attempting to give him the clue, he doesn’t get it He’s got blinders on when it comes to “the feeling self”. He needs, ever since his late childhood, to have it all figured out a la Stephen Hawking.
Take care Miguel Jack
This thing of ‘he doesn’t get it’ recalls for me EST which made a big thing about ‘getting it’ or not and of course Jack loves that kind of stuff because…………….wait for he HE ‘gets it’ and somebody else (me in this case) does not. Primal Therapy arose from the same ground and time and place as EST and shares some of it’s characteristics, cultish, narrow, limited, fundamentalistic, reductionist, non-scientific and basically what used to be called ‘pop psychology’ You guys (Jack and Miguel can ‘anal-ise’ me all you like but you could hardly be more wrong but that will not stop you your habits are pretty ingrained.
If anyone thinks Janov has all his marbles I would suggest you read some of his current blogs……………where hypoxia (lack of oxygen to cells) is correalted (caused by?) lack of oxygen at birth, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is correalted with (caused by?) be ‘held back’ at birth, Alzheimer’s is cause by ‘something’ at birth (he needs more money to figure out exactly how just contribute to the Primal Foundation for the ‘answer’). Again people may say why go on about this what does it matter I don’t read Janov’s blog etc…………….I think it is interesting because it is a kind of final ‘reducio ad absurdum’ of his arguments and it takes him to a crazy place. Real and truly problematic adult problems are all ‘reduced’ to some hocus pocus ‘birth or womb theory’. I have heard about the problem of blaming all these dieseases on ‘genetics’ but this is WORSE. This is true ‘pseudo science’ and deserves it’s place beside things like Scientology, Phrenology etc
So I think there are MANY problems with Janov’s formulations and if any more evidence was needed look where he is ‘ending up’. I thank God everyday for Dr Kruse who has largeley ‘delivered’ me from this nightmare cul de sac. Others are not so lucky and keep pounding their heads against the same wall……………except Jack of course becuae in my opinion he NEVER did. He came here messianic and ‘religous’ about Primal Therapy and so he is today……………….not an iota of ‘change’ that I could ever see. Even his ‘book’ was basically written before he came here any ‘change’ I see in him is he is slowing down and calming down a bit due to age. Nothing much to do with ‘resolving’ anything
If I was to go to the event tonight (which I wont) I could imagine asking Janov “do you feel any sense of responsibility for all the lives you have put astray and do feel in any sense you have blood on your hands (suicides)……………..
Patrick, Maybe you should go to the play where you could express all these things in person since it seems you have a lot of negative feelings about primal and Art Janov. Or maybe you prefer to criticize from a safe distance. Phil
That’s a thought Phil…………still do I drive out there (LA traffic is not fun) and pay the $70.00 just to say something like that. Also I suppose my background works against doing something like that, we were strong on social decorum and were endlessly told to be ‘polite’ though I have to say I failed that one……………I am not that ‘polite’ as you can see…………….
Jack
I did not know Janov had artistic and musical skills. What a discovery.
You’d be a good journalist if you had dedicated to reporting events.
As for Patrick, I think he has a very strong intellectual defenses do not benefit much when doing therapy. This is not the fault of this therapy or Janov. Besides he does nothing to overcome them. Even the strongest defenses fall sooner or later if one pushes to make it happen. The problem is that Patrick does not want or have many doubts. If he does not agree with this therapy that is not the right place to spend all day complaining about Janov, therapy and saying that we are failures, he is obviously projecting his problems on us.
This does not mean to take sides with any of you.
All that I have told him in previous posts.
Only a poet, and his assistants Vivian, Barry, Gretchen, Nick could have created something so wonderful as the Primal Therapy.
Jack continues being a jopurnalist and inform us of the primal musical comedy.
The best for you Jack. Take care.
Miguel
Miguel: It was a good feeling for a few minutes to be called a jounalist. When, as a kid at school I was so stupid with English my own language even though I was not able to keep my mouth shut for very long.
I spent 10 years living in Ibiza and I never got beyond tienda Spanish and was so hopeless at French in school I had to drop it.
What saved me was maths and physics and I was so into my head it’s a wonder I ever took to “The Primal Scream”. Even then it took me 30 years of therapy before I was able to just listen … specially when buddying. I think after all that time I have now caught on … somewhat.
So will do my best to report on the event tonight … I am really looking forward to haveing a great evening with my buddy and maybe even getting to see Art himself. I expect there will be a few more of us there and perhaps Gretchen and Barry. Later.
Jack
Miguel – you are rather adept at ‘anal-ising’ me but you still can’t seem to answer the question of you are Jewish or not. I mean it is not ‘shameful’ if you ARE, or if yor are not. Not sure why seems to be difficult for you. I am not ‘anal-ising’ you just notice that and don’t understand that……………….
Funny and hurts at the same time.
Angry yoga:
Lol Larry!
Patrick,
this verbal vomit or verbal diarrhea of yours when you are angry makes no sense and if you really want to turn everybody completely off of you as a person one still would want to try to communicate with this is surely the way.
not that you seem to care, maybe you still see this as just a way of expressing your anger.
if you insist on going around in circles like this, or spiraling mostly downwards, it would be nice if you’d ventilate this repulsive poison of yours somewhere else indeed.
just crazy namecalling and wildly and blindly kicking around.
at some point if you continue like this I would not even oppose to you being banned, which is a different thing of wani
ting it or asking for it.
I say this because it is revolting to hear and read you going on like this like some out of control madman losing touch with reality.
sorry, htis is my honest feedback and I still say so because I hope you might eventually come to your senses but my hopes are almost down to nothing at all as you seem to wallow in your hatered and anger.
M
Margaret – I can imagine having a ‘belief system’ punctured can be painful and upsetting indeed but you might do well to stick with that and think about that a little bit. What I am saying about Janov’s blog comes from a VERY considered place not the flailing around and kicking you seem to imagine………………..do YOU read his blogs and what do YOU think…………….I mean I imagine all this could be considered in a calm way but I understand when a ‘belief system’ feels threated noting is calm…………………
Patrick: Question:- Do you subscribe to the Freudian notion of “Defending”, from which the colloquialism “egocentric” is derived? If so, I wonder do you consider that you just might be overtly ‘defensive’, to the point of being very egotistical. Since it is my feeling that no-one knows you better than yourself, I ask the question rather than make any accusation.
The next point is your seeming need to know whether Miguel is Jewish or not. Miguel in his own way answered that question by suggesting that he believes in “Live and let live” (if I quote him correctly). Is it not possible for you to leave it that, OR is it somehow bound up with the notion that only Jews would adamantly defend the existence of Israel?
You did come onto this blog flailing away about me (most of it true), but the deeper question was:- what were you trying to achieve, and did you achieve it? My feeling was you did … but somehow, it was not enough.
As for “belief systems” would it be that your unmovable faith in Dr. Jack Kruse and Paleo diet is yet another???? I merely ask. Might you be willing to tell us what benefits and changes it gave you? I grant you that I didn’t change one iota from all my therapy. I still remain that skinny guy Jack Waddington … but got somewhat older!!!! 😦 Jack
It’s interesting how we struggle to get Patrick to see, and he struggles to get us to see.
It is my opinion that everything Patrick says makes sense as an exaggerated distortion and projection onto reality of his pain (of course). It’s my sense that anything anyone says to Patrick, whatever it is, for or against him, angry or not, bolsters his defences instead of helping him see. No one can make anyone see. Only if we are looking can we be helped.
I’ve been in shoes much like Patrick’s. For the first couple of decades after I started therapy I didn’t feel ready for retreats. Friends tried to convince me to go to them, but I automatically put up counter arguments. Looking back I recognize I was too afraid, and no amount of persuasion would have changed my mind. In my mind back then, my friends were deluded.
In those days I questioned whether what some friends were doing in therapy was good for them. I felt they were addicted to it. I even sometimes questioned Gretchen’s judgement about what was good for them then. I remember thinking people were caught up and sucked into the brainwash of retreating and weren’t getting much out of it. Lucky for me I was able to keep on primalling on my own as I battered away at life and life battered at me.
After 20 years of primalling, I’d got my life working to where I developed enough confidence and found enough courage to begin thinking about and planning to go to retreats. I began to see how they could help me and I felt ready. And then Noreen got sick.
Two years later I attended my first retreat. Looking back on them and the priceless insights I’ve gained and the healing change it wrought in me , I can see that where unconsciously I try to stay closed tight, the retreats pry me open with a crowbar of love and caring. I can see how attending them has accelerated my growth and helped me develop strength and find meaning as I find myself…the only one who can navigate my course over swirling, churning seas of my life.
Patrick’s just going to have to find his own path, at his own pace, where ever it takes him, towards Primal Therapy or away, according to what his inner guide decides is best for him.
Primal therapy isn’t for everyone. The guy’s in pain and feverishly batting it down. Maybe his life is too monstrous to confront. Maybe he’s made in a way that just won’t let connection happen. We’re not all made the same. We have to respect that defences are there for a reason, and an individual may not be able to relinquish them.
I think the struggle here between Patrick and everyone fills neurotic need but doesn’t help anyone. I agree with what others have said, including himself, that his waffling here is a quagmire detracting him from getting on with his life, and our arguing with him is a struggle detracting us from ours.
Larry: You see what people are saying to Patrick as a struggle … I see it as people’s responses of their expression of what he’s writing. Either way I don’t think it matters in the end to anyone, but ourselves. However, in order for that to happen we each of us need to be as retrospective about ourselves as is humanly possible.
I am not capable in the final analysis of helping anyone, especially if I am adamantly trying to help. I will say my “party piece” and best I can and be done with it. This, after all, is merely a blog and as such is an adjunct to therapy. I have in the past suggested that we should refrain from wanting it all to be just “nicey nicey”. Life’s not like that, but of course we are all looking for some relative comfort. The commonality for all bloggers here ought IMO to be their relationship to Primal therapy. If it’s something else I contend then, those folks are on the wrong blog
For me Larry your story of where you were and how you evolved is is what I find the most interesting and I relate as much as I can to what you write. Jack
I’m on the same wavelength regarding a lot of what you said, Jack. I’m just adding that defences can be intricate, and sometimes at some point our reacting and expressing serves to divert us from connecting to the deeper feeling.
Larry: Agreed. Jack
Well said 🙂
I thought Jack and Larry’s comments were quite nice and fine with me. Which is a shame as I was out and about and I found myself composing a ‘poem’ ( I DO put it in brackets)……….anyway I was happy with it and want to ‘share’ it even if the anger has kind of dissapated now. I have said before I like when I feel ‘inspired’ like that it’s like life is flowing the way it should always have been. Also below it I put a song by the Sex Pistols could be any of their songs really though I really like this one and I imagine that music put to my words. I really would have like to have been a rock star lol. Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols (the guy singing here for those not in the know) was Irish too and I can relate very much to that kind of incoherent rage. Imagine this on Top of the Pops or would it be banned?
primal therapy
is a fucking disgrace
all these people
lie to my face
come all this way
only to bay
at the sun and the moon
and these fuckers too
really thought it was something new
but it really turned out to be just another jew
(looking for a ewe)
playing their games
of bait and switch
and sales and pitch
promise you this
deliver you that
say you this
and mean you that
sick of these motherfuckers
and all their followers
all their followers
and all their swallowers
swallow you this
swallow you that
and throw you up something
that looks like crap
sick of Janov and all lies
and Barry too and all his jives
wish I know how to complete this song
so disgusted
feel like a bong
maybe that’s the cure to all my ills
take a bunch of……. freaking pills
but I’d rather rant and rave
to really pave
the way to something new
to keep me away from all these ewes
Pathetic.
Patrick – you really should take a copy of your sick, angry, hateful entries here to a Psychiatric Unit/Hospital for a diagnosis.
It is that serious.
Not that I am comparing myself to them Leslie but I am sure something similar was said to oh at random Rimbaud, Kafka, Johnny Rotten, James Joyce, DH Lawrence on and on and on……………….people who think for themselves usually do get in trouble……………
Might Arthur Janov come into that list … ??????? He sure thought for himself and turned the psychological world on it’s head. Jack
In some ways he did……………..and in several ways he messed up totally. What’s left is to maybe pull a little wheat from all the chaff. At least that is how I see it and that is what I am attempting to in my own limited way. He made an important contribution but is very far from some kind of be all and end all which I feel ‘primal people’ try to make it to their big cost and loss.. How was last night?
Leslie – I can see you there with your white coat and pills and ‘diagnosis’ paperwork all at the ready…………………how quickly things become their opposite. Sad really and kind of makes a point of how ‘conventional’ most primal people are. Even VERY conventional something I have never found convincing either.
Patrick,
I certainly do not feel my ‘belief system’ is threatened as I don’t feel I have what you refer to as a belief system about primal therapy but sound personal experience.
I am a very non’believer by nature and always start off with healthy skepticism.
but my first and following breakthroughs in primal therapy made it undeniably clear it is useful and very constructive.
experiencing it is the most real process after living one’s life in the present otherwise one can imagine, and I don’t think for a moment you ‘pinch the belief system’ of anybody here that has had experience with cnnecting old feelings.
your problem imo is you have started off with hostility and distrust which does not necessarily need to form a problem but in your case you are stuck in it, for reasons only you would be able to uncover.
if I can make a guess it is safer to be angry than god forbid becoming vulnerable and looking at your pain.
no belief system to pinch here Patrick, just the experience of my own exploration which is worth every cent I spent on it.
M
“What the therapy is about, is releasing the tension and the repressed pain of early childhood and that release comes about in the therapy through talking about your life, crying about the pain and sometimes people do shout or scream, but I really try to get away from the idea of screaming because that’s not the usual thing, people usually cry about pain.” Supposedly, this is a comment by either Vivian or Art. I guess I have heard it said that the Primal “Scream” is a metaphor, one time too many. I know I heard a few people screaming in the back rooms, at various times. Me too. Nuff said. No harm or criticism intended. My life, not just a long slow knife, but a long repressed scream. Maybe only fixable through crying, because a scream might not process well. Too much at once.
If this is true, and I think it is, I would have had at least one true realization in my life (about John being opened up and no time to put him back together, thereby leading to his L.A. binge). Or maybe I read this article before when I was drunk and forgot about it. Anyway, I listened endlessly to John’s primal songs for many years. John, you had a lot of ups and downs, I guess…Sorry for you, buddy…
“Inside two years of the release of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, John was back in LA, in the worst possible frame of mind -doing drugs, drinking…
Well, that wouldn’t be surprising to me. We had opened him up, and we didn’t have time to put him back together again. I told him that he had to finish it, but…I forget what happened then… he moved to New York, so it wasn’t possible.”
Elephant Man,I remember being in group a few days after Lennon was shot, at the New York Institute.A lot of people were very upset, I did a lot of crying on hearing the news. I wasa huge fan .Phil
WordPress.com
Elephant Damned Fyudeignto commented: “If this is true, and I think it is, I would have had at least one true realization in my life (about John being opened up and no time to put him back together, thereby leading to his L.A. binge). Or maybe I read this article before when I was drunk and fo”
Primal Scream: the musical:
For an attempt to make a theatrical piece out of Primal therapy was a major hurdle last night, but for the most part it managed to do that. The main theme was a young couple trying to make their relationship coming from their neurotic selves. It started with an ensemble of nine people one of which was a therapist and showing eight other neurotic behaviors in their different manifestation. It was performed by professional actors, I thought the set (five drop cloths) on which projections of different scenes throughout were displayed was innovative . The choreography was excellent and and the dancing done very well,.portraying the different moods as the performance progressed.
There were some very moving sketches by the different performers, but mainly emphasizing their angers and taking them to their beginnings in lives. I would have like that there was more sadness and tears, but from my experience of actors crying is something that few are able to muster. The second half showed how many of them had overcome a great deal of their earlier problems. There were two outstanding scenes for me. The first was Jim by the bedside of his dying father, which I did not find convincing, being angry with a dying parent at his bedside. This, I felt, had more to do with the actor than the written words. The other, almost at the end, was Julie the girl having a major primal (reliving) right there after rejecting her lover. She was very moving and convincing, crying and screaming. This was the highlight of the show for me.
For a ‘one night stand’ it was a very competent show, but it is far from ready for ‘Broadway’. The theater was very bad acoustically and the performers compensated by having microphones by the the side of their faces, which I found somewhat distracting. Some of the expressions of anger were done loudly and not always convincingly for my primal ears all-be-it that my hearing isn’t at it’s best. I was not impressed too greatly with the music, though my buddy was. I would have thought more music during speaking moments might have enhanced the show.
The reception was cordial from a full house, but not overwhelming, especially in the first half, but at the end was given a standing ovation. All together a pleasant performance for a very difficult subject matter.
Me and my buddy got to shake hands with Art. He did not know me until I reminded him of my book that he read and reviewed. His wife France after telling her my name was aware of me from my comments to their blog. It was a great evening where my buddy and I had a meal before going to the theater, climaxed for both of us in shaking hands with Art.
Jack.
Hi Jack, Thanks for this review of the play. I wish I could have been there but your review was the next best thing. You say in the second half of the show some of the charactershad overcome a great deal of their earlier neurotic problems. What time framedid the play seem to cover? Phil
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 19:19:14 +0000 To: phiban@msn.com
Phil: Apparently it was conceived by Art and David Foster more than a decade ago. It took great theatrical licence to make the first act the early days of therapy and then a lapse of time and the second half was after a lot of resolution by most if not all characters, culminating in Julie’s reliving and resolution. Of course the reality of therapy is not at all like that, but I felt most of the audience was aware of the licence … and accepted it.
Real therapy; everyone is at a different part of the process. whereas in the musical they were all sort of in parallel. Just one other critique I would point out is:- that theater is not an appropriate medium for any form of propaganda and to some extent this was as such … but I feel most of that audience was willing to accept that. Not sure who and what the audience was comprised of. I would hazard a guess and say that at least one half were ex or current patients … but non I recognized from the institute.
In such a short column I may not be giving it full justice, but then that also applies out there in the real world of theater critics
Jack
Jack – You did a great job of bringing the Play and your evening to us. Thanks for that.
I liked your honest critique of so many aspects of the play, and now know I would love to see it!
Such a feat, as you say to bring it all together on stage…
L.
Leslie: I have a feeling that through David Fosters name and Art that they hope it might have Broadway possibilities. If that was the case, I would think that there might have to be some rewrite..
However, who knows, they might find another theater in LA and give it a short run … perhaps as a prelude to it being taken up by Broadway producers.
Jack
Jack, I thought you gave a fair review. I will add some things. I didn’t see the “young couple” as the main theme, but just as one of a number of patient situations dramatized, they were all “in group” together, and their stories took turns playing out and intertwining a bit.
I wasn’t prepared for it, but it was aimed at those not in Primal Therapy — which makes sense, but hadn’t quite occurred to me. A kind of condensed version of what happens thru P.T. — characters in group, some in denial, some not, but all fairly clueless about “how to let their feelings out”, and in the course of the show, they learn how, but it’s kind of “presented” and dramatized therapy, with the therapist having to do more work of telling the patients what’s going on — or they couldn’t have fit it into a 2+ hr. show.
As Jack mentioned, one guy relives his scumbag father dying without really acknowledging him even by name. He had earlier reported the therapist as “inappropriate” to authorities, trying to close him down, so the therapist had to deal with a pack of Freudian shrinks ranting obtusely. But after getting relief from the pain about his dad, Jim withdraws his complaint and stays in therapy. He also gets involved emotionally with one gal, triggering her to kill herself. He runs away at her hysteria, but returns in time to help save her, and after recovering, she later re-experiences molestation by her father (and complicity by her mother), becoming clearer about why that pain kept coming up in suicidal impulses. Another guy comes out to his holy-roller mom as gay at church while they are “praying & singing the gay out of him”, And there were a few other stories too. The young couple’s marriage had descended to picking and hurting each other, and they each had to relive the parts of their past that were triggered by the other, and own up to how that was being recreated in the present — in order to start to change. And another gal kept acting out being a little girl, all the time, until she started feeling how trapped she was by what her father wanted her to be, and she didn’t want to do it anymore. So as condensed as they were, the stories had some essential complexity.
Art spoke on stage before the show, with a younger psychologist collaborator doing more of the talking, for just a few minutes. Art kept trying to get him to talk about the research they are doing, while the other guy just wanted to talk about Art. He said Art just turned 90. Art is a bit fragile now, not the robust guy I remember– should not be surprising, but I hadn’t seen him in many years, so it was. But he is in pretty good shape for his age.
Very few P.I. people were there — saw Jack and his buddy, I saw two other ex-Patients from long ago, two who see a therapist who left the P.I., and a couple of Training Center people I recognized, and more faces I felt I half knew, but can’t remember their names or for sure if it was even who I thought of.
More people seemed to be there maybe for David Foster, and maybe not so familiar with Primal — industry, dressed up, well-off people. Even someone who looked like they were once a ‘star’ of some kind, not known to me, but known to Art, he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the whole thing.
The show kept my attention. But the ending came a bit unexpectedly, which is unusual, I can usually tell when that’s coming. There was a big finale number, but plotwise, maybe a little hurried. Good songs and choreography, it was engaging. Hard to hear all the lyrics. All the actors were mic’d, so that helped.
They had water bottles with the show logo on them, and handed out little black and red boxes of chocolate, as we left.
Vicki: great that you filled it out more than I did. Perhaps that will help inspire others to go and see it, if it gets another LA short run. I didn’t see you there but looked around several times to see if there was anyone I knew. I missed you but you obviously didn’t miss me. Thanks for filling it out more thoroughly than I did Vicki.
Jack
Wow! Even more great details – thanks Vicki!
ox L.
I was earlier unaware of the extent of Art’s musical prowess. He played the horn (saxophone?) many years ago, and collaborated with David Foster on “The Color of My Love”, which was a hit for Celine Dion, and the song is also in “Primal Scream: The Musical”. David Foster wrote the music, and Art wrote all the lyrics. So all the people who I thought were at the show for David Foster’s music, may well also have been there for knowing Art Janov as a musician.
The link to the show’s website: http://primalscreamthemusical.com/
” Singing the Gay out of him! ” ha! Love that! G.
That was actually part of the chorus of their song in church!
P.s. Was he Jewish? 😉
Uh, I don’t think so, he was a hunky black guy, his mom led the service in a hallelujah-style church!
Too funny G.!!
Gretchen
“P.s. Was he Jewish? ;)”
You are wicked.
Tom V.
Nice move Gretchen lump in a bunch of ‘bad’ things together like ‘homophobia’ (so called) and ‘anti-semitism’ (so called) to paint someone (me) as like some crazy person. But like a lot of generalizations contains a truth a la Al Gore we might even call them ‘inconvenient truths’. I know in ‘primal land’ generalizations are verboten just as ‘thinking’ is pretty much verboten, but all you do is drive in underground and replace it with even ‘worse thinking’
Jack,Vicki,
thanks for the great descriptions!
and to be fair, Patrick, thanks to you as well for posting the info in the first place.
too bad you lost some good points again in my personal notebook for your reaction to Gretchens little tease..
i know I know, not that you care one bit about my notebook, just for the record, smiley.
come to think of it, in order to carry all that anger you must also carry a lot of hurt and fear but eah, would not want to anal-ize you at all, would not dream of it!
M
Margaret – I am glad you spell the word ‘anal-ize’ correctly smiley!
Patrick,
well, adjusting to the style of the addressee smiley
reminds me of a smiley I liked way back when we were young, my brother used to draw smileys with little draculalike fangs, haha!
M
yesterday I sent a long list of questions to my statistics teacher, and took one day ‘off’ today, no exercises or studying.
did house chores, read, shopping, cooked, but keep feeling sad and tired.
a program about rescuing animals, dogs and horses in this case from severe neglect, made me cry, as did some Sjostakovitch music on the radio.
i guess the animals pain, fear and innocence and vulnerability is what resonates with me.
usually I switch programs like that off, but well, if they are rescued it can be ok, but still..
called my mom too, just for a chat, but it does not take away the lonely feeling.
i think what happened lately with my mom has been some kind of an eye-opener for the last bit of truth I have been avoiding, and I am sstill processing that pain.
i know we will come back to be more close again, we already are, but it still feels sore.
my brother mentioned on the ride home she is becoming a child again, and later on he also added she is sweet though and can’t help the way she is.
adjusting, processing, tomorrow wil take up stats again..
seem to be getting some kind of tendinitis from all the work on the laptop, in combination with my wrecked judo limbs and joints..
sigh, smiley
M
Sounds like progress, Margaret.
Jack and Vicky ,thanks for your comments, they have been great.
Here I send you some pictures of A. Janov´se facebook page ralated to the Musical.
This is the great A. Janov I have always known but with more years.
I whished I reached that age in that shape
Miguel
Don’t we all Miguel 🙂
You are right Leslie
all that silence on the blog!!
Barry told me in july he was just finishing a new post for the blog, so Gretchen, maybe it is finished, smiley
just kidding, I know how hard you both work in more than one way, but nevertheless I’d love to read a new post!
had a bit of a scary afternoon, as they would come by to update the connection of my internet and e-mail and phone system.
always makes me worry about the possibility either desktop or wifi or mail or rowsers will not work or refuse to start up properly after the technician has left…
but hey, there were some complications but now the new modem etc. functions, and I also asked the guy for his phone number.
no, only as he seemed a very capable technician and that is always useful to know and to be able to call in for help if necessary!
was a nice young guy and also friendly, and seemed to know very well what he was doing, both on the Windows as on the Mac, so very useful!
stress is still dissipating, phew…
no statistics exercises anymore today, just reading and relaxing has…
Jo, how are you doing and how are the moving procedures going?
must be a lot of hassles, moving out and moving in elsewhere and weren’t you also planning to fly to L<
.A.?
M
That´s right Margaret. Barry and Gretchen are doing a hard and splendid good job running the Primal Institute. Good on their side.
Yes, it would be nice having a new post by them
Miguel
phew, after a lot of struggling and faulty attempts or functioning attempts with no significant results, I finally managed to do my first analysis of variances, with a levene test and post hoc Tukey, comparing the results of five different groups of education levels with their different results on a first test of their statistics knowledge, hurray, finding significant differences between one and three of the five groups!!
haha, I know this does not interest 99.89 percent or so of the blog readers or more, but hey, maybe Guru or Larry or Donal, or well, anybody that likes to be pleased with me for one small but significant victory in my ongoing battle with the art of statistics…
had a cold and a headache today, so did not feel like doing much, but once I started anyway, it seemed to draw me in, which is nice to notice, as it helps to boost my confidence and I need that!!!
i find gradually what first seems Chinese starts making sense, as I know better how to sift all that information and all those numbers and pull out some information…
amazing how a (small) achievement like this can give so much satisfaction!
now relaxing will be all the more pleasurable!!
M
Good work, Margaret! I know how finally deciphering something new can feel good, as long as my mind hasn’t had a meltdown on the way to getting there!
Congratulations Margaret! You are really doing incredible things and reaping the rewards. Although I haven’t had to tackle stats I certainly know the overwhelming feelings of not being able to do it about 1/3 of a way into a course. Turning it around to actually doing some each day is so hard and yet so positive. Looking back, reviewing what you now understand is also so satisfying – as you say!
Its all those little steps that create the walk – and I admire you for it!
ox L.
Vicki,
yeah, I know what you mean! I find how I postpone starting on it when I feel not very clear, but iI also found I often need to ignore that feeling as it often covers up my fear to fail.
but working on it it is useful to take an occasional short break as to avoid a threatening meltdown haha, and when I do, I notice the problem attrackts me anyway until it gets solved to some degree, bit by bit.
M
Yes, Margaret, definitely, as often I find that being away from it for a few hours, or even overnight, my brain is still working on it, and sometimes I wake in the middle of the night trying to figure it out, or an idea pops into my mind while I’m driving.
Margaret and Vicki, same for me. On occasion I’ve been asked to look at an unusual analysis problem that no one else has been able to solve. In other words I’m asked to perform beyond what is normally asked of me. The challenge has always been interesting and is one of the most fun and rewarding parts of my job. It feels like play, but there is pressure. People need help and come to me because of my proven competence. If I fail, the challenges won’t come my way any more. When I succeed, everyone is happy and grateful, I feel very satisfied, and I grow in my understanding and competency in data analysis.
At the start of tackling the problem, powerful self-defeating fears and feelings of inadequacy freeze my thinking and hold me back, but the desire is stronger to go forward into unfamiliar territory and trust my knowledge, intuition and feelings about how to work my way through to find a solution if there is one. It’s lots of work but so fun, and time flies by, and it’s an amazing lesson in how important it is to put aside your fears and trust your desires and intuition and let them take you into the unknown. It’s being creative, is essentially and art. I have the same kind of experience when I create a photographic image of something that I have strong feelings about that I want to convey to the viewer. I imagine that painting, or writing music or a poem or a novel are the same process. Math and science are abstractions of life much like music, painting, sculpting and poetry is. There is art and beauty in their knowledgeable and skilled application in creating meaning where there was none.
It’s impressive Margaret that you once hated math and now find statistics interesting. It’s even more incredible that you are doing it even though visually impaired. It is a tremendous accomplishment on your part.
Thanks Larry,
your words touched me and for a brief moment I could let them in despite all my (diminishing) feelings of inadequacy.
gaining more confidence seems to be the reward of tackling complicated challenges.
i think for me it is useful too to boost my confidence on other fields.
today I even considered one of these days venturing again on my own if necessry to have a drink out in town, but then I tried to contact some longlost girlfriends from my pub period and one of them, a very pleasant nice and funny one, replied and we hopefully will get togehter soon and hang out together.
i really look forward to going out with her and have a beer or two and feel part of normal life and have fun and giggle and catch up!
M
I’ve been expanding my life the past two months, broadening my social network. I’m getting involved in a committee with the goal of environmental sustainability. I’m back and more confident at ballroom dance class. I’m spending more time with a singles group, going to plays, watching football with the group at someone’s home. I’m feeling a little more part of my group of photographer friends.
Yet I recognize that I hold myself back with people. I can tell that I want to be the little kid in need of being taken care of, creating a wall that thwarts my connection with them . I become an island. I keep them at a distance. I feel no one understands me or wants me.
I go home all alone.
I have the ticket and I know people who will be there, but I didn’t go to a Halloween dance tonight.
When I retire, I could become very, very alone.
I see the world order crumbling, ice sheets melting, California’s Central Valley dying, food shortages more common and tensions rising. The doomed ship has sailed. I’m too small to alter the course. I’ll try to survive but all alone feels too difficult.
I dread being all alone.
Yet I’m tempted to stay home all alone. The possibility of meaningfully connecting with people disorients. Is there really anyone out there? It sometimes feels like I’m being accepted by people, and sometimes feels like I erect walls to prevent it, to withdraw into my island to protect myself. From what? Do they really see and accept me?
If they can see me and know me, how come my parents couldn’t. Just how damaged and closed were they that couldn’t see me, their little child alone and afraid and needing them…their love. Because of them, just how closed, afraid and alone am I? have I been?
If I don’t want to be alone, awful feelings are ahead, that feel like catastrophe, upheaval, like doom. I have to go forward though, or my life will be awfully empty.
The two year old me couldn’t face who my parents really were, and couldn’t face the world alone. The two year old me kept something alive though, a sense of self, reality and truth, deep inside, a promise to hang on and when I become grown up and strong, wake up and not be afraid to give life a shot, to be alive and free.
I’m grown up and am remembering the promise, and still have the chance to keep it.
So hard to accept reality!
Larry: That is so, so, so sad ……………. That is all I can say Larry
Jack
I’m surprised how much it affects you, Jack.
And I find that comment so so so………. supportive and so so so………. empathic and now I feel like such a so and so for saying that……………so so so such a shame!
Larry: I am affected by a lot of things and especially sad stories.
Isn’t that what being feeling-ful is all about??? and I say that in all sincerity.
Jack
Don’t know what your getting at Patrick, but Jack’s response always feels genuine and gives me a sense that he and I have something common in our history. I’m touched by his reactions of support, now and in the past. They have moved me and helped me, because I feel they are honest and understanding.
Larry,
I think you exemplify how the old feelings and Noreen’s tragic death are still there (of course) for you. And yet you are now – from all the feeling you have done and continue to do – able to reach out to others and thus create a new, different life. It is really remarkable as getting or staying stuck could have been so easy…
I see that in some friends and relatives – fearing and hating being alone- and then continually streamlining their lives so much to that. And that I find the saddest.
I am glad you can expose to us – the dichotomy of all that you missed out on in your childhood, and now all that you are creating for your life.
ox L.
Patrick: Maybe I’ll get into trouble by revealing your anonymity. but fair enough if you wish to play with my words. Least-ways it a great improvement.on the past.
Jack
Yes sorry that was me. It was not meant to be ‘anonymous’ that was a mistake. Well spotted though!
Larry,
I sent you an email a while back: did you receive it? I am have sent it to an address you no longer use.
Donal
Yes I did receive it Donal. It meant a lot to me. I phoned you in reply but there was no answer. I want to talk to you rather than email a reply, but haven’t yet and time has raced by. I know you were in LA for a while. I tried phoning you again this evening and this time I left a message. It was good to hear your answering machine voice. Looking forward to connecting with the real person eventually.
Larry,
Second sentence should have read: I may have sent it to an email address that you no longer use.
Donal
I have attended many conferences in the last 10 years about infant and toddler brain development, The positives of stimulation for their brains through language, more than 1 even better, sign language, rich sensory experiences etc. being purported as so essential for positive brain growth and development. All good stuff of course – along with the #1 priority of receiving unconditional love, being taken care of and all needs being met first – I say.
So, new brain pathways can be laid down and a huge network created. Now, in all the years I never heard about, nor thought about how negatives can also create pathways. That has not been stressed. It was areas of the limited networks that were highlighted from orphaned toddlers in war torn countries etc.
But it was only while recently reading about the horrors of the football heroes and many others who have been charged with child abuse for using tree switches etc. to ‘discipline’ their children that that struck me. The parents usually say they never intend to harm their children and this is how they grew up to be successful etc. It is disturbing – in this day to still have so many people still believe and act on beating being the way to get thru to a child.
So from that time of horrendous fear and panic the child’s brain connects a new link. With that in place it can then be automatic to respond with violence – unless you are willing to look at and change it – usually through therapy.
Leslie: So right on … this is what I feel Art Janov has been stressing ad infinitum.
All those crazy notions of “Spare the rod and spoil the child” “Well! it never did me any harm”. Then my own fathers notion that riles me to this day:- “The way to train children is the same way you train horses … break their spirit” Sadly that is what happened to him and thus he could think of no other way.
I was apparently a feisty baby, but he succeeded in breaking my spirit. I had to spend many years getting some of it back. I suspect some feel, I got too much back. That’s what I call “buying into the system”.
Only reliving what it felt like … THEN … can there be any chance to change it all.
Jack
.
It’s sad that people mostly are unaware of what they have lost. It seems to me that kids are often spanked for not behaving like adults. They are supposed to behave likelittle adults and not have needs. That’s how I remember being treated by my mother.Phil
WordPress.com
Leslie commented: “I have attended many conferences in the last 10 years about infant and toddler brain development, The positives of stimulation for their brains through language, more than 1 even better, sign language, rich sensory experiences etc. being purported as so “
Phil, in my family, I think we were “spanked” for making my parents mad — for whatever reason. They thought, and told us, that we were bad, bad kids, brats, rotten brats, ungrateful brats. And told, “You’re gonna get a good spanking!”, “A good beating is what you need!”, “I’ll give you something to cry about!”, “Just wait til your father gets home!”, “You’re going to learn to like eggs, if it’s the last thing I do!”, “Don’t you ever do that again!”, “Don’t you ever say that again!”. About control, who was “in control”, who was “the boss”. A kind of commonplace, casual violence was the order of the day. In some way, it felt like it went on forever.
Hi Vicki
Your description of your family sounds like life in hell. It’s a wonder that you and Mike are as sane as you are.
Just reading your posting is enough to make anyone crazy.
Tom
Yeah, Tom, when I was writing it, I felt like, “Oh fuck, now Phil got me started…” it almost feels like it could go on to head-banging oblivion. When it went on almost daily for about two years, every day my dad would come home and my mom would complain about how bad we’d been, my dad would hit us to shut her up. After maybe two years, my mom woke one day, looked in the mirror, and “realized something was wrong”. She went to the doctor, who took one look at her and said, “Lady you are anemic!” Her red blood count was 1/2 normal, he put her on iron pills, she stopped being so tired all the time, and we stopped getting hit every day. We never talked about it at the time, but years later, Greg and I had the same take on it — that he hit us to shut her up.
Sounds criminal.
Vickie, That is terrible. So your parents just dumped their anger on you. My mother didn’t want to give me attention of any kind that I can recall. Asking for something resulted in being punished. My father was kinder but didn’t do anything about this. I learned not to ask for anything, and later on thought that I didn’t need anything from anyone. In my family now I think my wife might have spanked our kids except for my influence, because I see her sister doing it with her kids, which really triggers me. Phil
Phil, it’s also too bad your father “went along with” her, was unwilling to even try and stand up to her. That makes it even more hopeless, the opposite of strength.
Take take take! Ask for more more more! And give nothing nothing nothing. godamn fucking cunt. Yes i said it angrily and freely.She doesnt get anything from me because she has drained me dry. I realize most of this is childhood stuff, but still, she plays the part so well. I am such an asshole but thats the way it goes. Enough is enough. I am nearing the end, and there is just running on empty. Where the hell did John Lennon go? that’s one of the reasons i started giving up.
Why was John Lennon a turning point? How were you before you gave up?
Vicki,
that comment of yours was indeed very descriptive in a direct way.
what resonated most with me is what you said about how it was about who is the boss…
i never got spanked apart from the occasional halfhearted slap on the behind maybe, but the bridle and reins were all the more severe and subtle, guilt being the weapon.
my mom used to be proud of how she could force a child to obey just by her stare, intimidating and full of unspoken threat.
all the manipulation of withheld love, ‘her’ hurt feelings, ‘her’ disappointment etc.
the last events with her recently seem to have broken the chain somehow, for the moment creating more freedom but also a feeling of loss, loneliness.
it is not too bad, when we talk and she sounds ok it does make me feel good.
we are putting her on yet another waiting list for another nursing home, as to avoid the horrible option of her being locked up on some ward for severely demented people if she’d get ill and the limited time in a hospital runs out.
another far family member had that happening to him during four months until there was a place in a home, and it was pure nightmare for everyone involved.
Donal, how are you doing?
how is your life, work, study??
M
does anybody know what in the emoticom orld 😛 means?
just found out my nice downstairs neighbours are moving out, displeased with our landlord for not taking care of some problems with moisture and other stuff….
feel concerned about what will happen next.
if it gets rented again, who will be there, and if not, will the landlord try and put everyone out to do a complete renovating of the whole house??
M
Unbelievable birth feelings anger, trapped hot, just being home on “vacation”. while trying to set up wifi for z’s iphone and ipad. why is she so calm? why is technician so calm? I am so fucking tired of all this bullshit. “:vacation” consisiting of trying to further our 10 million chores and also business endeavors to put in motion, website, videos of z reading to cats for advertisement, etc since z lost job. It is a struggle just to get out of bed, feed animals, give them meds.
all the panic of her lost income weighing me down every second. no sex since i am too panicked all the time and all my testosterone has vanished from my body. old dog getting near end. other dog bit other dog. another $1300 in vet bill but at least the kid paid most of the bill and took the dog to his apt. now that dog had a rich life being here with z everyday, now that dog sits in kids’ apt, small room for 9 hours waiting for him to come home from work. i feel bad for the dog, i feel bad for the kid now that he has the stress, i feel bad for z since she works at home, and the big dog was a big boost to her day, and now isnt here for her. and z still in pain over losing her contract job. and z askng for $$ with every breath, dollars that leave me no dollars for therapy. so now i could shove food down my throat to kill pain but that really doesnt work anymore. black cat trying to get out of back door but he has thousand-dollar fungus, so he stays in house for next lifetime. the new business we trying to promulgate may tap into my dream of making movies, but that dream died so long ago that i feel doubt that I will even be able to move on this. maybe art j was right in warning about taking acid…
Elephant-man, everyone has their own priorities, but I can only say that in financial distress, I could not spend $1300 on a vet bill, or $1000 on cat fungus treatment, I would have to say goodbye, and euthanize — have them humanely killed. But I also could not say yes to anyone asking “for $$ with every breath”. All that would feel like a prescription for more hopeless insanity, to me.
I never think to utilize this option when feeling out of control and very deeply depressed! It has been at least a week. Today the fog lifted somewhat. It seems like I live my life more depressed than not. I have been going to the psychiatrist off and on for 20yrs now and the receptionist gives you a one page hand-out to check about 7 questions on how your feeling?. The very last question asks you how this affects your everyday life? For some reason– it just occured to me a few days ago that all these years I have been checking the box that says — None of the above effects my everyday functioning. — How could something so simple as this not occur to me? For 20 yrs I am telling Dr. Bradley I am okay while smiling and I am able to carry everything out at an 8 or 9 level on a 1-10 scale!!! I really saw who I was when I was preparing for Jeanine and Linda’s visit. I am living a depressed lifestyle! I am not liking any of this about me! ———Crystal
I might be able to explain myself better after a a night of rest. I am not in touch right now! – Crystal
Patrick: Is this you playing anonymous again but signing as Crystal?
Jack
Jack
That’s funny! I haven’t been on here in a while so I guess it was a mystery post that was signed- Crystal. So one would wonder.
Crystal: Yep a mystery … but no worry. Take great care and keep up the blogging.
Jack
I will try and explain myself a little better after a night of rest! I just felt like if I wrote something it would help me to feel better somehow. —-Crystal
I think that’s true, Crystal. When you write something, you’re not quite so alone with it.
Also if you write it here, it’s a step helping toward confronting it.
Hi Larry– I think you are write about it helping to confront. I will keep writing until I can get some help and a breakthrough possibly. I need changes made in my life. How are you doing these days?—- Crystal
hi Cristal,
long time since your last appearance here.
how are you and how has your life been since the last time?
M
Yes it has been a long time Margaret! Thank you for asking Margaret. My life is somewhat unchanging! Taking care of myself and not taking care of myself! If I could wish for anything in my life it would be consistency in doing the necessary things to be physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy!
I have been more depressed in the past week and half than in a long time. I am now seeing that what has gone down was necessary in order for me to move forward in a more positive atmosphere! I basically live a depressed lifestyle and I have to make a move on changing some things because I am very tired of it. I have been really good at fooling people and myself at portraying that I am okay when I am not! ——Crystal
Nick Barton was in the news last week, with the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, at an addiction charity event. He is pictured with her in the 2nd photo at this link: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29736695
Quoted from the link’s article: Action on Addiction chief executive Nick Barton said: “The charity’s mission is to free people from addiction and we hope this evening will help us to make further progress in achieving that aim.” …Writing in the programme for the gala, the duchess highlighted the charity’s “life-changing” work. She wrote: “As I am sure you are aware, the impact of addiction can be extremely damaging for individuals, families and the wider community. During the time I have spent with clients and staff I have been privileged to see the phenomenal work which the charity undertakes to improve the lives of those affected by addiction. The stories of recovery are remarkable; and Action On Addiction’s role in helping people achieve this is truly inspiring.”
Action On Addiction runs two residential treatment centres, Clouds House in Wiltshire and the women-only Hope House. It also runs day treatment programmes in Liverpool, Bournemouth and London.
Another news article from Canada had more photos of the Duchess and what she wore, but none of Nick, however it quoted him: ‘Nick Barton, Chief Executive of Action on Addiction, added to the crowd: “It’s been difficult for her, one appreciates that, so one appreciates her presence tonight even more. She loves talking to the people we actually help and she’s so good with them and genuinely interested.”‘ https://ca.celebrity.yahoo.com/news/kate-middleton-accentuates-baby-bump-black-knit-flare-185500496-us-weekly.html
So— In order for me to be happy, basically I have to have a man in my life or at least this is what I have been thinking. As Gretchen says, it keeps me from seeing myself because I focus on what they are doing! All of this has come to a head this past week or 2. When it comes to a man— I am always suspicious that—– They will cheat on me and They will lie to me!!
I met a gentleman back in May of this year. He is retiring in August 2015 in which at that time he is going to start traveling. When he first met me he asked me to promise him I would travel with him if nothing else came of the relationship because he thought I would be a lot of fun! Everything he says to me I take to be very complimentary and very sweet, but since I don’t trust I don’t believe any of it!!! I question everything and dissect it line by line! Also, when I meet someone– I jump from friendship to I want to marry this man overnight.
So a week and half ago– I asked him if he would like to go spend the weekend in the mountains. His reply back was that he put in for leave the next week to go the Ozark Mountains and see the Fall foilage and go on possibly to the Smokey Mtns! I got all excited because I thought I was going but he didn’t ask– so I asked if he was inviting me or was he just telling me. — Then the nosedive starts for me—- He says that historically he always does these trips alone because no woman can survive the frequent stops of getting out of the car to take photos, stay in small towns in small hotels, and a minimal diet! (I have it memorized now!)—- OMG!– you would have thought everything in life ended for me!!! So– I texted to him that I am very disappointed! He texted back— I am so sorry; What can I do? May I call you? —–My only thought was that he is taking another woman!!!! —- So I spout off and say– Do not call; Do not text and forget our date on Saturday night. I can not handle being hurt anymore! Blah! Blah! Blah!…..
This Pat guy is a 71 y/o surgeon that is Professor and Chairman at Med Ctr.
Sorry- I know this is long, but you who have time—- I am saying this because it all devastated me, but yet, it was all something that needed to happen and hear in order to try and make changes and I hope I do. So— Pat writes— I am so very sad for the way you feel and the way I feel. In the different life and different world where I live my feelings never changed for you! It seemed normal for me because I’ve done similar things all my life. I never did it (he means plan his own trip) with anger, malice, dishonesty, or any awareness of disregard for you as a person. I believe it is not possible for me to avoid crushing you emotionally by doing things that I have no awareness of the harmful impact that my actions have on your inner feelings! I feel somehow by exluding you from the trip may have awakened feelings of fear, possibly of my abandoning you. This song is very complicated buy can express my feelings better than I!—- The song is by Gordon Lightfoot- “If You Could Read My Mind”! —— So basically — This is all so true! This song by Gordon Lightfoot sums me up well in a relationship!
I sent such a barage of texts to this man that I cant believe he would even talk to me ever!!!
I could not see any of this about myself and I plummeted into a deep dark depression! All I could see was he is taking another woman to look at the fall foilage through the mountains and once again this man is a cheat and a liar! I could not get past anything but — he is a cheat and a liar.
I talked to Jeanine and she said that this man has a lot of insight and to be patient. He texted me back on Sunday and he did not go on the trip, but he did fly to Atlanta to see his daughter for 3 days. He also said to me— I am so sorry for the emotional discomfort that each of us experienced!
Anyway— all of this was so painful for me in so many ways! It brought out so much pain that I have been paraliyzed into a deep dark pit. I have made this my focus, but truely there is so much mmore than this causing the pain! This just brought it all to a head!! — I feel like my daughter hates me! Matt tried to commit suicide! I see pain in my older son’s face all the time! I have caused so much heartache on my children I feel!! That is the feeling that is coming up right now!! I am crying and it feels very hurtful all the time! ———Crystal
Hi Vicki :
Thanks for the web with the pictures of Nick. He was my first three weeks therapist. I remember him with much affection.
Crystal.
What Gretchen says about keeping the focus from the inside out is. It is very useful and wise. Many times we have the focus from the outside –inside, so we see the speck in our neighbor’s eye and do not see the beam in ours.
But other way I understand you because being in love, it is said, is the state more similar to being crazy, so take it easy if you can and with caution.
Miguel
Thank you Miguel. Very good advice.
Crystal:
I meant that when we fall in love crystal it often seems a matter of life and death that we want to love or be loved by this or that person, but once we are grownups, we realize that this imperative is based, is being driven by our primal, child feelings.
And then it is not any more a matter of life and death but being such a nice happening being loved or love such a beautiful lady/girl or such a wonderful/handsome Mister.
Miguel
cristal,
it sounds like it would be very useful for you to go to a retreat and spend as much time as you can in L.A. and do sessions and groups.
I really think this is now a priority as you seem to sabotage the good things that come your way and you are in a lot of pain.
is it possible for you to do so?
M
Margaret– I think now is a good time that I should go while all these feelings have surfaced! I am in a good spot even though it feels llike a bad spot to be in! I have shoved these feelings and pain down so nicely all of these years! —Crystal
It seems like I have never had so many feelings come up as I am having! I have thought about it today and the 2 weeks that Jeanine and Linda came to visit were 2 of the best weeks I have had in a long time. I am trying to recall why and I think it is because there was a lot of structure there! I have to have structure in my life. Somehow by myself, I do not have it!
Actually it seems like after they left was when I started having all these feelings come up. It was like we had a mini retreat! Jeanine and Linda both saw how I live my life on a day to day basis! Allan and I are still connected in that I work for him and for the most part I am able to keep or at least I thought I was keeping the past out and away from what goes on in the present. But my feelings do get involved when I struggle to get him to like me!
I need to get back to when Linda and Jeanine left— I started having all these feelings come up about everything. It seemed as if my life was suddenly before me and I don’t like any of it from the past nor do I like it in the present. I am always looking to a companion to fix it.
I sent Pat a text today and asked him if we could always be friends and his reply back was———– “Crystal, — We were created as soul mates that can never be changed regardless. Our relationship will never be a friendship. We have a very deep emotional connection that will be there all the days of our lives. It’s just a plain fact”. ——- Everytime I read this I just cry and cry and I am not sure why!
That all sounds nice and good, —but I trust NOBODY! —-Crystal
There is one thing I do know that that is I am ready to make some changes for myself regardless of anybody! I can’t go on like I have been.
Perhaps I shouldn’t say because I haven’t met him and haven’t seen the two of you together, and probably this doesn’t help but from what you’ve written…I don’t trust him either.
Larry– I am very glad you are saying it because I have to see the light. I get very confused at times by him because of the his words. The Gordon Lightfoot song to me meant that he is not able to have a relationship because of my ghosts from the past and to me none of that felt right. If you have this deep feeling with someone as a soul mate and this emotional attachment— I don’t know all confusing. As Gretchen says– Sit still and a person will show you who they are!
If something is confusing and it is bringing you down; that’s my answer! — Crystal
Larry, I was typiing as i was visiting with my daughter so I didn’t quite say things in a way that I wanted. My ghosts from my past do affect my relationships and his pointing it out did help. But— I am back and forth on him! He never gives a concrete answer.
Bottom line is — I need to be secure with myself and love me with or without a man!! My everything hinges on whether this Pat guy is going to like me or not! Just shouldn’t be!
I don’t see the light Crystal. I’m half a world away seeing through a keyboard. You see best because you’re there in the reality. I’m just saying I believe behaviour speaks louder than words, and from where I am, seeing through what you wrote, I feel his words don’t ring true. I may be totally wrong. You’re the best judge.
Maybe I should have waited another day and reread what you wrote and see how it affects me then, before I responded. I’m already doubting my first impulse about him.
I do know how it feels to really badly want someone to be the ideal person I’m looking for who will love me forever, to need it and want it now and be reluctant to take the time to find out what’s real. I also know how I’m afraid to find out what’s real.
I know that with the right person I might feel afraid but I feel safe and have an overall sense of well being.
Give it time. Learn what your feelings are, learn who he is, and maybe tell us one day I was wrong about him :), ….or right :(.
small steps on vacation. trying to make advertising for our bizness. I didn’t get around to putting the shots of z’s email in, i just needed to get this done. actually, i made a mistake and put our last name in on the youtube channel, so i will have to create another channel. I could be happy if i never had to go back to work. or maybe not. is 62 years enough of doing stuff for everyone else? probably not.
All so very true about what Larry said. Take time to find out what’s real. I am not wanting to trust my gut feelings here because I don’t like them! ——- Another thing– by god if I want to fucking text him I do! I cannot be patient and I am going to say what I am going to say. I have cut them very short and managed to wait every other day at least which is better. So tonight after he sent the soul mate message and we have deep emotional connection— I texted this message:
Pat— “Be totally honest because I don’t want to be holding on by a thread”; “say it like it is”!——
His response back to me was—— “I think for a while the relationship will be different. Those kinds of seasons or times in any relationship usually make it stronger and better over time”!
Personally— I am now feeling that this is all bullshit! It may have some truth in it, but bottom line is my gut feeling is that this guy is stringing me along! If I write it all out— I can feel and see it!
Maybe I am being a lunatic! One thing he did say a while back was– crystal- you cannot police another person nor can you make a person love you! This is a true statement! So why should I chase someone! It seems so desperate in which I seem to be in that state of mind in a relationship! Desperate for what I might ask myself??
I use to keep my main focus on Allan and never about myself! As long as I could talk about him and how bad he is and blah! blah! blah!— I could not face myself! Now it’s time to face myself and find out who I am!
If I seem a little off– let me know. —–Crystal
Crystal,
you are so right in what you say about needing to focus on yourself. it seems a great step in the right direction!
I recognize so much of myself in you, I certainly have been in the same position a number of times.
hold on on all what you say right now and if possible step back a bit from any kind of struggles with either Pat or Alan, and keep focusing on all what comes up for you.
if you are a bit like me, you will keep making mistakes but you will be more and more able to use them to learn and to get into your feelings and resolve them bit by bit.
you are so right you should not have to chase anyone, and whether you feel good about yourself should not depend of whether a certain guy likes you or not.
you sound different and better than when I heard you at the last retreat we were together, way to go!
Margaret
Crystal:
Going in the right direction
Miguel
Thank you everyone for replying! It really makes me feel loved and it is such a good feeling to know that you have my back.
If anyone has the time to read this long crazy happenings: okay! I started to delete because it is all so crazy, but I typed it out and it is long.————————————It seems like I am getting into these pow-wow’s with people. I went with a friend to a local sports bar to have a drink. We have known each other since grade school but have not seen each other until recently she moved to LR after a divorce. She is a nurse and was off for the day so we met for happy hour.
She begins telling me that she is seeing this man that is married and he is one of her dad’s friends with his name being Ed Lee. Ed Lee came to the sports bar. I immediately did not like him! Bar tabs came. He paid his and never asked to pay ours. I pulled out a $100 because I did not have a $20 or credit card and my tab was $13 and Toni’s tab was $61. After me saying 20 times– mine is only $13– Ed Lee gave his credit card and Toni was trying to pay but he wouldn’t let her, but he asked me to pay 1/2 of hers. Stupid! So he put 1/2 on his card and I paid the other 1/2 of $61 plus tip. I was pissed, but I should have asked the waitress for my tab only and it would have ended all of this.
So next day, this Ed Lee texted me and I never gave him my cell #. I went into a rampage about him not paying our tab! He said– but you had a $100 bill. So I got even madder. So I told this Ed Lee that he needed to keep his ass home with his wife!!
A week later, which was today, — I got mad all over again. Ed Lee tried to friend me on facebook so I texted Toni and said he is texting me and now friending me on FB– I don’t like this guy! You are better than this! So last night on FB– I made a comment on her post and he posted something right below. I mean this is all bullshit and I don’t know why I am even going into it other than I let it ruin a big part of my day! So I unfriended Toni on FB so she texted me this am and asked me if she had offended me. I said no it has nothing to do with you— it all has something to do with me and I can’t explain it other than I can’t look at Ed Lee name even on your FB!
—This all sounds so high school and I am the big instigator that is keeping it going for some reason!!!! I don’t understand it. —But Toni is a really really sweet person. She is a little wild and crazy, but that’s okay. I like her! She is one of those friends that would be there in a heartbeat if you needed her! I asked her today what her mother and dad would think about her seeing this Ed Lee? She texted me and said her mother and dad do not judge anyone and she does not judge anyone!
I can’t see why I am so angry at this man! I have dated a married man before! This is all so childish, It can seem so small that anyone else would let it go— but I am hanging onto it! Maybe I am being a child or am I trying to Mother her. I should know by now that people are going to do what they are going to do! I sure am! Is Toni going to get rid of Ed Lee over the tab? No! So why am I in a rage of anger here. She and I spent a lot of the day texting. In the end– she said she loved me and is here for me if I need her and she loves me unconditionally!!! I was afraid to say too much that I might take it all back and have hate on her because of Ed Lee. My blinders are on. Toni is puzzled and I know she is! She said she has never ever seen me act like this! I am still not actually over it and it is all so crazy! —–Crystal
It’s making me crazy. Those two seem messed up.
Larry– It has just occurred to me that I am being around unstable people and I am thinking that I am not sane. I believe that I am sane!!! Thank you for your comment! I see it loud and clear now!
I am going to bed for the night! But before I do — I want to add one more thing. I am going to have to make some changes. I am making a real idiot out of myself!
I texted Pat, the doctor, to see how he is doing tonight. He said he is always extremely tired in the evenings as usual. –Then I had the week off and I did not go anywhere until the weekend due to the energy spent in emotional recovery from the experience that we had!!!—- Then he writes that everything that occurs is a phenomenon or event that occurs as a result of the combined dynamics of the individuals.
Well— I, Crystal, wrote back that for his sake I wished that I could have turned it all around. —–But your responding to me in such an insightful way opened up a whole can of worms with my emotions!!! I could not see myself on so many levels in so many ways until what happened between you and I — ——–
I can chuckle a little bit about this right now. If I were him I would be pissed as hell because he works and lets everyone else take off and he takes their call. Then he has this 1 week of vacation -that he has been waiting for since he came to Arkansas 14 months ago. — and I go off on him for not being invited and send a barage of texts and about the time he probably thought they were over— here comes some more! So apparently whatever I said triggered a lot in him.
It is not like we have any real love affair going on. I do in my head and dreams and he says things like – I could live all the days of my life with you being happy. He comes to my home and will talk and visit until 2am and I send him home. We have spent the night together only one night in which he slept in his clothes because he was on call! I guess we connect on our craziness!! He says that he tells me things that he could not ever share with anyone else. He also said that he would never have trusted anyone but me in his apartment because I will not judge him! I am the only one to ever go in his apt. and I believe it!
So—– the can of emotions were opened up and have been ever since! If he gave into me that would mask my feelings and i wouldn’t feel so bad. So I;m glad that he has distanced himself because I have to look at myself!!!!!!!!
This Pat thing is only a small piece of what all is going on with me anyway! It just happened to be the catalyst that brought it all to a head. — Crystal
It has now occurred to me that Toni and Ed Lee represent people in my household and family growing up. Actually they are both from the area I grew up in! So— It is all so normal in some ways in the beginning to be with these people, but then I get confused because I don’t trust my own judgements because of being put-down by all my life—— that I somehow think I am the crazy and they are the okays! Toni cannot see it,- so it’s Crystal that is having the problem! Geez! Again, thank you Larry! Simple, but I could not get outside the box of it all!
I am sure that Pat is going to have some craziness! I can’t quite see it yet, because of the smooth words!!!
One of my former summer students recently started a new job as a sales rep for FedEx and this afternoon visited our building on business. He dropped by our lab for a while to say hello. He worked for me on our summer crew from 2004 to 2007. Reminiscing with him brought back memories and drew my attention to the passage of time.
He doesn’t know that Noreen died. I didn’t tell him. At the end of his last summer she started to get sick. While he was finishing university and entering the work world, she was dying. As he made his way into the adult life, I was run over by a bus, over and over. As his world followed the expected trajectory, mine fell from beneath my feet. When he was my summer student my retirement seemed still far away, but a reality that Noreen and I would manage and make wonderful together.
Retirement is close now, maybe 1 to 3 years away. Alone, life is much harder to make wonderful. Life has shown it can be ruthless and ugly. There is a feeling deep in me that it’s too hard to do it alone. I cried this afternoon that I’m afraid and too alone, and life alone isn’t worth the trouble. But Noreen and I made life worthwhile, and as she lay dying I told her I wouldn’t squander what we had built together. I told her that because her’s was cut short, I would strive harder to make mine a good life to make up for what she was cheated of. Even now she keeps me going in my lowest moments.
So I made myself go to the ballroom dance class this evening, despite feeling frozen inept and stupid. In class I panicked because the lesson wasn’t sinking in. I wanted to run and quit. But I persisted, and my partners helped me out, were understanding, calmed me down and seemed to want me to have fun. They all said How are you today? One of my partners, a tall lady with a warm friendly smile and kind welcoming eyes, said How are you today? and all I could do was shrug and she said Feeling sad? and so I tried to give her some kind of explanation. Then I asked What do you do for a living? And she replied I’m a nurse. I said That explains the human touch.
She kept smiling and dancing with me, in turn with the others, all so friendly, all of them wanting me to enjoy myself too. And then i did. By the end of the class I was thawed out, my brain unscrambled, and some confidence returned, from what they were reflecting at me. By the end of class I was getting the steps, connecting with my partners, having fun and feeling that the world can be a good place and there are good people who want me to be enjoying it with them.
There is a Halloween dance tomorrow night. The nurse asked whether I’ll be there. I told her yes, that’s what I take these classes for, so I better go. She said she’ll be looking forward to some dances with me. I better go.
I’m touched by his life ruined. Life beat him down. I want him to want to save himself.
I want Gretchen to save him, to help him salvage what’s left. If only he knew he could.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-s-homeless-piano-man-reveals-rough-life-behind-his-music-1.2819057
Larry: Your comment demonstrates a great deal of sensitivity towards this homeless man … BUT wanting, or hoping that Gretchen could save his life, is more than Gretchen or anyone else is capable of doing. If we lived under a a different ‘order of things’ (system) this man and all others would be able to take care of their own lives. He could search out his own needs and seemingly he would give back to the community his music and his obvious delight at playing the piano.
The solution (though seemingly complex) is NOT the reality of all life forms. The current ‘order of things’ that exist NOW is the “maddest” of all possibilities and it couldn’t get worse … though many will claim it would. It would seem that EVERYONE has his/her own theory about what the alternative would entail. It’s this very THEORY that each of us has, that is the problem. We’re stuck in the box … of our own ‘neurotic’ making.
Just abolish that that we created … money and all forms of exchange. To take what we need and to give what gives each of us pleasure.
I just hope (neurotically) that some might see beyond the box (call it what you will) we placed ourselves in.
Jack
It’s a feeling Jack that made me want to post it. Probably a feeling about me. Probably the feeling is to not give up on myself, because if I had my life would have been ruined like his. The feeling, and the lesson from the video, is for me to keep trying to salvage what I can of what’s left of mine. The feeling is I’m lucky to have Gretchen to help me do that.
The feeling is how lucky I am to have found another way, how much work it takes to salvage what is left and how much I need to always keep applying myself, and how sad that people’s lives are destroyed through misfortune and bad circumstance…and I could have been him.
Part of me wants to give up on myself. Part of me wants to help me, wants me to keep trying, because this is my one and only crack at life and that part of me would feel very sad if I gave up on me. Part of me feels how Gretchen wants to help and I shouldn’t be afraid but I’m wary because it’s what I never had.
Gretchen Barry Mark and the primal community emanate how life should be, and illuminate what is wrong, help me see the ruin and what could be, like in that guy’s life. So sad to stay prisoners of our circumstance. So hard to work our way out of it. I wish he /I would try, I wish he / I would get help, and I wish he /I would accept it and stay on the long road of recovery. Because a person’s life is a gift that happens one time only.
I haven’t been writing to the blog for a while (I am sure to the relief and happiness of most lol) also I have been having ‘computer problems’ so I have not been reading either for a week now. First off it feels ‘healthy’ for me to stay away not to read etc, I seem to be more productive and be in a space where I am actually ‘working on myself’ and feel overall it is a ‘negative’ for me to even be on here.
Which begs the question why am I ‘on here’ now, since I ‘know’ it is better for me not to be. Well I also ‘know’ the answer to that (mostly) it is then a matter of doing it actually doing what I ‘know’ is better for me. Harder than it sounds at least for me. Addicted to ‘fighting’ and ‘talking shit’ to people, fighting back all the time, pushing back the ‘bullies’ in my brain – and I suppose I have to admit ironically BEING one at the same time. Not a good syndrome at all so and I said this before if people do not see me on here It can be seen as a ‘positive’ I know there is a ‘better me’ inside and I need to listen and pay close attention to ‘him’
Maybe to talk some more shit though right now that is not my intention or at least I don’t feel it as that the overall impression I get is people here suffering and suffering a lot. Of course people write about what ‘bothers’ them but still…………………….I believe there is a better way something’s are being ‘missed’ here and I wish Gretchen could see it a bit and it would have the advantage of making her job easier but also achieving more. But I have been preaching that ‘gospel’ for a while to little or no effect………..
One ‘small’ thing and not to focus on Jack yet again (but to focus I suppose) is you (Jack) seem to think I posted something ‘anonymously’ and ‘signed’ Crystal’s name. Here is the post
“I might be able to explain myself better after a a night of rest. I am not in touch right now! – Crystal
I mean I guess I am amazed Jack that you would think I would do that. It was also posted RIGHT AFTER another post by Crystal AND ‘signed’ by her so why would you even think or consider that I would to that. It’s true (my bad) I post ONE ‘anonymous’ one over a week ago but it was an ACCIDENT and I copped to it and ‘admitted’ to it right away. I mean this happens to people it has happened to me before and many others. Anyway even now I am making too much of this and it can lead to no good but for some reason I wanted to correct that. I am honestly surprised you have such a ‘low opinion’ of me but I guess I shouldn’t be (No need to add even more ‘low opinions’ – PLEASE)
Anyway there I go again more ‘struggling’ (to be seen, to be heard, to be me – not going to happen) and if Gretchen would ‘bar’ me she would probably be doing me a great favor since I still can’t seem to do if for myself…………………….maybe one of these days……………..when I get more of myself back………………….but I AM working on it
we went to our mom today.
I seemed a bit more capable to remain more or less patient with her endless repetitions and her always questioning anything I say, and I actually enjoyed, after having encouraged her to shower, and to have helped her pick out clean cloths, to give her back a good scrub and also rub it dry afterwards.
it turned out to be fun really,, she laughs easily which is nice.
we also enjoyed feeding the donkey who lives in a big meadow behind where she lives, and that donkey knows her so well already he calls out for her with his weird and loud donkey voice to bring him the carrots he hopes for, which my mom always does. she specially buys carrots for that old donkey and he starts making sounds as osoon as he spots her or as I said, even while she is still indoors to call her, smiley.
nice to be more able again to see the kind of quality my mom can give her life, with simple things like leaves she dries and displays or chestnuts she oils because then they shine all the more nicely..
M
Hi Margaret — I love the story about the donkey. I could just picture it in my mind. It sounds like you had a rather pleasant day with your Mom. Crystal
Hi– I just paged up to read what is going on with you guys. Everyone seems to be so in touch with so much in their lives! All that I have written makes me feel a little stupid and I started to ask Gretchen if she would take it off. One thing I see is that I do not need to be writing unless I am having a feeling or getting in touch with something. I will go back to when I first jumped on here and see how I was feeling at the time! I just guess it is way too painful for me!!
I’m sorry you feel you want to remove what you’ve written, Crystal. I wonder why you feel that way. I found your contribution to be meaningful and hoped you’d continue, if it’s helping you.
Crystal, I want to that I am glad you are here sharing about what Is going on in your life and nothing you wrote sounded stupid. Phil Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2014 00:09:44 +0000 To: phiban@msn.com
Hi Crystal,
I wanted to respond to your first blog entry – but only now have the time. ( I think the last of our trick or treaters have arrived and departed for the night :).
I am glad you are writing here. Write what you want – for yourself… I think it was great that you were talking about the power men hold over you.
I know I am with a wonderful man now and am so grateful for that always, but before B.- in my being crazy for male attention I made desperate decisions – chose men with all kinds of issues etc. etc.
What I wanted to share with you is that if you and I had had the Dads we needed in our lives we would not be starting in such a deficit position.
So not that you can’t do anything about it, because you have/can and will – but do remember that it is not your fault that a Dad to love you, & for you to love and keep you safe was not there…
ox L.
SERENITY. NOT SERENITY NOW, WHICH IS BEAUTIFUL, BUT SERENITY THE MOVIE. HOW CAN THEY MAKE SUCH A BEAUTIFUL FANTASY OUTER SPACE MOVIE WITH GREAT CHARACTERS, FULL OF ACTION AND INTERESTING CHARACTERS, AND LEAVE YOU CLOSE TO TEARS AT THE END. HOW CAN THERE BE SO MUCH OTHER DRIVEL BEING PRODUCED? WELL ANYWAY, THAT IS WHAT I SAY. NO FURTHER MOVEMENT OF MY OWN FANTASY OF CREATING ADVERTISEMENTS FOR OUR BUSINESS. NEVER ENOUGH TIME. NEED TO RETIRE SO I CAN WORK.
Sounds like a movie I’d like to see.
Leslie– Yes you are so right! I thought of that very thing. I don’t ever remember getting any attention or ever a one on one conversation ever from my father and he died when I was 20. So any positive attention I grab on and hang on to every word!
Pat, the doctor, texted me this afternoon these words and it just brought tears to my eyes and the pain started all over again! —“Just a reminder that you are an incredible human being who doesn’t know how incredible that she really is. Have a wonderful day your incredibleness “. Seriouslly, Love Always, Pat.—— These words just do something to me that tears me up and makes me cry! —
You are so right Leslie about the love we missed from our father!!!
Larry– You are always so nice! By the way, I hope you went to the party tonight. You seemed to have had so much fun the other night You know sometime when we are down and get around other people– we forget all about it when we let ourselves have fun! Everybody seems to really like you a lot! —-Crystal P.S. I will have to think about why my postings made me feel stupid!
I went to the dance but it was hard to be there. I walked into a room full of people seated and dancing, all coupled or in groups. Lots of them were familiar faces. I felt like I was the only one who came alone. I felt everyone could see I was alone and were wondering what is wrong with me that I don’t have friends.
I made myself sit at a table with strangers and looked for who in the room I’d feel at ease with. I tried to appear confident and relaxed, meanwhile feeling tense and my head spinning. I saw a lady I knew who I’ve danced with before and who comes with girlfriends. As I was getting up to ask her to dance, she was approaching to ask me. I felt wooden and tense on the dance floor. We talked more than danced.
As we returned to the tables, two ladies standing together, who I both knew and looked forward to a dance with, both at once invited me to dance with them while I was still in conversation with the one I had just returned with. I froze and became confused and handled the situation awkwardly. I did eventually dance with each of them, and with two other friends who I knew there. But the whole time I felt tense and spaced out, and never really got into the flow of the dance. When I told them that, they said it’s alright, that I just need to practice. They didn’t really seem to care that I wasn’t good at it.
Between dancing, I sat at my table with strangers. The entire evening I felt very alone and couldn’t shake it. The black empty hollow of my life kept getting in the way of my being able to enjoy the evening. After an hour and a half, I couldn’t take any more and left an hour before the dance ended.
I’m so alone. There is so much fear and insecurity I need to overcome if I want to make a life with friends and meaning beyond work. What rattled me the entire evening while I was trying to put myself out there, is the spectre that kept looming of how alone I am and always was except for Noreen. It’s a disturbing truth that keeps getting stirred when I try to be with people, and that freezes me and prevents feeling of connecting with people. I only go through the motions. Just like high school. Just like and infinity of social situations that paralyse me. I have no friends, no life. Who would want to be with me?
I left the dance early, alone. It’s after midnight and I can’t sleep. I see a cavern of emptiness in me that seems impossible to overcome. While everyone else at the dance was enjoying themselves, I was battling demons that no one could see. I feel too alone to live my life. I see a bigger, deeper picture of what I need to over come, a bigger deeper truth, a bigger deeper feeling.
I returned home from LA to nothing. I never had anyone. Noreen was all I ever had, my only grounding upon which to build a life. Like Leslie says, we work with a huge deficit. I see mine more clearly tonight, I’m tired of it, and dread it will consume me.
Larry, It sounds like the conditions weren’t right for you from the start at the dance, and that it was difficult and discouraging. You have friends here who see your good qualities. I’m sure others, where you are, will see those qualities too. Phil Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2014 07:10:41 +0000 To: phiban@msn.com
I noticed that the ladies I danced with, some who are relatively new to ballroom dancing mingled freely with the instructors present and knew other people at the dance. I don’t mingle freely with anyone. I avoid the instructors, just like I avoid Barry, Gretchen, and Mark at retreats. I feel I’m not good enough. One of the instructors nodded to me and smiled a greeting, and I wanted to shrink and disappear because I don’t feel worthy, the same as when I get too much attention at retreats. I have a good idea where that feeling comes from, and there is in it an irrational pattern that I have to break.
Last night at the dance I was trembling inside, trying to be present but wrestling with inner demons. After having spent that day at home alone working on a volunteer project, it didn’t help that I arrived at the dance 45 minutes late, that I didn’t know who would be there and the room had already settled into knots of people familiar with each other and I instantly didn’t feel I fit in. The dances are an excellent vehicle for bringing out my insecurities, and occasionally are a lot of fun.
Thanks Phil. You remind me that the ladies who I danced with didn’t see my insecurities as negatively as I do, and were supportive and encouraging, which tells me to take it easy on myself. One of those ladies has been in my class this second year in a row, and is someone I’d like to know better, but I feel I fall too short of her standards, yet she seems to be opening up to me if only I would step out of my shell. My feeling is I don’t have enough to offer. I am too afraid of life. I have to conquer some of that fear.
Crystal – I am probably paying this too much attention but I looked again at Oct 27/28 about someone ‘signing on’ with your name and after Jack’s initial ‘speculation’ that I had done that you seem to support the idea that SOMEONE did so. This seems hard to believe and I can only assume you are confused. If you don’t mind though I would appreciate you clearing that up if you can, you can scroll back to that date on this blog and say exactly what went on. As I say this in any real sense is unimportant but I don’t like to be ‘accused’ of something like that and then for you to seem to support the idea that even if it was not me someone else did. This makes little or no sense………………what do you think and what is your ‘explanation’
Patrick,
how on earth can you interpret that little misunderstanding about Crystals post like that, it was just Jack that thought it might have been you, and noone else got confused, and all of us clearly must have immediately known and understood it was Crystal, who in her reaction to me did not leave any doubt at all.
you seem desperate to find some struggle to cling onto.
if there is no struggle, what is left for you?
you keep saying we only post complaints and talk about our pain, but you fail to see the positive and keep looking for trouble.
I know Crystal can talk for herself, but still I would want you to leave her alone.
go fight somewhere else if you need to.
M
Margaret – you say Crystal in her reaction left no doubt at all that it was her. Here is what she actually wrote ”
Jack
That’s funny! I haven’t been on here in a while so I guess it was a mystery post that was signed- Crystal. So one would wonder.”
So how is that cl\ear? Is she joking? Maybe she is and I take it all too literally. What I know of Crystal she does not seem the joking/ironic kind of person but I could be wrong. But when it comes to Jack I have been the ‘victim’ of some of that kind of stuff in the past. When push comes to shove his ‘standards of truth’ are more or less non existent and he could easily IMPLY again somewhere that I did something like that. He is a ‘spinner’ par excellance as most of his ‘career’ here demonstrates at least the way I see it.
As for you yes why don’t you keep out of ii for a change. You dip your oar into any and every water when it is not already all about you. Crystal CAN speak for herself so why are you such a busy body.
Patrick– Looking back on that post– It seems as though I was half way serious and half way joking. When Jack was thinking it was you– I said, if I remember correctly– I could see why someone could think it was someone else since I have’t been on here in a long time. —–It’s been over a year I think since I have posted anything.
I suppose that Jack thought it to be you as a practical joke. I don’t know. I may be getting this all screwed up and you two are going to come down on me.
My brain is not very clear to really comment on anything. I have too much going on in it right now.
It’s fine Crystal – don’t bother your head about it I just found the initial suggestion so so so weird and so so so so twisted and so so so SO vindictive but since you did not refute it directly I just wanted to clear up that it was you. Wasn’t it?
Cryatal: Maybe it’s time for me to do a bit of explaining here.
I could well be wrong and perhaps Vicki might have a more knowledge of what is taking place viz a viz WordPress. Every time someone comments they are issued with their own unique logo which remains each time that person comments. It is my guess that WordPress designates the logo depending on the email address which is asked for after writing their comment and before posting. Also it asks for a name to be headed for that particular comment. Seemingly it matters little to WordPress what name is provided for any particular comment. It (I gather) is only interested in the email address in order to provide the logo for that particular comment. I further gather if no name is put into the name box and left blank it then names the commentator as “Anonymous”.
Since earlier Patrick had made a comment and not given a name before posting it, it registered as ‘anonymous’. When I saw that comment, and since there was no name sign off, I checked backwards on the blog to see if there was another logo of the same color and pattern. Lo and behold I saw that it was Patrick’s logo, I commented upon it (not knowing why he’d done that) and he replied saying it was a pure accident. That cleared that up for me and I am aware that it is easy to forget to add ones name in the name box.
Some time later I saw Crystal’s first comment on October 27, and an hour later I saw another comment signed off as “Crystal” but designated as “Anonymous” and displaying Patrick’s logo, so I assumed it was Patrick writing that comment, but signing off as ‘Crystal’. That; I took exception to … but then, lo and behold 2 minutes later was a comment from Crystal with her own logo and signed off as “Crystal” … and using almost identical words (slightly different). I now thought there’s something weird here … so I commented to Patrick about it He stated that he had not made any attempt to portray his comment as anyone else. I have no choice but to believe him.
So! I can only think of three possibilities. The first was it was an error created inadvertently by WordPrress … The second was that Crystal inadvertently used Patrick’s email address (why or how I have not the slightest idea) … the third option was that Crystal was using Patrick’s computer and that they were friends hence automatically using Patrick’s logo. I can think of no other reason for it.
However, as a consequence of all this Patrick intimated that I had such a low opinion of him (maybe so) but considering the way he entered this blog in the first place I felt it was RICH on his part to suggest that he would not do a thing like that. In those early days when Patrick was attempting to denigrate and insult me he held nothing back as far as I could gather. I was not really that concerned To re-state my feelings on the matter “I can ONLY allow myself to be insulted” … I was not too bothered by any of it … feeling, for the most part, that Patrick was ‘digging his own grave’. However in the early days no-one seemed to be critical of Patrick’s manner in throwing his attempted insults my way. Even Gretchen seemingly attempted to get Patrick to do some sessions even to the point of suggesting a joint session between Patrick and I. It was my feeling at the time, that Patrick wanted the confrontation with me and I was determined that I was not going to pay $60.00 for him to get what he wanted by way of a confrontation with me.
However it did appear to me that for quite some time Patrick was the darling of the blog. This also did not bother me unduly, but I did wonder why he was given a chance to write the blog article “Food for Thought”. The only conclusion I could think of was that Gretchen assumed it might be therapeutically helpful to Patrick.
For Patrick, I can only assume from my limited knowledge of psychology, that Patrick needs to be allowed to say his ‘party piece’ … publicly, that he needs to be taken notice of … and that he needs to be right. Merely, just my feeling/s … for what it’s worth.
Jack
STILL going on about how I got on the blog……………………………almost 3 years now…………………no ‘statute of limitations’ on anything??…………….no wonder you are ‘hooked’ on primal………………endless repetition and psychological vindictiveness……………….
I tend to get carried away with wanting to decorate for holidays. I had some insights about this
yesterday. Our kids are big and one is living away from home but I still enjoy taking out all
the decorations for Halloween and setting everything up. This year I have two stuffed monsters
in the front yard with my old clothes and scary masks. There are other props and I always
have scary music playing. It makes the day fun and I think everyone enjoys it.
This year my wife and I decided we would go to a local music club where there was going
to be a good performance on Halloween night. My son, who is 18, agreed to be home to
keep things going and hand out candy, make sure the candles stayed lit in the pumpkins,
and the music playing. It agreed to this with no convincing.
But as the moment came for us to leave for the show my son couldn’t by found. It took a long
time to get him to answer my cell phone calls and messages as he was out with his friends.
The point here is I became very angry and really let him have it when he finally showed up.
Then we were very rushed getting to the show, and late picking up a friend on the way. The show
was very good and we enjoyed it but I was left with bad feelings about what had happened earlier in the evening, about how angry I was.
I got to some feelings with this late last night. Obviously my son wasn’t understanding exactly what I wanted from him and it’s importance to me. So it feels like he wasn’t listening and paying attention to me, and that was a big part of it, also about being kept waiting.
Another thing is the decorating and music and everything is about me, I am seeing. My son thought we could have just gone out and left the house unattended, and didn’t understand
why I was upset. This decorating I do is some creative efforts I enjoy and wanting to get
some attention from people seeing it, favorable comments etc. Nothing bad about that except
I see how it’s tied in with old feelings, getting little or no attention from my mother, and how she
left me waiting and waiting, and never getting anything. So I got to a lot of feelings around
this last night.
Also Halloween always was a big day for me as a kid. Big efforts were made as far as
the costume, it was almost never just a store bought outfit. Then we were out to go to the
maximum number of houses. I have very good memories of these days and how my father
would be encouraging and never cut the fun short. I stayed out as long as I wanted.
Right now my son is just getting up and I want to have a conversation with him about what happened last night. I am hoping it was a bigger incident for me than it was for him.
Phil
It’s good you are having the discussion with him. It’s how relationships grow.
It turns out things are fine with my son and he wasn’t bothered by my outburst and I’m glad about that. But the incident did bring up big feelings for me. Phil
Hi Phil,
I too was emotional this Halloween, and our grown children are about the same ages… On my way to work that day I was crying softly – over the sweet nostalgia of all the Halloweens we shared with our sons – their thrills and excitement of choosing costumes, friends to go with, routes to take for the most treats.etc. etc… In fact, in Vancouver (as it is unique to only here) – after all the trick or treating there are neighbourhood fireworks! Over the top and crazy I know… but it is all our kids have known.
This year our 1 son (at home) and his girlfriend went to a party that night and even then he changed his mind for a whole different costume at the very last minute – just as had so often happened growing up. Fun to just watch now though :)… as of course it was totally his call, and yes we do still have a big box of costumes!
Anyway, I am glad you have the good memories for yourself with your dad, and that you made it special for your own family and neighborhood. I’m sure you and your son have talked now and that is good. Our sons have occasionally thought they could/would help with handing out the treats – until something better comes up of course, and something always does 🙂
ox L.
Patrick– I just re-read it. The sentence “So one woould wonder”? I meant– wonder who it is, but it was signed Crystal– so I guess there was nothing to wonder.
On another note, I am starting to have one of these panicky, not feeling good about myself feelings.
Pat wrote me several texts after he got home from work. If one reads what he has written to me and says to me— It is all so confusing. One time he said to me a few weeks ago— I want to start staying every weekend with you and some of the week nights. He tells me that he could live the rest of his life with me and be happy!!! ———— He never makes a date with me!!! There is some kind of fucking playing with my head here! The way he writes he leads you to believe that he is there in his apt. all weekend and all night because he is dead dog tired! Something is wrong here. I do know this— no one would go to his apt. because he would not let them I am sure. The only truth he has probably told is that. It was like someone camping out in the city garbage. He had the doors closed to the bedrooms and bath. He said he has a mattress that he drags out when his 13 year old daughter comes to stay. I can tell that he sleeps on his sofa because the blankets and pillow were folded to make way for me to sit down. The 2 hours he had to go to the pharmacy was to try and straighten what he could which was several bags of garbage. —- I am feeling so bad in saying this because — he said that only me would he trust in all the world to come into his apartment and not judge him.
I kept wanting to go where he lived because I knew a person’s surroundings tell a lot of who the person is. He moved here from another state while going through a divorce about 18 months ago and didn’t marry until he was 55 and he is now 71 with a 13 year old daughter that lives with her mother in Atlanta. He said she is into “cutting herself”. He has shared with me in person and has sent a lot of the texts that he sends to his daughter and she to him. They are all so very loving. ONe that stood out the most was– that being here in Little Rock all alone in that apt. doing long surgeries at his age is the most difficult thing he has ever done in his life!!! I am not sure if his divorce is even final I don’t ever ask him about any of that. He retires in August 2015 and he has it down to the hours and minutes. In some ways, I start feeling very sad because he has this bucket list of all these things he wan’ts to do when he retires, but some people that are 70 are young 70’s and some people are old 70 year olds. He is old! His brother has a mental illness like my son Matt and so we connect on a lot of family matters of growing up in a crazy household. Then I know all the doctors that he graduated with and worked at the Med Center for 5 years at a time he was there. He has written medical books and has patents on a lot of surgical tools and if I am not sure he is one who developed surgical techniques that are patented or whatever. Really all he can talk about his medicine but I enjoy every bit of it and know a lot of what he is talking about because I was a medical secretary in the surgery dept. at the med center. I don’t think he will have it in him to do that bucket list which is sad.
I don’t know why I am boring yall with all this. I have only known him since May, but he came into my life saying everything I ever wanted to hear from a man.
Here is one thing I do– I tell him what I think and how I feel. I have just sent an email saying that I guess I am in love with a “Dream”!!!!
Patrick,
just this one reply as I don’t want to keep feeding your neeed for struggle.
to me it seemed pretty clear Crystal was in a playful way just acknowledging how the anonymous post might have looked to Jack.
and why are you so ‘offended’ and acting like the innocent victim blamed alll over again for nothing at all?
wasn’t it you in the past that once wrote a comment and signed with Gretchen? i admit it is long ago, but I only mention it as you are on your high horse once more being all indignified someone could suspect you of such a low and devious act..
now I agree Jack’s supposition also surprised me but this only seems to be one more ilustration of too much paranoia from the both of you.
it seems a good idea you should go and reflect some more but you mention it and in the same comment start riticizing again, so it would be nice if you put your actions where your words are.
M
And Margaret it would be nice if you were to stop ‘lecturing’ me. As they say I don’t see any letters after your name not that means anything either
Margaret – as I tried to tell you it is not at all so obvious that Crystal wrote it though she even ‘signed’ it. Listen to Inspector Cluasau – he is on the job
So! I can only think of three possibilities. The first was it was an error created inadvertently by WordPrress … The second was that Crystal inadvertently used Patrick’s email address (why or how I have not the slightest idea) … the third option was that Crystal was using Patrick’s computer and that they were friends hence automatically using Patrick’s logo. I can think of no other reason for it.
Now all of these are WRONG but no matter Inspector Claoueu will spin his ‘conspiracies’ he has done this often before I KNOW this move……………I have met Crystal once at a retreat but hey it seems we are now shuttling between LA and Little Rock to spin this ‘conspiracy’ that ONLY exists in the mind of Inspector C. How fucking absurd and now much I have seen this kind of crap before. Gretchen do me a favor and bar me from this freaking place
Inspector Cloasou the Emeritus Professor of Straight (and Gay) Thinking………………….now if ONLY we would abolish money…………….and language…………..and the brain…………….and everything we might be getting somewhere……………that’s it he ‘gets’ it abolish everything…………..
Patrick– On a different note of what you just posted—- you are so good with the meaning of lyrics in music. So– I have a question/ Someone that I have been dating asked me to listen to the song by Gordon Lightfoot, “If You Could Read My Mind”. after we had what i thought was a misunderstanding thinking I was invited on a trip when I wasn’t and he wanted to go alone.
He said the song expressed his feelings better than he could! I took the love song as being very sad and the relationship being over. Do you see these song lyrics being anything else than a relationship between 2 people can no longer be because of the ghosts from the past? Thank you.— Crystal
Larry,
your description of the dance sounds so familiar to some of my own experiences.
sometimes that is just the way things are maybe, if you are in a feeling that can dissipate or just be right in your face all along.
have you ever been able at a dance to share it in amy way with someone?
of course the situation is not suitable for long emotional breakdowns etc., but I have had some experiences in which just sharing some of it, even a small amount of showing some of the fear or pain or sadness, breaks down the walls of isolation.
so that is why I wonder if there is anyone there you cam be yourself with if you feel uncomfortable in any way?
I really am so glad for all your honest sharing here of the good and hard things and all the effort you put into making the best of your life.
that is inspiring, well, for most of us, smiley..
M
I shared with four of the women I danced with. I feel I grew friendships with them. But I don’t want to be the broken guy on the dance floor that needs understanding. I want to be the composed, confident guy that is having fun and is fun to be with at a dance. Sometimes that happens, but not last night.
Phil,
I hope you and your son had some good communication.
I guess the main thing is you reach out and try, I sincerely hope things work out.
you are such a nice guy.
M
Everyone– I read your posts and I think of things to say, but I am into myself right now so it will not be right because it will just be saying something off the top of my head. I don’t know maybe this is selfish because I am being all about me.
Actually, when we write stuff here, even in response to others it’s about ourself. I’m responding to you because I want you to keep writing here, ie it’s about me. We’re all trying to figure ourselves out. Your participation (everyone’s) is illuminating.
I was searching for my journal because I had a break through on all of this a couple of weeks or so ago. But then it all comes back up, so I guess the pain we experience never quite ends and it would be like having that magic wand if you had a break through and “poof” it was over with! I am starting to have all that darkness thing come over me all over again. What is wrong with me? Why doesn’t a man like me?
There is one thing I learned for myself in primal therapy if nothing else and that is— “BE WHO YOU ARE”! I cannot morph into being someone I am not. That never works and I am not good at pretendiing anyway!!
.
I feel trapped. Stuck at home, but i dont really want to go anywhere. Dont feel like moving. If there are people here, I cant move or do anything. If there are no people here, I know they will be coming back. Even if i went to group, this is such a big feeling of mine, it would not dissipate. I am not sure if it is an old big birth feeling attached to some other early big feeling. Sure I should go to men’s brunch tomorrow, but why bother. BB knows the only 2 reasons that I ever went to that brunch. maybe i will go.
Life happens when you do stuff.
Larry- I am so glad that you put yourself out there in spite of your own insecurities. We look at other people thinking they are confident and have it together when usually they have a lot of the same feelings as we do. It sounded like you really enjoyed yourself and had fun! Each time it gets easier and easier. I wished I had the courage to dance.
Just like you said in the post above to Elephantman– “Life happens when you do stuff”. This is so true! I need to remember this when I make excuses not to do something that might just change the way I am feeling! I do know with me that depression will tell me not to do something and therefore my depression worsens! Life will happen when we do stuff! I like that! Thank you for sharing that Larry! ——–Crystal
Crystal – I will answer you down here because otherwise the reply get’s too ‘skinny’ Well thanks for seeing me as good for something it’s been a long time here without any compliments for me. I don’t know if I am good at the meaning of lyrics in music but it’s true I do pay them attention so maybe that makes me ‘good’ I don’t know.
I know that song quite well but I listened to it now twice with the words displayed and it is quite a complex song layers within layers of meaning I picture the guy behind several walls and anyone who has to get to him has to pass over those walls and vica versa for him to meet someone he has to vault over these walls himself too. He speaks of himself as a ‘ghost’ a pretty hard thing to reach and when he thinks of the other person he sees the woman reading a dime store novel and him being to hero BUT a hero causing an ‘end that is just too hard to take’ He then seems to ‘hook up’ with someone else with similar results he finds ‘the feeling gone and he just can’t get it back’. There are layers and layers of you might say ‘negativity’ in the song then he talks about ‘reading between the lines’ and he is trying hard to understand why now the other person lacks feeling.
Anyway enough of my interpretations the message I see here that he is trying to give you is be very wary of him and don’t expect too much actually don’t expect anything. Anything you do will be at your own risk after all he has told you he is ghost who cannot be reached and on several other levels too and he also doubts you maybe even for ‘trusting’ him. Of course your guy did not write the song there is always something a bit different about ‘real life’………..still I would be careful my impression is you are setting yourself up for a serious fall and he is already covering himself by saying he told you (in the song)
Crystal on a bit of a different though not this reminds me quite a bit of the thing you had with the guy with the immaculate pick up truck. They both seem ‘distant’ even literally like you can’t get into their place etc, they both keep you at a good distance and it seems you have almost to beg for their attention. Also it is interesting I get a flavor of these ‘Southern men’ are like and I have to say speaking as a man they have a line of bullshit I would never have the nerve to try on a woman. Or maybe another way to say it it’s like they think you are stupid. Or maybe they think all women are stupid it strikes me like that at least. Like one second they are professing their undying love and the next telling you you can’t possibly see them. I know ‘advice’ means nothing but for what it’s worth I would say ‘don’t walk run’ from this
PS I hope this does not provide further ‘fuel’ for Jack’s conspiracy theories can you tell him you are not shuttling out to LA to send a message from my computer and vica versa you have never seen me in Little Rock lol.
Patrick– Thank you for replying. I thought this song to be a bit complicated also. There is something about everything though that I tend to turn it around on me as always be the problem or always being in the wrong. I never just my own judgement. Even though, I think as you that I should run from this guy— I can’t even trust my own instinct about it!
Not sure what keeps me from doubting myself! I really would like to be a more confident person. I suppose the making of a confident person is taking care of oneself in all areas of your life at all times on everyday of the week. —
Thank you Patrick. I liked your comment and I appreciate you taking the time to respond to me. —Crystal
Obvious I suppose that was me, it was NOT an attempt at being a smart ass……………don’t know why I am ‘forgetful’ these days………….beginnings of Alzheimer’s ?? I hope not but I do notice ‘small’ things like that. Saturday I got a drink and something to eat and came back to the table without the drink. Anyway I think I am ok……………
Patrick– All of this went over my head earlier! I get it now! LOL!
I recently received this link of a project that I think some you might be interested in supporting. It is about a potential movie about the life of Wilhelm Reich. As I watched the short promo, I could not help but notice some similarities between his life and work and that of Art Janov. Take a look……
Renee – as much as I know about him (not that much) Reich was an interesting guy. What I always related to was his idea that ‘neurosis’ was ‘contained’ in the body. He reacted against Freud’s overly ‘mental’ approach. He talked a lot about ‘body armor’ and so on. I think he was quite influential in things like Rolfing, massage etc to release ‘pain’ in our terminology. This is something I find myself quite in agreement with…………the notion that psycho-analysis or in our case primal therapy has got overly ‘mental’. (see all my ‘rants’ (as they are called here lol) about the ‘mental health ghetto’ He did though I am afraid ‘lose his mind’ quite a bit as he got older but then again he was under huge stress from the US Government basically hounded to death. As I said to Leslie here one time that tends to happen sometimes to people who ‘think differently’ His ideas about ‘energy’ etc were I think very much on the right track but somehow he went off the tracks too. Quite a bit more in known now if we care to look………………
Patrick: Your assumptions are what are DRIVING you; it seems. Quote “This is something I find myself quite in agreement with…………the notion that psycho-analysis or in our case primal therapy”. Primal Therapy is anything BUT Psycho Analysis. Psycho Analysis is a head trip; which ever way you look at it. Primal therapy is about …… I will let you have yet one more guess.
Just by way of an addendum Arthur Janov did state in “The Primal Scream” that he felt that Wilhelm Reich came the nearest of all psychologist to Primal Theory. However, being the nearest isn’t to say that he got Primal Theory; he didn’t … merely got closer to it than anyone else. I am inclined to feel that Arthur Janov was influenced by him …and others, but since he stated that prior to his discovery; no-one got to the CORE of the problem … and that he was somewhat dissatisfied by the whole profession.
One last point; Primal Theory implies that it is a whole body experience. In other words includes both the body and the mind (the mind being the physiology of the brain). They are interdependent factors.
Jack
Jack – it seems to me a lot of what you say comes down to ‘word games’ ironically enough. If you DEFINE ‘primal therapy’ as something perfect well then for the purposes of your discussion it IS perfect. I guess I am more concerned with the reality of the situation. Maybe its the computer programmer in you coming out if you define something as ‘x’ well then ‘x’ it is.But in terms of talking about anything in the ‘real world’ this kind of approach leads to a lot of empty tautologies or ‘theories without content’
Also if something is by definition ‘perfect’ well then there is of course nothing to criticize nothing to improve. Also this kind of approach of course leads to a lot of smugness and a feeling of ‘knowing it all’ which ironically enough again leads to a lot of ignorance and actually NOT knowing much about anything. And I believe this has been a problem in ‘primal’ the theory seems so perfect with no loopholes………………but no loopholes for any ‘light’ to enter also. So I am sure for you you can contemplate your ‘object of beauty’ forever but in the ‘real world’ does it even exist.
I have got caught up in this myself also that’s why I huff and puff so much to ‘free’ myself from it……………….I know it contains a lot of truth but still I look around outside and see many ‘bad signs’ and inside myself too. So I know what you say is in large measure a word game or a game of definitions. I think your arguments about abolishing money are kind of similar. I think ‘this for that’ is pretty deep even in nature, animals and birds for example will have the male do something for the female to do something else say in rearing their young. It’s true humans have carried all this to levels of abstraction which has created huge problems but your ‘solution’ is a simpleton one and something you know has no practical use. I agree the importance of money could and should be reduced hugely but to ‘abolish’ ? What does that even mean? Would there be a ‘law’ against money? Isn’t that another ‘head trip’ in your terms. Would the law be ‘enforced’ who would enforce it, would they need to be ‘paid’ on and on really you are just spinning words and I am stupid enough to get caught up in it…………….and huffing and puffing trying to ‘free’ myself which I KNOW there are better ways of doing……………
Guessed wrong …….. try again.
Jack
OK School Master Jack………………..do I get whipped (or buggered) if I don’t get it right? What a joke some know nothing sets himself up as some kind of “Master” maybe a ‘master-bater’ more like it………………..
Quote “I am stupid enough to get caught up in it…………….and huffing and puffing trying to ‘free’ myself ……” I guess so. Jack
My days are getting worse and worse! I tried to comment on Larry’s going to the dance and the comment he made to Elephant Man sounded so good that I felt as though I could own it and do it, but I can’t at this time! I can’t really do anything at all. I am doing good to get just a little of anything done each day!
I am just going through life trying to fake it when I need to. I am going to have to take a break from everyone. About the time I think I am okay, I fall apart! I reach out to do things that will cover the pain such as eating or possibly meeting another man on match.com. For me to portray to be someone that I am not right now just seems so phoney. This all feels so terrible I don’t like any of the feelings I have.
Rachael wants me to come by her house at 9am in the morning and pick up Cruz and take him to daycare. I go to work at 7:30am and she wants me to leave work and come to her house to take him to daycare which is 8 miles one way when she lives 2 miles from daycare and it is on her way to work. She lives 2 miles from daycare on her way to work. She is so disrespectful to me and yet I try to do what she wants so she will not think I am a bad mother and do not help her. I just texted Rachael and told her that whoever keeps Cruz should be the one to take him to daycare! Just as I knew, instead of saying yes-maam or okay— she says– “Whatever”! — So my response was WTF do I even live??? I hate these moodswings! I am taking my medicine correctly, so I suppose it could be worse if I weren’t taking meds. I really know that I can’t keep doing some of the things I do on a daily basis, but still try to anyway. It’s much better for me to shut people out and get healthy, than to do things just to make happy when I don’t want to do them anyway!!
Sorry guys, but I am feeling just so overwhelmed about everything!
hi Renee,
how are you doing?
I have a cold, should be studying and messed up my adobe flashplayer so sorry but can’t look at the link right now.
how is your life, are you still on the same job?
M
Hallo Renee, so nice to have you around.
I have a friend who is in love with a Russian girl. We are a group of separate, single, divorced, widowed, etc. people.
Recently it was my friend’s birthday of who is already 60 years old and fell in love with a Russian 45. We were giving jokes like: Are you going to get back with your ex-wife? You are going to take Viagra tortilla to bear the Russian girl.
This friend organized a party so that thirty Russian women met some other r Spanish men. A Belarusian woman made presentations. There was music, drinks and some food. I went to the first woman. It did not work. But I went to a second. She was very nice to me, knew little Spanish but I understood her r history, her childhood which is the most important part and she said she had a happy childhood. Hers father gave all his money to her mother. A society where women rule, a matriarchy. She told me that she had been educated under communism, she was told there were any God, but that their parents told them there were God.
When Perestroika arrived and the old Soviet Republic fell she lost everything. She had to leave Uzbekistan with nothing. Her husband died. She had to start from scratch several times.
Why did you come to Seville, to Spain to work, is no closer Germany? Yes she said she had hear better conditions in Spain to work in the domestic service, etc. One Euro is 50 rubles. And all this stress who is that you can stand it? You’re not depressed? She had left all her family behind, daughter, and came alone. I am a strong person, she said. So I thought to put up with all this she must have had a pretty good childhood.
At night my friend and I accompanied her home. I kissed her on her lips. She put her lips. Apparently there was telepathy between us. The next day we met and danced together, we looked and she smiled and her eyes sparkled. She does not know much Spanish. Is this love?
Miguel
Miguel: I know you know better than to ask if this is love. It could well be the beginning and sounds like a great start. See where it all leads … you never know.
Jack
Hi Jack, thanks for your comments. It seems that lady is a feeling person and has guts. I need more time to know her and the other way around.
About Abolishing bad bad habits I think the abolition of the tribunal of the Inquisition in Spain and slavery by Lincoln.
In July 1834, the beginning of the regency of María Cristina de Borbón, the moderate liberal government of Francisco de la Rosa passed a decree which said first arrangement, “are declared permanently deleted the Court of the Inquisition.” It was the fourth and final abolition of the Inquisition in Spain.
I many think about prohibiting bullfighting which is an unprecedented cruelty to these beautiful animals that could live peacefully in natural parks. Every time there are more and more people against bull fighting in this country.
The abolition of money seems more difficult, not because the idea is bad but because the money is part of the financial technology, we can not live without technology. What might be considered is to see people who have so much money not as winners, but this people being polluted, something which is an aberration of nature, but I think healthy competition is good. Its part of nature.
Miguel
Miguel: I would like to disagree with your assumption (not that calling it an assumption is derogatory, since we all of us have assumptions). My contention for what it is worth, is that if we can create it; we sure as hell can abolish it. There have been many great thinkers all down time that have sought to figure out where we humans went wrong. Most (especially neurotics tend to think that we didn’t go wrong, but that we are the most intelligent creature ever created on this planet. My contention (only a contention for those that think otherwise) is that will bring about our downfall (I feel is imminent) is that in neglecting the feeling side of our nature we became anything but an intelligent species. Of course, that requires that we define “intelligent” … another time. Just to finalize my point is that for the most part we humans are suffering a subliminal disease (disability/discomfort).
Since for me that has been a question that I have given a great deal of thought about; especially before I was aware of Primal Therapy. I attended many lectures given by ‘way out thinkers’ way back in my twenties and one that hit me the hardest was a lecture on the ‘stupidity’ of what is deems “democracy”. The people do not rule … the elected officals do that. Once in power, than all those campaigner promises go by the wayside. Hence the stupidly that we give to this perverted notion of “democracy”.
Since reading “The Primal Scream” in 1973 I knew I wanted to do this therapy; if for no other reason than I wanted to get the absolute maximum out of life. Being someone that had been incessantly in my head, I knew, if there was another ‘way of being’ that I wanted just that. However I was fully aware that there could never be enough therapist even if we were to be able to produce 100 per year, for the population of this planet. So I tried very hard ‘in my head’ to figure out if there was perhaps another way.
I came to the conclusion that our greatest inhibitor to feelings was the need for an exchange system (this for that) for which money was now the greatest means to keep this system in what was deemed some sort of order. Who’s order it was never made clear, but thinking back on history it was first Kings then Dictators, then Parliaments then Republics. Looking at it from my perspective NONE of them work, and always leave a state of “have’s & have not’s”. Money is a means whereby … but if we were to just look at what is required to keep this system in some semblance of order … What order? it’s total chaos. There is so much more work and rules and regulations to permit this. Most hope that all that is needed is to tweak the system, but fundamentally keep it intact. I contend (still just a contention) that, that will be the THING that will destroy us … and perhaps the greater part of life on our planet. If we are crazy enough to believe that we can colonize another planet, then we sure are demented. Nuff said for now.
Jack
Jack,
Today a friend told me this and I was so surprised because she almost had ever heard the word primal:
” Miguel, the only kind of democracy I know is the one of feelings, because it is something we all humans share.” And I said: “ very well said , Mari-Pepa
Today I think it’s the 25 anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The German band Scorpions sung The winds of change for that event:
They say:
The future is in the air
I can feel blowing everywhere
With The winds of change.
Scorpions: The winds of change
Miguel: I also feel that if we could get away from the term Primal (which I felt at the time Art made his discovery, was an apt word) has now fallen into some disrepute. The reasoning for that, as I see it, is that Janov would not let the psychological profession just read his book and then think they could practice his therapy. The other reason was that many that came to do the therapy, being lured by the promise in his first book, were disillusioned that it was not done FOR them. I do feel that Janov made a concerted effort to explain the process very succinctly … but as always we neurotics tend to read into it, only what we want/hope to read into it. Hence (as I see it) the prevalence of the delusion.
However, Gretchen some time ago, claimed that slowly there was the beginnings of a recognition that “Feelings” were something that we humans had neglected. Janov also now in his recent writings, is contending that medical scientific research is beginning to come to conclusions that he has held for many years. In a major sense I agree with that assessment.
One of the problems that has beset both the Theory and the practice of Primal therapy is the very thing that made it initially unique. “Primal” indicating the very beginnings of humanity AND our own personal beginnings has now run it’s course. I would prefer that we use the word “Feeling” since even children are very aware of the meaning of the word (though perhaps not in the sophisticated way it get used in Primal therapy).
So it is no surprise to me that your friend use the word in the context of ‘living life’ (my wording) via feelings. The one remaining problem, as I see it, is that the only way one is able to achieve the promise is by reliving the old feeling and thus completing (that in childhood we dared not do), and EXPRESS the feeling that has ever since remained in the subconscious. Hence bringing it back into consciousness.
If that doesn’t happen on at least on one level or another, there is the tendency, again as I see it, to reject the Primal process. The problem with using just the word “feeling” is that it could be assumed that those feeling we do current have access to are sufficient.
Just my feeling on the matter, but thanks for the inspiration Miguel.
Jack
Yes Jack, thanks, I agree feeling is most universal word than primal, but also primal is a more specific word because it means a feeling in its right context.
If Art plays the sax, Barry the guitar , Mark is a musician and Nick used to play in a musical group, we can say that they are a band?,
But what is Gretchen playing in that band’? Is she playing our feeling/primal mother?
I am kidding.
Miguel
LoL, then Gretchen gets to sing!
gotta say…get netflix and watch the series the new black is orange. very touching, very primal. much more so than House.
despite having had a tough week and a fierce strugle this morning I now feel pretty pleased with myself.
i have a cold for several days now and no ‘good’ painkillers in the house anymore, to soothe me but that is ok, I am glad I manage to keep going without.
but one major setback this week, after some of the usual hassles with my mom, was finding out the course about cognitions they had sent me an audio version of, the whole (thick) book of Sternberg, is only partly exam material, only about four of the fourteen chapters, which I already studied all and partly summarized, for a big part of no use for the exam, only adding some to my own general knowledge, but at the cost of many many hours..
the real study material is mostly in another textbook which is not on audio, and other material scattered all over the site of the course on the university website, so very hard for me to access and full of visual material.
it really thriw me out of balance but with the help of a fellow student and my mentor I found a way to start adresssing that problem as well, in the near future.
then some of my hardware started failing, which momentarily seems solved as well but should be replaced at some point.
then to top things off yesterday evening I noticed the switch of a security set to plug in electrical devices and avoid damage in case of peaks in the current,that contains a vast set of connected and plugged in devices started failing.
I managed to switch it off as each eveing that way I switch off the wi fi and desktop and printer and scanner in one go.
this morning the switch refused to switch on again!!!!
i was just out of bed, and turning this switch on is the first thing I do to activate the wi fi, so it was a hard blow on an empty stomach, as this way all my connection and even my phone and answering machine were out of use!!
there was noone coming by for the next days so there I was..
suddenly I decided to have a go at it myself,without giving it too much thought as that might scare me off.
first thing I did was crawl behind the couch and unplug the other switch box for plugging in devices I have there for my radio, some lights and my laptop.
I plugged it all out and just plugged the laptop in to the main circuit.
i took that box with me, kind of a different shape than the other large box with all kinds of lights on it and a half circle shape, but anyway, worth trying..
then I had to crawl under my desk, a whole different issue, and feel my way around the whole mass of wires leading to the failing box and then to the main outlet in the wall.
i started to unplug things more or less systematically, still a bit dizzy having had no breakfast or even coffee, with my cat walking around being impatient for attention.
it was very hard, sitting under that low desk, dust and wires everywhere, some plugs that were resistant to get plugged in, and then noticing there was also another box with more plugs connected to the one box, so there were at least seven devices depending on my skill to connect them again on the net, all having to work together on some level…
i just kept going on checking and rechecking until the one box was enpty and the other box from behind the couch was now under the desk full of plugs, waiting to be pluggged in into the general net, scary moment..
but well, I plugged it in and switched the switch and heard my scanner and pringter come to life, so that was already something..
then I went over to my laptop with pounding heart to check the wifi connection wich should now work if my external modem would be functioning again, suspense…
at first it did not seem to get a signal, but after some fussing around ping! there it was, yesyesyes!!!
checked my desktop too, and it is funny, the only thing that does not work now is the screen, I don’t know yet if all the initial trying has blown it as with the failing switch it was a lot of short on/off’s , or maybe it remained unplugged, but to me that does not change much as I can work by sound anyway, smiley..
so now I still am without a radio, but no no, found it on the tv at least in the mornings when there are no other programs on certain nets, another solution, smiley.. I am a news addict..
will work out the light problem later on today, am merely so satisfied to have tackled the problem and not have waited for someone to look at it. I would have felt horrible all the time waiting and worrying and being disconnected, specially with another statistics meeting coming up next thursday so I need to be able to get my mails!!!
so hurray, despite another huge challenge and at waking up this morning actually feeling very down and feeling I could hardly cope, there still seem to be hidden reserves of fighting spirit to keep me going, and this ‘victory’ gives me a little boost!!
specially with the empty stomach and a fever and a very foul mood to start with, now I am definitely pleased with myself, smiley!
M of my
Vicki,
If Gretchen is the singer then we have a primal band.
Margaret, your capacity for resilience, adaptability and courage knows no bounds.
Miguel
Margaret – Again, you really are amazing! I hope you enjoy a special time of relaxation after all you have conquered!
ox L.
this afternoon I happened to run into a show on Dutch television where some people had been challenged to try to learn to conduct a symphony orchestra, more or less anyway, on a short term.
it was made as a kind of pleasant competition and the teachers were real famous orchestra directors.
it was the second round so the leftover candidates had already had a little bit of training, and the pieces of music were shortened versions of famous works of Grieg, Mozart, Strauss, Brahms, his exciting czardas dance, and Ravel with the Bolero.
it was very touching and also hilarious to watch how they all tried to learn and then before a big audience in a huge theatrre had to conduct an enormous symphony orchestra with their own piece of music.
the orchestra really folllowed their lead so there were parts that were way too slow or way too fast, shifting back and forth, or parts of the orchestra that remained silent or set in too late, so that was actually both funny and made the jury and the audience also feel connected with the sweating candidates.
the interaction with the jury was honest, pointing out what went wrong in usually hilarious ways, but also supportive and kind.
but what touched me most was how these people gave it all, risking and struggling with what actually is much more difficult than one would expect, to stumble and almost fall during some rythm changes but then picking up the music again and the connection with the orchestra and leading it into a very very catching and emotional finale in every piece, all the more striking as the performance was so very in the moment and not predicctable as a ‘normal’ performance.
it actually brought tears to my eyes and I kept watching the whole program despite having to do other stuff.
it is such a nice show combining the emotions of the challenge and the passion to try the directing with the direct sound of the music reacting to the movemments of the participants.
and it had to be more or less the right directing moves with the ‘baton’ no just waving arms and hands around, so it was also interesting to watch for music lovers, who often smiled and lauged but always in a caring and loving way, not at all lauging about the people but simply because it was hilarious for everyone involved to hear what could happen with the music with slight changes of speed or emphasis.
i look forward to seeing the continuation of this ‘show’.
quality and entertaining.
M
Miguel,
thanks, smiley, that capacity surely gets tested lately with a number of things asking for solutions coming up..
still I am glad to be able to face them without having the reassurance of painkilllers in the house, feeling the bad more badly but also the good more intensely, and finally feeling I don’t need to blame myself for anything anymore, am only doing my pure best to face all what comes my way..
fear is the hardest,worse than sadness or anger, but I seem to be better at accepting all of it bit by bit, even when a lot of stuff comes together.
will do my best to remain on this track..
M
A cartoon made me laugh: Three aliens in their space-ship hover over earth, and one of them worriedly makes his report to another alien on-screen: “LAST MONTH THEY WERE LOBOTOMIZING PUMPKINS, NOW THEY’RE SHOVING BREAD UP A TURKEY’S ASS. THIS PLANET HAS ISSUES, BERT.”
http://joyreactor.com/post/1608189
Thanks for the cartoon, Vicki. And thanks to Elephantman for orange is the new black. Saw an interesting movie on amazon prime called Breaking Dawn with Kelly Overton and James Haven. It’s about a med student assigned to a psychiatric patient. It’s a mystery-type setting so you are not sure if it’s going to be paranormal or what–but I stuck with it anyways. Found it to be very primal in its dealing with psychosis.
Thanks, Sylvia, I want to check out “Breaking Dawn”.
leslie,
thanks, smiley.
sorry for delay, ill and pretty busy as well..
xo M and purr, c
am watching a documentary about city wildlife..
London metro lines are used by foxes and cats to travel from one point to another, but the city pigeons do more, they simply take the metro to go feed themselves in one station after another.
in the parks they have new dangers threatening like some pelicans that in the 1600’s were a present from a Russian leader, and now still live near Buckingham Palace.
the documentary showed the pretty gruesome way they now have learned to catch pigeons and swallow them alive, feathers and all, and you still see them messing about in the pelicans bag under their ‘beak'(?)
not a pleasant sight..
then there are large communities of scorpions and tropical lobsters and turtles.
security guards who have to watch cameras all night enjoy putting some food and seeing the foxes coming to feed, then making place for a badger , don’t know if that name is right, the big black and white animal with impresssive claws..
another meaning for the word multicultural.
i always give the birds some food when it gets colder, not too much but just a bit of encouragment to start the day in a nice way.
i must take after my mother, smiley.
M
Margaret: Didn’t know that about the London tube (metro as you called it) and the other story about pelicans eating pigeons alive or at least murdering them in the beak pouches.
My pastime each morning is feeling squirrels with peanuts. They come begging (paws in the air and drooping claws to my glass door and then when I open it they step over the threashold and beg more at my feet and then I take a handful of peanuts and put them on the bench at the side of my doorway.
Once I put the nuts out then they don’t want anything more to do with me. They make a terrible mess with the shell all over the patio but I love them and it’s worth the 99 cents for a bag of peanuts. They are nuts … like me.
Jack
I meant to write “feeding squirrels with peanuts” not ‘feeling’ them. I actually have be warned against touching them.
Jack
Hmm, so these aren’t ‘feeling’ squirrels, Jack 😉
Erron: The squirrels are very feeling full and let me know just what they are feeling all of the time … from:- “give us some nuts you big guy” … all the way to; “ok, got the nuts, now just leave me alone”. It’s me that does the struggling to feel 24/7.
However, a nice poke to let me know there are several ways to look at what gets written. 🙂
Jack
Jack, Bird feeding season has officially started for me today. I bought some feed and filled up the two feeders I have. One is designed to try to stop the squirrels from getting all the seeds. When they get on it, their weight causes the outer cover to lower and close off the openings to the inside where the seeds are. This feeder is quite damaged from squirrels chewing on it last winter, and so I am hoping for a new one for Christmas, for myself and the birds. The squirrels always end up with a good share of seeds also, but they do get quite greedy. Phil
WordPress.com
Jack W commented: “Margaret: Didn’t know that about the London tube (metro as you called it) and the other story about pelicans eating pigeons alive or at least murdering them in the beak pouches.
My pastime each morning is feeling squirrels with peanuts. They com”
Phil: Yeah I can see that the squirrels can be quite greedy (our woird for their natural behavior) for their share of the pie, but since I put the nuts on the bench there are Blue Jays that come and snatch the nuts from under the squirrels noses. The Blue Jays however, don’t make and gesture towards me … unless what I hear in the trees as I go out to sweep the leaves at 6:45 each morning; is there attempt to let me know they are hungry.
Since I am not that brilliant at languages (even my own … sad to say) I am not sure who and what they are telling me. It could be they are telling me that this is their time of the day. Not sure I will ever get a full answer.
Jack
I continue to have a very busy social life these days. Recently I’ve been out every night for a 10 day stretch, as well as filling my days socially on weekends and my Friday’s off. It’s been fun and helps banish the aloneness. I feel my life growing. It’s tricky too, negotiating relationships with new people, testing who I am, especially tricky for me where some of the groups are 5 or more people and I’m the only male. Lots of feelings come up and I cry big stuff.
I used to want to run away from the kind of immersion I’m doing now with groups of people. I can’t run away any more though ’cause if I do I’ll always be alone and probably go crazy. It’s amazing how I’ll have a big cry engulfed in childhood fear and abandonment, and then I’ll feel less panicky need to run away from social outings. I’m even getting a sense that people like to have me around.
10 consecutive nights out with people is good for me on the outside, but on the inside it intensifies an aching hollow. Finally this weekend I can’t push myself any more. I’m just existing, not connecting. This weekend I need to retreat, recuperate. I hurt, I’m sad. Too sad. A wall congealed around me, distancing me, frustrating my connections with people. My fear, my self-doubt, a dark empty truth takes hold and brings me to the threshold of retreating into isolation.
I remember how grounded I felt with Noreen, how magical and centring I felt to have love, for the first time in my life. I remember and miss those times, miss her very much, the memory and feelings now so clear I could walk into them and hug her forever. My life has been so, so empty until she came into it. The hurt is too big, too deep to process. It’s too hard to feel the truth, all of it all the way through and to the bottom of it, that there had never been anyone for me except her, and she is dead. Today I feel a little more of it, cry it, tell her with a little more conviction that I miss her and controlled sobs erupt, even harder I tell her good-bye with more depth and my body goes rigid in crying the pain of finality. It feels like if I would open up all at once to all of that pain of losing her I would rip apart, I would die. So I cry it out in manageable unbearable bits, over years, because not only did I lose her, but it sinks in I never had anyone else, ever.
There should have been love throughout my life. Without it, I grew into a fragile husk of an adult.
This music helps me immerse in and feel through these pulses of feeling loss and emptiness.
Hi Larry
You are inspirational, how you travel down your own unique “Primal Road” of pain.
You make it feel so tangible, so real, so, so painful.
Tom
what a silence again inhere!
now that my cold is slowly getting better I received a message from my statistics teacher that he probably can’t make it tomorrow because he is getting ill..
will be postponed to maybe next week, and I will go to the umiversity anyway to try and sort out the other course’s material..
feel still tired and feel how that sometimes makes me think of how nice a temporary relief of half a painkiller would be to feel ok, not tense and not scared for a while..
almost two weeks now, so in any case I seem to be getting stronger in sticking it out.
ha, just hear the Rosetta scout’s landing device seems to have managed to land on the comet!!
always exciting to find out more about space and our world in general.
one (small) positive event seems also finally China and the U.S. at least start expressing their intentions to decrease emissions at some point.
recognizing the problem is one essential step even when most of the work still remains to be done..
M
my statistics teacher has the flu so our class is postponed to next week.
so I used today to go to university to get togehter with my mentor to sort out the missing pieces of the course about neuroscience and cognitions..
we found I had indeed studied ten chapters, long and tedious, too many of Sternbergs textbook, and had still to gather about 170 pages of another textbook spread all over the book in chunks of three to 20 pages, which we might have to scan all in and turn them into pdf or Word or Texteditor..
but then searching more and more and getting in touch with the Dutch central office we, or my mentor, found out the other textbook does exist in audio! the person responsible in the Netherlands is really not doing a good job, she should have told me so or even order the book, and even now still left it up to us to get in touch with the library .
that was another hassle as they were only used to dealing directly with that person, and their site was not ready to accept ayments from abroad etc.
to make a long story short, the library now sent me an e-mail with the data for making a money transfer, about 5 $, which I have to do before they send me that other audio book which I then can puzzle the pages of the course together with, connecting the pieces with the study material on the course site…
a lot of trouble for something that should not be that difficult if persons did their job properly.
but no complaint at all about my own mentor, we will control and doublecheck now for every new course!!
feel worn out with my cold still lingering but also satisfied the problem seems to have been tackled in a constructive way towards future situations.
only too bad people responsible for accessibility have messed up and seem not too trustworthy in this case..
finally got adobe flashplayer to function as wel seemingly, haaa!!!
more problems for mom’s waiting lists as well, now it turns out she needs to have another visit from some social worker for a ‘social id’ at her home to start up the official application for a place on a waiting list..
they will contact me first and then we will try and get there to assist our mom.
should not be that complicated, all those hassles, everywhere complicating what could be easy, it is like all those websites where you can’t find any phone number and have to struggle in vain for an hour to then end up having to call their helpdesk when you find it, wait for fifteen minutes to get someone on the line and then arrange in a few minutes what could have been handled in a few minutes to start with if not forced to try it on the website first!!
our whole administration is getting infected like this, where you could before just walk into the city centers and take a number and wait for ten minutes and get what you need, now you have to stu
ruggle for half an hour on the website first to get an appointment two weeks later, and if you happen to turn up five mint
utes late you have to restart the procedure. if you are in time you might still have to wait 20 minutes to see someone as their personnel is down to a strict minimum..
argh!
M
this is nice.
my mom called me to tell me a nice program was starting on the Dutch television, and it happened to be the sequel of that directing contest of last week, with amateurs learning to direct an orchestra, this time with solo players or singers, but always famous musicians playing and singing.
it was so nice again, one piece was concerto de Aranjuez and it was so nice, sad, intimatea and moving, that the woman doing the directing broke into tears after finishing, which I could entirely relate to.
actually last week that was what I thought, if I would be doing this I’d be sobbing afterwards!
beautiful and they all improved since last week, and there must be six more weeks to go,yeee!
called my mom too afterwards for a chat and we promised each other to call next week, she or me, whoever thought of it, smiley..
M
My mail box is approaching full so last night I spent some time culling old messages. It appears the last time I did this was 2011. I don’t simply delete everything, because I keep messages written at emotionally pivotal times of my life. They become a journal of my primalling through life. Reading my 2011 messages transports me to what a fragile, vulnerable, dark empty place I was in then, 2 years after Noreen died. Now three years later i’m in a lot better place, growing a social life and kind of excited about the future. Looking over that trajectory of time, I’m in awe of the remarkable journey of healing that this therapy enabled with Gretchen’s guidance and the help of all of you, the primal community. The healing wouldn’t have happened, and I wouldn’t be better off today, if I hadn’t gone where I dreaded to.
Looking back on that trajectory impresses upon me the truth that it is the only way to heal, and sinks me into the reality that I have further to go. I sink into and cry more for Noreen and the dreams we had together that Life dismissed. I cry for the trust and friendship we had that I’d never known before and that was taken away. I cry remembering the helpless feeling of being unable to alter the course of her dying, yet we still found strength in being together. I remember the power from defying death by being with her, comforting her, loving her as she faded to her final breath, as if it were a normal part of life. This morning I cried and plunged more deeply into those feelings of final, infinite loss that dawn those first moments after death. Surprisingly, for a brief minute or so I cried like a baby who’s letting into consciousness and accepting a deep, sad, life changing loss of the kind babies are not equipped to deal with.
I’m leaning how shut down feelings of loss in early childhood hampers my being able to fully grieve losing Noreen, why it is so hard to let in all of the loss.
Larry: Just reading this comment of yours made me so sad and also so angry to think that parents of babies could be so neglectful and … yes abuseive. I am crying as I write this and yes a lot of this is my own sadness … not about the neglect I got, but from other sadnesses in my life. Will we ever learn before it’s too late????
From time to time I just wish there was a simple way to give many a glimps of just how it felt in those early moments. It’s a wild and impossible fantacy, but I nevertheless I indulged it often.
That so few of us have had the privelidge to learn and know the depth of this horror is also heartbreaking. Yet I do also know why many avoid going anywhere near it. The act-out are so much more convenient … but they in turn are not an answer for themselves or others they inflict the act-outs upon. How might I make a difference? I despair.
Jack
Larry: Just reading this comment of yours made me so sad and also so angry to think that parents of babies could be so neglectful and … yes abusive. I am crying as I write this and yes a lot of this is my own sadness … not about the neglect I got, but from other sadnesses in my life. Will we ever learn before it’s too late????
From time to time I just wish there was a simple way to give many a gimps of just how it felt in those early moments. It’s a wild and impossible fantasy, but I nevertheless I indulged it often.
That so few of us have had the privileged to learn and know the depth of this horror is also heartbreaking. Yet I do also know why many avoid going anywhere near it. The act-out are so much more convenient … but they in turn are not an answer for themselves or others they inflict the act-outs upon. How might I make a difference? I despair.
Jack
No idea how I came to repeat my comment.
Jack
Larry, It sounds like you’ve come a long way in the last 5 years and have been dealing with a lot of difficult stuff. Thanks for sharing all of this. Phil
went to a reunion from the blind school, was fine.
found out I could actually teach the computer teachers now about Apple’s Voice Over screenreader, they will get in touch with me later on, ha!
also exchanged phone numbers with a visually impaired man who lives nearby with his family, to go running on an athletic field together, which we both can do but never get to go to on our own.
he already did the ten miles from Antwerp with his children next to him.
it was nice to meet some people again and to feel how much more confident and balanced I feel now, compared to former occasions.
was a nice afternoon..
M
Larry,
that sounds like an important milestone on your feeling path.
i relate to what you write about looking back and discovering the progress made, that is what I experienced today myself.
this time I went to the reunion knowing who I’d like to talk to and apart from asking about them, what I’d like to talk about myself, and it all turned out pleasurable.
apart from therapy it is the studying that keeps boosting my selfconfidence, also having to solve all the practical problems that keep rising, and asking other people’s assistance to do so.
these changes that occur thanks to the pain and fear we faced so far in our therapy, might not look ‘impressive’ to some, but they are major really, because they are fundamental and lasting and imply a strength and balance that can keep growing and help us through difficult moments, but maybe even more important, I feel more and more how they turn life into a more pleasurable experience even while it is not perfect at all.
the simple and basic capacity of really feeling good about oneself more and more and feeling more and more genuine interest for others might not look that spectacular on the outside but is what really counts and can’t be taken away anymore.
you are doing so well, Larry.
M
Jack and Margaret, I’m touched by your responses. I feel like you understand.
For me sometimes getting to the point where I feel good about myself also means I’m ready to see more of what isn’t good.
Last night I had dinner at a restaurant with two lady acquaintances/friends from the singles group, followed by a movie. There was lots of conversation during dinner, but I felt uneasy, afraid, unconnected.
Then the movie we saw was disturbing, disorienting. It was Birdman.
The movie ended around 10 pm, and we headed home, dazed and confused by what we had watched. The two ladies walked together to their car, and I walked alone to mine. I don’t like being in that part of town during the day, even less so at night. The street I walked seemed austere, dark, and menacing. The night sky seemed empty and cold. I felt an aloneness deep deep into my soul that frightened me. I felt like I had never been part of humanity, that I didn’t belong anywhere. I felt like a spaceship might whip down and take me up and away, and no one would witness it and no one would notice I was missing for days. I felt very uneasy.
The feeling was I never had been here, I never had connected, I had never belonged to this planet, that all this time I’d been an alien imposter. Driving the familiar route home I felt lost, the streets and freeways felt strange and unfamiliar. I felt frighteningly alone.
Larry: Whilst you are able to write such feelingful stuff I (and Margaret and I know others) cannot help but be moved … greatly. Needless to say all that alien stuff sounds like what it must have felt like as a baby … and beyond. I know you know you are going to have to go back there time and time again. but as Art said in this last blog article; it gets easier as time goes on.
Oh! that none of this would have been necessary … but as in my fathers case he was being run by his own trauma and so it goes on backwards to his mother my grandmother and then her drunken father … and what drove him to drink himself to the point that he needed to climb into bed with his baby daughter my grandmother. It should be so easy to stop it all from being carried on from generation to generation. Art started the ball rolling … least ways as I see and understand it.
I suppose I’m now off on my fantasy trip wondering and hoping for the babies of the future … as I grieve my babyhood … from time to time.
Jack
Phil I share here so I can be part of this blog community. Without you my life here would be much more difficult. Thanks for your comment. It means a lot to me that people hear me and understand, and I’m not alone.
Yes Jack, I’m pretty sure the scary deep aloneness is what it felt like as a baby. After the brief dip into those baby feelings, I begin to see how they pervaded my life like a bad smell. Dipping into the baby feelings the other day opened the door a little more and the stench is stronger. The more I see how it messes up my adult life, the more I need to do something about it. I’m not worried about going back there, when I’m ready. They’re scary, but the more familiar they become after repeated brief exposure, the more it’s possible to more fully immerse in them, like learning to swim.
After that brief dip into those baby feelings of having to accept life choking loss, today I was able to cry more acceptance and letting go of Noreen.
I don’t remember whether I wrote about this before. When Noreen and I were getting to know each other and finding out how well we got along, we went on a few weekend camping trips together. One was in the Anza Borego desert. I remember returning to our tent late one evening from our hike. We needed to use our flash light to find our tent in the dark. I was worried we might not find it and the shelter and warmth it provided against the advancing night. The desert air was clear and the stars more numerous and bright than I’d ever seen, and close enough to touch. Our planet suddenly felt very small in a very real and immense universe pressing upon tiny us.
We bedded down in the tent and Noreen soon fell to sleep, but I couldn’t. My anxiety spiralled high. No one who knew us, knew where we were. At that moment we were very alone. As I lay there flat against the planet, the immense universe on display all around, I became afraid that I would lose the force of gravity, slip off Earth and careen into outer space. I could not get a grip on my anxiety, not until I heard Noreen’s soft gentle breathing in her sleep, and her life force enveloped us in a protective bubble that anchored me to the ground with her and calmed me down, did I finally drift to sleep.
Many times her presence in my life calmed me down and anchored me. I don’t know where I’d have ended up otherwise.
Larry: That careening off into space sounds like another aspect of your childhood. Geeze, how terrifying it must have all been.
It is so incredible just listening to your stories, and to others peoples stories about their lives. It connects me to the very life force that we all need and to the love we all need from at least just one other person. It is little wonder that Noreen was/is so important to your life … and how she was able to ground you … and I have no doubt how you grounded her.
I sure hope Larry that you are able to find someone else that you can love and who will love you. It won’t be the same, as I know from my experience of each of the lovers I have had. I am so very grateful for the love I have now from my Jimbo. I too am scared from time to time of losing him … not to someone else, but to his life.
As Art told me after seeing him at the musical; we all of us need someone to love us. We sure do … and it should have been that way from the very beginning.
Jack
Hi Larry and Jack, I have my wife and our relationship is going well, and I don’t know what I would do without her, yet I am lacking friends and that has been a big problem, which I’ve done little to address in past years. I am talking about friends to hang out here where I live. Last week I joined the local gym and am feeling good about this decision. Working out in the morning before work has me feeling better and I hope to find friends there at the gym. People to play racquet ball or tennis with etc. Also membership includes classes in yoga, pilates, zumba, and other things. I guess up until now I haven’t felt OK with doing this and had various excuses. It will take some effort on my part, of course. Just going to the gym won’t be enough. Phil
Phil: I thought your comment about making friends was worth a response. However, I am not sure there is a formula for making friends. If in early childhood there were no friends that might account for the current situation. I might suggest that if your wife has friends, is it not possible for these people to be your friend also? One doesn’t have to be friendly towards ALL ones spouses friends, but some should offer something.
However, it maybe that you are talking about friends to hang out with. I wouldn’t call those friends, but rather “mates” in the sense that Aussies and Cockneys refer to those casual guys (and even gals, providing that it keeps away from the sexual connotations). There is a huge difference, as I see it. There is one other type of “matey” (for want of a better word) and that is some of the people one works with. Or maybe just those folks one has a common interests with like as you said; at the gym and games one likes playing: racket ball and tennis.
In recollections from my own youth I found those kind of people at Sunday School and Scouting (for boy a la Baden Powel), and at school. The Conscripted Army that I had to do; perfomed another. The rest were from the work place. Now in old age many of those activities have gone by the wayside, but I do feel I can be friendly with some people, mainly neighbors. However, I’m now just rambling on. Hope that was useful.
Jack
It’s terrible that the abuse and neglect becomes a cultural norm passed from generation to generation.
Larry: Yep, yep and yep … the come to think of it all as normal. … until……………..!!!!!
Jack
wow Larry, that sounds really awful.
M
Guru,
are you ok?
M
I’ve been wondering the same thing.
Margaret & Larry: Hi there. Yes, The Ultimate Guru is doing well overall.
Also, Margaret I forgot to respond to an old question you asked about the yapping Dachshund dog: Wintertime has settled here early and it’s too cold for it to be outside. Works out well for me, so I will put the issue “on ice” for now (literally & figuratively).
UG, Glad to hear you’re doing well and that the neighbor’s dog is not currently bothering you. Phil
Well, thank you Phil! 😀
Thank you to everyone writing recently – as this is the kind of sharing and support that I really appreciate…It is not weird, not even alien to feel our feelings, yet life today begins to dictate contradicting them is the way to go so early on.
Thank you for bringing us back in – to where we can go when we need to and as Larry said,
” when we are ready to.”
ox L.
My feeling? Janov == Very dangerous animal atheist who will say lots of impulsive things to gain any possible forward advantage for himself at all times. It’s a continual state with him.
That’s why I ran to Vivian’s Institute. One night in big group Vivian Janov told me that “money is meaningless”. Then she drove off in a luxurious new car after group was over. I learned a valuable lesson that day!
After some more thought….I can see where people might think I am trying to paint Vivian as an avaricious, deceitful monster, yet that’s not the whole story with me. I wouldn’t have cared if Viv drove a million dollar car as long as she had simply told me, “I love what money buys and I want my material goodies with a cherry on top!”. I would have respected that a lot more because she would have been honest and upfront about it.
I am hypersensitive when people seem to be lying and deceitful to me. It slows down (and even stops) fostering a sense of genuine trust I need to build for lasting love and intimacy in general. Realistically it’s impossible to expect perfect honesty from anyone.
It’s an interesting topic overall: How much lying and deception is tolerable from the people you want to like or grow to love?
Quote:- “My feeling? Janov == Very dangerous animal atheist ” I can only assume that you are so adamantly opposed to atheists and atheism that it irks you so deeply. I would have thought that someone with an interest and practicing ones own Primal Therapy that you might have been willing to investigate these feeling of yours. and your incesant desire for a lot of money (more, seemingly, than is necessary for a reasonable survival).
Your desire as stated here that you would like to “build for a lasting love and intimacy …”. I contend that requires a great deal of effort. Seemingly you have either not put in the effort OR maybe you’ve had a lot of bad luck.
Worrying and being concerned about how others are; I don’t see as a profitable pastime. As for me I am not capable of changing anyone but myself; by adapting to what transpires around me.
Jack
I think of the hard, hard experiences of those who interacted with Jack in the past….
….Fiona….
….Vicki…..
especially Patrick….
They have already blazed a clear trail for me, yet I reach a fork in the road:
Off to the left I see a sign that reads “Proverbs 26:4”
Off to the right I see a sign that reads “Proverbs 26:5”
In deference to 26:4 I will say that Jack has completely twisted most of what I said to suit his own purposes.
In the end I take route 26:5 and refuse to elaborate on the reasons why….
Quote:- “In the end …….and refuse to elaborate on the reasons why” That seem normal from you.
Jack….
Guru, I’ve wondered what you mean by “animal” atheism, because you’ve used that expression before. Do you mean to say that belief is animal like? Or what do you mean by that? -Phil
From what I understand there are gradations of beliefs within the dome of atheism. Pure materialism is the purest form of animal atheism meaning nothing beyond the flesh; we are carbon-based bags of saline solution and our consciousness is completely perishable, consisting of nothing more than bioelectrical impulses.
A softer form of atheism would be a lack of belief in any Gods, but that we still may have immortal souls in a wholly different context.
I suppose to try to show people I am not only about criticism and being pissed off all the time below is something I wrote a few days ago. I was at least ‘happy’ with it……………….
with my crombie coat
and shiny shoes
my last day(s)
carefree and jumping
a strong boy
but beginning to be broken too
but not knowing it (yet)
there will be time enough
for that
now just a hint
will later be a storm
a maelstrom of violence and hatred
that shining boy
weight of earth heaped upon
for all the world a grave
a grave for someone so young
but I said that before
just hard not to
forget the promise and hope
even if it leads to
nothing
argh, tomorrow was supposed to have the replacement class from statistics as teacher was ill last week, now he caught another bug and is again or still ill.
I feel sorry for him and concerned but also scared as my questions about the theory and application keep piling up, not to mention the software hassles which are numerous as wa
well..
a real life gettogether is so much more pleasant and constructive as a virtual meeting, which we might now have to schedule..
so much work left to do..
to change my mind after sorting out just a fraction of some of the questions or only of how to frase them, looked at another course for some time but that wasn’t really reassuring as pretty complicated as well, comparing all kind of cognitive functioning and their relative brain areas responses with all their combinations while using implicit or w
explicit processes, yeah, right…
so now reading
g a long long fantasy novel but still not feeling reassured of course, so hoping sharing some of this will help just a tiny i
bit..
will have to continue dealing with things as they turn up, no other remedy or at least no better remedy..
sigh…
still feel surprisingly balanced though, which is reassuring in its own way.
not that there is no fear but it seems to have its place without overwhelming my entire day and night..
step by step, hope I bring up the energy and courage to go tango dancing this weekend, has been a long long time since I have done so..
M
Jack
You said:
“We all of us need someone to love us. We sure do … and it should have been that way from the very beginning.”
That’s right Jack, but when we are grown up we do not need as much as love as when we were children, we can choose with whom and with that whom is very important.
Even my cat needs love. I can see when I feed her , sometimes I put some food in my hands for her to it, she needs some touch first, which means love for her might come firts. Here I want to share a song Lennon wrote after he di Primal Therapy. Love. It has nicest pictures of him and Yoko.
Miguel
To be very clear I am NOT (repeat NOT) in any way trying to make implication about ‘primal theory’ here. It is simply something I find interesting and it seems there is a ‘movement’ among scientists along these lines. Many time over the years I used to ‘joke’ that I simply did not believe in the “Big Bang” I mean it was not really a joke it just offends ‘common sense’. Anyway it is interesting now that a lot of ‘modern physics’ is being kind of shown up as some almost crazy virtual reality game. Jack can relax I am not ‘attacking’ primal theory at all I REALLY am not! I wonder if Ultimate Guru has a take on this.
http://www.holoscience.com/wp/a-nobel-prize-for-the-dark-side/
Just one little question here to find out what “Common Sense” really means. The word get banded around by lots of ‘crooked thinkers’ when in fact there is NOTHING “common” about sense. We all sense things DIFFERENTLY.
It’s a defensive ploy to make it look as if the speaker/writer in fully cognicent … when in fact they are not.
Jack
. How about this then my ‘common sense’ is my F.E.E.L.IN.G. You happy now?
Man….that was SO damn weird, Patrick…
Just today I was thinking of writing out a small explanation re-iterating that I do not think feelings (Primal) therapy is a scam. Not at all. It’s just that I have a lot of problems with many of the things Art and Vivian have either said or told me directly.
I think I spent roughly $15,000 on my own therapy and I consider it money well spent. I had to do it out of pocket because I had no insurance. Frankly I shouldn’t have paid a dime of it knowing what I understand now, though. With the gigantic $200 billion yearly human slaughterhouse created by our car-dependent economy, I believe that huge businesses should have picked up the tab through higher taxes.
I view the Primal Institute as a standard medical practice and the doctors have to eat and pay the bills like the rest of us. It’s a very labor-intensive business,
No,….the true scams lie elsewhere….And they are fucking huge….
Our society is so vilely corrupt on so many levels it defies description. I’ve given up on trying to do that. I have to focus my brain on being a bloodsucking financial piranha in my own small way now.
Well Guru nothing is perfect not even ‘primal’. I got hung up on that a lot it has to do with very early ‘training’ you are Catholic too right? Like there IS one true way ONE true faith etc
The more I delve into this I (deep inside) felt primal was ‘perfect’ and not only perfect it would fix up all the im-perfections that I had accumulated my whole life. But then things become a bit ‘complicated’ in that there is the expectation of ‘perfection’ so there is an understandable disappointment with WHOMEVER or WHATEVER nothing in the world can do that……………………but it ‘complicated’ in that we are adults with open eyes and open brains (more or less) and we can SEE primal in fact has some major ‘imperfections’ and this is not only a projection. It is real.
Patrick: I do have some understanding of what agendas may be driving you as well as my own. We’re all pretty familiar with the holistic health approaches you’ve espoused on top of Primal (Dr. Kruse, Paleo, etc.)
I left the Catholic church when I was twelve. It was never a problem for me. My dad and aunt were very accepting of it. If anything, reading all the implied reasons Art gave for there being absolutely nothing after death has caused me far, far more problems than religion ever did.
As a result of Janov’s Imprints book from 1983, I’ve been struggling to find a good word or phrase to replace “soul” with. Maybe “electrochemical core”?
“The church food bank makes great minestrone soup! It warms my electrochemical core.”
Guru – I am interested in why the ‘after life’ is such an issue with you. I am sure there are reasons…………………..
For myself I find the idea of final death a relief really. Do you really want this shit to go on and on. Once around I think is enough for me maybe even more than I wanted. Also if you have a ‘soul’ don’t every single person AND animal including insects and fish and bacteria have a ‘soul’ too. Why wouldn’t they if you have? That’s why I find the idea of an afterlife literally absurd so I don’t fault Janov for his ‘atheism’ if that’s what it is. If anything I would fault him for his “Jewishness” more than his ‘atheism’ and I think that influenced him a lot more as all of our backgrounds do
I think I may have mentioned this before but once as kids about 7 y.o. I asked my brother who was a year older “Do you think they play football games in Heaven” and we kind of both looked at each other surprised by the implications of the question and it’s like we both said nothing but it dawned on us (or me at least I don’t speak for him) that the answer was “NO”. That was a shock to me to realize all the things I loved like football almost certainly was NOT in Heaven
I ‘lost’ my Faith definitively when I was ‘close dancing’ with a girl I was 16 or 17 y.o. at the time………………..THIS felt better than ANY religion and according to our religion it was ‘bad’ Oh well religion has got to go then! And I never went back to it including dreaming about an ‘after life’
Guru I found you Proverbs 26.4 and 26.5 thing interesting
4. Answer not a fool according to his folly,
lest you be like him yourself.
5. Answer a fool according to his folly,
lest he be wise in his own eyes.
That gets ‘complicated’ too lol. I heard a more modern version of the same thing
“Never argue with an idiot because he will bring you down to his level and then beat you with his experience
or in a similar vein
“Don’t wrestle with a pig you will get very dirty and the pig enjoys it””
These seem appropriate to the matter at hand
Guru – this talk reminded me of this. I sometimes feel that way……………that I wish I never was born but I was so it’s ok but I would not fancy another turn of the wheel. But I want to ‘realize’ most everything now because the Buddhishts warn if you don’t you WILL come back as something………………maybe something worse. But I suppose you are not talking about coming back you are more like want to live in Heaven forever?
She said “I know what it’s like to be dead
I know what it is to be sad”
And she’s making me feel like I’ve never been born
I said “Who put all those things in your hair
Things that ake me feel that I’m mad
And you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born”
She said “You don’t understand what I said”
I said “No, no, no, you’re wrong
When I was a boy everything was right
Everything was right”
I said “Even though you know what you know
I know that I’m ready to leave
Cos you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born”
She said “You don’t understand what I said”
I said “No, no, no, you’re wrong
When I was a boy everything was right
Everything was right”
I said “Even though you know what you know
I know that I’m ready to leave
Cos you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born.”
She said “I know what it’s like to be dead
I know what it is to be sad
I know what it’s like to be dead…”
Patrick: I gotta go, so I am going to have to keep this short. I read your posts, yet I never ever felt as though I wish I had never been born nor have I ever looked at death as a final relief.
I honestly believe the problem of which religious group one belongs to means almost nothing compared to whether there is an afterlife to begin with. All else is just conversation to me.
It seems most people can’t grasp the utter profundity of not existing in any form forever. It gives me exceptional clarity as to how fragile life is, yet it makes me want to withdraw into a safe cocoon more than I should. (It’s fucking scary out there, don’t take risks, retreat to the man cave, etc.)
Guru said “It seems most people can’t grasp the utter profundity of not existing in any form forever” I find it easy to grasp or at least I think so. I have not existed before effectively ‘forever’ so why not the same after death. It is just going back to ‘situation as normal’ without me, the exception was that I was there for a brief while. Precious I suppose for that reason but things then return to ‘normal’ (without me)
I’m going to the Thanksgiving Retreat. I’m very lucky that I can. I’m looking forward to seeing friends. I’ll enjoy the California sunshine and warmth. I welcome the very unique break from the routine of my life. But….I’m not happy that I’m going.
People here think I’m going on a holiday. They’re interested to know what kind of touristy places I’ll visit. They kind of frown when I say I’m mainly going to spend time with friends, or I’m going to a retreat. They don’t get it. They expect me to take a lot of pictures…but I won’t because that’s not what I’m going for. I don’t tell them that I’m going because my f…d up childhood f….d up my life, and I’m still trying to fix it. They would be startled if I told them that.
It even makes me sad knowing deep down that I’m going to the retreat to try to fix a little more of the mess my parents made. I wish I didn’t have to. It’s not fun.
I feel lucky and glad that I’ll get help to open my eyes to what I don’t want to see, to face what I don’t want to accept.
I wish it isn’t what I have to do to win some of my life back for me.
I first heard this music 33 years ago, before therapy. Man was I scared and alone then! Somehow this kind of music helped calm me and keep me going. It’s kind of mystical romantic. I guess it helped me feel less alone, that there were others out there like me who yearned for something better.
I’ve come a long way since then, along a path that I had to believe in to make myself travel it. I had to believe in myself and give life a chance to turn out good.
I was with friends throughout today. I’ll be flying to the retreat next week. Yet I feel very alone, very heavy, weighed down by a feeling that isn’t ripe enough yet to express. I hurt because only the primal community gets it. No one else, none of these people around me, understand what my life has been and why. It’s incredible to find people who understand, only in the primal community, and very sad finally.
I haven’t listened to this music since starting therapy. It comforts me to hear it again. It reminds me of the path I’ve travelled despite my fears, of the magic along the way, and inspires me to stay in the harness and keep on even though the yoke feels heavy and I feel weary tonight.
I’m glad I didn’t give up back then.
“It even makes me sad knowing deep down that I’m going to the retreat to try to fix a little more of the mess my parents made.”.
Larry: I know you are talking about your own life when you say the above quote, but when I look at my own life I would feel extremely skeptical & weary of such a quote anymore. It cuts close to the heart of why I have a lot of disagreements with what Janov writes.
Also, when I was younger I used to be quite a social bumblebee. Hang out with lots of friends, be with lots of people, etc. In high school I was even one of the student leaders in a graduating class of 300 people. I worked closely with the mayor of my childhood town, etc.
But as the years wore on, though, I came to the depressing realization of just how cheap life really is. If I am all alone and don’t go out….329,999,999 Americans won’t care what I am doing.
Even if I engage in circus-like gyrations to impress 20 people nearby as a social bumblebee once more, it still stands that 329,999,980 Americans won’t give a shit about it.
So, yeah…oh, well….
During my three weeks at the beginning of therapy I would often visit the beach, usually late in the afternoon toward sunset, to jog and work off some of the stress of embarking on new life in LA, a distant foreign city. At the end of the jog some times I’d pause a while to gaze out onto the ocean and imagine the distance to home and the people I’d known until then, so very far away, and I’d contemplate the momentous step I’d taken to begin this momentous change in my life. I had no idea where it would go, but I felt it was a step I needed to take to improve my chances for a better life.
On one of my visits to the beach I saw on the horizon cargo ships anchored off shore. I thought of their comings and goings and the lives of the people on them, and how they wouldn’t be there fifty years later, just as I would never be back at this very spot and time. Someone’s small dog came exuberantly racing and jumping along the water’s edge, free and full of the joy of life, chasing and barking at shore birds. I wondered whether I’d ever feel so free and happy. I talked to Gretchen about it in my session the next day.
I said how wrong that the dog was more free and full of life than I could be. I wondered what the people in 50 years would see when they gazed out over the ocean on the spot where I did. Would the same ships still be arriving to anchor there? The people on them would be different. The ocean would be more polluted, or cleaner. The dog would be dead. I would be old. No one would care that I had done therapy.
I wouldn’t get a gold star for being a good boy and trying to straighten my life out. No one would care. It would only matter to me and the people intimately entwined in my life who therapy helped me open the door and connect with. No one else would give a fig, and life would continue on its crazy ways after me regardless.
UG, I realized then that when I come to the end of my life, I’ll appreciate that the benefit of having done therapy will be experienced only by me and the people who value me in their life, that it’s meaningful caring relationships that make life worthwhile and not many have that, and therapy gives me a better chance to have that.
I’m sorry you’re skeptical and weary, but I understand.
Larry: I am really struck by how differently you, Patrick, and I think about various things. Upon my arrival at Venice & Santa Monica, I never gave the idea of not seeing a particular sight ever again a moment’s thought. It simply felt like I was there on some very important business. The Pacific Ocean was nice, but ultimately a secondary accoutrement. Also, I would have tended to think, “Hey, hey, hey…Leave the majestic shore birds alone…you silly mutt!”
The dog was free & happy because its brain was too small to take his Prozac prescription slip to the local pharmacy.
What I remember about arriving in LA was the plane sweeping over traffic at around 5pm. It just blew me away and not in a good way. I wondered where POSSIBLY would all these people be going and where they would be coming from and why and what were they doing and what were they trying to achieve. And I have to say it was kind of a question I never answered…………….it still seems weird to me (and not in a good way)
Yes, we surely do think very differently.
Larry, I could be wrong but I even sense some weird ‘judgement’ going on here. Like the way you think (a ls Jack correction F.E.E.L.IN.G.) is somehow more ‘sensitive’ or something than me. Like you are all ‘sensitive’ at the beach I am focused on something less F.E.E.L.I.N.G. (I am trying not to fall foul of Jack’s ‘linguistic standards – plenty more judgements of course there from the Keeper of the Crypt) Another reason I don’t care for primal as it’s done very much. There is a lot of ‘judgements’ though the theory says not. With primal it is always worth keeping in mind theory is one thing, practice usually quite another
I’m just saying on this blog how it is for me, Patrick, from my perspective, mainly to help me learn about me. Along the way I learn about whoever else writes here, and I understand better their perspective. It’s reassuring to me that with most people I find common ground. It’s kind of scary for me at first, when someone’s thinking is very foreign to mine, as if that person is a different species difficult for me to understand and who doesn’t understand me. At the same time it’s endlessly interesting how different people think differently, how the way our minds work is differently shaped by our genes and our environment. The way you think differently than me is interesting to me, and I try to imagine how it must be to be you.
Hi Larry,
I will see you soon, but did want to say that I have for the last number of years told casual friends and people at work about going to The Retreat. Its a relief to be honest about it, and so many say they think it sounds great. I explain that B. and I did therapy years ago and still love to see and be with the others from all over the world and to connect with what we need to. They have different ideas of course. One co-worker said she would have to know exactly what she was going to get out of it and decide what she wanted to work on. I said, actually I find it to be exactly opposite whereby I have no idea what will come up to see, address and feel. In fact that is what I love the most – that the best thing I can do for the Retreat is to be myself – sigh :).
Why not tell other people Larry?
ox L.
Leslie, what I wrote the other day was from the perspective that I was in at the time. I do have people who I tell. I have some good friends and co-workers who I really talk to and who have some sense of what the retreats do for me and are glad for what I get out of it. Today after church I had lunch with two good people, a married couple, who when I told them I was going to the retreat, were encouraging and glad for me. But even these people don’t really understand what happens at the retreat, and the concept of it is foreign to the majority of people I know. What happens at a retreat would be totally weird and bizarre to my parents, which is why I have to go to retreats now to fix myself. That’s the feeling in broad strokes.
Thanks Leslie and UG for your responses. You and my friends at church today took the edge off my aloneness as I prepare for my travels to confront more truth and hurt and pain.
Leslie, why can’t you be yourself where you are?
Oh sorry Larry – I am glad to see that you tell people and understand that you were talking for the moment. It was only in the last number of years that I expanded my circle of telling to anyone who asked me about my vacation – and it is now a relief to just tell them. I have become less secretive and society has also grown in acknowledging therapy(ies?), I would say.
So, like you I can be myself where I am – but not to the degree whereby I can express my feelings at the time…Going to The Retreat gives me that pure focus and comfort. I have different groups of friends where our interests are similar but so many don’t know all about me and I feel myself striving for them to like/accept me etc. Thank god for B.of course, and my best friend W. for my daily living; but the en masse group experience of the Retreat is unique and so very special – as we both appreciate!
Looking forward to experiencing it with you 🙂
begin pity-party. I don’t want to do a damn thing. no $ for therapy, but doesn’t matter, since i have to stay home and care of old barking dog so jobless one can concentrate so she can scrape by and get her non-needed degree. no sex in over a month. no testosterone left in my body, which is 50 percent of the reason. vibrator not working either. i got no joyjoyjoy down in my heart. i like the santaana wind today, but that mitigates nothing. another holiday looming, but younger son and his wife-who-despises-us dont want to spend it with us. work is fine, if you like being flooded with too much of it, and being handicapped with an old, drug-addled brain and body. No release via tears at home because i never got that far in therapy. Hard enough to cry when i am in group, let alone at home or in car. other son, he told us some police came to his door asking about his car yesterday. they came while he was not there and left their card, so he called z and said he is going to police station to check it out. then we never heard back from him so we thought the worst, having been parents for too long. Drove to his house, he was asleep, and there was no cop problem. Just terror and flashbacks to other “lovlier” drug-near-death days for z and me. even if i had gone to group, i would have never been able to say this because i cannot get my mouth open in group, and my brain is so slow anyway, with 12 other women chomping at the bit to have their own pity-party, and their words flow effortlessly and for long periods of time. so fuck it. ***end pity-party
Talk about coincidence E-man. Just last night I was listening to Song of the Wind, by Santana, from their album Caravanserai. It’s been 42 years since I last gave it a listen.
went tang o dancing, for the first time in maybe a year and a half or more!
had to force myself to go, telling myself if I would feel bad I could always come home after an hour, but I owed to myself to give it a try..
so my former dance partner and his girlfriend picked me up at 3.30 and the dance started at 4, and actually it was good to be there!!!
of course there were moments I just sat there and started to feel unwanted and isolated etc., as all women do from time to time if not enough men come and ask them, but the dances I did made up as it felt so good to dance and it was fun to do so.
it felt good enough for me to stay almost five hours!!
it was also very nice to find out a heroe of mine was there, a former very fanous Belgian judoka, the most famous one Belgium ever had, one of the first non Japanese t to win a lot of intenrnational championships, and then many many in a row.
now as he is even older than I am, smiley, he took up tango and does coaching, and just when we left he was going to invite me to dance!!
will go back as I certainly want to dance and have a chat with him.
once on a championship in Paris I went to to support my judo teacher who was competing, I actually sat next to the one who was now at the dance, and had a little chat with him and found out he was very nice. of course he won’t remember, but we must know some people we both know in the judo community.
so well, in other words I am so glad I made myself go despite all my resistance and fear, and got the reward by having a nice and stimulating afternoon feeling part of things.
I received warmth, friendship, enjoyed the dancing and the physical contact, and got some nice compliments about my dancing, both from men and women,which feels very good for me as I started to feel like an old woman lately, too much alone and too litttle fun and exercise, smiley!
back on the move again, hurray!
M
Wow! Good for you Margaret! I need that kind of inspiration right now.
That was Larry.
Larry:
Want an even bigger coincidence than the Santana album? Ferguson, Missouri was exactly where I was living when my mom suddenly was gone forever. Gretchen could see the proof if she wanted to bother doing so. I was moved far away from there a long time ago and everything has changed in that suburb since my parents and I were there.
I marvel at all the news coverage of the city now.
Weather’s a bit cold to have a riot there. 1992 Los Angeles (Rodney King) was different because warmer weather allowed more fluidity of violent motion. Harder to raise hell when people are freezing.
Hi All
I copied this out from an other Blog I thought it may interest you.
“Not my words but the words are how I am. The pain of this existence is almost to great to handle. I am so tired, weary of a lifetime of pain and loss.
There is no tomorrow.
Jack
Sometimes all you can do is weep, and keen, and wail,
While hot rivers of tears stream down your weary face,
And animalistic sounds of grief and pain rise unbidden from your anguished soul.
Chest heaving, sobbing uncontrollably like a babe alone and frightened in the dark of night,
As the grief of loss, and broken dreams, and tomorrows not to be pierces through your heart and breaks down your armour.
And then, as you lie bruised and battle-weary amongst the shards of what remains,
Mindfully releasing the chain around your chest that held such a crushing weight of fear,
When your tears have dried, and your breath quietens,
And you slowly return to your senses and feel the earth beneath you
And hear the sounds of life around you,
Then, only then, can you feel into your core,
And sense the burning ember of life and hope that has carried you through other trials..
The warrior that resides within, and the mother, and the lover, and the sage, and the magician, and the creator and the goddess.
All your strengths that were merely hiding for a while
Taking respite
Being washed clean in the river of your tears.
And then, empty, and yet immeasurably full,
You can rise, and breathe, and go forth to once more meet the challenges and the joys this world bestows upon you.
Tom V.
What does this mean? Is Jack dying?
Hi GURU
This is not ” our ” Jack.
Tom V.
Ever so, so, so slowly. It’s been happening for many years now. Not sure how many I have left, but I’ll take my chances.
How about you?
Jack
This guy sure knows how to write. You say he isn’t in Primal Therapy. He has amazing self awareness. What blog did you copy it from, if you don’t mind saying, Tom?
Larry – I am a bit surprised that it seems you think anyone not in primal therapy cannot write something like that. I mean there is loads and loads of stuff like that in Homer (for example written almost 3,000 years ago and really writing down what had been orally passed along among the people at the time) for some reason it really reminds me of that. I am sure you can get similar in Dante, Milton, Goethe, Shakespeare etc etc(don’t want to drop too many names). Primal therapy or primal people do not have some ‘exclusive’ on feelings far from it……………from what I have seen in many ways they are less feeling maybe I could even say than the ‘average’ person or at least the average person before all the modern corruption of feelings , health and most everything else. This kind of ‘exclusivity’ I don’t get at all…………..
Quote:- “Homer (for example written almost 3,000 years ago and really writing down what had been orally passed along among the people at the time) for some reason it really reminds me of that.” I wonder: have you ever played the game of whispers, whereby a message his whispered to the next person in the circle then the last person states what he/she heard from the last person? Turns out invariably to be nothing like what was originally said in the first instance. “Word of mouth” tends to fall into the same dilemma. (nothing like what was intended from the first speaker).
Another quote:- ” Primal therapy or primal people do not have some ‘exclusive’ on feelings far from it……………from what I have seen in many ways they are less feeling maybe I could even say than the ‘average’ person ” NO-ONE has exclusivity on feelings. What primal people get from therapy is not the feelings racing around in the heads and body from day one … BUT finally get to EXPRESS it … which the rest of the non primal world tends NOT to do.
From all the time of you were attending sessions, groups and retreats (not many I gather), you glean that primal people “are less feeling…….” To paraphrase Larry from an earlier comment ‘for the most part when we issue statement about others we are really talking about ourselves’. That’s my take on you, you are really talking about Patrick.
I am in total agreement with your final phrase:- “I don’t get at all…………..”
Jack
“total agreement” ………..How awfully clever (well NOT) even your ‘agreements’ with me are of course nothing of the sort but the poorly disguised snarls and hiss of a viper. (In between IF you are to be believed ‘tears roll down your face’ on a fairly regular basis) Who the ‘real’ you is is anyone’s guess I doubt very much you know a lifetime of lies makes it hard to know I am sure even for yourself. If any ‘proof’ was needed that primal therapy in many many (most) cases does NOT work you are always for me Exhibit One. I know it is ‘primal 101’ to say we are talking about ourselves at all times which of course leads to another of your beloved mental cul de sacs. Like abolishing money. Like abolishing speech.So in an attempt to apply a little logic are YOU just talking about yourself all the time. Or do only use ‘against’ other people. Where are you going with this kind of rubbish……………oh I forget nowhere but you are wanting to fight about it.
And in case you were wondering when I said primal people were often ‘less feeling’ than the average person I WAS primarily thinking about you, You have not only less feeling also i would say less sense of fairness, less balance less maturity and less about any desirable qualities and nothing it seems than your trips to 30 retreats cleared up……………..(there is one starting tomorrow why don’t you rush up there and see if it (the cure) takes THIS time……………..hope springs eternal)
Maybe that’s hard for you to accept and maybe explains why you have to jump to the ‘defense’ of primal for any perceived ‘attack’ (real or imagined)……………..
Hi Larry
Better late than never. Apologies.
Try au-discuss-bounces@hai.org. The organisation is called Human Awareness Institute (HAI). It was started by a guy called Stan Dale in California.
Although it is no real therapy, it has helped heaps of people get in touch with their feelings, as we know it.
Tom
From the news it seems like a difficult place to grow up in.
Larry
Larry:
Back when my parents were in Ferguson decades ago, the suburb was a completely different place compared to today. Any further explanation might cause a lot of controversy so I will just leave this link:
Suburbia migrations
I will go out on a limb and say I believe it’s the height of mental retardation to devote trillions of words of news coverage to the violent death of a convenience store robber who assaulted and threatened the life of a police officer while only 130 words were devoted to the violent death of one of the hardest-working, nicest, and smartest, people that most anyone could possibly hope to meet (yes, I’m writing about my mom here…no one else ever will). Did I mention law-abiding & non-violent as well?
This country’s news media values are totally, hopelessly, and irredeemably fucked.
Guru – I had assumed the killing of the teenager was just another unjustified police shooting (there ARE many of those it seems there is another one almost every week) but I spoke to a friend this morning and he told me the details of all that happened there and yes I agree with you. At the very least the teenager was acting extremely aggressively and irresponsibly. It just seem unfortunate that when blacks get all up in arms it is often for the ‘wrong’ target or reasons. OJ Simpson comes to mind too. Blacks for sure have lots of legitimate grievances but maybe like a lot of victims when they eventually push back or fight back the pick the ‘wrong’ targets.I guess I am thinking of myself a bit too in that respect. Maybe it is part of being ‘victimized’ the reaction to it is often ‘generalized’ and usually ‘wrong’. Maybe the process of becoming a victim removes the precision necessary to able to fight back in a coherent way a way that does not make things even worse.
Patrick: I want to go on record as saying I also hung out with a lot of different black folks when I was younger, probably more so than most whites. This was done in all sorts of circumstances and various social situations too numerous to mention here. One was literally a mid-level crack dealer and we became good friends for a while and had tons of long talks (lots of stories there!). I know I am not a racist and I firmly believe everyone deserves a fair & equal shot in life.
The set of arguments I am putting forth are far more complex and daunting than cut-and-dried skin color issues. I made this post this morning because I am sick and tired of having fear of some touchy people saying I might be racist. Such possible accusations become a form of bullying and a red herring that detracts from what I was really trying to say.
I voted for Obama twice, after all.
Anyway, I have to get away from this topic; it is already sapping too much of my attention.
PS
Hi
Does it ring a bell with anyone?
Tom V.
Tom: Yes it rings many bells Tom. Not that I can pin point it to any event … or time … but nevertheless it’s there.
That’s the empathy … that’s the recognition … that’s the bell.
Jack
Hi Jack
What I found interesting in the posting is that it was so “Primal”. I happen to know that most of the people on that Blog, wouldn’t have heard of Primal Therapy.
Needless to say, the originator of that support network was also Jewish . Just for the record.
Tom V.
Hi All
I’ve been reading and following your postings. At some level I understand all you’ve written. I feel for you all, I anguish at your pain. I follow your struggles ( my words).
And on the other hand, everything you write about is ” all grown up stuff “. How the fuck do you expect me to follow you, when it all sounds so “way beyond me”? I don’t have the brains of a grown up.
If you wail, howl, writhe on the floor, wanting your mum, yes I can understand it. I find it amazing that you can write so clearly, state your issues and connect up with others on this Blog.
How the fuck do you do it?
I like the way you respond to each other. But I don’t understand how you do it. How can you put your brain into gear? How?
I’ve not posted anything of late, ( no excuse) because I didn’t know how to describe what I am feeling lately. Other than feeling like a baby, or even younger.
I’ve been feeling incredibly small. I’ve been “PUSHING” at something. Pushing and pushing. then I get extremely tired and I want to sleep. I nearly pass out 2-3 time every day. The effort to push is so draining.
Why isn’t she helping ( my mum)? How come she doesn’t know it’s time. Why aren’t we doing this together? CONNECT WITH ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And something is compelling me to go on pushing. If I stop, I will die.
Tom V.
Tom: It seems like you’re having something big going on right now, but I’d like to know….Do you want a response or would you like us to leave you alone to work it out?
Hi Guru
” Do you want a response or would you like us to leave you alone to work it out? ”
Therein lies my dilemma.
How can I respond to your question? I’m a baby. I’m distressed.
I don’t know how to look after myself. I can’t explain.
Does that mean that I am to repeat my life’s history and try to figure out what I want, or better, just leave me to my own devices and look after myself like a grown up?
I’m signaling. Can’t you see I need something?
Argh.
Tom
I can relate, Tom. Makes sense.
Seems like you are figuring something out, Tom.
Just read this: Voltaire allegedly said, “Doctors are men who pour drugs of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, into human beings of whom they know nothing.”
Patrick, I think we’ve had a few advances since Voltaire’s time. Phil
I am not so sure……………….I think we have gone ‘backwards’ probably as much…………..maybe now we could say “Doctors are men who pour drugs of which they think they know much, to cure diseases of which they think they know more, into human beings of whom they still know next to nothing.”
If any of you know of someone attending the retreat that has a birthday this week ( or if you have a birthday this week) please let me know! Gretch
I hope everyone has a good retreat.
as it was Thanksgiving thanks to all of you for the friendship and support!
it is my mom’s birthday tomorrow and me and my brother have been planning for days for food and gifts and bubbles and flowers to take, to give her a good and pleasant 84th birthday.
lately she seemed ok and in good spirits, but today she called me four times in the last hour, scared and confused and often in tears, forgetting when we come, forgetting what day it is, forgetting whether she should order a birthday cake or not, again and again, and it is heartbreaking and so painful, it hurts so much to have to deal with it on a moment I was preparing for some good times together, looking forward to that..
but in the last call I managed to be mostly warm and reassuring to her, and I could feel how it calmed her down, for that moment at least…
spoke too soon, while I was writing the last words the phone rang again, mom asking what it was she needed to go and buy and when we would be coming..sad, exhausting, scary, and so bloody frustrating I can’t really express it all, desperation being a word that comes close…
it is so hard to hear how she gets beat down and fearful as she notices what goes on, feels ashamed about it and apologizes for the trouble etc.
i hurt and at the same time feel like protecting my brother from fear and pain..
will have to endure it and do my best to keep giving and to not lose my patience…
at least I have had a good week for myself this week, with the dance and the new matrass and the young guy filming here yesterday and doing a lot of shopping ..
aaargh!!! next call, same thing all over, told her as gently as possible to keep her shopping list in her hand, she has the bankcard and to stop looking in her little planner notebook again and again, and to go out for the shopping.
she drives herself, and me, nuts by checking and re-checking and re-checking.
but when I mention the mere possiblility of accepting some household help all of a sudden she starts saying she does not need it yet and can do it all…
will contact the cleaning office to ask them if they can allow the cleaning lady, which she likes, to do more chores and to come by weekly..
might help a bit…
waiting for next call to come, but will stop comment now…
Margaret
after two hours checked if mom got safely back home from her shopping, because she had sounded pretty confused..
found her home after a few attempts, she sounded ok and had bought groceries, but could not remember if she had ordered the birthday cake or not. of course I assured her that was no problem at all and we’d sort it out tomorrow on our visit.
then later on was thinking about how someone mentioned some months ago how her mother in her last months had spent a lot of energy on telling what kind of stuff should go to whom, over and over, and how once she had passed away, all the stuff was just sitting there..
I pictured myself sitting on the floor before one of my mom’s linen chests, after she would have died, trying to sort out all the linens and what I would want to keep or not, and suddenly it struck me how desperate a search that really was, a search for glimpses of fullfillment, or happiness, or something close to it, that might never have existed, or only for brief moments in early childhood , the desperate search to retrieve or find some of it to hold on to, or to find some peace or feel somehow that aching hole of need and pain might heal or feel some relief..
how desperate must one be to hope for something going through towels and handkerchiefs and napkins?
what happy memories can one find in a drawer full of what drawers usely are full of?
I dread facing the immensity of that pain, and how my brother will deal with it, or how I will deal with all of it, my pain about her, my pain about him, my pain about me..
good I finally could ‘cry some’
the mother of a friend of my brother was found in her trailer on sunday evening, alive but barely, undercooled and dehydrated after having laid there on the floor after a fall since friday..
she will go to a hospital now and to a hospice, but our mom is still kind of in between stages, some days she is fine, other moments she is not..
she promised today she would accept household help if she’d feel she needed to at some point, and said if ever it would be necessary she’d go to a nursing home..
I will call the service that provides her cleaning lady and ask them, as my mom likes her a lot, if it is possible to let her come every week and do more than clean gradually, like check the groceries and so on. i might not even have to tell my mother she would come weekly as she does not remember it anyway, and might only start arguing if it is brought up..
but don’t know if it will be possible yet..
thanks Fiona, to make time, whenever possible, to post this comment still despite being ‘on holiday’
you are one in a million!
M
Yes she is!
Slow on the blog I guess people are busy ‘retreating’ if that is not too much of an oxymoron. So with nothing much else going on I was reminded of you Guru in that you have a connection with Ferguson, MO. Below is the interview with the cop and honestly I found the guy very convincing and it seems to me truthful. I understand and agree there is an awful lot of police violence going on in this country but I was struck again how ‘minorities’ or ‘victims’ seem to pick the wrong targets or the wrong thing to fight about. (Before Jack jumps down my throat about FEELINGS I have earlier even related it to myself so should at least give me a ‘pass’ in primalland) Anyway I thought it was interesting as one would hardly know from all the media coverage of the actual specifics of the situation
As a victim, you too seemingly pick the wrong target … so I suspect that is how and why you know other victims re-act. As for the police they are trained to spin it in such a way as for it to be convincing to Juries. How else could they justify they job????
Jack
I SAID I did. That’s not enough for you? I guess more abasement and humiliation of me is needed. Do you pick the ‘right’ target? Am I the right target of your endless spite and sneers. Though the rest of the time ‘tears stream down your face’ for almost anyone else. Super-hypocrite. Are men the ‘right’ target of your sex drive or is that some ‘Straight Thinking’ when it comes to you…………….for me another rule entirely. Asshole!
Oh so not only do you feel victimized but you feel humiliated … interesting … meantime I’m having fun.
Do I pick the right target? … not always but I am aware that I should be targeting where the feeling originated.. That you see my responses as “endless spite and sneers”, is interesting … from a psychological perspective I take it that you feel you are not capable of such ‘improprieties’ …. however far back we may seek!
If you would read Thurless’s book then you might have some basis for ‘least-ways’ his notion of “Straight and Crooked Thinking”. Until such times; you are wondering in the dark. You are not the first nor, I believe, will you will be last to call me an asshole. I sure have one but whether that is the whole of me would depend on the aspect from which you are looking … for example just looking from the bottom up there are only assholes … yeah????..
I am apt to remind you that you are remiss to assume that your feeling is a universal fact. Lighten up. You sound so miserable.
Quote:- “I said years ago here I would like to ‘rescue’ primal therapy and this blog from ‘wankers’ like you and I have failed utterly”. So!!!!! you are a failure as well yeah????
Jack
To me it’s shit like that that truly makes this place ‘unsafe’ more than my ‘rants’ at least I think so. Any admission at least from me is pounced on by you for more attempted humiliation and cruelty. I have never felt ‘safe’ here and really because of you ANYTHING I say is instantly pounced on for some crazy advantage as you see it of you own. Are you interested in anything for yourself………………….I have told you before leave me the fuck alone!! You have ‘taken’ enough from me. Speak for yourself if you can and stop playing the ‘primal winner’ with tears streaming down your face. Look at me I am a SENSITIVE human being I guess you need to prove that to yourself and I could see why………..there is not much evidence of it in reality. I said years ago here I would like to ‘rescue’ primal therapy and this blog from ‘wankers’ like you and I have failed utterly…………….is this another ‘admission’ you will pounce on?
Patrick:
I’m not going to troll you like Jack is doing, but I think you may not be understanding very well what I tried to say in my November 26, 3:11am posting. I don’t hold this against you, but there’s no point in my going any further with this topic, really.
OK Guru – that’s fine thanks for seeing at least that I am being ‘trolled’ trolled by a viper………..a viper with tears streaming down it’s face what an image that is…………
Guru: Upon what evidence do you feel in your November 26, 3:11 am: to quote you “…. the violent death of a convenience store robber who assaulted and threatened the life of a police officer.” The ‘defendant, POLICE OFFICER, is alive and kicking and able to give his version of the event; even after several weeks to contemplate his story (perhaps with the help of lots of others including attorneys) whilst the plaintive is DEAD and totally unable to give his side of the story. Go figure.
But then being a white Ferguson native you seemingly wish to believe the white police officer first and foremost. Even if Michael Brown did rob a convenient store he didn’t deserve to die. The police are forever telling us that their life was in threat.; It’s a convenient defense.
My question is:- what causes someone to want to spend his/her working life in a super dangerous life threatening job?. A bit neurotic don’t you think??????
Jack
Altered Images – I Could Be Happy 1981. Yes, I could be happy, if it was 1981, and I still had hope. Anyway, you guys said to say what I feel, and that is what i feel.
Elephantcrankyoldman:
Dad took me to some great R-rated movies back then when I was a little kiddie.
They even had chandeliers on cars back then!
Escape From New York (1981)
shit, f.. shit!
ran into landlord briefly who mumbled something about maybe wanting to make us all move out soon to renovate the building..
am planning to go to organisation of people who rent, to check with rental contract what my rights are, and am contacting my social network to start looking around for other place to live, not easy as expensive and small in comparison to where I live, old but big and facing south with large terrace and three cat doors…
interferes with my concentration to get ready for skype and teamviewer class with statistics teacher on friday morning..
have done what I can for the moment, will have to deal with this step by f.. step..
am so sick and tired of problems and ‘challenges’, would love some smooth and easy fun and safety and god forbid, love, ha!!
amyway, apart from feeling tense I also feel like giving this my best shot to deal with yet another hurdle on my path.
M and cat
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. nice little movie, touching, bittersweet? Ingrid Bergman.
This for Art Janov’s current blogpost
“I would like to redesign a doctoral program that includes empathy, touch, hugs and kindness. I would remove all statistics and graphs and concentrate on the doctor herself; help her understand her life, her beginnings and how it shaped and sculpted her. I would offer her Primal Therapy so she could learn everything she needs to know about treating another person. And guess what? No charge. I do not think medicine and therapy should be paid for. We do that with our taxes. It is not a profit making venture. I tried for years to offer my therapy to several governments. I took my son to see the English Minister of health and offered him my therapy. He smoked a pipe, took a deep breath and said, “Let me see if I got this right. You have a psychotherapy that cures, are willing to have it examined by our specialists and there will be no costs? Whereupon my 12 year old son said, “Dad let’s get the hell out of here before it is too late.” And we did.”
I read Art’s blog article, then I read your comment and wondered what you were getting at by merely quoting the last paragraph. You made no comment about it and so I assumed that you were hoping that his, Art’s article, was self explanatory and that it met with your approval. However, from some of your recent comments about Arthur Janov, his theory and therapy practice, I assumed you thought it needed updating, and unless it was, that it would die a natural death.
It might have been instructive if you had made a comment and let us know how it affected you . I personally thought it was a very instructive article suggesting that the left brain endeavors of all training, especially the social and medical training, left much to be desired, in that it merely concentrated on the intellectual approach (head tripping) leaving all ones feelings floating in limbo.
The article in question asked the question can we “learn” to LOVE and the response was “Nope” Love is one of our major feeling that for many of us got flushed out of our being very early in life.. Getting it back requires that one RELIVE those very early events and thus know; that back then we had all our feelings intact … including the ability to LOVE. One might say that “reliving” is the only way to start the process of getting most of it back … Primal Theory
Jack
Jack I hesitate (very much) to say ANYTHING as I feel for sure you will jump all over it and find just about everything wrong with anything I say and actually for that reason decided to say nothing, let the comment stand on it’s own so to speak and see if anyone had a take on it.
But it struck me as a bit ironic in that he talks about doing therapy and training with no reference to statistics, graphs etc even though he has ‘bragged’ repeatedly over the years about his ‘science’ and trying to rely on these very things he now says he wouldn’t.
I also find the concept of ‘free therapy’ ironic. Janov at least in the old days charged a LOT was really very expensive and what the hippies us to call a ‘bread head’ (a guy into money) I know for myself it took me 5 years to save the money for the therapy plus help from my Dad. Again it seems quite ironic to me now he is acting (posing) as a ‘socialist’ and doing it a very non capitalist way
The ‘meeting’ with the British health minister I find kind of funny and it has a ring of truth about it at least as far as his description of the pipe smoking minister. I would question the idea of ‘offer’ or ‘no costs’ thought. In my experience when Janov talks about ‘giving something away’ there is usually a sting to the tail on that one.And did he really go to a high level meeting like that accompanied by his 12 year old son? And did he really ‘reject’ the minister because of the ‘advice’ of his 12 year old son?. Just guessing by I imagine the ‘rejecting’ was done from the other side meaning the minister was not interested
All in all my feeling (you should find that vocabulary acceptable!) is Janov wants to have thing both ways or every which way. He is intuitive and feeling but ‘scientific’ as it suits his argument. He is capitalistic unless it serves his purpose to be socialist. And though he actually charges a lot he is all about ‘giving it away’. As far as these governments the bottom line is he never had any success with them and I am sure the reasons are many and complex. But I would doubt it comes down to the ‘advice’ of his 12 year old son
And as far as having thing both ways or every which way that is a quality I think you share with him Jack. In fact I think you share many of his characteristics probably another reason you admire him so much. Me I don’t ‘admire’ him so much I see a lot of ‘double dealing’ and ‘hypocrisy’ and ‘insincerity’ and while I still believe his notion/central insight has a lot of value I do also believe the ‘failure’ of primal therapy is down quite a bit to those very characteristics. To be a credible ‘leader’ of any group or movement these things are major problems.
Patrick: You obviously gave this response of yours a great deal of thought and for once I consider giving it a full response from the way I read that blog article of Janov’s.
Let me first re-iterate that I am a political “Anarchist” in that I do not feel that any heirichical structure in our human community to be either useful or even expedient. It creates, by my way of thinking, more problem,s than it resolves, and as such ACTUALLY creates the very problems, and then endeavors to seek a resolution … madness … which ever way one wishes to look at it. Having said all that, it still remains for me to have to live by the rules of that ‘madness’. I have suggested that the one sure way to ‘repair’ some of that madness would be the abolition of money. Even though that might create an initial state of confusion (not, I haste to add; “chaos”). There is nothing intrisincly disturbing about CHAOS, though most (neurotics) are afraid of it. Example:- the pedestrian situation of all major cities is a ‘chaotic situation’ … but is far from terryfying or even disturbing (insofar as I/we leave out for the moment, having to cross the path of heavy ironmongery racing at speeds way in excess of our own).
Though I promote Anarchy; I am not able to live communally within anarchy. I am forced by the very system to live within and by that system of madness, even though I promote it’s very abolition. It’s a paradox that I am not able to resolve. It is my contention that Arthur Janov has the very same problem in this respect, that I have. Though I make not pretenses at being able to read his mind. I can only read his writings. Such that this leads me to see you arguing against his principles, ignoring that he is ‘duty bound’ to live by yours and other’s rules that he abhors. His discovery and the therapy he devised around that discovery and the theory he formulated as a result of that discovery, has, by many been heavily criticized from the very same reasoning’s that you are doing in this last comment of yours. I too, even on this very blog, have been criticized for not living in my own ANARCHIC cocoon. It’s an impossibility. BUT … that should not prevent me from promoting a universal political anarchy, as many others (Proudhon, Marx, Engels, Bakunin and Kropotkin et al) have also done.
Lastly I would like to add that Janov, after discovering mankind’s major illness; disease; discomfort (call it what you will) was unable to persuade the elites of the medical profession and in particular the neuro-physicists that they had failed to see the “wood for the trees” (to coin a phrase) and that many that came to Los Angeles, at great expense and often disruption of their living situations in the hope that somehow they were going to get someone to ‘DO IT FOR THEM” All any Primal therapist can do is lead one to the waters edge … but there’s absolutely no way they can force anyone to drink it. Put another way … unless and until one sees that we each (patients that is) are able to sink into that horror of all horrors, we are thus left with the very disease (neurosis) that we arrived with. Janov did NOT create anyone’s neurosis (disease) … he merely, sort of said, “Hey guys … there’s a way to get from underneath it”: but you are going to have to go to a place that you have spent your whole fucking life running away from.
Here endeth the lesson (epistle)… there will be no collection. 🙂
Jack
had more than three hours of statistics by dskype and teamviewer this morning, my brains are still smoking..
we did make a lot of progress though on all fields, stats theory and application, software fine-tuning and loading of new packages, and for my teacher ways into changing the whole course towards working with the calculating program we use for all students in the future.
we did do so much work, it was so intense and specially rewarding too to hear more about the possible future exam, and how it might be done.
a glimpse of hope is growing we might make it through this first of six statistics modules eventually, after still doing a lot of work in the next year or so..
another hting is I started getting feedback from my ‘network’ about possible new places to rent.
it also occurred to me I might rent an appartment from the blind home and go into ‘protected living’, a stage in between living completely independently with ‘commercial/social ways of assistance, and living in the home itself which I don’t want to do again unless really old and cranky..
it is the stability of a safe home noone would throw me out of which is appealing, as opposed to again renting another place private
ely.
but nothing is decided, just checking all options in case I’d really have to move out..
in any case it is worth checking out the protected living as they do not accept people after they get 65, despite being willing to keep them once they are there well, until they die.
got in touch with them already but have to call back on tuesday.
feel more calm now having considered that option as possibly acceptable as well as any other option, or just maybe even better…
my laptop also broke down today in two different ways, which I managed to solve, so I do feel worn out but actually satisfied with myself..
after all the worrying about not working in exactly the same way as the original stats course works with different software, it feels so nice to find out my software is actually preferable and often more detailed, and the teacher wants it to become the standard , haaa, smiley!
it turns out there are a lot of advices in the old course that should be adjusted, as testing a hypothesis unilaterally, which should not be done in psychology, and which is not the way I worked so far, so instead of me doing it the wrong way and having to adjust, I found out I can just stick to my own way and the course will be adjusted eventually, smiley!
feel very pleased now but a lot of hard work remains to be done.
still pleased anyway, smiley!
M
I landed back home tonight after the retreat holiday. Sometimes being alone over the holiday, sometimes being afraid to reach out to friends, sometimes reaching out but not rewarded, sometimes reaching out and being rewarded more than I’d hoped, all happened at the retreat and before and after, and pried me open to more than neurotic me wants too see. I cried every other day, and then daily. This evening I’m crying some more. I have nothing but my friends. Before them there was nothing, way back and deep. I was trapped in it.
I’m afraid to reach out to life and people who would give me life because I’m full of nothing and don’t deserve more. It scares me that I might let myself stay there. Going forward looks like torture yet is the breath of life itself.
Hi Larry
You’re so eloquent with your words. You take me to the place where you are at.
Tom
I’m glad you ‘re there, Tom. It helps me. I wish you were here. I wish all my friends were, but then I’d have no excuse for my isolation except for what is self-imposed and I’d have to tackle it.
Larry,
that is a meaningful description of retreat atmosphere to me, thanks!
Tom, Leslie, Barry, and the others who’d feel like talking about it, how was your retreat?
which main feelings or specific ones or insights occurred???
yeah, right, of course I am feeling having missed out on all the ‘fun’ and am curious to hear how it was!
it is such a rich environment in all senses concerning human interaction, with all those people together who all or mostly all want to explore and open up and risk to be vulnerable and express themselves and listen to each other.
that is pretty unique, undeniably.
although not having participated and not have had any sessions since my last visit, the bond I feel is strong and always there.
I know if I’d feel the need to I could and would always be able to talk with Barry or Gretchen but every year as I feel stronger and more relying on my own judfments and feelings, the need seems to diminish, and when I get in touch it feels like ‘it is about time to get in touch with this old friend’ for an update..
it always does turn out to bring stuff up, but most strong friendships do.
there always remains more stuff to sort out as there is always room for improvement, so I will come back for sure, also for the mere joy of being with friends I trust or friends I start to trust more and more, smiley
not thinking of anyone in particular, just acknowledging there are degrees of trust, which is only healthy and realistic I think.
it is so grey and cold here, I hope you have and had nice weather, boy, wish I was there, just zapping myself over and back without hassles of planes and taxis and difficult commuting etc.
in any case I have a lot on my plate here right now as you might have read in my last comments if they have not disappeared in the deep cracks and fissures of this here blog somewhere by now..
glad this blog might become more interesting again, apart from the neverending quarrel about A.J. and the two ‘theologists’ who discuss every syllable of his writings and their possible meaning or meaninglessness.
no offense, but well, I miss the point as to me primal therapy is so much more as what Art has to write about it.
if anything I’d love to read much more what Gretchen and Barry have to say about it, and I feel convinced one day we might be able to do so, well, hopefully, smiley!
M
Again Margaret – I don’t criticize your long running saga with your mother, why is it just fine for you to throw a dart whenever you feel like it. Each of us have our own interests that might be good for you to try to keep in mind though you seem to repeatedly forget that.Anything and everything should be able to be discussed imo not just ‘safe’ or ‘approved’ topics of which I think there is enough of that already here imo again.
Margaret: Maybe you’ll dislike me for this, but I have to say I am in agreement with Patrick on this one. I thought he brought up some very reasonable points about Janov a few days ago.
I will say to Patrick on the money side of things, though, that the price of these medical services have not kept pace with inflation over the last few decades. What was it back in the 70’s? $5-6,000 for three weeks intensive & a lot of groups? Now it’s $8,000 or so from what I gather. Sure, back in the day when celebrities were all over the Primal scene it was a more exclusive club that was very expensive to enter. Now the monetary requirements have relaxed considerably since so many common folk with common everyday problems enter the fray instead of those few special folks with ultra-First World problems such as: “Oh my God! How do I handle the gargantuan music royalties coming in?” (ala John Lennon, etc.).
A long time ago, when I was starting college I went to an inpatient treatment center for drugs & alcohol.
30 days inpatient, room and board, and it was completely based on a 12-step program.
$16,000…..(more like $22-25,000 today)
It didn’t do a damn thing for me back then and alcohol/drugs have very little meaning to me anymore (except as a cute little party accessory with friends occasionally). Among other things, Gretchen, Mark, Barry, and Leslie were a big help towards my being “cured” in that regard.
That inpatient drug treatment program was eventually shut down by regulators for racketeering.
Patrick,
a reply to your and Guru’s comment before I read the rest.
it is true it is a free blog so I am also free to express my opinion.
you are right to refer to it as a dart because it was not a mean kind of criticism, just kind of a tease with an attempt of the message ‘why focusing on every bit of negativity you can find, either the person you consider the utter failure, ignoring all the ones who testify they feel great benefits of their therapy. actually even the ‘failure’ does feel it has helped him a lot.
that is one part, but it seems there is more to your crusade that would be more useful to you to focus on, that’s all.
so a small dart compared to some of the sneers about my writings about my mom you gave me in the past and you seem to have conveniently forgotten.
on the other hand I do not deny you do bring up some points worth considering, I actually read what you posted with attention and gave it some thought.
but I agree with Jack something out of context can easily be used as some misinterpretation, and most of what I wanted to refer too is mainly the goal you seem to pursue, and which still puzzles me.
so that’s all, why are you so touchy about me making the odd remark that smells like some criticism, it is not as if I am on your back al the time in some viecious way.
it seems typical of the critic of critics to well, be so touchy?
do you think it is a personal grudge?
I have given you support every time you share something personal as that feels way more constructive than this struggle about Art which in my opinion should take place on his blog and not here.
just my opinion, and not even a black and white one, I am not really opposing anything of what you write, just wondering about what drives you.
there seems to be so much negativity in your life, it occurred to me, no intntion to analize’ you, just a passing thought, you really are so damaged in your capacity to trust, it just feels so sad as you seem to dismiss anyone trying to help you because of that.
wish these words could help you, but that is out of my control.
M
Guru,
of course I don’t feel angry at you for expressing your honest opinion in a very civilized way!
i specially liked your following post about how working with Marc, Barry and Gretchen helped you , that is a brave post to write on such a topic, very honest and open.
it is a major achievment too and I am so glad for you you made that happen.
believe me I know how hard it can be and how tempting the occasions.
i hope you will have a nice holiday season with your dad or /and some good friends.
M
Margaret:
That was a very nice post you just wrote to me; it really felt like you tried to connect with me as much as you could. I just have to watch out for the gambling temptations now instead, haha! At least now it’s mostly just a mind game instead of consuming external chemicals anymore (for the most part)..
Thank you for your well wishes.
this morning dreamed about being somewhere, with other people, when Barry walked in briefly, carrying a four or five year old girl on his arm.
it was nice he was there, a very warm kind of feeling of connection.
when he started to walk out, the girl on his arm u
put her arms more tightly around his neck, and Barry responded by also playfully intensifying his hug.
seeing that all of a sudden brought up such a wave of grief and insight about the enormity of what I have missed out on in my childhood, and the enormity of the impact.
it made me moan with pain and choked me up with sadness.
being able to hug, feeling safe to do so, and getting rewarded by more hugging and even encouraged is so beyond my w
experience with my dad, and it seems so basic it explains so much of my always present feeling of unsafety and of being on my own, apart from the reality of life being pretty similar, but not quite..
it still felt good at waking up to have gotten in touch in this way with that huge feeling.
then right now I did call the blind home about the form of assisted housing they have.
it turns out that because I have lived for the last years in a more independent way only being assisted by another structure of assisted living and household help, now I am stuck on priority list number 2 to be allowed in..
i have to wait until january to get an appointment and hear more, and so far as I could hear the only option would be to rent an appartment myself privately in that neighbourhood and to make some deal with the home or something for extra options.
that is a disappointment as I’d still be living in a place, if I find one, I can be thrown out of..
will have to be patient now, not my strongest quality..
nothing ever is easy, this is all also a case of government cutting down on healthcare , our very rightwing government of the moment specially..
to be continued..
will have to keep going with the flow and do my best to pick up the surf without drowning, and possibly having a good time on the moments the wave takes me up…
cat is bit ill, have to take her to the vet, another hassle to get her into the carrying box at the right moment etc. and then the taxi and so on and so on…
i really looked forward to the idea of having more support and company at hand but that will seemingly become another struggle first…
sigh, ha, funny, I just made a typo first typing ‘sight’ instead of sigh, pretty meaningful ‘Freudian’ lapse
M
went with cat to vet today, after missed take-off yesterday as she hid under the bed in time..
cat is allergic and sometimes in the winter it gets worse.
so we are safely back home now after two injections and with some pills and cream bassed on honey for its antibacterial action, and smelling of sage and mint, which also should help to keep her from licking up the cream, but well, she actually seems to like it..
then received two mails in reply to some questions about a statistics case I started to work on.
I noticed a sting of fear upon opening the mail, fear my question would have been really dumb as maybe I had missed to see an obvious solution.
but hey, hurray, it turns out I spotted a complication which should not yet be thought about or met in this stage, as it is much more advanced.
so my question was really right on, instead of dumb, just out of the box in this stage as not part of what we learned so far, but important indeed.
for the interested, the variable puzzled me to work with it as the assignment told us to do, because it actually turns out to be a ‘confounder’.
but ok, now I know and simply have to ignore that and do the assignment anyway, even though it is not quite logical and the person who set up the test messed up just a bit in some way.
so from being scared to be really dumb and to get ‘rejected’ for it, or end up to feel like maybe I was just seeking attention and did not give it enough thought, or whatever I’d bang myself on the head for mentally, the reply to my question actually gave me a big boost to keep trusting myself and to keep working in the way I do.
I feel I might make it possibly, maybe, which is a great step from being mostly insecure.
it starts feeling like a very difficult gave, not always pleasant but still challenging, and hurray for my teacher once more, and for my cat and for me, smiley, writing here because of not enough people to talk to while high on adrenaline, smiley..
hope the blog catches on soon
Tom, are you back down under again?
how was your visit?
M
Hi Margaret
Aside from going back to Romania for the class reunion, I’ve been down under, so to speak, all the time.
My class reunion was amazing. I still feel the effects of meeting up with people I haven’t seen, nor communicated with for the past 54 years. They have reached out to me since, via Skype, Facebook and email. Even people who at first seemed reserved, called me on Skype.
Their first words were……..wait for it….how are you SWEET Tomi? These are guys, not women. It’s enough for me to think about it to get tearful. The enormity what have I done by not keeping in touch with these class mates, tells me the pain I was in, then… already.
And I was only 13 or 14 years old when we started our long track south to Australia.
I’ve been noticing lately that I get a whopping big headache, every time I socialise or attend any kind of meeting. It starts fairly soon as I get together with people. The headache is bad, really bad. I want to pass out, each and every time.
Slowly it’s coming to me, that it is a consequence of me feeling so little, tiny, that I cannot possibly be expected to act or be a grown up in any situation.
To use someone’s jargon here, fortunately, or perhaps most unfortunately, my left brain overtook the functions of my right brain, to be a little bit technical here. Emotionally I couldn’t cope with situations, so I shut down and became logical and analytical. Yak.
Now at the ripe old age of 68, I am starting to feel what it’s like to be a baby again.
I am scared to get into any new endeavour or enterprise, as I suspect i am acting out some old need, and I will screw up, no matter what I touch.
On the other hand, by slowly putting things behind me. the OLD feelings of babyhood start to surface.
I wish I could’ve gone to the Thanksgiving retreat. I am planning to go to next year’s summer retreat. I feel I could’ve used the experience of being there. I deprived myself.
Tom
I;m glad you;re getting that attention, Tom. It;s good for you!
Some of the Thanksgiving retreat was fun for me. That”s the hard part. The fun didn:t exactly just walk into my life. It became more blatantly obvious to me how it is hard for me to have fun with friends, and why. All of the retreat, and my days in LA before and after, were good therapy.
Now at home I;m plagued more than ever with seeing how I;m self-limited by my fear and feelings of unworthiness.
Tom, if you are going to be at the summer retreat, then so am I. I need you, Buddy. ………..God!…remembering your caring and support at previous retreats and on the blog gets me crying…..I need someone right now to care and understand…..
Mine was such an empty, desolate growing up. I numbed myself to it and blanked out the knowing it. It;s taken me 60 years to see. It;s awful, but I have to see. I want to face it. I;ve had enough of running away and letting it destroy me. I want some life.
P.S. I have to find out why my new keyboard isn’t printing apostrophes, and why it did a few words ago.
just got a reply to my reply from my stats teacher!
he says I am actually doing very well, and as far as he can judge it my insight into the material is deeper than that of the other students!
he
aaa, wel, probably not being able to see forces me to use my ‘insight’ sort of, ha, hurray hurray once more, one fine day today!
had a dream with a very intense moment of fear about a scary woman trying to force her way into my home, despite bolt on door putting her fingers through some crack..
I actually woke up feeling my heart literally squeeze togehter, something I never felt before and which would have been really scary if it would not have been brief.
a very physical experience, entirely linked to fear.
feels like things inside are still on the move, always reassuring in its own way..
M
I guess this is specially important for me as because of being blind I always fear to be or to be regarded as ‘inferior’,not part of things, even less so than the old feeling not being part of ‘the others’.
it is sstill sinking in in this case and very unexpectedly so, I am not, despite of all the hardnesses and limitations.
this study is so good for me, in various ways.
it is sad to tend to feel ‘less’, to brace myself on some level all the time to be hurt or rejected or ignored or dismissed.
little by little I am regaining pride, while at the same time sadness and fear come to the surface to dissolve gradually..
M
Tom,
that reconnection with your old schoolmates sounds very special and wonderful. it says a lot about them being very nice people but also you being very likable, back then and in the present.
be sure to also keep a good eye on your medical state like bloodpressure etc., if those headaches keep occurring.
in my case headache was a warning symptom of blood pressure problems in the past, among other things.
now I do trust your instinct when you say they are closely linked to a feeling, but both things could be true at the same time and I want you to be well!!!
M
having done all my chores for today except working on the statistics case, just rechecked my mail to see if there was anything new since the couple of mails I received so far this morning.
then focusing on what I felt, I realized myself the need I feel, which on the surface seems just a need for example for feedback from the blog, reflects the much deeper and older need for genuine interest.
a major thing for me, with a dad who barely showed any interest at all except about protecting e
me, and a mother whose interest was mostly about her, and there
for menacing as it felt like if I allowed it to get too close it would swallow me entirely.
also her childishness and her manipulations to control us and her insaciable need for attention left very little room for me to receive any real interest or attention just about me and how I am/was feeling and doing.
I did not even tell my mom about the very positive feedback I received from my stats teacher, as there is something in the way she would react, like she mostly does in such a case, saying ‘if you can’t make it noone can’ and ‘they must be admiring you sin’t it?’, that feels it is not about me at all and overtakes things leaving me in the cold.
this is not a black and white issue as my mother’s support and stimulation also gave me a good basis of selfconfidence.
it is just that ecxtra charge of ‘expectations’ and having to live up to feeling I should ‘shine’ or something.
what I need is what some girlfriends give me, room for both my fear and satisfaction, my sadness and pride.
ride is such a taboo thing for anybody but children seemingly, and even for childre it is not always approved of and quick
kly limited.
for me there was also a feeling I should not ‘boast’ with my good grades as to not make my brother feel bad who was not so much of a student in those days.
now I feel I need empathy for my achievments mainly to be able to acknowledge for myself and access all the fear and effort that have been so present up to the moment of getting one step forward on a hard track.
it is my fear I need to share, and the sadness of never have felt really safe to do so.
i have a lot of pain in my shoulders lately and upper arms, and partly it seems due to the fact I always brace myself and am always tense and ‘strong’, prepared to fight and defend myself.
now as slowly there seems to be more room for a fuller and more grown up ‘me’ I like, there is also room for the grieving about the waste of the past with all its craziness.
I don’t blame myself, as I see and understand what drove me, but I do regret certain decisions and actions.
i am also aware of how much I miss out on, and missed out on, by the ‘wrong’ choice of partner and by not having had kids let alone grandkids..
but as Barry stated so well, that sadness is a part of me, it is nothing I should ‘get rid’ of.
feeling lonely I guess.
not too bad though, have things coming up to look forward to.
M.
I understand lonely, Margaret, and waste of the past.
thanks Larry,
I know you relate, and those few words I receive make the difference between feeling connected or feeling something must be wrong with me if noone responds, the old pain of being ignored or worse.
sounds like the retreat was another big step for you into the depths of your reality.
you are bound to come out stronger.
it struck me not long ago how therapy for me can be described as going from a more shallow level of awareness to a fuller one, from being almost blindly driven by forces and needs we don’t recognize for what tehy are, to being more grounded and more in control, or not even having to control on other occasions, just being much more in the present moment.
all of that does not need to mean less pain at some points in time, but the general quality is definitely so much better and more meaningful, that is my deep and thorough conviction, based on my own experience, an experience which keeps getting confirmed over and over again.
scars remain and also remain sore and sensitive, but they heal and mental capacities, emotional depth starts funcioning on a better level.
an undeniable truth despite the fact no therapy can solve it all for everyone and some people remain stuck on some levels temporarily or forever if they give up.
that does not deny the value of the potential healing and reconnection with ones full ‘persona’, expansion, flowering, growth, all these words for me apply.
M
Tom, are you ok?
hearing about the coffee place in Sidney and the hostages I could not help thinking ‘I hope Tom and the grumpies’ are not inthere…
this is such a crazy world.
give us a sign please that you’re ok,
M
hi Margaret
Yes, we are fine, thank you.
The hostage situation took place right in the middle of down town Sydney. I/we hardly go there.
The Grumpies meet in the suburbs, anywhere from 6-10 kilometres from down town.
The bad news is that one of our Grumpies collapsed Saturday week ago, almost at the end of our usual get together. Turns out he had cardiac arrest. Some of the ” boys ” performed CPR, with the help of the person on the other end of the cell phone, on 911, which is 000 here.
A young woman approached us who helped, than a female doctor, and by then 4 ambulance people arrived with 6 police men to clear the mall area.
Our friend was taken to the nearest hospital, where he got good care. Unfortunately, he is still not with us, even though he has been taken off the Ventilator.
This, on top of Suzi and I attending a funeral for a 90 Holocaust survivor, from Transylvania, Romania just a few days before this.
We met him and his wife a few years ago. One day while we were visiting them, the old man started to tell me that: …….it is cold…..it is very cold……First I didn’t get it.
Than he said, it is so cold that he had to take his socks off and put them on his back, as he only had a shirt on. then it hit me. He was talking about his time in the concentration camp, where he was beaten mercilessly.He has all the scars on his back.
I got up, walked away from him, crying.
Then he turned to me and said….” I weighed 36 kilograms when I came out through the gates….”.
He was an ordinary man. When he returned home after the concentration camp, he found half his family was gone, forever.
He married a non-Jewish woman, whom he adored till the end of his days. He had two daughters in Australia and four grandchildren. He always had a smile on his face. He was a cabinet maker.
My mum’s father was also taken away and died of starvation five days before liberation, in a concentration camp. I don’t know how, nor why, but he figures in my soul. My mum made him real, live and I carry him in me, always. As I am writing about him, I am starting to cry.
I want him. I wish he was here, now. A few months before my mother died, she said that her dad, MY GRANDPA, would’ve been proud of me.
I never met the man. I never saw him. Yet I carry him inside me. I turn to him. I want him.
Coincidentally, Suzi’s last boyfriend before she immigrated to Israel, was a guy very similar to me, according to her. When we first got together, she would often say, John would hold the fork like that. Or, John would say something like that.Or John this or John that. That we had so many traits that were similar. Many years down the road, it turned out that unknowingly, John and I are third cousins. His great grandpa and my great grandma were sister and brother. John looks more like my Grandpa than I do. And he is such a nice guy,” just like me”.
Well enough for now. I just wish sadness in my life wouldn’t be so pervasive.
Tom
Crying and crying. Every day still. Longer bouts of it than I;m used to. I want to connect to people, but I’m trapped. In emptiness. Cut off and kept alone by my inner prison, neural pathways soldered in place in childhood, a fragile warped latticework upon which the rest of my life was laid. No one can fix it. It’s my albatross.
Only Noreen reached me. A one in a billion chance at the right place at the right time of being the right people for each other. A miracle that made my life liveable.
I miss her. I love her.
Please show compassion. Please show empathy and caring. Please understand. Please let me cry deep and long, because you know I need to.
It’s excruciating how the miracle ended. Excruciating that she:s gone. LIfe hurts deep and deeper. I have to let her go, to move on. Pretending she’s here is sick.
Can i face life alone? There’s such a hollow, so much emptiness all the way in, deep to the bottom, all the way back, right to the beginning. Surely I will collapse. Please just be there, just understand and just let me cry, so that maybe eventually I can live. There is so much empty truth, too horrible, so much to cry to heal the base and finally live now.
Larry, I’m hearing you’re feeling alone and having a tough time. You are a good guy and I’m hoping things will improve for you. Phil
Tom, Larry,
I hear you and am touched by both of you.
Phil you are a very good person as well, I really mean that, it was a pleasure getting to know you a bit better last year, and hopefully to learn more about you in the future as well.
found some xmas gifts today, is satisfying and worth the effort of shopping though exhausting, smiley..
M
Thanks Margaret! Things have been going well for me and I guess that’swhy I haven’t been saying much here. Christmas coming always brings up feelingsfor me. We usually have a very good time here but there is also sadness as I missmy childhood family. I’m not done mourning those people I’ve lost, as they wereall I had, and my childhood.Phil
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 18:20:31 +0000 To: phiban@msn.com
New page please Gretchen
Hi All
I’ve been having trouble formulating my thoughts and expressing them to you the last couple of months. Kept wondering, and still do, why is it so hard to figure out what’s going on with me, aside from my usual list of complaints.
I may be wrong, but it seems that it is no longer about saying what I feel, as I cannot say exactly what it is. There are no words.
Give you an example.
Lately, I noticed I am getting humongous headaches after any social intercourse. and I am not talking about sex.
When I first got together with the Grumpies, at some point during our time together, I’d look up and start to feel that i am not connected to them. Boom. The headache sprung up instantly. then, in time the feeling stopped coming up.
But now, the headache has come back with a vengeance. I actually enjoy my time with the old guys quite a lot. But when i get into the car to come home, all of a sudden my headache bursts forth. It is so bad, so debilitating, that nothing helps. I get home lie down and pass out.
This has been going on for some time now. Gradually I realised it comes up not just with the old guys, but any any social or work related situation.
So, what the fuck is going on? Hah?
Slowly it started to dawn on me, that I feel too little to be even conversing with friends, foes and adults. Any time, anywhere, when I have to use my brain, I end up feeling: I do not know what to do. How do you expect me know? I am too little.
How the fuck can I function in this world when I feel like a baby all the time?
Somebody!!!!!!!!!! Take over!!!!!!!!!!!!I want to be taken care of!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Get it????????????
It even got to the point that while I am reading your posts, I keep thinking to myself…….wow…..these people really know what to say, and how to say it………how do you do it?
I am in a work related meeting. Options have to be analysed. Decisions have to be made. How the fuck am i expected to deal with all this shit, when I feel so little? Do babies make decisions as to what they eat? When they eat? When a baby cries, do you go up and ask him/her why you are crying? Or do you have the sense how to comfort that baby. Of course I am talking about myself.
This is so hard.
I am meeting the boys down Coogee Beach, near my place in an hour. It is nice to be with them. So why am I punished?
( No good deed goes unpunished. That’s my motto.)
Tom
Tom: This comment of yours seems so connected and so expressive. Yeah! I kind of know that feeling that you don’t know how to express it and that is the unimaginable paradox to all this stuff. You seem to be fully aware that this is all pre verbal, and yeah! what do we do when it all comes to the surface??? It so fucking easy to just say “feel it” … even though it’s an unbearable feeling, and what appears to be an unfeelable feeling..
For what it’s worth, all I can say is that your progress as I have seen you, seems to have gone in leaps and bounds. It sort of makes me pause somewhat wondeing if what I may say is in anyway supportive and encouraging. I just hope so.
Jack
Hi Jack
On the contrary, your comment is, was very helpful.
As I was reading it, I calmed down. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel so lonely. As if I was at the outer edge of the universe. You brought me back, I started to feel amongst humans.
It is really diabolical. I am lucky to have friends. Good friends, here in OZ, in USA, in Hungary and Romania. Oh, and Israel. However, as I am always in a feeling, I feel lonely, alone, detached.
You brought me back. Thank you.
On an other note my friend, Joe, is still in a coma. Although occasionally he opens his eyes, he is not with us. He got transferred to a private room, adjacent to the ICU unit. The doctors are now waiting to see if neurological rehabilitation is possible. It’s up to Joe from now on. Unfortunately, everything is against him. His age, almost 71, he had 5 heart by-passes 15 years ago. As he has been lying in bed virtually without moving for close to 3 weeks, he had developed ‘deep vein thrombosis, in his lower legs.
Oy Vey.
Yesterday the grumpies met up near my local beach. I walked down, 15 minutes. Being with these old farts was nice. I was a little bit on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. While we were together I was fine.
Then the oldest guy 81 and I went for a walk along the beach. I usually pick him up and bring him home, as he has advanced I think it’s called Parkinson’s disease. His hands and legs shake all the time.
He said he wanted to make his own way to our get together, as he knew I enjoy walking down and back to the
Beach.
That did it. My headache instantly
Sprang into action. By the time I got home I was ready to pass out.
So I
Learned an other lesson. If you want to be nice to me, DO NOT BE NICE TO ME. It hurts to much. It really, really sucks.
Tom,
I am so sorry to hear about your friend, I hope there will be some positive news from the tests.
do you think the headache might be connected to some feeling you keep down?
do you cry or allow yourself to do so when you feel like it might be where you could go?
would you be embarassed to do so in front of your old friend with the Parkinsons for example?
I ask all of this out of concern, those headaches sound pretty serious..
Xmas approaching, we will go celebrate the eve at our mom’s, and my brother’s woman will be there as well, after four years of absence..
i don’t look forward to her being there, dealing with our mom is hard work enough sometimes.
it feels sometimes like I am learning to be ‘the good parent’ with her, trying to find a balance between patience and firmness, remaining gentle but setting boundaries.
not an easy task as kids learn and adjust but an 84-year old mom is pretty stuck in her habits and tends to repeat them endlessly.
but will make the best of things or try to do so at least.
off to a massage at a friend’s home today, can use it, will ask the massagiste to focus on shoulders and arms, laptop and tension syndrome t
I’d call it, smiley.
happy holiday season to all of you,
Margaret and cat
Hi Margaret
No. I have no trouble crying in front of my friends. I am know amongst them as the ” sensitive one”. And amazingly enough, they like it.
Am I crying about whatever is causing my headaches? No. I don’t know, at any level, at this stage, what is causing them. Anything I would say here, now, would be speculative.
The only thing I can say, that after I post this, I’m heading out to the cemetery, to my mum’s grave. I am going to have my session with Barry while I’m out there.
The last couple of days I’ve been thinking a lot about my mum.
I WANT HER! NOW! I want to be able to connect with her.
You fool, you, Tom. Don’t you understand you can’t get anything from her. You idiot!
She is 6 feet under ground. Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’ll sit on her grave. Maybe something will sip though to me. I’ve been a good boy.I WANT YOU MUM! It kills me not to have you!!!!!!
MUUUUUUUUUM!!!!!
Tom
PS I’ll now go and punish myself.
Maybe you can get something from her, Tom.
Please add a new page – 699 comments …. and counting
“Somethin’ came along, grabbed a hold of me, And it felt just like a ball OF PAIN” (Apologies to Janis Joplin). Oh, Christmas-time, what a joy! I should say the things that are hurting me, but why bother.
“And I say, oh, whoa, whoa, now hon’, tell me why, Why does every single little tiny thing I hold on to go wrong?”
I really gotta laugh. Z just said, “Are you feeling hopeless?” Whoa, that doesnt quite cover it. Anyway, I should feel thankful for all my blessings. I got steak for the dog who is getting very close to going to the black. I got a job with 2 dick bosses. I prayed for rain and it finally came, but since I am old, i barely enjoy hearing it dropping out of my door anymore. I found 2 boxes of Boca Burgers that had somehow slid under a shelf in the freezer. They look and smell a little funny, but i got lucky and cooked some eggs to throw on top of them, and I only broke 2 of the yolks. But just think how the poor and homeless feel and I feel ashamed of myself. Well, not really. But Christmas, for me, is about stuff i never got or stuff that I lost forever.
Tom,
what did you mean when you said you’d go now and punish yourself?
M
Hi Margaret
I did have my session with Barry while I was sitting on my mother’s grave. On the way to the cemetery I started crying. I realised that I’ve been avoiding going to visit her grave, even though I thought about it frequently in the recent past.
I didn’t go because I was thinking that I keep wanting form her, and there is NO WAY, that I am going to get anything from her. I didn’t go because I was avoiding the pain.
So, I started my session saying I want my mum. I kept wanting my mum. And I still; want my mum.
That’s all that comes into my mind. I WANT YOU MUM!!!!!!!!
It seems to be never ending. JUST WANT MY MUM>
I was a good boy. I didn’t do anything wrong. I just want you!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
Tom
Tom, I can relate a lot to what you describe. I get to feelings over and over again about my mother. Yesterday about a day I was remembering when she left home. It might have been the day when she was gone for good. If she did come back, it wasn’t for long, and there wasn’t anything at all I was getting from her at that point. But I was extremely deprived and still hoping, and still hoping until now. A lot of this is baby feelings. From the time I was a baby my mother was sick and became progressively worse. There was less and less to get from her. This caused a big disconnection for me because my relationship with her went quickly down hill and then she was gone. If I never started with this therapy it’s hard for me to imagine where I’d be. It would be kind of impossible to have a life walking around with all this deprivation and no outlet or relief. Phil
Hi Phil
I sat on the grave touching the peculiar stone I choose. I touched the top of grave and the stone felt weathered. And then I touched the side of the grave. That felt smooth. The rest of my session I kept patting, touching the stone.
Is that how my mum’s skin felt like? At least I was allowed to touch the stone.
When I left the cemetery I developed a stupendous headache again. Later in the day I walked down the beach, lied down and promptly fell asleep.
I woke up with such a monumental headache, I got scarred. I thought of calling the ambulance. Then slowly I talked myself down from my panic.
Tom, you’re in a feeling. That’s all. Bear with it. You are getting somewhere, even though it hurts like hell.
So I went in for a quick dip and a shower. Slowly my headache subsided to a sustainable level.
Oh, what a price to pay for all
My unmet needs. And to think of it to what degree it affected my life.
What life? Most of the time it feels like “I’m doing life”. Like a prisoner. Yes, a prisoner of pain.
Oy Vey.
Tom
Tom – I would see a doctor. I would not kid myself along the lines of that’s a feeling coming up. That sounds it could be really serious who knows what is going on there. no need to be a martyr to or for your belief system. But I would try to find out before it is too late. Your life could be in danger,what if you are having a blood clot or a stroke. I would not fuck around with this.
“I would not kid myself along the lines of that’s a feeling coming up” So!!!! it appears YOU would not KID yourself. Leave Tom to come to his own sense of what is taking place within him. I take it you are in touch with at least one doctor and no doubt that is where your ‘HEAD’ lies. I suspect that Tom is more cognoscente of himself than you are; about him..
Jack
The Keeper of the Crypt is ever vigilant, ever ready to bat away any doubts about his belief system (real or imagined) This is fucking irresponsible but it makes sense I suppose in a effed up way. Jack YOU might as well die for your belief system after all you have lived for it the major part of your life. A greater love no man had but to lay down his life………………….I doubt you have many ‘friends’ but you have your ‘beliefs’………..
But Tom seriously dude do you have any idea what you are playing with here. This sounds VERY serious that is if what you are saying is accurate. Your freaking brain is a delicate piece of hardware and software if your computer kept crashing wouldn’t you have it looked at at least. You obviously also have let your common sense be hijacked by your belief system and that’s MY F-E-E-L-IN-G
I hope that prevents another diatribe from the Keeper of the Crypt (sounds like it might make a good movie maybe replace the one the North Koreans stymied) though I doubt it. Most people get an ‘out’ when they talk like that but nothing works for me. Enmity and eternal hatred from the guy who warns about turning feelings into facts…………………which seems exactly what he does.
No actually I don’t have a doctor. I understand you do though to keep track of all the pills you take while endlessly yakking about ‘natural heath’ through F-E-E-L-I-N-G-S. Hypocrite just like your ‘guru’…………..
My oldest son arrived just a little while ago from college and that has me feeling very good. We hardly ever get to see him. It’s really feeling like the holidays have arrived. Also I’m feeling better because of my buddy session yesterday. Tom, I’m hoping you got some relief from your session. Phil Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 17:34:26 -0500 Subject: Re: [New comment] Behind the Scenes part6
Hi Phil
No. I can’t say I got relief. I just feel what needs to be felt.
In the past I was often apprehensive feeling “a feeling”, as that was like opening a trapdoor to a more painful feeling. Or shall I say the same “pain”, but feeling it more, or in more depth.
Now when I feel ,seems even more debilitating.
It is hard to come to terms with the notion that I was left so deprived. That I miss my mum, or the be more accurate , A MUM. A fictional mum, a mum I never had.
My take is that I’m on the right track, but it takes time, as the pain is so unbearable. I only wish I didn’t feel
So sad and weighed down all the time.
Tom
Tom – that would not be my take. It seems to me (MY F-E-E-L-I-N-G imagine this said in a high pitched ‘strangled’ English accent a kind of ‘happy’ Winston Churchill) you are really playing with fire/ Get yourself to a doctor and tell him EXACTLY what is happening and try to put your beliefs away for a while. You might be surprised you might feel a whole lot better………………
HI Tom, You say when you feel now, it seems more debilitating. That sounds like an extremely difficult phase you are going through. I hope you can get through enough that you don’t feel sad and weighed down all the time. Phil
WordPress.com
Thomas Verzar commented: “Hi Phil No. I can’t say I got relief. I just feel what needs to be felt. In the past I was often apprehensive feeling “a feeling”, as that was like opening a trapdoor to a more painful feeling. Or shall I say the same “pain”, but feeling it more, or in”
SONNET 30
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
going over old stuff on desktop ran into Shakespeare and felt like posting hem again onhere as he seems to sum it all up so beautfully
Margaret p
dear Tom,
so do you feel like punishing yourself for still needing her?
do you feel ashamed about that?
M
Hi Margaret
I suppose it is more like I am being punished for needing my mum. No, I do not feel ashamed for needing her.
It’s more like having to accept and coming to terms with her not being there for me. Not anticipating my needs. Was easily talked out of responding to me, my needs, by my dad.
Going to the cemetery was an interesting realisation for me.
When I saw my mum’s grave, I felt my need.
Seeing my grandma’s grave, finally I was OK with her, wasn’t rejecting her. It felt good. She passed away 12 years ago.
But when I saw my dad’s grave I was instantly angry. I “could’ve killed him”. Wow. That was a very strong reaction. Even after his death, 5 years later, I still get nothing from him. It’s beyond belief.
Oh well. Back to the cave of pain, I suppose.
Tom
…………and I saw the great blunder my teachers had made……………….
I had my recurring dream about having to clean up an enormmous chaos, this time mainly dirty dishes.
but there were some significant differences, one was that my mother was actually giving me a hand this time, cooperating well in washing the plates I handed her.
the other difference was most things were actually clean already, mostly they only needed to be sorted out and ranged in their respective drawers.
it was still a lot of work, hundreds of spoons, forks, etc., but still, a major step forward from being overwhelmed with filth and dusty disorder!
feels like a positive sign, smiley!
M
This below to show I suppose I am not just picking on Jack’s ‘belief system’ there are others……………………
The Electric Universe paradigm was well represented at the NPA conference, with eleven speakers and a special ‘Evening with the Electric Universe.’ From the EU perspective it was refreshing to find an accord with other scholars that our current beliefs in science need root and branch revision. Chief amongst the casualties is Einstein and his illusory theories of relativity. This result was clearly predicted in 1933 by the Australian, Arthur Lynch, who wrote in The Case Against Einstein:
“I have no doubt that there will arise a new generation who will look with a wonder and amazement, deeper than now accompany Einstein, at our galaxy of thinkers, men of science, popular critics, authoritative professors, and witty dramatists, who have been satisfied to waive their common sense in view of Einstein’s absurdities. Then to these will succeed another generation, whose interest will be that of a detached and half-amused contemplation; and in the limbo of forgotten philosophies they may search for the cenotaph of Relativity.”
That it has taken so long for the blinders to begin to fall away speaks volumes for how difficult it is to shake beliefs. We seem incapable of learning from history so we are repeating the Galileo story in the 21st century. This time it is the creed of scientism and the pseudo-religion of the big bang that stands in the way of progress. In truth, we have no real understanding of matter, light, magnetism, gravity, quantum behavior, subatomic particles, stars, galaxies, or… need I go on? Stories of creation and what did and did not happen in the universe over the past 13.7 billion years are crackpot schemes by celebrities of less talent than many in the NPA but greater prestige. We have too much information and too little real understanding. Many of the things we are taught “just ain’t so.” This realization frees the mind to view everything afresh. It is the spark required to rekindle enthusiasm for science and drive progress. There is so much to be discovered.
Soooooooo!!!!! who’s belief system has any validity … your’s, mine or anyone else of the homosapien bent?????
If you were to have read my first book … carefully; I suggested there that the human endeavor to wrap it all in science was dubious to say the least. One belief for another; and forever in flux.
My way of dealing with it all is to concern myself ONLY with my feelings. That way there is no arguing with them… it’s my status quo … period end. It’s such a relatively simple notion and transcends all beliefs … and remains for me the only thing I can be sure of … which in essence is merely a carry over from my feelings at birth and gestation; often referred to as OPINIONS.
It seems everyone is a ‘crack-pot’ BUT you. I wonder where and how you got to be such a guru.
Jack
Phil,
the story about your mother sounds pretty bad.
how old were you when she left, and did you see her again in later years?
if you’d rather not go into it here that’s ok of course, then I will have to come over and ask you again at some retreat, as I really feel interested.
wish you a very nice xmas with your family!!
M and cat
Margaret, My mother left home for good when I was six. But she was sick, depressed, and notfunctioning before that while she was still at home. I did see her after this but there isnothing good I remember. She didn’t talk, for example, at least not to me. She passedaway when I was 11. After years of therapy I still don’t remember getting anything positive from her. I assume there must have been something but it is apparently submerged under all the negativememories. I hope you have a nice Christmas,Phil
WordPress.com
Margaret commented: “Phil, the story about your mother sounds pretty bad.
how old were you when she left, and did you see her again in later years?
if you’d rather not go into it here that’s ok of course, then I will have to come over and ask you again at some retreat,”
p.s. and to all of you of course, a nice holiday season and a fine 2015!
or did I already say that??
M
WOW what the fuck is happening to me? I am actually listening to music. old crap, heart, clapton, hank williams, b52’s. jeez the next thing you know, i’ll be bursting out in tears…
oh. sag sag. wont last
as in sagitarrius, which i am, but they did their best to kill in me
Leonard Cohen “There for you”. Well, I was there for her, barely. How fucking dead i am.
For who?
In a few more days I’ll be travelling to Winnipeg for Christmas. I don’t like being uprooted. I’m still recovering from the November retreat, and soon I’ll be doing it all over again…taking myself out of my safe routine and reaching out to connect this time to a different set of family and friends.
I’m happy to say I’m feeling some of the benefits already of the retreat. After a little deeper crying and acceptance of life long aloneness, I feel more centered in the realization that there is nothing to save me but myself. As such I hold myself back a little less in my living of life. The progress is a nice reward, but there is so much more to do. There is ever more fear and emptiness to deal with that holds me back.
I’m glad that I’m going to work tomorrow. I need the anchor, predictability, sense of belonging, and distraction from the rest of my life. I dread when I don’t have that anymore. Particularly this time of year when relationships can be especially warm and rewarding, or a person can feel very empty and alone, or both.
On Friday I had pleasant evening dinner with a nice lady from my bereavement group, followed by a 3 km drive through a nice Christmas lights display. I saw her again briefly the next morning, to return something that she forgot in my car, and she welcomed me with a very friendly smile. I should be pleased, and I am, yet I am afraid and troubled. To be spending time with nice women who stir me means that my life is changing a lot. It means that I’m moving away from the anchor that was the life Noreen and I built. It means I’m on my own now, not knowing where life will go.
Spending time in Winnipeg with family and friends, I’ll wonder whether to move back there when I retire. It won’t be easy to do. Like I am now, I will be on my own but starting over not knowing how life will unfold, not having a dream where to take it yet. Particularly, I’d be back where I grew up, or went through the motions of growing up but really hunkered down and hid my way through life. I think it would bring up a lot of feelings to take my life back to Winnipeg.
My job calms me. It’s scary imagining a future without it. One thing I know I want of my future is to share it with someone. Even that’s scary, because it will be building something all new,
I wish you all, my fellow bloggers, a warm and happy Christmas holiday.
Tom,
ok, thanks,I was merely wondering why you had said ‘now I’ll go and punish myself’, thanks for clarifying.
are you going to celebrate the holidays with your family?
how old is your gransn now?
hope you will have a nice time despite all those sad feelings, both things can sometimes exist at the same time.
the sadness forms part of you, but there might still be room for more pleasant feelings as well and I wish you can enjoy some of those.
M
Hi
I was driving back from my volunteer work and started to formulate how I want to describe what happened.
At the behest of higher authority, Barry B. for those of you who I haven’t talked about, I started some years ago, what is call ” Grief and Bereavement” support. Which means lending an ear for those who lost someone close to them, “father, mother”, brother, sister, wife, husband etc. you get the picture.
My new client, as I think I may have mentioned before, is a 91 year old Polish Holocaust survivor, who lost her 65 year old son a year ago, due to a heart attack.. She already lost her husband 40 years ago, due to a heart attack.. She never re-married. She said she couldn’t, she loved her husband, loves her husband to this day.
I’m getting there. In a round about way.
The last couple of weeks she’s been asking me to take her shopping for Xmas presents and some other food items. She lives in a Nursing home.
Guess what? I’ve been freaking out, as I thought I ” can’t do this shopping business”. I checked with my supervisor and also with the nursing home, if it’s OK to take her out. they both said Yes. Bugger.
The lady can hardly move. She has a walker. She’s had a heart attack and a stroke.
I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO DO THIS. It’s beyond me. I am not up to it.
Well, today the day came and we went shopping. You not going to believe this. We did OK. She was able to get almost everything she wanted. A couple of times we had to slow down as she got tired and somewhat disorientated. I sat her down on her walker to revive.
When we got back to the nursing home she thanked me profusely, as she already did a number of times while we were out. Then she came up to me, and gave me a kiss.
Why did she do that? I started to get tearful.
Like innumerable times with my grandson, I feel that I do not know how to be a grandpa. I do not know how to be there for an old lady. I haven’t got what it takes.
And then in spite of my misgivings, I seem to be doing OK.
So, what’s the feeling? It’s time I got there, right?
With the old lady, what comes up is , wait for it,……massive resentment. I am angry that I can function. It brings up the feeling that I WANT TO BE TAKEN CARE OF. Surprise, surprise.
With my grandson what comes up is me wanting my grandpa. My mum’s dad. The one I never saw, nor ever met. If I had him, then I would know how to be a good grandpa.
I hate this idea that as you move along in therapy you get better ‘at life’. What about what I didn’t get? When is that coming? Don’t tell me …….NEVER!!! I don’t want to hear that.!!!!!!!! Stop it!!!!!!!
Tom
Ouch Tom! With those last sentences you hit the nail directly on the head!!
Phil,
thanks, now it comes back to me.
it is such a sad story.
as you turned out a very nice person your dad or someone else must have been there to some degree, which of course does not make up for your mom not being there.
Tom, that story was very touching.
the resentment and the tears you started feeling seem like two connected but still different feelings, but it all makes so much very sad sense.
you do seem to be able to let the sad and hopeless little boy live hand in hand with your adult and very caring functioing self that means so much in other people’s life.
hope the little boy can enjoy xmas together with the big boy,
M
a few days ago, four to be exact, started my third stretch without painkillers in the house.
the first time,two or three months ago, I lasted 8 days.
the second time, after emptying one package using half a tablet or one tablet upon going to bed on 3 out of four evenings, I stopped again and lasted two whole weeks.
then I got another prescription, again using a tablet on most evenings to relax and faa
ll asleep .
now I stopped again, hoping to keep increasing the ‘clean’ timespans until getting the habit more and more out of my system.
I dreamed last night I was sitting at a table with my dad, mom and brother. I saw both my mo and brother trying heroin, and I started crying, explaining to my dad how it was poison and it should not be used.
it feels like this is a last and major hurdle I am working o to conquer, to be able to deal with the next bunch of old monsters.
i am glad I manage to do so right now, and feel good about it despite all the extra tensio of these chru
istms days.
me and my brother have prepared everything to go to our mom on xmas eve, to give her a nice evening.
she did buy the xmas icecream so she does not need to do anti
thing else.
still she called me yesterday evening and told me she was feeling panicky about the festivities.
I tried to reassure her, repeating we would take care of everything, and she repeated a few times she does not feel capable to organize such a thing anymore.
i hope very much things will go well, despite my sister in law joining us again after four years of absence, in which she never came along with my brother.
xmas seems to raise hopes against all rationality, hopes to have some good ties and closeness, so it feels all the more painful if it does not happen, or does not get past the usual level.
and i
ve
even if things go reasonably well, there is still the pain of the apprehension of in a not so far future having to deal with the permanent loss of our 84 year old mom and the connecting hopes to fill the craving depths of unmet need.
still, we are doing all we can do, and we know that and me and my brother acknowledge it as well.
sadness, fear, tenderness, irritation, care, anger, love and loneliness, it is all there.
up to us to make the best of the mix.
M and cat
Fiona, sorry for yet another blog posting..
feel so open and sensitive, teary in other words these days.
just saw such a touching item on the news about a music school in Nazareth, started by an Arabian musician with a lot of Jewish musician friends. they teach both Palestinians and Jews, and a violin ensemble of Jewish and Palestinian young guys is now visiting and performing in Belgium.
they also perform over there as well, they sounded timid but they play like angels and it is so touching, this initiative in which music pulls down the walls between people and creates beauty full of meaning.
this morning Prokofiff on the radio, with his ballet music for Romeo and Julia, the music expressing the clash between the Montagues and the other family, touched me because of the power of the unavoidability of the pain, the hurt embedded in the fate, and the sadness involved.
there was something in that reality, the reality of sadness being a big part of life, that also made me cry, while also enjoying the fabulous beauty of that music.
if I may choose a word for my new year’s resolution, it will be ‘kindness’.
I’d love to hear which words or resolutions or hopes other bloggers might have.
once more best wishes to all,
M
Margaret: This seems to be my yearly resolution:- “More feelings … less thinking”.
Jack
Hi Boys and Girls
Wishing you ALL a Merry Xmas, Happy Hanukkah and a fulfilling New Year.
Tom
hi Kids
Another Wednesday. A other meeting of the Grumpies. As the head of the team, has been away in Melbourne looking after his son and two grandchildren, I took over the role of organising the boys where to get together. We usually meet on Wednesdays and Saturdays for a couple of hours.
So what happened today for me? Hah?
Well, as i stepped outside our front door, I felt totally overwhelmed and hopeless, yet again. Why the fuck am I expecting that a short get together will fulfil my constant need to be with my mum? Why? Why am I so stupid? I can’t believe that after all this time, I still hope to have my needs met in the present. I work hard at it. After all, I built a life for myself, didn’t I?
So then why the fuck do I feel empty, lonely, detached, aaaaaand…..wait for it…………nobody wants me.
The fact that my clients call me constantly and even give me a kiss, has no value. The fact that the boys are happy being with me, with me organising them, goes out the window. The fact that people send me Xmas cards from 4 continents, means nothing. as I still don’t feel wanted.
How is this all possible? Why me? What have I done wrong? I want my mum!!!!!!!!!!!! do you hear!!!!!!!!!!! Now!!!!!!!!!!!
Tom
I hear you Tom. You’re making me want to cry.
I’m busy with last minute things for the holiday. It’s great to be able to stay connected here on the blog and I want to wish everyone a merry Christmas. Phil
WordPress.com
Larry commented: “I hear you Tom. You’re making me want to cry.”
Tom: I read you load and clear. Yeah! if only, if only … and now all you are left with is to say it and keeps saying it … “I want my mum”. “I want my mum”, “I want my mum”. AND THAT IS SUCH A HUGE, HUGE NEED.
Jack.
Tom: I read you loud and clear. Yeah! if only, if only … and now all you are left with is to say it and keeps saying it … “I want my mum”. “I want my mum”, “I want my mum”. AND THAT IS SUCH A HUGE, HUGE NEED.
Jack.
Dunno how it all got repeated
OldTimers setting in … I guess.
Everyoine have great festivities.
Jack
“OldTimers” LOL, you’re doing alright Jack 😉
Erron
Erron: Yeah I guess … comparatively. I shouldn’t complain … but I love it. What else makes the world go round???? 🙂
Jack
Hi, I wish you all marry Xmas and a Happy New Year.
Tom I share with you your feelings that put me into tears. It is a hard and long way feeling helpless, but a rewarding one.
Margaret I share with you the mixed and contradictory feelings.
ack W. You are wright, the more ones feel the less intellectual ones becomes.
For all of you: Feliz Navidad
Happy Christmas Everybody, here’s something…………..
back home, morning after visit to our mom on xmas eve.
she was teary when we arrived, had been searching on and on for the gifts she seemed to remember she had for us, very distressed she could not find them.
i tried to reassure her it was no problem, as she was gonna give us some money and wanted to put it in envelopes, so maybe she had laid them somewhere and they would turn up eventually etc.
but she kept being distressed about it, despite the efforts of me, brother and sister in law.
then it occurred to me she might not have put the money in the envelopes and indeed it turned out it was still in her purse,, so she could finally hand it out to us. she kept checking all evening though if she had given us something already.
but after that bit of a difficult take-off the evening had very nice moments as well.
we bought her a ‘white board to put on her fridge with markers and magnets to write down all she needed to remember during the days, and a digital photoframe, containing also a clock and a calendar with the red light above the present day.
we hope it will help her to know what day it is etc. and we put pictures on it for her, my brother, me and the cat, some birds etc. and will add some more pictures later on.
after dinner my brother was dividing the leftover food, a tray for our mom and one for me to take home, and some for them.
but my mom kept protesting it was too much and asking if they did not want it or if I did have enough, over nd over until my brother started losing his patience and said why do you have to turn everything in a struggle?
then I said to my mom, gently, why don’t you just say ‘thank you, that’s nice’?
and to my big and pleasant surprised she immediately got it and said ‘thank you’ in a sweet and vulnerable way.
this to me illustrates so well what goes on. all the tension she carrries to keep her fear under control, and the way she acts it out by trying to control her surroundings .
her big quality is she is able to take it in and respond in a feeling way as well besides her act outs.
after opening all the gifts and eating cake and ice-cream, we took some pictures of me and our mom and then my brother and her and the three of us, which was also a vulnerable but precious moment.
at saying goodbye my mom did so a couple of times, having forgotten she had already kissed and hugged us, but noone complained.
i noticed how she and my brother held each other tight for a long time, and it still touches me thinking of it as it was so genuine, long and real.
it seems to mean more to me than me receiving a hug, actually I did not, we merely kissed, but I don’t really wanted to either at that moment, did not feel the need for it, but was specially happy to see that moment of closeness from my brother and her.
had one nightmare later on about someone evil forcing his way into the house, pushing the door open while I tried to keep it closed, the rest of the family inside. I found myself yelling my brother’s name for help, over and over, and woke up terrified.
all of this might not interest anybody but well, have to try and sum it all up in some way.
mom felt pretty frail and vulnerable a lot of the time, presence of sister in law made her more uneasy probably, but at the end of the evening she was close to tears saying how wonderful her children are. I sat right next to her, and said ‘well-educated’ with a smile and that made her laugh and seemed to make her feel even better.
so after all it was a nice evening.
will call her back at noon to remind her of the leftover food etc. and just to make her and me feel good, hopefully, or well, as good as it gets anyway.
always sadness there, but that is the way it is, there is also a lot of kindness.
merry or marry Xmas to you too, Miguel, smiley
M and cat
called mom and she told me at some point she wanted to drive out somewhere by herself to go on a hike, and she said my brother had worried about it, but she added she could do it.
so I talked about it on my turn and managed to persuade her to stay close to where she lives and go for a hike there without using the car, being on her own, and she agreed without too much discussing it might be a better idea.
when `I asked her about how she liked the digital photo calendar she said it was very clear and useful.
then I called my brother to say thanks for the nice evening and to reassure him about our mom not going out with the car for a faraway hike after all.
he sounded upset but also relieved to hear she would not take that risk.
he said he had told her if she’d do things like that there was nothing we could do anymore, and he told me she had also unplugged the digital calendar to take it upstairs and therefor it was now blank and needed to be reset.
he said she is stubborn more than being forgetful, and said he had told her..
I told him we do all we can, and he agreed, and I told him too it had been nice to see the hug the night before and that our mom loves him very much.
we agreed on things being hard and tiresome but that we do our best, and chatted some more about what we both do today.
I am glad I called him to reassure him so he can relax a bit, while also it is unsettling to know how mom says to me the calendar is fine while itactually does not work anymore, but anyway, in the big picture that is a detail and can be fixed easily on a next visit.
writing this on here takes the sharp edge of feeling lonely and scared and isolated. feels better to share and feel connected.
have a strong headache since yesterday, could use a good painkiller, smiley, paracetamol does not work well but hey, luckily everything is closed so no temptation to call for a prescription, lust having to sit out feeling ill, tense, headache and hoping the nightmares will slowly keep unraveling those big fears that are so hard to attain.
will make it a nice day here just for me and the cat who is snoozing by my feet, her belly full and smelling of pine as I had to put more cream on her scratches..
i love my brother, the thought of writing that down made me teary so here it is..
feel so protective of him too..
so much sadness to go around..
M
cat is ill, I am ill, so can’t go to a good friend’s party, and mom called twice already confused and distressed.
shit happens..
stil without painkillers, if could make a wish would make the cat better. her scratches seem to be infected again slightly. just gave her half a cortisol pill to stop the itchng and put a tiny bit of pinesmelling cream on one spot hoping it won’t bother her too much as to make her scratch even more..
argh!
no studying for days already, will turn an audio course on for a while just to soothe my mind..
M
Some of my Xmas holiday is good and nice. And for some of it I’ve had high hopes that have been dashed. I’m surprised how much the hope imbued my life with lightness and vitality, and how much the disappointment engulfs me in black heavy empty despairing aloneness. I need to cry but I can’t because I’m a day’s drive from my home where it is safe to cry. I want to leave now and go home, but I will try to continue my Xmas visit here a few more days as planned. I’m struck by how I live on the fine edge of feeling life and joy and meaning is within my reach, and in the next few heartbeats life feels so heavy, dark and alone that I wonder whether it’s worth it.
Larry, what were the high hopes? And what was disappointing?
I have no one to spend Xmas with in Saskatoon. Coming to Winnipeg for Xmas feels like coming home, except not this time. I feel aware how lives here have moved on and I’ve not been part of it. I feel I don’t belong. I am a visitor.
With family I visited Mom in the nursing home. She didn’t recognize me. I expected it would eventually happen because she has vascular dementia. It hurt more than I acknowledged to myself at first. One of my planned outings with a friend was cancelled, and the next day outing with another friend was had to be cancelled. Luckily I had an empty house yesterday morning and could let the feeling up. I cried how alone I feel and have no one to go through life with. The feeling has deep roots.
Not to worry. I rolled with the punches and re-arranged my calendar. In reality I’ve been with people nearly all of my visit here, and am enjoying it. I’ve been alone maybe no more than three hours total.
I have have a strong sense that I am a visitor in their lives, that I’m alone and lost in mine, feeling vulnerable but aware how much connections with them..with family and friends, sustains me and helps me negotiate my life alone.
Hi Boys and Girls
Hope you had a reasonable time during the last few days including Hanukkah, Xmas and Boxing Day.
We did nothing during Hanukkah, had Suzi’s grand child for the whole day on Xmas day, baby sitting. He is now three years old. He is a delight.
On Boxing Day, my kids came over to our place, as the weather forecast wasn’t good to picnic in the park, a tradition my son started for my mum the last few years.
It was nice to have my kids over.
The last few weeks I had trouble with my neck, left shoulder, mid back, lower back and wherever I have a back. Today I started to reflect that my condition is peculiar, as I’ve been going to a Sport’s Chiropractor the last few weeks. Some days I am fine, other days as if I never received any treatment.
Last night when tried to get off the couch, I thought I was paralysed, my mid back was in so much pain, I could hardly move.
So, what have I done lately to feel like this. NOTHING!!! Then what is going on?
As I said in the past, daily, I get headaches and I feel I cannot cope, Today after I dropped Suzi off at work, a 10 minute car ride, on the way home, I nearly passed out from an overwhelming headache. These are not ordinary headaches. They seem to come deep from the back of my head, from the brain stem. ( I am theorising a little here)
I am starting to think that my back aches of late, and my head aches, are connected. Not that I know how.
I have been resentful lately because the weather hasn’t been that good so that I could go to the beach, when I have the time. Finally today is. It is 31C.
So I indulged myself and went down about 11 am. Usually I go in the afternoon, after I did my chores. You know, ” doing life”.
On the way to the beach I was worried that I may pass out due to my head ache. No, I didn’t, I made it all the way, all of a 13 minute walk. Went in for two dips, slept a few minutes and walked home. By then, I was ready to pass out, and I did.
Interestingly, although I only slept 15-20 minutes, after waking up, my sense of resentment dissipated, and I was ready to write my report to my supervisor, about my volunteer work, and very importantly, I was able to sit down and write to you. I feel like I can function again At least for a while.
While I was on the beach, I kept asking myself, Tom, what do you want out of life? What can I do to feel like I am living my life, not ” doing life”?
Today I felt like I really ” cannot make it”. I want to live, but something is holding me back. Why?
I don’t want to copy life, ” Do Life”, I want to live my life. I want to be able to look forward to things, friends, get togethers, trips whatever. I don’t want to emulate life, as I did all my life. I want to live it.
So, what’s the secret? What’s my secret to living my life in full?
It’s a rhetorical question, I know I have to find my solution. But boy it sucks in the meantime.
By for now.
Tom
Tom I have read your posts with interest because I went through those baby feelings too, you spoke of a few weeks ago only last summer where I just felt ineffective and hoped no one would ask me to do anything important. About your physical symptoms of headache and backache now– I’ve heard it said in primal discussions that things we think are linked to old feelings may simply have a present-day neurological basis. I am with Margaret, it probably would be a good idea to have symptoms checked out (maybe a ct scan or mri). I guess when we are in our 60’s things can go awry, can’t they. Hope you can see your doc, if only for a check-up. Really appreciate your sharing. It helps to know we are not alone in having our early feelings. Sylvia
Hi Sylvia
Apologies for being so tardy responding to you.
I’ve been going to a chiropractor for a couple of months, and now switched back to my old physiotherapist, as he seems more effective.
The stupendous headaches have subsided, for now. I suspect that they could’ve been a combination of old feelings AND lack of good physical condition. I can’t remember what came first. My bad posture and the accompanying bad back and shoulder and neck, OR the headaches.
Either way, now I just get overwhelmed, quickly, at any moment, when the idea that no matter what I do, how I do it, in the present, nothing helps. I get, that I need to feel my old need for my mum. But I don’t seem to get any surcease from it. It just gets worse and deeper.
I am preparing myself for my mum’s third anniversary commemoration this Saturday in the Synagogue. I am already having mental pictures of me standing in that tiny place of worship, trying to follow the service and breaking down and wanting to cry, HOWL. Would prefer not to embarrass the congregation.
I already have experience of breaking down in front of my class mates of 54 years ago last August in Romania, in the assembly hall.
I suppose what is hard to let in, is the constant, non-abating need I have for my mum. I just want her. I want her now. I wanted her a second ago and I want her again the next second. And the day is long.
I watch young mothers with their babies and toddlers and in my mind I often criticize them if I think they are not attentive to their babies. I want to walk over to them and give them a slap and tell them to wake up, your baby wants you.
There is no end to this.
Tom
Tom,
you sound like you are in the middle of processing a lot of stuff.
about the headaches, if ever you notice you can’t bend your head forward anymore in order to touch your breast with your chin, go and check a neurologist as that with the headaches might be a sign of meningitis or another serious thing that needs to be treated.
just telling you from my own experience.
also watch your bloodpressure etc.
but I get the impression you are dealing and coping with things in your own way quite well.
thanks for sharing all of that, it is very clear and open.
best wishes, M
Margaret asked about New Year Resolutions, I decided I will try a little New Year ‘Evolution’ along the lines of doing a little less being a second rate version of other people and tending/working towards being a little bit more a first rate version of me. This is not ‘original’ I heard it on the radio so I suppose I am STILL being ‘a second rate version’ of someone else. Oh well doing my best I suppose…………..Happy New Year to everybody (including and not forgetting our “Ultimate Guru”).
STILL ‘channeling’ other people here I heard this on the radio and it would never be my intention to glorify in any way the US Military (imo probably the major ‘pest’ on the planet) but PTSD gotta be a rotten condition to suffer from, I know I have my own ‘version’ of it……………..
best wishes from me too for all of you!!
had a fright this afternoon when I could not find a file anymore containing the statistics results of weeks of work and could only find the short and useless first short version of the setup..
after searching like crazy finally managed to retrieve the file from the ‘wastbin’ on my laptop where it had accidentally ended up…
huuuge sigh of relief!!!
well, those were my emotional fireworks for the day so far!
tomorrow will go out with friends and friday back to vet with cat who still is not getting much better, on the contrary..
tonight she and me keep each other company at home.
yesterday my brother came by with some Dutch kind of new year’s fresh ‘doughnuts’, not healthy but still very nice to have some cosy time here just the two of us.
afterwards he went to our mom but I stayed here.
called her today and all is fine.
am considering not going to summer retreat this year but going maybe to a sailing camp where you can learn to sail independently, also while having a handicap.
the Netherlands are very good at these things.
have not yet made up my mind completely but it feels very good to feel free to decide, without too much breaking my head over it, just going with my own preference.
feels nice to feel i don’t need to or have to do either thing, can just do what pleases me most at a given time.
have two tough courses and wanted to do the sailing for a long time already.
Adding the trip to L.A. as well seems just a bit too much right now, not that I can’t do it, but well, it is also nice to feel free to skip a year, feeling my life is not as empty anymore over here.
am sure I’d miss al the action though, and would miss seeing friends, including the therapists.
will go with the flow of my own personal wave and see what comes up..
happy new year to all of you,
Margaret
Hi
First of all, thank you Margaret and Sylvia. Yes, I am careful, I do a yearly medical check up and I take my health seriously. Yes, I can bend my chin to my chest. My blood pressure has been very normal the last 20 years.
What happens daily, at the moment, is I am confronted with the question: ” Is this my life?”.
Is this it? Do I have to accept what I’ve got now? Is it not going to get ” better”?
I’ve tried everything I can think of to feel better, besides therapy.
I have do have a life. I have family, kids, grand kids, friends, acquaintances. I am still working, albeit slowing down. I am doing volunteer work. I get together with the Grumpies twice a week. We meet socially with friends.
Then what the fuck is wrong? Why do I not feel connected to you, and my friends? Why do I feel lonely, detached, when I am surrounded with people? Why is every contact with almost anybody result in me feeling that I somehow ” I didn’t make it?”.
It is so hard. All I want is my mum holding me, caressing me, comforting me, so that I feel that all is well. Sooth me.
How come I can be in a coffee shop, see a child, smile at her/him extend my finger and the child and I have instant connection. The child will usually smile at me. Why can’t i have this myself? Why?
Tom
Tom, you are touching a nerve in me. Holding, caressing, comforting, soothing….whew!!…I need that…so much and so badly that I compress down strongly against feeling it. When I open to it a little bit, there is soooo much empty.
Margaret, when will I see you next if not at the summer retreat?
Yesterday I arrived back home after my stay in Winnipeg for the holiday. Overall it was really good being with family and friends. Even though only a visit, they fill my life, and I felt appreciated. I was with people every day, and felt how good that was. I have to try to have that here, now back at home alone on my own.
I want to share this comedy routine with you, to start the year off on a lighter note. The routine is titled “Life Is A Job”.
Something to blast off the New Year with……………………
second visit to veterinary clinic in ten days.
I felt very scared as cat’s wound on shoulder from scratching had gone worse instead of better and I wondered what the options would be.
the idea of leaving my scared cat for observation made me feel very bad, very hard to cope with..
but when I suggested some jacket for her they told me they indeed had ‘body’ like ‘catsuits for these occasions, that go around the neck and around the four paws, leaving those free to move but covering most part of the body to prevent the scratching.
underneath a tissue with desifectant cream on the wound, and back home for now with instructions to give medication, change the bandage and a spare ‘pyjama’ as accidents would happen upon using the letterbox..
she did not hide under the bed frozen with fear like some cats do, which was one relief to start with, but immediately went to check her food tray and then used the litterbox, with a case of wet pants as a result.
I solved that using tissues that iI kept changing inside the pants until most moisture had dried up.
don’t want to try and change the catsuit by myself unless really necessary as it promises to be quite a battle afte r taking one off to put another one on, over her head, front paws, and then closing the buttons around her hind legs and tail, with a struggling strongminded cat not a small venture ..
I called my catsitter to come by tomorrow for back up although the cat does not like her, a hand might be useful ..
antibiotics. cortisone, changing diapers and bandaids and then monday next visit to the clinic.
on nursing call in the meantime, but with pleasure if it helps her, I am glad she is stil at home here and seems reasonably well, laying before the fire in her fashionable outfit..
made me realize how scary it is to face the idea she might get really ill or worse..
she is my closest kin, if that is the right expression, my mate for the last ten years brightening up every day of my life..
too bad my two good friends just left this morning for their Spanish island, for three monts.
we had a lovely time yesterday going out for a few drinks and lots of laughs, and a very nice Indian meal.
now feel the need to share, but don’t want to call my mum yet, as her reaction might be very unsatisfactory with the wrong kind of advices etc.
feel too tense to study or work on statistics, so will just lay on the couch with one ear and half an eye on the cat, and listen to an audio book..
has everyone survived the new year’s lunacy in good health?
me and catsuited cat
This music and video had a surprising powerful effect on me. The feelings have something to do with being alone, naked, vulnerable, discovering who you are, faltering, dying, then finding infinity and strength in love and bonding.
It was part of church service this morning.
I feel so tired and overwhelmed with worry about the cat. am looking after her full time as during the night she also needs attention as she gets caught up in her ‘bathsuit’ during her Houdini acts at night, and also needs to be put on the litter tray regularly which takes unbutoning, patience and comforting while buttoning bak up again.
worst is when she gets a licking and fiddling attack and starts to pull out the bandage from under her catsuit, etc.
am now almost ready to take her to the vet for control visit, does not look too well yet despite some improvement.
feel so scared and on my own in this.
M
Larry,
I realized myself, late, I did not respond to you about this summer.
yes, you might have to do without me, smiley, and vice versa..
really have a lot on my plate over here right now, cat, courses, maybe moving or at least finding out ways to find a better place to stay, mom and making the transit to make her move to a nursing home eventually, etc.
just found out they need a form from her doctor and also a form from a neurologist for special care and to be admitted to go higher on the waiting list.
so having to make all those calls now.
have to go to doctor myself next week, but appointment happens to be exactly on day and hour of vet’s appointment, so mor calls to make..
right now all is overwhelming as have to keep eye on cat as much as possible, hard to combine with other stuff..
scary too, but no time to be afraid as have to be strong and funtion to deal with things..
just back from vet, she wears new ‘bathsuit’, the cat I mean, new cream, other suit is drying now and have more antibiotics and appointment next week.
so another week of 24 hour nursing call.
done with love, she is actually very cute in her wetsuit and feels like a baby on my arm when I take her to the litter tray.
best friends are out of town for three months and assistant is ill.
try not to look too far ahead and deal with stuff of the moment and write down the rest in my laptop as digital agenda broke down once more, another item on my to do list, renew some of my hardware and aply for the subsidies for the special equipments deep sigh, so much to do..
I would like to know who is still reading the blog, hello, out there. please reply to this messsage in an e-bottle!!
M and cat
Margaret – what is it with the ‘cat-suit’ I associate that with spoilt Beverly Hills types, We had many cats over the years as children but never thought of a ‘cat-suit’ didn’t know that kind of stuff even happens over there. It seems to make your life more difficult not to mention the cat’s (life) Speaking of Beverly Hills when I arrived here in 1978 and I went looking for the PI on Almont Dr in Beverly Hills I wandered around for a bit trying to find it and it seemed all over the place were grooming shops for dogs,(and maybe cats though I only remember dogs) and I wondered to myself if I had really come to the right place?. A question that has come up many times over the years…….
For someone that thought it ‘funny ha ha’ that a grown man would cry on hearing that a pet (cat) had died is a bit “off”. Margaret’s pet is extremely important to her for her own very good reasons. To and for me she does not need to explain anything other than her deep concern and love for a pet.. I get the impression that somehow you are putting her down for it. Leave her alone with her grief about her pet that is ill.
Jack
The Keeper of the Crypt comes out of his closet one more time (and it will remain a Crypt with the ‘influence’ of the likes of you)…………….leave me the f… alone, I am free to say whatever impression Margaret makes on me and in all honesty I find this constant fussing about a ‘cat-suit’ quite weird and hard for me to understand. Since when do cats wear ‘suits’ plus it constantly seems to be causing some kind of problem. But why any of it is your ‘business’ I really don’t know. You seem to have few ‘interests’ of you own but it seems I can always spur you out of the woodwork.Emotional vampire!
It just occurs to me now that it is important to the Keeper of the Crypt that it is not seen as a Crypt. So he has not only at all time to defend ‘primal theory’ and ‘primal practice’ but also any habits of ‘primal people’ that might be open to question. That’s a lot to defend. But he seems to have nothing else to do or any other ‘hobbies’ except of course to always find me in the wrong. He has bonded with his trauma and there is no shaking him off it. Emotional Dracula!
What the f is this??? Things started going downhill in 2013, and the downward slide continues. I am waiting in terror for the shoe to drop, and they keep on dropping. Or more precisely, they are being arab-thrown at the head!
What is wrong with the cat?
Otto,
thanks for asking about the cat and welcome here on the blog!
the cat has since I got her, almost ten years ago, roblems with allergy, which occasionally makes her scratch herself in the area of ears and neck.
we tried to find the source of the allergy but the only solution in the end was a low daily dose of prednisole in her diet food.
apart from an occasional more severe attack and a temporal rise of the medication she has done fine with only half a tablet a day for all those years.
but a while ago she scratched to the point of causing a wound in her neck, so I went to the vet who gave her injections and a cream.
it did not help much and I retturned to his female colleague a week later, with the wound much bigger and infected, and very scared for what they would say.
I wrote this on the blog here before, so Patrick, your conclusion about the suit being for fashion or another crazy reason makes no sense and seems to show you have read without real attention and looking for something to criticize maybe?
so anyway, I asked the vet who was concerned if there was something like a little jacket to prevent the cat from keeping the wound open while being treated, and to my great relief she said they had now specially designed ‘suits’ for that purpose.
she gave the cat two injections of antibiotics and another kind of cortisone, and put cream on the wound and an antiseptic tissue on it and then the ‘suit’ over it.
it looks like a kind of strong and elastic bathing suit with a little collar, and can be buttoned open on the bottom end, around her tail to avoid accidents on the litter tray.
it turns out to be a great help, as now finally the wound is healing bit by bit.
I managed to prevent accidents by putting the cat on her ‘toilet’ regularly after unbuttoning her, but last night, as she seems more energetic again, she tiptoed to the ltterbox and well, did a wee and got wet.
I used a bunch of tissues to put inside the suit to keep her warm while it dried, as I feared it would be a huge problem to change suits.
but then, after a succesful guided visit at 2 a.m. and finally a smelly pile of you know what, when I went back to bed she dicided to do another pee and then feeling uncomfortable as being wet again, she jumped on the bed and clearly wanted my help.
so I took all the stuff, clean suit, towel, cream, antiseptic tissues, and put her on my lap and started the adventure to change ‘cloths’ while also treating the wound carefully.
and she was ever so cooperative!
she must have felt I was actually helping her, and did not fight me at all, remained patient apart from some halfhearted protesting meows while buttoning her up on her back part..
gave her a nice lukewarm tray of diet food with her medication mixed into it as a reward and she ate all of it.
tucked her in before the gasfire as she seems to feel cold easily now, being ill, and my place has cold currents entering everywhere through the cracks.
so now her first ‘catsuit’ is soaking to be washed, and she is happily dozing and slowly getting better.
it will be a tricky moment when we take off the suit again as she will most certainly feel like scratching everywhere to start with.
will give her a good brush to make her feel ok at that point, which she enjoys, and hope for the best.
it is my cat, I love her and am responsible for her, so I do all these things with pleasure, and she feels it and trusts me.
so Patrick, far from a Beverly Hills fashion story really.
she is just a streetcat, no pedigree to explain her allergy, but it occurs more and more it seems, might be a sign of general pollution of the environment.
sorry, long story, but thanks very much for asking Otto, and Jack, for standing up for me.
Patrick, maybe this will help you to try and be less negative in your conclusions about people and their reasons and behavior.
or not, that’s up to you, I fear you might still feel critical about all of this.
I feel good though about doing this and am sure the cat also appreciates.
Otto, feel like telling us something about yourself?
Margaret
I just put up a new post ( finally 🙂 ) Gretchen
Individuals tips also worked well to get a great way to know that other people on the net contain the the exact same fervor such as mine to understand great deal much more for this issue.