t's really no longer a secret that, over the past year, I have been experiencing harassment from a small group of people. When it started I assumed it was about one woman's jealousy. The primary bully, and a friend, devoted their lives and money to the task of making my life miserable. It seemed silly at the time but things began to go from silly to dangerous as they once put an illegal substance in my antibiotic capsule causing me to have blackouts. The pharmacist consulted didn't know what it was, only that it was not a prescription med. It was later, when describing the incident to a friend, I discovered it was GHB, the date-rape drug. The first night I blacked out I had vague memories of someone being in my apartment with me but little more. All I knew for certain was that I woke up on the floor of my bedroom without any clothing. I might very well have let the incident lay as a one time incident had it not been for the nurse who took the drug to the pharmacy for me. I ran into her later in what would become a related location and she asked if I remembered her. I told her I did not (even though I did) and she smiled with relief saying, "good." Not long before that I had learned the agency she worked for had absolutely no record of my ever having been a client, despite that I had been one with them for approximately 8 years. My personal health aide suddenly could no longer speak to me.
As time progressed there was a series of odd incidents that continue to this day and always seemingly in direct response to something I've said to someone in the privacy of my home. Photos taken of damage to apartments and objects of which I questioned the purpose, began to disappear from my computer and Facebook account. When I discovered I had a copy of them on Dropbox my computer mysteriously crashed. I soon became aware that there are coincidences then there are a long line of coincidences that add up to a pattern.
I developed a theory based upon what was happening, the timing of these events and conversations I'd had with a number of mentally ill. It seemed to me that it all appeared to be connected to the closing of the State hospitals and the obvious disdain felt by the current government toward the lives of those who most need assistance. On the surface the closing of the hospitals seems it might be a positive mood. It was advertised as a way to give the mentally and Intellectually challenged an opportunity to live on their own and be responsible for their lives. In reality it ended up being a major fluster cuck, leaving patients to live either in over crowded nursing homes or in under supervised programs. Confused people were leaving the only home they had known for decades to be abused and neglected by the very people charged with making sure they thrived. For many even survival wasn't an option.
Add to that mix frustrated landlords forced to rent to them. Some decided to take advantage of the bedbug pandemic and evict tenants illegally. Who was going to figure it all out? The Disability Rights group was undermanned and unfunded. The only reason I even came up with my theory was because each piece of the puzzle I unearthed resulted in a barrage of harassment. My identity was stolen and people began making it a priority to prove me delusional. I ended up in the hospital where I spoke with other patients. Apparently, only a very few knew they were being treated illegally and immorally; none were aware they had legal rights to fight the treatment.
Monday, February 1 is Caucus night here in Iowa. As I write this I have criminals lurking on my wifi frantically trying to delete this article. I do not feel safe physically but have taken steps to ensure this becomes public if anything happens to me. I also know I have others fighting in my corner to help me keep this going.
Of course I can't prove this is what is really taking place but the background of my life keeps the issue in the foreground of my voice. This past month my roommate, a 61 year old woman with the mind of a 9 year old had her identity stolen because of me. It looks as though the check sent to her this week for groceries by her payee has disappeared. Our bills have been toyed with and all are in her name. Someone has her Social Security number and is using it.
As long as I'm able I will continue to tell my story to bring the plight of the mentally, and intellectually, disable to the forefront. This appears to be my destiny.
I could spend a lot of time and effort trying to convince the world of my sanity; however, it wouldn't do much good in the end. Jesus didn't have much luck convincing his family and I certainly don't have that kind of charisma. And, does it really matter? Is the issue my sanity or the well-being of a large group of disenfranchised human beings?
I could also name those involved in making this past year a miserable experience; but, I won't. For me it's the same as the media giving attention to the guy who shoots up a mall. He wants to be remembered for something and they give it to him. I won't give anyone that satisfaction. I will not make them the issue; rather, I will make them the reason I'm fighting. Put a positive spin on this part of my life and call them my fan club.

Wake Up and Be a Human!

Kids raised in the positive parenting paradigm I mentioned last time are a miserable lot. Statistics say somewhere around 70% are unhappy at work. Not all of this is the worker's fault. In fact, a majority of it is the fault of the corporations. They have decided a corporation is a person, as such, a slave driver. They want profit and to hell with the worker. Where once the CEO of a corporation made 35% more than his employees it's now some ungodly number over 400%! And, for the most part, he doesn't give a damn. As long as he has his jet fueled and ready to go on his next jaunt to the Bahamas his managers are free to abuse the workers. And they do. Just like the bullies on the playground the workplace is full of name-calling, sexual harassment and harassment in general. As soon as Regan made the air traffic controllers go back to work in the early '80's it was understood the corporations had the governments full support in treating the average worker like the quiet little boy standing in the shadows of the playground. And they ended up with a whole new term - "going postal."
It's not just the post office employees walking into work and shooting up the place. It's not even just disgruntled employees any longer. It's kids at school, customers at the mall, young homophobic men. They have the support of the Christians every time someone calls for a homosexual to be killed. They have the support of society every time the front page of every newspaper in the country covers a shooting. These people want to be noticed, to be remembered... and we make damn sure they are.
It was once believed it was man's ability to empathize that made us one step above the monkeys. Obviously, it's not. We've given up compassion for the right of the blind to carry a loaded weapon. Does anyone else see a problem with this? If the disabled are given carte blanche by the NRA it's not just the blind who benefit from this. It's the mentally ill as well. They are disabled, aren't they? Any schizophrenic with the voice of God in his head can scream prejudice.
At the moment, the human is no longer proving himself to be above the ape; rather, the ape is proving to be above the human. Unless we begin to make an effort to remember that we have brains that allow us to reason and make critical decisions there's going to be a point in the near future where we will be doing the equivalent of swinging around the cage throwing feces. Only the turds we throw will be bullets.

The Perils of Positive Parenting

The other day a friend and I were chatting about compassion. Why, we wondered, does it seem as though the young adults of today are so much more self-centered? Granted, every generation asks the same question when they reach our age. It's true that people in their twenties and early thirties are often self-involved, and for a good reason. They are in the process of learning who they are. Often they are also starting a family and taking care of young children tends to make one very self-involved. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to start, and raise, a family. There isn't much time to develop friendships until the kids are in their teens and finding their own way. Yet, my generation held protests on college campuses and championed the rights of the minorities. Where  are the protesters today? Why are there so few young people out there demanding a better world? It looks, from here anyway, as though they are interested only in the next upgrade of their phone. What happened?
Well, we happened. We the parents of those laisse faire kids with attitudes. We listened to psychologists who fed us a line of crap about feeding the child's self esteem to the detriment of all other character building. Kids, they told us, needed to be told they can do anything and they need to be told that in an environment free from competition. All I can say is I'm so glad I personally didn't fall for that.
Why in God's name would you tell your child he can do anything? Even if it were true there's not enough time in a life to try. By not nurturing the child's true gifts we ended up with a long line of tone deaf singers auditioning for America's Got Talent. Then, when they are told the truth by the judges, they had full blown temper tantrums in front of millions of people! I felt horribly embarrassed for them. Why, I wonder, were they not told by Mom and Dad that their gifts didn't lie in that direction with added encouragement in heading the right direction. Not everyone can sing, nor should they. We all have different talents for a reason.
Why on earth are we treating normal intelligent children like Special Olympic contestants? I was always chosen last in any physical education activity and I survived. The real world does not have time to treat everyone as winners. Life is about learning from our failures and losses. Kids taught competition is wrong have a major meltdown when first faced with a real problem to solve. No one in our generation walked into a crowded school and shot every one in the place. At least, if they did, the media didn't glorify it and turn the whole incident into a circus.
Parents who raised their kids in this manner seem to be perplexed when the young adult moves back home, unable to deal with the real world. Why aren't they simply handed a job? Two years later they're still at home, functioning on Prozac, wine coolers and video games. Then Mom and Dad decide it's time for Tough Love. Tough Love is a whole program designed to get young adults out of the house and functioning on their own. I'm not sure why the kids weren't simply given responsibilities when they were younger and save everyone a lot of time and heartache. But, many people swear by it. I suppose it depends upon how it is used. From my experience those who practice it quote the "teach a man to fish" line, throw a few bucks at the problem and disappear.
Many will discover the Law of Attraction. This philosophy says you get what you think. If you think positive things you'll get them. I completely agree with this part but it gets kinda scary when you get Ayn Rand and her book Atlas Shrugged into the mix. In the end, L of A does nothing more than reinforce those values learned in childhood. It's all about me, why should I give a damn about you? Rand raved against the government wanting to abolish it all together. Until she needed public assistance herself. She still called for the end of government, just did so between picking up her checks. There seems to be a lot of this hypocrisy going on.
What is going to happen when our entire financial system fails? Trump and other billionaires expect another, even bigger, recession before Obama leaves office, leaving a vast majority of the wealthy 50% poorer. But, will anyone do anything to keep themselves safe? It's doubtful. The government is telling us a different story and those who think positively don't read the news. It's such a downer.Personally, I think if we all just agreed to be responsible for one other person besides ourselves, we might actually be able to save this world.
And, perhaps, we aren't meant to. Maybe greed, gluttony, lust, and all the other sins are meant to run their course. They've been responsible for the destruction of other cultures and they will be so again. For a species that is supposedly smarter than any other, we aren't terribly bright.

Do You Care for Your Cow Only When She Gives Milk?

I've spent the better part of the last two weeks thinking about compassion. What is it? If it is supposedly engrained in our DNA why aren't we using it fully?
We Americans are fantastic in a crisis. Give us a hurricane and we'll rush to your side and help you rebuild. Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful trait. But, sometimes it seems as though we need a crisis of historic magnitude to empathize with someone. So, it begs the question, is it compassion? Are we rushing to the other side of the country because we feel their pain or because we are desperately in need of some major karma points? Does it even matter?
Over the years of ups and downs I've noticed a few things. Truly compassionate people are the walking wounded. We know what it feels like to be disenfranchised, how much pain truly affects all aspects of a life, how deep the black hole of loneliness truly is. People who have lived a fairly benign, uneventful life tend to look at someone at the very bottom of the social ladder and offer a quick fix. When the need continues past their own imagined deadline they bolt, physically or emotionally, and decide the person never really wanted to be helped in the first place. They simply cannot comprehend the idea that true compassion means not just rescuing someone from drowning, but also sticking around long enough to teach them to swim. As a result, it's as though the person gets saved from drowning only to be pushed out of the car on the way home. It doesn't mean you are now responsible for that person the rest of your life. Love finds its way and you always know at what point it's time to send them off on their own journey. ]
Compassion never means not having to say your sorry; rather, it's a connection so deep you can't imagine hurting another in the first place. But, even the compassionate are human and pain is inevitable
In striving to become more compassionate I have learned to love, and accept, myself. You can't truly care for someone else if you don't care for yourself. However, in learning to truly love myself I have also had to discover who I am. That means acknowledging the good traits, but also, the bad.
I am only beginning this journey and I know I have a long way to go. I hope that one day I can look back and know I lived my life compassionately.

Karma Made Me Do It

When my daughter was here last month she got me hooked on a Facebook game, Candy Crush Saga. The purpose of said game is to eliminate certain tiles to pass the level. The levels get progressively more difficult and it often takes me days to pass one. It requires that I come up with a strategy, because if I plow through it without thought I will be stuck forever. I play this game daily for one reason: I am required to consider my next move thus I cannot be impulsive.
Impulsive...most likely my number 1 personality defect. Over the course of my life this little quirk has gotten me into a mountain of trouble. I find myself apologizing for things I've said or done on a regular basis. Add to that twenty years of high doses of a steroid and... well, if you don't know about the side effects of steroids you've never followed a sports figure, or even stumbled on to one. On the other hand, I am fully aware of this problem and I own my mistakes, making a huge effort to learn from them. In a society where it is commonplace to hand the responsibility for our actions to someone else I think that's saying something.
Reincarnation experts say we choose the life we lead before we even jump into the womb. The life we choose is one in which we are meant to learn something that will aid us into becoming more spiritually evolved. In my case, compassion.
I learn more about compassion every time I have someone stop speaking to me with no explanation. I realize my faults but if no one tells me what I did how am I to know what it is I need to work on? Over the years I have developed the ability to feel another person's pain. I don't need anyone to tell me what rejection feels like or how much it hurts to be lonely.
Every time I get on a bus or sit in a waiting room someone seeks me out to tell me how much they  hurt. Somehow people in emotional turmoil understand that I understand. Over the years I have encouraged a wannabe drag queen to get on the stage, young mothers to leave abusive relationships, and teenagers not to end their lives. I do not discourage dreams or judge lifestyles. That is God's business, not mine.
How many times have you passed a homeless person and wondered why they are there? Have you ever wondered why someone would choose to live on the streets when they are offered a comfortable small apartment? I have. More times than not it's because they are exhausted. So tired of rejection they are no longer willing to take a chance on trusting someone. Once you've been beaten down so many times it is just more comfortable to stay there.
It's very popular these days to say anything is possible if you only think positively. They never seem to mention that this is not enough. The money, success and good life take much more than that. Unless you do the work and help someone else along the way you'll only be thinking positively, you won't be living it. Happiness, in the end, is not about your thoughts, it's about your actions.
So, if I say something idiotic, I apologize in advance. Karma made me do it. Just tell me about it; and, in the process, share something about yourself. I'm a good listener.

Do We Really Reincarnate or Is This All There Is?

Reincarnation is hardly a new idea. People have believed in it as long as there have been people. Today the belief is more prominent in the East, especially among the Hindus and Buddhists. We've all heard the term, "Karma is a bitch." The Hindus believe that whatever evil we do in this world will visit us in the next. The Druze, a Muslim sect in Lebanon believe we are just here to do our best in each life. In all belief systems the ultimate goal of reincarnation is to become one with God or the universe. Once you've got it all figured out, you no longer need to come back to earth. Most believe you then get to teach and counsel less knowledgeable souls on the other side.
If you do a search on YouTube you'll find a lot of videos claiming to prove that we reincarnate. But, can we really prove it? Hypnosis of adults is an iffy proposition since one can never be completely certain they are giving information they know from a previous life or information from a movie they watched and absorbed. The researcher, Ian Stevenson, may come the closest to proving its existence in that he interviews small children who haven't lived long enough to have their memories influenced by the outside world. He has spoken with many families and often these children offer information they could not possibly know, about people whom they could not possibly have met. Still, even he admits it cannot be proved conclusively. But, then, isn't it true of most belief systems? To believe in anything we all have to be comfortable putting our faith in it and letting the universe handle the rest.
While I'm not claiming I firmly believe in reincarnation, I'm also not claiming I don't. As with most things, I am an "open skeptic." I believe in possibilities. I don't need the answers, I'm just looking for the right questions. I admit, however, it could answer some questions I've had since childhood.
I have never felt comfortable anywhere. Since my earliest memories I was always terrified to let my parents out of my sight. For some reason I was sure they would be killed in a car accident if I let them out of my sight. I also hated my environment. I never felt at home growing up, even in my own bedroom. I always sensed something wasn't right and I wasn't where I was supposed to be.
Then, at the age of ten, I read the book Heidi. I saw the mountains in the pictures and I felt homesick. I instantly recognized the grandfather as someone I knew and loved. I never understood why but reincarnation makes me wonder if maybe I was once an orphan in the Alps.
I moved to the mountains in 1991 and it was as though I found home. I felt instantly comfortable and happy there, even though I was in an unhappy relationship at the time. Once I left the area I became homesick again. I can't explain it. I suppose we all have certain places that resonate with our soul. I certainly found mine in the Sierra Nevadas. I want nothing more than to go back to the mountains.
Another explanation for this, I suppose, is that I miss my life in another dimension. But, more on that another time. What do you think about reincarnation? Personally, I'm hoping I've just about got it right this time. I'm not so sure I want to come back.

The Snake Gets a Bad Rep

The first time I felt real empowerment was very likely the last time I held a snake. I was about three or four years old and playing with the little boy down the street. We found a nest of garter snakes in their backyard and were fascinated by them. Excited, we each grabbed one and ran to his house to show his mother. She simply did not grasp the importance of the occasion. She screamed and stood on top of the kitchen table. After a few unintelligible noises she told us in no uncertain terms we were to remove ourselves and the snakes from the house. Rather than scare us we looked at one another with a wide grin. We had the power to make his mother blither. With wide eyes we wondered if we could do the same to my mother.
My mother, however, was not as impressed. She simply told us what they were and why they belonged out in the garden where they could dine on the pests. Why would I think my mother would react the same? After all, this was a woman who happened to be wallpapering at the time with a raccoon following her up and down the ladder. She did scold us for scaring Peg but I heard her later laughing as she relayed the story to my father. This was a woman I simply could not faze; and, I tried, many times over the years I tried.
As I grew older I learned to give snakes a little more respect. Although I've never been afraid of them I've also never tried to grab one without considering possible consequences. It may have had something to do with the 8 foot bull snake I encountered one time near the river. I've often wondered, though, if some of it had to do with Sunday school and the Garden of Eden.
We all know the story. Adam and Eve are told not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge but they do anyway after Eve is tempted by a snake. Suddenly, they are aware of their nakedness and become embarrassed.
Throughout history the snake has represented many things. Some American Indians saw the tail as a male phallic symbol and associated it with assertiveness while others viewed it as female and representative of birth. The writers of the Bible associated it with the Occult belief that the snake symbolized hidden knowledge. They were terrified of knowledge.
The Church knew if the followers came to understand too much about themselves and the world they would also come to recognize the men who led them were no more than humans like themselves. If everyone knew God was inside each individual what power would they then have to dictate behavior, belief and laws? Their authority would become meaningless.
According to Freud, my primary problem is an inability to respect authority figures. I'll take that diagnosis, thank you, and damn proud of it. The day I fail to question who I am following and why is the day I should pack it all in.
I guess I'd be too much like Lilith. She was Adam's first wife. You never hear about her because she was booted out of the garden after demanding equal treatment. She was not formed of his rib; rather, God made her in the same manner as he made Adam. I doubt God kicked her out; man did. If you assume God regretted making her to be the equal of man you also must assume that God, the all-powerful, makes mistakes and failed to visualize the effects of his actions in the future. It doesn't work that way, no matter what some preacher with misogynistic wet dreams tells you. God knew exactly what he was doing. I suppose He knew what he was doing, then, when He granted us all free will. That's probably why He sent people like me down. To remind you of what you already know at some level. You are God, God is you and the only voice you need to heed is your own.