*
LAST WORDS
“You should have gone into physics —
there’s so much poetry in physics,”
were my father’s last
words to me — a last shining of the light
for a moment, the last time
he recognized me in the nursing home.
My father did not believe in God.
He believed in physics,
the greatest poem of our time —
But I wasn’t a poet enough
to ride on the lip of infinity,
the event horizon before the birth of stars.
Leaning with slight menace,
my father would instruct me,
“An electron is not a thing.
It can be described only in mathematics.”
“It’s not about numbers,” he insisted.
“Mathematics is about beauty.”
Everything is mainly nothing,
a black hole of whirling metaphors.
One time, an impatient schoolgirl,
I asked, “How do you know
how to solve this equation?
He replied: “Intuition.”
One night I will go leaping
from moon to moon to star
to test the curvilinear
poetics of space-time.
Somewhere along a nebula,
in fluent mathematics,
I’ll wave to my father who told me
not to worry about the universe —
the red shift of receding galaxies,
silent music where nothing is lost.
~ Oriana
So much here depends on perspective, and the opening poem, a lesson from your father, is a celebration of perspective long and deep enough to encompass all the universe. Yes, physics and mathematics, the poetry and beauty of all things, from electron to atom, atom to star, star to galaxy, the infinite dance of numbers, that song "on the lip of infinity” — the music where nothing is ever lost.
If only we could learn that divine perspective!
Oriana:
Poetry, and art in general, is an attempt to see the world and experience from another, larger perspective. Some might call it divine — in any case, it is not as time-bound. The paradox is that by being quite specific it approaches the universal.
Of course only some poems succeed. For some reason the first example to come to my mind wasn’t the immortal passages in Shakespeare but Donne’s addressing his lover, “O my America, my new-found land.” That’s quite a leap! And a delightful one, too.
Yes, we have to connect with something larger or suffocate in the dullness of the mundane, life becoming a kind of Walmart or worse . . .
BECKETT ON THE EPHEMERAL
“And if I failed to mention this detail in its proper place, it is because you cannot mention everything in its proper place, you must choose between the things not worth mentioning and those even less so. . . . And if all muck is the same muck that doesn’t matter, it’s good to have a change of muck, to move from one heap to another a little further on, from time to time, fluttering you might say, like a butterfly, as if you were ephemeral.” ~ Beckett, Molloy
Sometimes negative phrasing makes the wisdom more emphatic. Indeed we are forced to choose between “the things not worth mentioning and those even less so. . . .”A friend’s remark, “It’s only a poem,” which first made me want to strangle her, eventually became a life-saver.
And the moment when I understood, truly understood, that we ARE ephemeral was life-changing. I was finally able to cease living for the future. It even became possible to feel happy.
(Perhaps it’s not worth mentioning that my spell-check tried changing Beckett to Bucket. A shameless digression: buckets are useful for watering flowers in hard-to-water corners of the yard. So after the image of Beckett with garbage, let’s feast of blossoms.)
NO REALITY FITS AN IDEOLOGY
“As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life. But life has no meaning; it cannot have meaning because meaning is a formula; meaning is something that makes sense to the mind. Every time you make sense out of reality, you bump into something that destroys the sense you made. Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning.” ~ Anthony de Mello
Hegel, the spiritual father of Marx and various other “history is on our side” ideologues*
MINDFULNESS AS A SECULAR RELIGION: THE PRIVATIZATION OF STRESS
~ “The founders of the mindfulness movement have grown evangelical. Prophesying that its hybrid of science and meditative discipline “has the potential to ignite a universal or global renaissance”, the inventor of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Jon Kabat-Zinn, has bigger ambitions than conquering stress. Mindfulness, he proclaims, “may actually be the only promise the species and the planet have for making it through the next couple of hundred years”.
But anything that offers success in our unjust society without trying to change it is not revolutionary – it just helps people cope. In fact, it could also be making things worse. Instead of encouraging radical action, mindfulness says the causes of suffering are disproportionately inside us, not in the political and economic frameworks that shape how we live. And yet mindfulness zealots believe that paying closer attention to the present moment without passing judgment has the revolutionary power to transform the whole world. It’s magical thinking on steroids.
There are certainly worthy dimensions to mindfulness practice. Tuning out mental rumination does help reduce stress, as well as chronic anxiety and many other maladies. Becoming more aware of automatic reactions can make people calmer and potentially kinder. Most of the promoters of mindfulness are nice, and having personally met many of them, including the leaders of the movement, I have no doubt that their hearts are in the right place. But that isn’t the issue here. The problem is the product they’re selling, and how it’s been packaged. Mindfulness is nothing more than basic concentration training. Although derived from Buddhism, it’s been stripped of the teachings on ethics that accompanied it, as well as the liberating aim of dissolving attachment to a false sense of self while enacting compassion for all other beings.
The neoliberal order has imposed itself by stealth in the past few decades, widening inequality in pursuit of corporate wealth. People are expected to adapt to what this model demands of them. Stress has been pathologized and privatized, and the burden of managing it outsourced to individuals. Hence the peddlers of mindfulness step in to save the day.
But none of this means that mindfulness ought to be banned, or that anyone who finds it useful is deluded. Reducing suffering is a noble aim and it should be encouraged. But to do this effectively, teachers of mindfulness need to acknowledge that personal stress also has societal causes. By failing to address collective suffering, and systemic change that might remove it, they rob mindfulness of its real revolutionary potential, reducing it to something banal that keeps people focused on themselves.
The fundamental message of the mindfulness movement is that the underlying cause of dissatisfaction and distress is in our heads. By failing to pay attention to what actually happens in each moment, we get lost in regrets about the past and fears for the future, which make us unhappy. Kabat-Zinn, who is often labelled the father of modern mindfulness, calls this a “thinking disease”. Learning to focus turns down the volume on circular thought, so Kabat-Zinn’s diagnosis is that our “entire society is suffering from attention deficit disorder – big time”. Other sources of cultural malaise are not discussed. The only mention of the word “capitalist” in Kabat-Zinn’s book Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness occurs in an anecdote about a stressed investor who says: “We all suffer a kind of ADD.”
By practicing mindfulness, individual freedom is supposedly found within “pure awareness”, undistracted by external corrupting influences. All we need to do is close our eyes and watch our breath. And that’s the crux of the supposed revolution: the world is slowly changed, one mindful individual at a time. This political philosophy is oddly reminiscent of George W Bush’s “compassionate conservatism”. With the retreat to the private sphere, mindfulness becomes a religion of the self. The idea of a public sphere is being eroded, and any trickle-down effect of compassion is by chance. As a result, notes the political theorist Wendy Brown, “the body politic ceases to be a body, but is, rather, a group of individual entrepreneurs and consumers”.
Mindfulness, like positive psychology and the broader happiness industry, has depoliticized stress. If we are unhappy about being unemployed, losing our health insurance, and seeing our children incur massive debt through college loans, it is our responsibility to learn to be more mindful. Kabat-Zinn assures us that “happiness is an inside job” that simply requires us to attend to the present moment mindfully and purposely without judgment. Another vocal promoter of meditative practice, the neuroscientist Richard Davidson, contends that “wellbeing is a skill” that can be trained, like working out one’s biceps at the gym. The so-called mindfulness revolution meekly accepts the dictates of the marketplace. Guided by a therapeutic ethos aimed at enhancing the mental and emotional resilience of individuals, it endorses neoliberal assumptions that everyone is free to choose their responses, manage negative emotions, and “flourish” through various modes of self-care. Framing what they offer in this way, most teachers of mindfulness rule out a curriculum that critically engages with causes of suffering in the structures of power and economic systems of capitalist society.
Kabat-Zinn, a dedicated meditator, had a vision in the midst of a retreat: he could adapt Buddhist teachings and practices to help hospital patients deal with physical pain, stress and anxiety. His masterstroke was the branding of mindfulness as a secular spirituality.
*
In Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion, Jeremy Carrette and Richard King argue that traditions of Asian wisdom have been subject to colonization and commodification since the 18th century, producing a highly individualistic spirituality, perfectly accommodated to dominant cultural values and requiring no substantive change in lifestyle. Such an individualistic spirituality is clearly linked with the neoliberal agenda of privatization, especially when masked by the ambiguous language used in mindfulness. Market forces are already exploiting the momentum of the mindfulness movement, reorienting its goals to a highly circumscribed individual realm.
A truly revolutionary mindfulness would challenge the western sense of entitlement to happiness irrespective of ethical conduct. However, mindfulness programs do not ask executives to examine how their managerial decisions and corporate policies have institutionalized greed, ill will and delusion. Instead, the practice is being sold to executives as a way to de-stress, improve productivity and focus, and bounce back from working 80-hour weeks. They may well be “meditating”, but it works like taking an aspirin for a headache. Once the pain goes away, it is business as usual. Even if individuals become nicer people, the corporate agenda of maximizing profits does not change.
Perhaps worst of all, this submissive position is framed as freedom. Indeed, mindfulness thrives on doublespeak about freedom, celebrating self-centered “freedoms” while paying no attention to civic responsibility, or the cultivation of a collective mindfulness that finds genuine freedom within a co-operative and just society.
Rather than being used as a means to awaken individuals and organizations to the unwholesome roots of greed, ill will and delusion, mindfulness is more often refashioned into a banal, therapeutic self-help technique that can actually reinforce those roots.
The consequences for society are potentially dire. The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek has analyzed this trend. As he sees it, mindfulness is “establishing itself as the hegemonic ideology of global capitalism”, by helping people “to fully participate in the capitalist dynamic while retaining the appearance of mental sanity”.
The rhetoric of “self-mastery”, “resilience” and “happiness” assumes wellbeing is simply a matter of developing a skill. Mindfulness cheerleaders are particularly fond of this trope, saying we can train our brains to be happy, like exercising muscles. Happiness, freedom and wellbeing become the products of individual effort. Such so-called “skills” can be developed without reliance on external factors, relationships or social conditions. Underneath its therapeutic discourse, mindfulness subtly reframes problems as the outcomes of choices. Personal troubles are never attributed to political or socioeconomic conditions, but are always psychological in nature and diagnosed as pathologies. Society therefore needs therapy, not radical change. This is perhaps why mindfulness initiatives have become so attractive to government policymakers. Societal problems rooted in inequality, racism, poverty, addiction and deteriorating mental health can be reframed in terms of individual psychology, requiring therapeutic help. Vulnerable subjects can even be told to provide this themselves. To change the world, we are told to work on ourselves – to change our minds by being more accepting of circumstances.” ~
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/14/the-mindfulness-conspiracy-capitalist-spirituality?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Too much of the current popularity of trends like "mindfulness" and "positivity" and the heavy value of "self esteem" seem to focus on the individual's feelings unconnected to any social reality, any obligations beyond the security/comfort/self satisfaction/ and happiness of the individual. The actual facts of the situation are disposable, the obligation is only to the self. All disturbing, unpleasant, difficult, challenging or painful things must be defused, disengaged with, re-framed to protect and coddle the sense of self importance and self worth, no matter what. When each player gets a trophy there is no meaning in the game. When anything painful or disturbing must be ignored or denied so all remains blissfully positive, there is no contact with reality. When mindfulness holds each thing in focus, so as to "let it go" there is no need for action, maybe even no possibility of action.
I think the current trendiness of the kind of mindfulness that has become a sort of secular religion is a perversion of the practice known in Eastern traditions. It has been reshaped by our cultural tendency at present toward isolation and narcissism. We just want to feel good. Not do good or be good or make good. We don’t want to be disturbed, unsettled, criticized, challenged, shamed or punished. It is hard to recognize even the shadow of responsible adulthood here.
And I'm sure many fans of the mindfulness/positivity/self esteem trinity would cringe to see themselves reflecting the expression of these in our current Infant in Chief. But there you have it.
Oriana:
As the article states, it’s Buddhism stripped of its ethical content (oddly similar that way to what has happened to Fundamentalist Christianity, especially its total inversion in the Prosperity Gospel). The Victorians spelled it out for us: “We are here not to feel good, but to do good.” Doing good often makes us feel good, but that’s a side benefit. The task — the duty — is to do good.
We know that the Victorians often did not practice what they preached, but at least they had a moral clarity. Even more important, they understood the importance of human connections. You counted not as a separate, isolated individual, but as part of a social group. And we don’t really have to go back into the past centuries to recognize the difference. I remember a lot more sociability when I was growing up: one relative or another was always showing up, not to mention friends and acquaintances by the dozen.
“That’s how it used to be over here during the fifties,” a friend told me. “People were a lot more available to one another.”
Of course there can be too much of a good thing. We need privacy and solitude as well. It’s a question of balance and individual preferences. But I agree that the pendulum seems to have swung too far in the direction of isolation and narcissism.
“Self-esteem” seems a particularly pernicious replacement for “respect for others.” “You deserve love!” is just a continuation of “You deserve a Lexus” mentality. Not true. Until we recognize the lies, the manipulations, we will continue approaching an Orwellian doublespeak — not quite what he imagined, but a gross distortion nevertheless.
*
THE RISE OF CHINA? IT’S RETURNING TO ITS FORMER GREATNESS
~ “Why have so many been so off about China for so long? In part it’s because policy makers and academics alike look for patterns, not exceptions. We are trained to generalize across cases and use history as a guide to the future. But China has always been sui generis—an innovator in the ancient world that became a poverty-stricken nation in the modern one; a nation with a deep and proud imperial history ruled by a post-1949 Communist leadership with an aversion to remembering it; a rural nation with some of the world’s most sophisticated high-tech surveillance.
There is also a fundamental disconnect in how American and Chinese leaders see time. For Americans, memories are short, attention is fleeting, and policy lurches from crisis to crisis. In Washington, passing a budget and keeping the lights on seem more and more like heroic acts. In China, by contrast, memories are long, attention is enduring, and the government plans for the long haul. China’s rise in artificial intelligence and other technologies has been in the works for years. Its military modernization started in the 1990s. Back then, a Chinese admiral was asked how long before China would build its own aircraft carrier. He replied, “in the near future”—by which he meant sometime before 2050.
These different views of time hang over modern geopolitics. For American leaders, U.S. global leadership is the way of things. For Chinese leaders, it is an aberration: China was a great power until the Opium Wars in the 1840s ushered in a “century of humiliation” by the West. In Beijing, China’s rise isn’t new. It’s a reversion to the way things used to be.
Donald Trump’s administration has turned the page, acknowledging that the United States and China are locked in a competitive struggle with some mutual interests and many conflicting ones. The administration’s fundamental China shift doesn’t get the attention or praise it deserves. Even so, getting U.S. policy on China right won’t be easy. Our economies are tightly interconnected, our domestic politics are each highly charged, and our security interests are more and more at odds. A good China policy starts by recognizing that China’s rise is in many ways unique, and that general patterns and predictions may obscure more than they clarify.” ~
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/30-years-after-tiananmen-us-doesnt-get-china/591310/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
The different perception of time is especially striking.
Sandy:
Deng Xiaoping was asked, “What was the effect of the French Revolution of 1789 on China?” Deng replied, "It is too early to know.”
Mary:
We have short memories. And we have a short history. This seems to limit our perspective in ways we aren't even aware of. Imagine Deng Xiaoping's statement that the effects of the French Revolution on China can't be known yet because "It's too soon to tell!!" So from the Chinese perspective, long history, framed in deep time, the entire history of the US is a mere flash in the pan.
*
COUNTRIES WITH HIGHEST SUICIDE RATE
Here are the top twelve countries with the highest suicide rate:
Lithuania
South Korea
Guyana
Kazakhstan
Belarus
Hungary
Japan
Latvia
China
Slovenia
Sri Lanka
Russia
But Wikipedia lists Greenland first, South Korea second, and Lithuania third. I’ve also seen Lithuania first, Russia second. Some of these countries (e.g. Lithuania, Latvia, Russia) have a high rate of alcoholism. Alcoholism is a major risk factor for suicide.
US is #34, better than Romania, but ahead of Sweden and Norway. Poland is #23, close to France.
In this country, the #1 state for suicide is Wyoming. War veterans are at special risk. There is also a huge gap between male and female suicides. But that's also true for Poland, Mexico, and Slovakia.
Greece has the lowest suicide rate in Europe.
Suicide in the US is the 11th most common cause of death; in male teens and young men, it's #2, after accidents.
Greece: A rocky harbor*
WHY BIRDS ARE SO SMART
~ “Birds are capable of extraordinary behavioral feats, from solving complex puzzles to tool making. There may be good reason for that. A new study shows that, pound for pound, birds pack more neurons into their small brains than mammals, including primates.
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this study is the first to systematically measure the number of neurons in the brains of more than a dozen bird species, from tiny zebra finches to the six-foot-tall emu. By doing so, neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel and her team at Vanderbilt University discovered that avian brains contain more neurons per square inch than mammalian brains.
This means that birds pack more brain power per pound than mammals, offering an explanation for their remarkable cognitive talents. What’s more, the study shows that evolution has found more than one way to build a complex brain.
Scientists have long wondered how birds—with their teeny-tiny brains—are capable of exhibiting many complex behaviors, some of which were thought to the be exclusive domain of larger primates. Birds can manufacture tools, cache food, plan for the future, pass the mirror test, use insight to solve problems, and understand cause-and-effect. They’ve also been observed to hide food in front of other birds, and then relocate that food when the other birds aren’t looking. This suggests that birds have a “theory of mind,” which means they’re capable of inferring what other birds are thinking. Very few animals can do that.
Prior to this, scientists just figured that avian brains were simply wired in a completely different way compared to primate brains. But this theory hasn’t been borne out empirically; studies have shown that avian brains are structured quite similarly to mammalian brains.
Now the tired old notion that birds are stupid is starting to fall by the wayside. “We found that birds, especially songbirds and parrots, have surprisingly large numbers of neurons in their pallium [or forebrain]: the part of the brain that corresponds to the cerebral cortex, which supports higher cognition functions such as planning for the future or finding patterns,” said Herculano-Houzel. “That explains why they exhibit levels of cognition at least as complex as primates.”
The parrot, for example, has as many neurons in its walnut-sized brain as the macaque monkey, which has a larger brain about the size of a lemon. When the functional connectivity of avian brains are mapped, it looks similar to what’s found in mammals, such as mice, cats, monkeys, and even humans.
But by packing these neurons in such a dense fashion, birds have been endowed with higher cognitive power per pound than mammals.
“In designing brains, nature has two parameters it can play with: the size and number of neurons and the distribution of neurons across different brain centers,” said Herculano-Houzel, “and in birds we find that nature has used both of them.”
This means that evolution has found more than one way to build a powerful brain. Previously, neuroscientists thought that, as brains grew larger, neurons had to grow bigger as well in order to be able to connect over large distances. The new study shows that there are other ways to add neurons, namely by keeping them small and locally connected, while allowing a small percentage to grow large enough to make longer connections. This keeps the average size of neurons down, which allows for a smaller brain.
The researchers aren’t sure which of the two brain types evolved more recently. It’s possible that the super-compact avian brains came first, and that mammals evolved a “different” kind of brain. Or perhaps birds, who are descended from dinosaurs, evolved their highly efficient brains as a requisite for flight, since birds need to be light and agile.” ~
https://gizmodo.com/we-finally-know-why-birds-are-so-freakishly-smart-1781889157
Every group of creatures starting with flatworms have brains (with a few exceptions, like the echinoderms). The smallest animal with a brain is probably a crustacean, Stygotantulus , which is less than a tenth of a millimeter in length. You could check Wikipedia for a list of smallest animals in each phylum or category, and remember that almost every multicellular animal except for sponges, jellyfish, and echinoderms have brains. (Jellyfish are the largest creatures without brains, though there are politicians who may not seem to have any.)
“Echinoderm is the common name given to any member of the phylum Echinodermata of marine animals. The adults are recognizable by their radial symmetry, and include such well-known animals as starfish, sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers, as well as the sea lilies or "stone lilies". ~ Wikipedia
Who needs brains?*
BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER (BDP) IS REALLY A TRAUMA DISORDER, LIKE PTSD
~ “Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a highly stigmatized and misunderstood condition. Australians with BPD face considerable barriers to accessing high-quality and affordable care, according to new research published today.
For every 100 patients we treat in inpatient psychiatric wards, 43 will have BPD. People with this condition are vulnerable, impulsive, and highly susceptible to criticism – yet they continue to face stigma and discrimination when seeking care.
We have come a long way since the days of viewing mental illness as a sign of weakness, but we are lagging behind in our attitude towards BPD. At least part of this stems from the way we frame the condition, and from the name itself.
Rather than as a personality disorder, BPD is better thought of as a complex response to trauma. It’s time we changed its name.
BDP is characterized by emotional dysregulation, an unstable sense of self, difficulty forming relationships, and repeated self-harming behaviors.Most people who suffer from BPD have a history of major trauma, often sustained in childhood. This includes sexual and physical abuse, extreme neglect, and separation from parents and loved ones.
This link with trauma – particularly physical and sexual abuse – has been studied extensively and has been shown to be near-ubiquitous in patients with BPD.
People with BPD who have a history of serious abuse have poorer outcomes than the few who don’t, and are more likely to self-harm and attempt suicide. Around 75% of BPD patients attempt suicide at some point in their life. One in ten eventually take their own life.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) does not mention trauma as a diagnostic factor in BPD, despite the inextricable link between BPD and trauma. This adds to viewing BPD as what its name suggests it is – a personality disorder.
Instead, BPD is better thought of as a trauma-spectrum disorder – similar to chronic or complex PTSD.
The similarities between complex PTSD and BPD are numerous. Patients with both conditions have difficulty regulating their emotions; they experience persistent feelings of emptiness, shame, and guilt; and they have a significantly elevated risk of suicide.
Labelling people with BPD as having a personality disorder can exacerbate their poor self-esteem. “Personality disorder” translates in many people’s minds as a personality flaw, and this can lead to or exacerbate an ingrained sense of worthlessness and self-loathing.
This means people with BPD may view themselves more negatively, but can also lead other people – including those closest to them – to do the same.
Clinicians, too, often harbor negative attitudes towards people with BPD, viewing them as manipulative or unwilling to help themselves. Because they can be hard to deal with and may not engage with initial treatment, doctors, nurses and other staff members often react with frustration or contempt.
These attitudes are much less frequently seen from clinicians working with people suffering from complex PTSD or other trauma-spectrum disorders.
What could a name change do?
Explicitly linking BPD to trauma could alleviate some of the stigma and associated harm that goes with the diagnosis, leading to better treatment engagement, and better outcomes.
When people with BPD sense that people are distancing themselves or treating them with disdain, they may respond by self-harming or refusing treatment. Clinicians may in turn react by further distancing themselves or becoming frustrated, which perpetuates these same negative behaviors.
Eventually, this may lead to what US psychiatric researcher Ron Aviram and colleagues call a “self-fulfilling prophecy and a cycle of stigmatization to which both patient and therapist contribute”.
Thinking about BPD in terms of its underlying cause would help us treat its cause rather than its symptoms and would reinforce the importance of preventing child abuse and neglect in the first place.
If we started thinking about it as a trauma-spectrum condition, patients might start being viewed as victims of past injustice, rather than perpetrators of their own misfortune.
BPD is a difficult condition to treat, and the last thing we need to do is to make it harder for patients and their families.
https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-treat-borderline-personality-disorder-for-what-it-really-is-a-response-to-trauma-115549?fbclid=IwAR0PwteyqQbnY_APf19sZZ0Fc0uQ6EFXgW5bnvf1EqHQd3pxTbupNU5NH08
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WHAT IS COMPLEX PTSD?
~ “PTSD is generally related to a single event, while complex PTSD is related to a series of events, or one prolonged event.
Symptoms of PTSD can arise after a traumatic episode, such as a car collision, an earthquake, or sexual assault.
PTSD affects 7–8 percent of Americans at some point in their lives. Symptoms may result from changes in some regions of the brain that deal with emotion, memory, and reasoning. Affected areas may include the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex.
The symptoms of complex PTSD can be more enduring and extreme than those of PTSD.
Some mental health professionals have started to distinguish between the two conditions, despite the lack of guidance from the DSM-5.
A doctor may diagnose complex PTSD when a person has experienced trauma on an ongoing basis.
Most frequently, this trauma involves long-term physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.
The following are some examples of trauma that can cause complex PTSD:
experiencing childhood neglect
experiencing other types of abuse early in life
experiencing domestic abuse
experiencing human trafficking
being a prisoner of war
living in a region affected by war
Complex PTSD is a relatively recent concept. Because of its variable nature, healthcare professionals may instead diagnose another condition. They may be especially likely to diagnose borderline personality disorder (BPD).
Some researchers have identified areas of substantial overlap between complex PTSD and BPD.
However, the conditions may also have differences. Authors of a study from 2014 reported that, for example, people with complex PTSD had consistently negative self-conceptions, while people with BPD had self-conceptions that were unstable and changing.
People with complex PTSD may experience difficulties with relationships. They tend to avoid others and may feel a lack of connection.
BPD can cause a person to swing between idealizing and undervaluing others, resulting in relationship difficulties.
People with PTSD or complex PTSD may exhibit certain behaviors in an attempt to manage their symptoms. Examples of such behaviors include:
abusing alcohol or drugs
avoiding unpleasant situations by becoming "people-pleasers"
lashing out at minor criticisms
self-harm
These behaviors can develop as a way to deal with or forget about trauma and emotional pain. Often, a person develops them during the period of trauma.
Once the trauma is no longer ongoing, a person may begin to heal and reduce their reliance on these behaviors. Or, the behaviors may persist and even worsen with the passage of time.
Friends and family of people with complex PTSD should be aware that these types of behaviors may represent coping mechanisms and attempts to gain some control over emotions.
To recover from PTSD or complex PTSD, a person can seek treatment and learn to replace these behaviors with ones that are more positive and constructive.
One goal of treatment is to attempt to develop or recapture feelings of trust in others and the world.
This can take time, but participating in healthy relationships with family and friends is a positive step.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322886.php
Mary:
So we are short sighted, ephemeral, and caught up in magical thinking. Mistakes in perception and definition don't support good outcomes, personal, political, psychological or ethical. The problem of mis-naming alters the possibility of even being able to imagine solutions, as demonstrated by the use of the term "Borderline Personality." Patients with that diagnosis, automatically defined as manipulative, unresponsive and frustrating, become impossible to treat, undesirable clients, burdened with the onus of that definition.
Oriana:
Using the label “personality disorder” rather than trying to recognize the traumatic events that destroyed a particular person’s trust in the world or otherwise damaged that individual’s capacity for genuine relationships becomes yet another exercise in blaming the victim. Alas, it took two world wars and the numerous “small” wars that followed for the recognition of PTSD (originally “shell shock”) as a legitimate psychiatric condition rather than “cowardice.”
I think a lot of stigmatizing labels need to be re-examined in the light of our growing knowledge of what heavy stress does to the brain, and why and how certain treatments work (e.g. dogs can be wonderful therapy; cognitive-behavioral therapy may work better than other types; teaching a person a valuable job skill, increasing their feeling of competence, can apparently work wonders in some cases). Above all, we need to emphasize understanding, not judgment; compassion, not condemnation.
I once heard a statement that just might be true: it’s not the trauma itself that damages us most; it’s not getting empathy afterwards.
*
“Man is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion—several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat, if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven.” ~ Mark Twain (1835-1910), Letters from the Earth, "The Damned Human Race," 1909
Twain in Tesla's lab*
HEALTH BENEFITS OF RUTABAGAS
The rutabaga (Brassica napus) or swede is a root vegetable that originated as a cross between the cabbage and the turnip. Rutabagas are often confused with turnips despite the noticeable differences. Rutabagas are larger, part white and part purple, with creamy orange flesh and ribs near the stem, and with a sweet flavor when roasted. On the other hand, turnips are white with a purple-red top and a peppery taste.
Here are the 7 health benefits of rutabagas.
1. Rutabagas can help you fight cancer along with your treatment.
Rutabagas contain the sulfur-containing antioxidant glucosinolates, which has been shown to reduce the growth of cancerous tumors. Also, rutabagas contain carotenoids and vitamin C to fight free radicals that prevent the mutation of healthy cells.
2. Rutabagas can help prevent premature aging.
Rutabagas are effective in fighting free radicals. This has the potential in preventing premature aging, improving eyesight, and stimulating healthy regeneration of cells throughout the organs and tissues.
3. Rutabagas could improve the immune system.
One serving of rutabagas possesses 53 percent of vitamin C. Vitamin C could stimulate the immune system to produce white blood cells.
4. Rutabagas can help improve digestive health.
The rutabaga contains a sufficient amount of fiber. A one-cup serving of rutabagas contains 3 grams of dietary fiber. The daily recommended dietary fiber intake for men and women are 38 grams and 25 grams, respectively. Fiber can help prevent constipation, making one’s bowel movement more regular.
5. Rutabagas could fight high blood pressure.
Rutabagas are high in potassium and low in sodium, which lowers blood pressure. One cup of rutabagas contains 554 milligrams of potassium compared to 34 milligrams of sodium.
6. Rutabagas can help with weight loss.
Low calorie, nutrient-rich foods like rutabagas are efficient weight loss diet plans. High-fiber foods also offer the metabolism and assist manage body weight. One cup of rutabaga contains only 66 calories.
7. Rutabagas may assist in the improved enzymatic function.
Rutabagas supply zinc, an essential mineral which for a variety of enzymes. The mineral tends to help strengthen each protein’s overall structure and help support its activity.
https://www.dovemed.com/healthy-living/natural-health/7-health-benefits-of-rutabaga/
ending on beauty:
(I had trouble choosing, so I’ve decided to use both)
And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,
The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,
And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves
Are shaken with earth's old and weary cry.
~ W. B. Yeats, born on June 14 in 1865
Time passes through us, or we pass through it
as guests to god's wheat.
In a previous present, a subsequent present,
just like that, we are in need of myth
to bear the burden of the distance between two doors . . .
~ Mahmoud Darwish
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