Dad is still dead

 But sis felt the need to remind me on Hucksterman Central that today would have been his birthday. It was to talk about some better memory at her church.

She said that his birthday prompted memories of childhood from some visitors, and from our brothers, which in no way did she directly connect with dad's birthday either.

I said I'd totally forgotten about the date years ago and politely added that I didn't need reminding in the future.

==

And, it appears I broke my foot off in it or something.

She made a comment back a couple hours later then apparently deleted the post as I get the "unavailable" from Hucksterman.

I was polite about it, and before I said what I did at the end, I first said that I was glad she got a better memory.

That said, I think she sometimes assumes ... no, I FEEL as well as think she sometimes assumes that I frame and/or process and/or psychologically react to all of childhood's traumas that we largely shared (even if not specific incidents) in the same way.

I don't.

Of course, she has also assumed that Walt made me an atheist, as has Tim as part of his blame-shifting. IIRC, and I seem to have deleted the email she sent me, and the draft of the response I was writing to her (unless that's an auto-deletion of older drafts by Microslob), though it's mentioned in another post here. I think she thinks dad was responsible, too, not just Walt.

==

I might have been a little blunt, but I wasn't rude. And, really. I've moved on. I remembered Dad's 90th birthday anniversary a year ago, and Mom's 90th before that, and think I had NOT remembered regularly for at least four-five years before that. 

Actually, the paragraph above is half-wrong, I'm reminded, by looking through posts. I didn't remember Dad's 90th until after she reminded me, per this.

I hope to remember none of their birthday anniversaries before their 100th, and would be fine if I don't remember that one, either.

The dear sober departed

I decided to write this piece up about old Lifering and Lifering-connected friends and acquaintances lest I not have personally diaried about all of them.

Many died sober; some did not. Some of them who died sober died from issues partially related to their sobriety. Ditto for some who died while not sober. I'll list brief information.

Some of these go back several years. Ray Smith was in early 2014, for example. This is memento mori for me, as much as anything.

Sober and general natural causes
Kishi (Kat Wyke), cancer. You're first here, dear, even if not the first to die.
Manya, heart attack. Never did get to know her real name in the chat room, sadly.
Ray Smith. Ray was an eclectic sober sobrietist with connections to Lifering and other groups. A kindred soul on secularist activism and other things, too. Cancer got him.
Itchy Bradley. COPD, well, cigarettes, got him. Lifering has steered clear of tobacco, as it's not "mind altering." But it is addictive as hell.
Scott Larsen up in Canada. Complications of diabetes.
Damien Molloy. An Irish online friend of depth.
Life-J, last name Jenson, AA Agnostica gent who dropped in the Lifering meeting room. Cancer.

Sober and mental health background
Thailand Chani
Beans and Peas (Kenya Johnson)
Both you ladies were, from what I know, greatly worn down by severe mental health problems. And, these things age you out. Chani had gotten a couple of years sobriety time; Beans had more. But they both, while staying sober, battled mental health struggles. Serious ones.

Sober, but suicide
MOG, Michael O'Grady. MOG is like the two above. Ongoing chronic depression. Age may have added to that. I've also wondered if living as an expatriate with mental health concerns exacerbates them.

(Update) And, that's what I get for writing this in advance. Ben Griffing. I don't know if he had ongoing chronic depression or not. But, man, to apparently be an Inuit, or a bit like that, and take a permanent hike outside during a Montana winter hints at that.

Unsure
Andy Ross. Andy fell off my radar screen more and more the last six months of his life. Reading between the lines of his son's comments on Facebook, comments from sobriety friends and more, I'm not sure if he was sober or not. I do know that his mental health problems had flared back up. And, sadly, I'm wondering if his was by his own hand.

Not sober, and related
Monk, aka Dale Phelps. Stayed sober from alcohol, but eventually lapsed into marijuana maintenance, from what I've heard. Given that he had cardio problems and apparently died from this, it is related, if enough pot smoking damaged the lungs. Sad. He had overcome so many other things, including the death of a spouse due to drinking.
His wife, Karen; failure to stay sober certainly shortened his life.

Not sober and suicide
Michael Pearson. He eventually couldn't live with the addiction demons any more and didn't permanently overcome them.

Ten days without Lifering emails (and counting)

 Per this post from March, and updated June 3, about DUI arrests and jail, and some Liferingers' responses and takes on the issue, I decided to absent myself for a while.

And, it is 10 days and counting. I may stay away for the rest of the month. I'm still hosting a Sunday night online meeting, but that's different, and who knows how long I will stay with that this go-round, either.

A quasi-dream, more a dreamtime thought

 Interrupted my Sunday nap two weeks ago.

It was that my life was essentially wasted by not having a family and children. 

It made me sad.

It made me angry, too.

To the degree it is true, it wasn't wasted, it was stolen.

Dear Theresa

 First, I probably didn't have quite as strong of romantic longings at the time as I indicated I did when I said I wanted a relationship, not casual dating.

You definitely were, and still are, attractive physically and otherwise. And, your interest in the arts, your Japanese-inclusive multi-ethnic background and other things made you attractive in the bigger picture.

That said, having had a couple of long-distance relationships putter out, and not having been in one for a while, I think that's part of why I spoke.

And, at the same time, there were also red and yellow flags.

The biggies were on money. You indicating I didn't make enough money, I guess is "understandable" from your point of view. Between teacher pay, department head stipend, master's boost, etc., plus private music lessons, you surely made twice as much as me. And, until a recent Google to your LinkedIn page and other stuff, I didn't even think about money you made off performance gigs.

At the same time, money was a red flag the other way. Yes, you had a mortgage payment vs. my rent payment. At the same time, you were renting out a garage apartment on the detached garage at your house. Probably a wash at "best" from my fiscal POV; at "worst," you were probably 20-25 percent ahead of me.

Yes, you were also finishing paying off your SMU master's of music degree loans, I expect. But? The flip side of that was department head stipend and master's boost.

Making half as much money as you, I was saving more.

And, this, second to the moves, moves, moves, since Today Newspapers closed, is probably the main reason I'm unattached today. I don't want someone more spendthrift than me putting me at financial risk.

===

There was one other problem, though.

Your comment about my hiking being just one big circle.

First, to riff on Heraclitus, it's never exactly the same trail twice.

Second, is not surfing, your passion, pretty much the same? You're paddling out in the same ocean and coming back in a loop on a wave.

===

Also, although not overtly, and nowhere in the way of a similar degree to Cathey, I occasionally had the impression that you thought I might have "issues." Maybe I'm wrong, to the degree I thought that then. Maybe I'm over- or misremembering now, driven by some version of motivated reasoning. 

But, to the degree I am right, in picking up on signals, that was troubling.

===

I'm not totally sure why I'm blogging this. 

I know it's a form of journaling. But, I could just keep it in a Word doc without posting it.

However, I think I'd like my few readers to know this about me, and also for the insights it may have in the first part, about "wanting a relationship" yet knowing that this want is "general" and not connected to a specific other.

As for "why" I'm blogging, writing or journaling this wherever, at this time?

Shannon.

Also unavailable to me, no doubt.

Physically? Oh, yes. 

Otherwise, and setting aside the issue of her kids? Less compatible in several interests ways than you and I would have been, Theresa.

But? More compatible in some personality ways. Though probably even less so than in others.

===

Part of this was on me, though. One part in particular.

Theresa was certainly physically attractive.

But? The same "shoulds" that said I should be wanting back in a relationship of some sort said I "should" feel sexually attracted by her. 

And I didn't.

I think in part that some of the other ancillary issues where I had flags pop up had done so early enough that I didn't move further forward otherwise.

And, that I didn't feel the desire to.

===

I won't die if I die alone.

But, even if well short of permanent, I'd love to have one real relationship, starting with the physical and sexual side, better than before.

Early life regrets — and even anger — aren't dead yet.

I don't think they ever will be, until I'm dead.

Kind of upset at a thread on a Lifering email list

 Regular readers here know that I've long been involved with Lifering Secular Recovery, and much of that time, semi-active to active in participation on email groups and Lifering social media, attending a few annual conventions and more.

Sadly, on one email list, discussion about a person having to go to jail for a DUI last fall veered into a ditch earlier this month. I am not naming any names, but I am laying out the bare parameters, because I think they need to be laid out.

Said person is getting three days in jail.

Several people have talked about how cruel this is. One person said that "way back," they didn't get jail in California. (She didn't respond when I said, in one of my emails on the thread, that I didn't know how long "way back" was, but that I suspected California had changed since then.)

One person, beyond the "how cruel," went into this was the same type of barbarism in America as not having national health care, etc., and that America was basically "draconian" or something like that.

And, that (although I totally agree on national health care) went over the line.

First, as I said about setting aside BAC levels, let's NOT set aside BAC levels, and let's note that in most advanced countries, the blood alcohol level that leaves you open to arrest is no higher than 0.05 percent, not the 0.08 percent of the US. We can talk about the sadness of the US not having better public transport, but we can also mention that beyond buses and taxis, ride sharing services do exist.

Now, as for the the reality of criminal sentencing?

You can do time a-plenty elsewhere in the world, including three weeks of "hard labor" in Norway and a full year in jail in Sweden and Finland. 

Remember, these are countries that liberal and, to some degree, leftist America, inside sobriety world and outside, like to tout.

Beyond that, IMO, is a psychological misconception, and that is that addicts, whether to alcohol or drugs, respond only to carrots.

Really? Carrots may be the primary tool in STAYING sober LONG TERM, but sticks have a definite role to play in GETTING sober and in STAYING sober in the SHORT(ER) TERM, as I see it.

Finally, a lot more people drive drunk than drive pot-high, even with the growth in legalized recreational marijuana.

And, that's the other reason to note that neither the US nor other advanced countries are "draconian." Sticks as well as carrots have a part to play, IMO, in reducing DUI in general, not just among people who may be addicted.

As someone who was a fucking idiot once, even with the tie-in of family psychology reasons related to my dumb decision, I don't know if jail time beyond an overnight would have done anything. It might have. OTOH, it might have increased my "I don't give a fuck" at the time. 

But, it would have lessened excuses, if nothing else.

And, for repeat offenders, you know what? The bottom line is that if they're in jail, they're not driving.

==

Update, June 3: They're at it again. So, I'm staying away from the email lists for a while.

Do I write sis or not?

 I've got a draft email response saved from two months ago.

She emailed lamenting that oldest brother Walt is again an author in a Lutheran devotional magazine.

I understand that this upsets her due to actions she pursued first, then we pursued together not too long after I got sober and recovered memories and that she pursued again on her own.

But?

I don't need to be involved and I don't want to be involved.

First, nothing's going to change, and I accept that.

Second, I'm not a Lutheran. Or religious at all.

And, this is the part of the email that rubs me the wrong way.

Like Tim and his pseudo-apologies for not protecting me, she claims that Walt's abuse made me an apostate.

No. Not only is that wrong, but it treats me as less than a free agent, to the degree any of us as individuals is close to a unified self, pace Dan Dennett, and to the degree any of us has something like free will, pace Dan Wegner, and pace David Hume and my own ruminations on both counts.

Ultimately, this is her battle, as I tell her in the draft email, and then look at both of these reasons, but mainly the second.

What both Walt and Tim did, or even what Dad may have done if he sexually abused past the level of Walt (which also wouldn't surprise me), have little to do with my metaphysical stances, which were arrived at by a lot of intellectual reasoning and emotional pondering ... before I basically recovered most memories about that, or at least, before I psychologically and emotionally reattached to and resurfaced those memories.

As I further indicate to her, and to riff on Dennett (who I doubt she's read, and would probably be aghast to read thoughts like this), it's arguable that those memories, precisely because they weren't conscious at the time, had some effect. It's even more possible that this was in part a rebellion against Dad. But ... it's likely that it was mainly just as I described the conscious process above. 

And, it WAS that way. I started with intellectual judo in seminary against the fundamentalist version of Lutheranism in which I was raised. (She hates it being called "fundamentalist," but it is; just with a different set of fundamentals than Calvinist fundamentalism.) I looked at "mainline Protestantism" in the form of the liberal wing of Lutheranism, but decided that it had too many artificial "pegs" for accepting some portions of the bible as literally true. I considered Unitarianism, but ... couldn't do that. I even toyed with a Buddhism of some sort, but knew that karma and reincarnation as actually understood in most Buddhism and Hinduism, not New Ageism, were as offensive as a literal hell and original sin.

I did at the same time wrestle with the emotional issues that an omniscience-based theodicy just can't answer. That's the other reason, the bigger one, I rejected Unitarianism, or liberal varieties of Judaism. If your god is that much short of all powerful, why call him god? Or, if that much short of omnibenevolence, again, why call him god?

Back to sis, though, as this is more thorough than what I wrote her.

I'm slow to anger, and even when the fuse hits the dynamite, it's often muffled. But, I am kind of angry about this.

I think I've told her the story about how I laughed under my breath at dad when, after an Ash Wednedsay service in Gallup, a schizophrenic came into our church and asked to be exorcised. Among our board of elders was a psychiatrist on staff at one of the two hospitals in town and dad had him call for an admission. But, I knew what Jesus told his disciples about "whatever you attempt to do in my name ... " and wondered why dad didn't perform an exorcism.

Maybe THAT's where the rebellion started, to the degree any of this was rebellion. Maybe my atheism arose in part because I figure that dad's emotional and religious abuse was bad enough, in this case, me getting the worst of all five kids, that my break with him religiously as an adult had to be total.

I don't know.

But ... that's not due to Walt's sexual abuse. It's due to dad's emotional and religious abuse.

That said, I'm now reminded of, either the Christmas before or maybe two before that. I asked for a gift subscription to Scientific American, back when it was a semi-technical science mag, not a gussied-up Discover. 

Didn't get it.

Yes, I got money to "get it myself" if I wanted. But, wasn't gotten it. Nor did anybody talk to me about "Wow, reading Scientific American at 12!"

No, Marie. No.

"Blaming" Walt for making me an atheist makes me into a two-dimensional caricature.

I still haven't sent it. As with Abraham Lincoln's famous unsent letters, maybe I never will.

There's one other reason I've not sent it yet.

It's called self preservation.

I'm in a semi-dying profession. Sis has offered before to take me in if long term unemployment led to possible problems. As in, being broke type problems.

I don't want to bite the hand that potentially feeds me, so if I do say anything, it must be mild, tactful and deft.

Also, I'm now within five years of the early U.S. government "finish line," if you know what I mean, and every day closer to that is a day closer to not having to worry about biting hands that might feed me.

==

As of right now, the answer is: I don't write.

==

Six months on, after she dumped some new stuff about Andrew on me, I was slightly tempted to use that as an opening. Only slightly.

Per another recent post here, I'll almost certainly wait until I'm past the early federal finish line, if nothing else.

Five years to the early finish line

Well, because one has to wait a month for one's first Social Security check, it's actually five years and a month. 

I'm hoping I don't need to retire early, but ... with being in a dying industry and ageism still a deal in America, getting full-time work, or even decent PT work, should something happen to me? It's a concern. I started to type worry, but took it back.

I'd prefer to limp forward further if I can. Especially vis-a-vis a country without national health care, to get to age 65 and the Medicare finish line.

After that, even if I had to start drawing Social Security before 67, let alone 70? I'd be good.

Also, making it five more years means being eligible for senior citizens assistance in rental costs. That means lower overhead. And, any money that I did have from jobs? Getting to 65 would mean an additional tax deduction.

So, five years to the early finish line. Eight years to the middle-level one. Ten to the upper-middle one of "full retirement age." I would hope to have part-time paid work after that, and after that, it wouldn't affect my Sociable Security earnings. I know I can make five. Onward!

Maybe the "dopamine" theory isn't ALL wrong; ditto for serotonin

 For years, starting about the turn of the century, dopamine as "the addiction neurotransmitter" became an ever more peddled idea among simplistic and reductionist ideas of neuroscience — both professional as well as lay.

Given the number of brain receptors for dopamine, that alone made it simplistic. Dopamine does a lot more than trigger desire, or even trigger memories of desire.

Indeed.

It turns out both it and serotonin are ALSO involved in epigenetic controls.

In turn, this means that both depression and anxiety, on the one hand, with serotonin, and addiction with dopamine may have a degree of non-genetic, but rather epigenetic, heritability. That would explain how something like alcohol, with modest-moderate physical addiction potential, but no more, can run in families yet skip around.

PTSD support, but pulled back by Jesus

 My undergraduate Lutheran college has an alumni Facebook page. Someone from a class ahead of me posted recently about having been diagnosed with Complex PTSD four years ago. Said the reasons are vast. Well ... the most likely reason is repeated child sexual abuse. The second most likely is repeated spousal sexual and/or physical abuse.

Anyway, said person mentioned Bessel van der Kolk's "The Body Keeps the Score." Highly touted here, and I've personally used some of its ideas, adapted to "solo Gestalt." Said EMDR also helped. All good so far. Said person also noted that talk therapy didn't help — was specific about CBT, which would be correct. (Don't dismiss something like non-CBT group therapy, though!)

But, then comes the takeaway.

"There is no healing outside of Christ."

Even in your small town, there's likely a Hindu or Sikh Indian-American convenience store owner. Maybe a few Muslims.

I don't know if I feel that it's despicable you feel that way, but it is sad.

And, this is why the conservative wing of Lutheranism is a fundamentalism — different fundamentals than "THE fundamentalist" portion of Calvinism. But, still a fundamentalism. I'd say "sorry, sis," but, one of my 2020 goals (not resolutions) has been to stop saying "sorry" for things that aren't my fault. This one is nobody's fault. It's my take on conservative Lutheranism and a take that you don't take, and yes, that you don't like.

It's also, of course, why, even if I ever did leave secularism, I'd never go back to where you, or this person, are at.

To use the magic phrases of interpersonal psychology, if said schoolmate said:

"I believe there is no healing outside of Christ," I'm down with that.

But, not as written.

Maybe everybody assumes that all alums of a fundamentalist Lutheran college still are fundy Lutherans today, I guess. It's like inside talk thinking the mike is off.

If there's a fringe thankfulness? It's that this is a good reminder of what I left behind. Sure, some of my bretheren from seminary days after that may be a bit more open-minded. But, others may not.