Death, secularism, and the depths

Did I wait too long to cry for my friend Kishi? Did I not give myself emotional space to really feel Kishi’s … death, not “passing”? I wonder. I’d like to feel … to express … to cry 10 percent of the tears that Melly has. Will I? Will I ever?

She is the first person besides mom and dad, and an AA guy I knew more in passing than knew, since I got sober. And, she’s the first — no, not secularist — atheist friend I’ve had die since I’ve reaccepted my own secularism.

And, it makes me mad. There is no god to be mad to. Unlike gratitude, anger feels better, I think, when expressed at someone. And, I won’t “see her again.” I see no heaven, no paradise existing for a future spiritual life, certainly not on the “orthodox” Christian model that’s metaphysical, yet not. I was imagining Marie offering me some sort of consolation along that line, without even first pausing to say, “I know you don’t believe that.” And I’m angry about that … I think. 

Though I haven’t given myself “space” there either.

It almost feels like the distressing from moving out of Marble Falls has gone too far. As though it’s sucked emotionality out of me in general.

Missing Kishi … maybe it will be more a dull, aching pain than something about tears, something that gradually sinks in with the lack of a Yahoo Messenger late-night conversation time any more. And, yes, I already miss that.

And, feel guilty about not trying to look for her online sooner after I moved.

Three weeks later, it still hasn't totally sunk in ... but I still am angry, as well as sad, as well as guilty.

You were gentle and sweet beneath your hard-shelled exterior. You were a beautiful person, even if you often didn't feel that way about yourself.

Do New Age techniques and rituals help 'manage' PTSD?

A good Facebook friend of mine, Karla McLaren, who came out of a New Age "professional" background, says the answer can be yes.

Why? The repetitiveness of the rituals combined with the smorgasbord of different "modalities" is the key, she says.

My houseguests showed me something I really hadn’t been able to see before – and strangely, my despair lifted that weekend as my curiosity returned. I had always known that the New Age attracts a very large number of traumatized and dissociative people (that’s actually one of the central premises of my books and tapes). However, I had never been separate from New Age beliefs, rituals, and paraphernalia long enough to observe how these rituals help people manage their post-traumatic anxieties, depressions, dissociative tendencies, and other troubling symptoms.

Throughout my life, I had noticed that the New Age population was in large part a very sensitive group of people. In conventional medicine or psychotherapy, the level of awareness and sensitivity these people struggle with has been characterized as a form of pathology. However, sensitive people like my friends and me are made very comfortable in the New Age. With the endless treatment choices offered in the New Age, sensitive people can find an abundance of ever-changing supports, crutches, or remedies for just about anything they suffer, think, feel, or imagine. All of these New Age remedies and paraphernalia are quite soothing – and yet I finally saw during my friends’ weekend visit that the soothing had no lasting effect.

Very, very interesting.

That said, no, this doesn't really "manage" PTSD at all.  Note again her last words: "(T)he soothing had no lasting effect."

Even some of the latest neuroscience-driven treatments, with the best of science behind them, from what I have read, on a matter vaguely related, from a book about introversion, may be less lasting, in terms of long-term help, than doctors would like to believe. How much more something that's not scientific.

Anyway, Karla's whole series of articles is worth a read.

Gratitude without god

When I first heard of this idea, a decade or more ago, I was in a psychological place where I was learning more and more about the idea of gratitude.

But, at the same time, I was pretty well down the road to my secularist, contra-metaphysical philosophical naturalist stance of today. I had tried “working with” ideas of “spirituality” but found what I was seeing promoted under that guise was New Agey-type metaphysics that, even if technically not religious, was indeed metaphysical and impossible to square with my re-emerging philosophical naturalism.

But, I was still trying to wrestle with this issue.

Having heard the phrase “an attitude of gratitude” in both New Age-type settings and from traditional ministers, and it being, for various reasons, an idea that I agreed with, I was trying to figure out how to be grateful if there wasn’t anyone to whom to be grateful.

Finally, I realized that I was mentally enshackled by the New Agey “present situations” that I had recently been in, plus my childhood religious preacher’s kid background.

Instead, why couldn’t I simply have an “attitude of gratitude” without a personal object for my gratitude?

And, so I do today. Little mental tools such as reminding myself of three good things that have happened for/to me today, especially if I had an active part in any of them, help this process.

Good-bye, Kishi

A good, good sobriety friend of mine, Kat Wyke, aka Kishimojun, died Wednesday. It's hard to believe, in one sense, yet, on non-sobriety related health issues, she had already beaten the odds, otherwise.

Kishi was about my age. She had Crohn's disease. If you're familiar with it, that alone is why I say she beat the health odds.

She also had ahd bladder cancer about 18 months ago. It appeared to have been caught quickly enough and "beaten," but such was not the case. It came back with a vengeance within the last two months or so. Just under a month ago, all of a sudden, he had bad stomach pains, as the recurring cancer seems to have been virulent and fast spreading.

I had been negligent in trying to stay in touch with her online with me recent move, and yes, I'm kicking myself for that. She had told me about the stomach pains before I moved, but still sounded positive about her prognosis. Alas, it was not to be. She was in a coma two weeks later, at the start of this week, with kidney failure following quickly.

Kishi, often being semi-homebound when her Crohn's flared up, became active in learning, and progressing in, the ancient Japanese stitching art of temari.

For a picture of her, and some of her temari work, please see this photo album.