It took hours in that room,
To die.
I knew it was coming. I could feel the swelling in my throat growing, slowly, but steadily.
I told the nurses, but they said I was fine,
the new medication would work in time.
But it didn't.
I kept ringing the bell, squeezing the button in vain, in desperation, but my voice had already gone. The speaker would crackle, but they couldn't hear me
...calling for help...
Alone in that room, it took me hours to die.
Rasping breath rattling, hunching and stretching to force air through tortured tubes.
Only then did they hear.
Only as my laboured breathing echoed down the hallway, fighting to life, gasping to live...
...did they hear me.
Fighting for consciousness they tried tests, they tried everything, desperate to catch me only after I'd fallen so far. Only when they were little more than impressions and images flashing into consciousness did they come.
Still, I was alone.
Just Death and I.
Everyone else but a dream seeping into my darkness.
It took me hours to die...
...and the whole time...
...I was alone.
Frater SG has been an initiate since 1991. Here he discusses more personal aspects of his spiritual and magical journey.
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Attacks on Traditional Masculinity
Over the last few weeks, people have been exploding over the new APA guidelines for treating boys and men. At the cornerstone of their vitriol is the idea that the "Ideology of Traditional Masculinity" is somehow at fault for many of our modern ills. They seem to think that our idea of masculinity is "natural" and that somehow it hasn't been controlled or evolved over time.
It is my opinion that "traditional masculinity" is, in fact, the masculinity of the 20th Century. The usage of the word ideology is not hyperbole but is used advisedly in this context. It is an ideal vision of manliness which was fabricated through the use of mass media and propaganda. The decisions that went into its formation were conscious on some level, and we've suffered the unforeseen consequences.
Of course, if you happen to be a man who has grown up to believe that all men must be competitive, aggressive, stoic, and dominant, you're also not prone to self-reflection. This is the kind of person who will argue a position long after it's been proven that he is wrong. He cannot accept that kind of threat to his dominance. Yet this has been trained into him, and he is continually fearful of losing social position. The words "I stand corrected" are not allowed in his vocabulary. As such, no words can possibly reach him. I write for those who are not so set in their ways, or who are looking for reasons why and how we got here.
British General Staff General Routine Order 2384 of June 1917 stated that "in no circumstances whatever will the expression "shell shock" be used verbally or be recorded in any regimental or other casualty report, or any hospital or other medical document." You see, "shell shock" could not be a diagnosis. The nervous individual was obviously too weak for combat in the first place. This was not a wound on the psyche, but rather a sign of personal weakness which was intolerable in a fighting man.
The white feather movement further shamed individuals who were not of the "appropriate type," basically any man of fighting age who was not currently in France dying in a trench. The two combined created the foundations for our ideal Manly Man, out fighting Gerry across the channel.
In Germany, they treated such "weak men" with electro-shock therapy rather than simply shaming them out of the military and leaving them without pension or support.
World War II was very much an extension of World War I, being the direct result of the Treaty of Versailles. By then we had developed film and radio beyond simple news reporting and were telling stories to the masses... stories about manly men, unshakable men, strong, competitive, unflappable, stoic, aggressive, sexually virile men. They showed the population a manly ideal, a man that always won out against incredible odds, and always, always, got the girl at the end of the story. This was not just story-telling and entertainment, they were inspiring young men to become war material.
As WWII wound down and the Cold War wound up, our ability to tell these stories became more robust. War films and Westerns remained popular giving rise to manly icons such as Justus Barnes, John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood. Action films maintained the theme well beyond and into the present day with manly men like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris, and Mel Gibson. Each one depicting a type of masculinity far removed from the Renaissance Men of previous centuries. The ideal of the gentleman was replaced with the new ideal of the pugnacious, uncompromising action hero.
This ideology was especially attractive to men returning from war to discover that women had taken over their factory jobs. Media again worked to put them back in their place as home-makers, while technology stole from them any value that had been placed on home-making as a pursuit. Automatic washers, vaccuum cleaners, cookers, etc... meant that the full-time job of keeping a household was eroded freeing up "women's work" to the point that men no longer valued the efforts involved. No longer was beating the carpets a full day's work, just a quick go around with the Hoover and it's done!
Full-time education of children further opened up their day, and so when women started looking for meaningful employment, men had to crack down. After all, they were being told by movies and television what a REAL MAN was all about, and that didn't include letting his wife work. That would question his prowess as a breadwinner!
Feminism erupted, demanding equal rights, equal treatment, equal respect, and to be equally valued. If women get equal respect, then what kind of trophy is the man supposed to get at the end of his heroic narrative? If you work hard enough to be the manly man depicted on the screen, then you deserve to be rewarded with the beautiful woman, right? Not an independent person with their own ideas, goals, thoughts, and employment.
We're in the midst of a major backlash where some of us realize that the ideology of twentieth-century masculinity is the result of political propaganda (remember that if a filmmaker deviated from the standard narrative McCarthy would brand them a Communist). We've outgrown that dark time in our history, but the narratives remain. We continue to tell the same old stories without teaching enough media literacy to analyze them within their historical context.
We need to realize that it is not the nature of man to be aggressive, stoic, and dominant. Men's Rights Advocates point to the mighty lion or other animals, not realizing that in the pride, the male is kept for breeding and everything is actually done by the females. From horses to wolves it is the head female who runs the show, not the male. Men compare themselves to "alphas" and "top dogs" but fail to realize that the top dog in a pack is a bitch.
This template for masculinity has been taught to us through society and the media. During the process of individuation, we repress those traits which we're told are inappropriate to our sex. In men, we repress what society tells us is "too feminine" and so create the Anima. In women, they repress anything that is considered too masculine into the Animus. It is entirely a question of nurture, not nature. Certainly, testosterone plays a role, but so does civilization and society.
At school, I had a rival. Not someone I hated, no someone I fought against. Instead, we worked to out-do one another. There was no prize to be won, except that we made each other into better students. That's a spirit of competition we don't teach in the modern era. It's either backstabbing, dog-eat-dog, or we give everyone a medal for showing up on game day. Both have contributed to failures in our technology, our politics, and our social growth.
Aggressive, unethical competition results in the destruction of superior products through subterfuge and ad hominem attacks. 40 years after the advent of the x86 architecture, we're still working on x86-based computers. We're using inferior software in part because of anti-competition tactics, theft, and targeted destruction of companies by the "winning" corporations. Our current processor instruction sets are merely extensions of the 80386 processor design, with true 64-bit processors disappearing from the landscape, most people not even aware that they existed.
When I was growing up, I watched a SPACESHIP land in Florida. An actual spaceship, that had been to space, and back, more than once! Now we rely on a ship designed in the 1960s which is launched and retrieved (it crashes into the desert) in Khazikstan.
Our concept of expertise is thrown out the window because modern masculinity will not allow an individual to admit to being wrong. Somehow a man is lessened as a person if he says "you know what, you actually know more about this than I do, I'll have to revise my position." It can't be done! Just watch congress trying to navigate Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, Internet policies, or National Security. They know they have no idea what they're talking about, but they can't admit that without surrendering their dominance.
Let us look back at Jung's ideal individual. Every person is both Masculine and Feminine, and it is only through integrating the Anima/Animus, or integrating both Masculine and Feminine traits into the personality, that one becomes whole and healthy. Anything else is simply broken, and our society and culture, and future generations, will continue to pay the price.
It is my opinion that "traditional masculinity" is, in fact, the masculinity of the 20th Century. The usage of the word ideology is not hyperbole but is used advisedly in this context. It is an ideal vision of manliness which was fabricated through the use of mass media and propaganda. The decisions that went into its formation were conscious on some level, and we've suffered the unforeseen consequences.
Of course, if you happen to be a man who has grown up to believe that all men must be competitive, aggressive, stoic, and dominant, you're also not prone to self-reflection. This is the kind of person who will argue a position long after it's been proven that he is wrong. He cannot accept that kind of threat to his dominance. Yet this has been trained into him, and he is continually fearful of losing social position. The words "I stand corrected" are not allowed in his vocabulary. As such, no words can possibly reach him. I write for those who are not so set in their ways, or who are looking for reasons why and how we got here.
British General Staff General Routine Order 2384 of June 1917 stated that "in no circumstances whatever will the expression "shell shock" be used verbally or be recorded in any regimental or other casualty report, or any hospital or other medical document." You see, "shell shock" could not be a diagnosis. The nervous individual was obviously too weak for combat in the first place. This was not a wound on the psyche, but rather a sign of personal weakness which was intolerable in a fighting man.
The white feather movement further shamed individuals who were not of the "appropriate type," basically any man of fighting age who was not currently in France dying in a trench. The two combined created the foundations for our ideal Manly Man, out fighting Gerry across the channel.
In Germany, they treated such "weak men" with electro-shock therapy rather than simply shaming them out of the military and leaving them without pension or support.
World War II was very much an extension of World War I, being the direct result of the Treaty of Versailles. By then we had developed film and radio beyond simple news reporting and were telling stories to the masses... stories about manly men, unshakable men, strong, competitive, unflappable, stoic, aggressive, sexually virile men. They showed the population a manly ideal, a man that always won out against incredible odds, and always, always, got the girl at the end of the story. This was not just story-telling and entertainment, they were inspiring young men to become war material.
As WWII wound down and the Cold War wound up, our ability to tell these stories became more robust. War films and Westerns remained popular giving rise to manly icons such as Justus Barnes, John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood. Action films maintained the theme well beyond and into the present day with manly men like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris, and Mel Gibson. Each one depicting a type of masculinity far removed from the Renaissance Men of previous centuries. The ideal of the gentleman was replaced with the new ideal of the pugnacious, uncompromising action hero.
This ideology was especially attractive to men returning from war to discover that women had taken over their factory jobs. Media again worked to put them back in their place as home-makers, while technology stole from them any value that had been placed on home-making as a pursuit. Automatic washers, vaccuum cleaners, cookers, etc... meant that the full-time job of keeping a household was eroded freeing up "women's work" to the point that men no longer valued the efforts involved. No longer was beating the carpets a full day's work, just a quick go around with the Hoover and it's done!
Full-time education of children further opened up their day, and so when women started looking for meaningful employment, men had to crack down. After all, they were being told by movies and television what a REAL MAN was all about, and that didn't include letting his wife work. That would question his prowess as a breadwinner!
Feminism erupted, demanding equal rights, equal treatment, equal respect, and to be equally valued. If women get equal respect, then what kind of trophy is the man supposed to get at the end of his heroic narrative? If you work hard enough to be the manly man depicted on the screen, then you deserve to be rewarded with the beautiful woman, right? Not an independent person with their own ideas, goals, thoughts, and employment.
We're in the midst of a major backlash where some of us realize that the ideology of twentieth-century masculinity is the result of political propaganda (remember that if a filmmaker deviated from the standard narrative McCarthy would brand them a Communist). We've outgrown that dark time in our history, but the narratives remain. We continue to tell the same old stories without teaching enough media literacy to analyze them within their historical context.
We need to realize that it is not the nature of man to be aggressive, stoic, and dominant. Men's Rights Advocates point to the mighty lion or other animals, not realizing that in the pride, the male is kept for breeding and everything is actually done by the females. From horses to wolves it is the head female who runs the show, not the male. Men compare themselves to "alphas" and "top dogs" but fail to realize that the top dog in a pack is a bitch.
This template for masculinity has been taught to us through society and the media. During the process of individuation, we repress those traits which we're told are inappropriate to our sex. In men, we repress what society tells us is "too feminine" and so create the Anima. In women, they repress anything that is considered too masculine into the Animus. It is entirely a question of nurture, not nature. Certainly, testosterone plays a role, but so does civilization and society.
At school, I had a rival. Not someone I hated, no someone I fought against. Instead, we worked to out-do one another. There was no prize to be won, except that we made each other into better students. That's a spirit of competition we don't teach in the modern era. It's either backstabbing, dog-eat-dog, or we give everyone a medal for showing up on game day. Both have contributed to failures in our technology, our politics, and our social growth.
Aggressive, unethical competition results in the destruction of superior products through subterfuge and ad hominem attacks. 40 years after the advent of the x86 architecture, we're still working on x86-based computers. We're using inferior software in part because of anti-competition tactics, theft, and targeted destruction of companies by the "winning" corporations. Our current processor instruction sets are merely extensions of the 80386 processor design, with true 64-bit processors disappearing from the landscape, most people not even aware that they existed.
When I was growing up, I watched a SPACESHIP land in Florida. An actual spaceship, that had been to space, and back, more than once! Now we rely on a ship designed in the 1960s which is launched and retrieved (it crashes into the desert) in Khazikstan.
Our concept of expertise is thrown out the window because modern masculinity will not allow an individual to admit to being wrong. Somehow a man is lessened as a person if he says "you know what, you actually know more about this than I do, I'll have to revise my position." It can't be done! Just watch congress trying to navigate Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, Internet policies, or National Security. They know they have no idea what they're talking about, but they can't admit that without surrendering their dominance.
Let us look back at Jung's ideal individual. Every person is both Masculine and Feminine, and it is only through integrating the Anima/Animus, or integrating both Masculine and Feminine traits into the personality, that one becomes whole and healthy. Anything else is simply broken, and our society and culture, and future generations, will continue to pay the price.
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
My New Normal
Over the last several weeks I have encountered a new experience when it comes to traumatic triggers. Certain words and images illicit an automatic response over which I have no control or agency.
The reaction is one of letting out a shout, trying to get away from whatever the trigger was, rolling into a ball, and becoming non-responsive (with or without crying). Once this is happened I have to try and find my way back to the now. I'm told this is a type of flashback and as far as my amygdala is concerned I have returned to a time 21 years ago.
As one can imagine this is very stressful not only for myself but also for those around me. Perhaps the worst part is that I have no control over this reaction. It is entirely involuntary and is just as intense whether I see an image or hear word related to certain medical equipment and procedures.
Not having any control over the situation, in fact not even knowing that it has happened until after the fact, is possibly the most terrifying aspect of the entire experience.
How do you deal with that complete loss of personal agency, how do you face the fact there is a thing that is so ubiquitous and yet causes a bypass of your Executive Function, your very power as an individual and leaves you crying in a heap, unable to control the situation, unable to control the loss of who you are in a moment? How has this become my new normal, taking away my ability to socialize, to watch television, to engage in the world around me for fear of suddenly losing that personal agency by encountering a trigger over which I have no control?
My primary care practitioner has told me that this is actually quite normal. He's ex-military and says that he knows people who seem fine for 10 or 15 years and then suddenly everything unravels. Somehow hitting the anniversary date at the 20th year caused everything to go downhill, and this is considered "normal."
The reason that post-traumatic stress becomes post-traumatic stress disorder is that there is no reestablishment of Safety and Security immediately after the traumatic event has taken place. By some estimates as many as 20% of people who have long hospital stays suffer from some kind of iatrogenic PTSD. And yet hospitals still refuse to let people who are staying keep their loved ones with them, their support structures with them, but send them away. They force the individual to lie in a dark room alone, in an environment for which we are not equipped to cope. We lie there hooked to whatever, machines or medicines or what have you, and there's nobody there to hold our hand and there's nobody there to make us feel safe and loved and wanted and alive.
Then, as a culture, we ignore the aftermath, the broken individuals who get through this ordeal. We care only for the mechanical functions of life and not the living of it beyond those parameters.
And all we can say is, this is your new normal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)