Tag Archives: mental illness

The Power of No

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For the last decade or so, I’ve been steadily subtracting.

As an experiment in reduction and elimination, I’ve taken the long list of life’s accepted “essentials” and pared them down to the most minimal survivable items.

Many would see these choices as psychotic rigidity without real purpose. But I have always lived on a narrow spectrum of black and white, so floating in the gray never held much appeal.

Some decisions are grounded in practices of optimizing health. Others are stubborn refusals to double back once I’ve started down a particular course. Either way, the list is constantly expanding, and there is a real risk that, given enough time, I may ultimately be left with nothing.

Still, I plod along, desperate for some modicum of control or a sense of peace in an increasingly uncontrollable, chaotically unsettling world.

Mental illness, in any of its various constructions, is a constant wire walk. The best we can do is build blocks of balance from whatever tools are readily available…and these are mine, for now.

Diet: No meat. No dairy. No nuts. No soy. No bananas. No avocados. No tomatoes. No peppers. No onions. No caffeine. No soda. No fast food.

Lifestyle: No sex. No drugs. No alcohol. No smoke. No prescription medication. No gambling. No hedonism.

Personality: No jealousy. No envy. No greed. No fear. No lust. No easy acquiescence. No easy sleep. No vanity. No addiction. No laziness. No breaks. No brakes. No self-indulgence. No self-forgiveness. No self-esteem. No sustained sense of hope. No hysteria. No indolence. No cowardice. No egotism. No profligacy. No pomposity. No inanity. No misinformation. No wastefulness. No tolerance for animal cruelty, of any kind.

This may all be madness…or just a dangerous form of mad science.

Time will tell.

Just say no.

Adolescence Interrupted

All the Broken Brains

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We are spiraling. We are drowning. We are blinded by the harsh light of reluctance. We choose complacency over change and comfort over the scratchy-sweater need for action. We scream and shout. We seethe and shoot. The pressure release valves are clogged with the muck of a million excuses. The desire to heal is buried beneath a sea of social media distractions and disconnections.

We are mentally ill.

It’s time to admit that no thoughts or prayers or patience or compassion or tears or sympathy or best wishes will fix this collective broken bicycle.

We can blame it on genetics, parenting, toxicity, education, or bad luck. But it’s blatantly obvious to anyone still awake enough to see through the fog of this modern zombie society. We are walking around this planet with faulty wiring and a gross inability to solder the severed connections.

The glue is all gone and the pieces of our sanity are strewn across the floor like the remnants of a shattered cookie jar at the slippery hands of an overeager toddler. Yet we continue to think that the cracks will magically mend if we just cross our fingers tightly and pray for better days.

It’s imperative we travel upstream to see what’s been constantly poisoning the river instead of simply building dams to keep it from seeping into our pipes.

Soon no spaces will be safe. The mundane will turn murderous, the banal brutal. The seemingly innocuous daily activities will be weighed down with a constant head-on-a-swivel sense of mistrust and nervous agitation.

Each subsequent generation will be forced to live under the heft of unbearable levels of sustained insecurity. The already spiked national stress numbers will become incalculable. Drug abuse will numb the sounds of incessant mental static and we will retreat into caves of isolation simply to survive.

Or we can stop the cycle. Rediscover our common sense. Recognize the patterns. Remove the blinders. Wipe the blood from the money. Treat the roots to save the tree. Prioritize effort over promises. Engage the brakes to slow the train.

Admit that we were very very wrong.

Adolescence Interrupted

The Forgotten

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homeless manFor those of you who may have already heard my rants about the boggling inequalities and imbalances in society, I apologize for the redundancy. But, my recent contact with an increasing number of heartbroken homeless with hollow eyes and vacant stares has compelled me to find a steady stance atop this familiar soapbox.

The disparity between the haves and have-nots is growing at an alarming rate, but like Roman emperors wearing golden blindfolds, very few seem to acknowledge the impending fall.

We are at a critical crossroads in this country and there is a cauldron filled with the forgotten just waiting to boil over.

Our culture has continued its unhealthy love affair with capitalism, even in the face of some severely detrimental consequences. Instead of making slight adjustments to stave off the resentment and rage directed toward those holding all the cards, the dealers have found ways to ensure that the house continues to profit exponentially. Greed was good in the 80’s, but it’s a poison we’re forced to swallow today.

Poverty and mental illness are running rampant, but it’s more comfortable to draw the blinds and bolt the doors. I watch consumers carrying thousand-dollar bags step over people sleeping in the street to stand in line for an $8 cup of dead coffee beans and foam. I see state-funded food in schools sit in the bottom of garbage cans because mandates force students to fill trays with items they never plan to eat. I walk around in an environment full of waste and pollution and excess, and I wonder where it all went wrong.

I don’t proclaim to have the answers, and I’m well aware there is no cure-all for a population that has been beaten into submission for generations. But, it certainly feels like there is a revolution just waiting to explode with the right confluence of actions.

A seemingly insignificant event may play the role of that backbreaking straw. But, it could be just enough to tip those apathetic scales to the point of no return.