A Dose of Reality

Don't even bother to read this post if you truly believe all things are possible,

I guess I have been down that road and it is a great recipe for guilt, self doubt and anger.

Somethings are the way they are--not good, but very bad!

Recognizing what can be fought and overcome is a very mportant step in living. Why waste your time and energy on useless battles?

Case in point:

Dave and Dan went on an extended golf trip. I decided it was high time I got in gear and went to work on one of my Brain job patients.

I knew she was not happy with her Brain job and decided it was time I addressed her complaints.

The first time she said she did not feel right I asked her what meds she was on .

"None," She answered.

"Did the doctor tell you to stop?"

"No", she said, "I figured I didn't need any."

"How did you figure that?" I asked, "You know you still have PD!"

She resumed her meds and felt better. I don't know how she missed the admonition not to change her meds without the doctors orders.

Next she complained that she could not drive or work in her yard.

"You are worse, not better," I said. "Have you told the doctor?"

"No."

It became obvious over the course of her visit what her difficulty was.


She is deeply religious and believes God can and will take her PD away.

She said,"All we have to do is ask."

"Fine " I said," I could live without it."

God did not take our PD away. I guess He doesn't want it either.

I said, "In-as-much as we still have it , how about learning to live with it?"

She was taking her meds a dab at a time, 10 times a day.

I said, "Double up take it 5 times a day."

She was walking without her cane today.

Alice, are you an RN?

No

Marie,

Thank you, you get it

I have had religous people tell me I should just get over PD.

They are really a piece of work. One of them said if all was right between God and me, I would be well.

Finally I asked, "What is the problem you think I have with God?"
The answer was laughable.

"You have ill-will against your brother."

I replied, " I don't think so I recognize that my brother is mentally ill and not respnsible for his actions."

The odd thing about being chronically ill is that everyone is examing your attitude.

You are supposed to dsiplay a perfect attitude while the
healthy people gripe.

The healthy people are perfect--that is why they are so healthy.

If you are ill get over it.

Your friends send you a get well card and that should do the trick. If you remain off your stride, go to Dr.
Blah Blah across the country and join an experiental program.


The worse you get, the better you look. They will sidle up to you and very cheerfully ask how you are. It is best to lie and say you have never been better.

It saves you being told how to eat and exercise. Before PD no one told me how to exercise. They couldn't catch me --I climbed mountains and
walked miles.

Their diets are fascinating also--rawfoods, gallons of water, nothing edible
or desireable.

People are funny.

That old "bad things happen to bad people" thing seems to have come out of Calvinism. If you are one of the elect, God will protect you from bad stuff and favor you with good stuff. Rollo May (The Cry for Myth) writes about John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who he says stated that, "God sends the wealth." And that notion "became wedded to the Calvinistic doctrine that the man of wealth was therefore the good man, for his wealth showed that God approved of him." Shift one letter and wealth becomes health, which would also be a sign of "grace."

I don't think God works that way.

Ann

My heart is right here in this thread. Alice, you know you and I are pretty much on the same page with this.

You did good with that woman, and you do good with your brother.

I could ask God to take away my cancer, but sometimes I think He gave it to me.

PD is a chronic condition. My cancer is a chronic condition.

One time I had a woman crying in my office. She told me she'd had cancer and didn't feel well but had other problems in her life. She had been going to a religious counselor. In deference, I was a counselor who was religious. I told her I would see her, but only if right there in my office she made an appointment with a physician. So I dialed the phone and she made the appointment.

It is like the story of a person asking God why He didn't save him, and God answers that he sent a whole medical team to do so but the patient turned them away.

I could go on and on. I have written one book, and perhaps need to write another. It might appear in part on the concepts thread.

Like a good friend and I always say when we talk to each other, "Here we are, two (old) ladies who have once again faced death and are still alive and now have to figure out what to do with the rest of our lives."

And some people come up with reasons for my fantastic physical improvement, but not cure. They try to site all sorts of reasons. I always say, "I just had to heal." I don't really have any idea if I can get any better than I am now, but perhaps healing is still happening, or not.

Carol

Bless you for getting the lady back on her meds, Alice. I often think that Doctors are a gift and surely afflictions have nothing to do with whether a person is 'good' or 'bad'. Perhaps your illness was to show others what is possible. I think sometimes that the strong are given more difficulty because they can handle it, and turn it into help for others.

God neither gives nor takes away. He sits in his throne room, watching us on his 952 inch HD monitor, sipping rum and coke, and laughing his royal butt off.

E.Don,

Prove that!

Just kidding--welcome to the thread.

I would imagine you know some of this as your medical history is not pristine.

I have caught my husband on his laptop doing research on something I have said that is right, of course, but he feels the need to prove I am wrong.

Usually there isn't proof because I'm talking from experience, or intuition or off the top of my head.

So what's to prove anyway?

When it gets nasty is when someone is judged stupid or whatever. We don't do that. My husband knows better. I remind him he got an intelligent wife, not not a beautiful one, so accept it. He could have gotten a wife who was both beautiful and smart, but he got me.

Yesterday we were in a restaurant and he looked at me in my black painter's cap with "bling" on it eating my salad and began laughing. Life can be so much fun. I just need to look at it more like Betty does than the serious side of me does.

Carol

Carol,

You need to remind him he got an iintelligent wife and a beautiful one as well.

alj wrote:

... John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who he says stated that, "God sends the wealth."

One day, Anne, when you have nothing important to do, do some research on this guy. He was a real piece of work.

I could prove this with ease, but then I'd have to smite thee.

Do not ask for proof, just have faith.

And Carol, you know of course that in this world there are some people who really are stupid. None here that I know of, but the woods are filled with them

I learned at a young age that that "good and evil" idea was a bunch of bull. If Winthrop was right, God must have loved Bernie Madoff.

Delightful! My favorite people are here. Thanks!

If I wanted a dose of reality when I was 4 years old, I could look forward to a fist in the eye, sailing me across the room, bawling my eyes out and screaming and yelling. I could look forward to being hungry every day to the point of puking. I could have looked at reality at 8 and expected the rape every night.

You know, Alice, all of that reality was too much for me. I had to find some beauty somewhere. My mind needed it, my heart longed for it.

I know what the real world can be.

I also know that acceptance of that world is a death knoll.
Dreams have to be. Dreams that do not seem possible except in a hopeful mind, have to be.

I think there are things within our own control. I do not think that God can be bothered with all of our human stuff. He has given us the mind that can cope with our own death if needed. That is enough.

IF God does have stuff he does, he is not concerned with my heart problems or your PD or any number of personal things we go through in our short span of life. He has dreamed up the concept of eternity and we are only a micro-blink of an eye in that span ..if that.

I write on this message board. I do it from my heart. I see no need to be angry. It is a place that allows me to say what my mind wants to blab out. I have become so comfortable here that I can really love people I have not ever seen, only read their words. That is as close to faith as I can get.

Love,
Betty

I worked as a local church secretary for seven or eight years and one day a woman came in to express her good news about getting a van for her large family. She was so thrilled. At one point she leaned in close to me and whispered that she knew why she had received the van. I asked her why. She said it was because she was "walking right with God."

I guess she thought I knew what that would mean. I knew what she thought it meant, but that's not how I view my relationship with God, so it didn't ring true for me. My next thought (which, of course, I did not say aloud) was, so if you lose the van, does that mean you're not walking right with God?

Unfortunately, about six months later the van broke down and she was without transportation again. The thought occurred to me again. Again, I didn't say anything and only empathized with her as she recounted her feelings of woe.

Seems to me God walks with us through the fire and the windswept days of grace. The whole "right" and "wrong" thing doesn't seem to apply most of the time.

Betty,

I am so sorry for your unfortunate childhood--that is a reality that could have been altered.

Acceptance of that is never called for. Anyone beating amd raping their cihildren should be deposited in jail.

I am so glad you rose above it. Thanks for coming to my thread.

Love ya,

Alice

Dear Merri
Lovely words.

I wonder always about the state of grace that people have told me about.

Perhaps it is akin to dreams of flying one has. I can imagine that being a state of grace. Ahhhh! Unleashed from these earthly bounds by dreams.

My dear friend Alice, you know that pragmatism has no grip on me.

Dick, I have to question that "good and evil" in writing is a bunch of bull. It seems to me that it is the basis for every story, from Bible to Wooffer. It may be a bunch of bull, but it is a story line that works every time.

Love,
Betty

Merri,

I hear you.. Beats me why the preachers have the audacity to stand up and try to explain evil.

It seems like everyone would be better served if they simply didn't go there.

My favorite explanation occurred on Maui. The preacher got up and waxed eloquent on trouble.

He said troubled people were more loved by God. After all he said, Whom the Lord loves He rebukes and chastens.

Then he said he threw mudballs at the neighbors freshly laundered sheets and his mother spanked him, because she loved him so much and he was so special...

It got funnier and funnier. I didn't throw mudballs at the neighbors clothes, and doubt Carol did either.

I thnik God loves everyone the same--even the healthy, wealthy and perfect people.

Quote :

I wonder always about the state of grace that people have told me about.

For me, the state of grace comes from knowing that I am loved and treasured and that no matter what the uncertain future may hold, I am never alone.

When I was going through chemotherapy treatment and counting the seconds as they passed during an especially difficult time, I saw this image of myself. I was on a huge ship and the winds were whipping around wildly (say that three times fast!), the rain was lashing at my face and body and the sea was cancer, bombarding me over and over again with gigantic waves. The ship was tossing and turning.

It was as if a camera had a close-up shot of my face and then panned back until my upper body came into view, then my entire body. I looked scared to death, yet determined (my dad would say stubborn!).

As the camera kept panning out, I saw someone standing next to me in one of those yellow slickers fishermen wear. Then I saw more and more people -- friends, family, even people I didn't recognize. Pretty soon, almost all I could see was this sea of yellow slickers. I wasn't alone.

I noticed the white sails of the ship. They were torn and barely attached to the mast. That's when I realized that the white sails weren't really sails. They were the fabric of the draped arms of Jesus.

As wild as the sea/cancer/side effects were, I was not separated from God for an instant.

I call that grace.

Quote :

I thnik God loves everyone the same--even the healthy, wealthy and perfect people.

Me, too.

Merrr,

I am glad you are better and came back here I don't think you threw mudballs at the neighbors clothes either.

Thanks, Alice. You are correct. I did not throw mudballs at the neighbor's clothes. My sister and I did attack my brother's G.I. Joe doll with our Barbie dolls until he was covered in mud and heaven knows what else. The G.I. Joe doll, not my brother. Ha!