Better Living Through Chemical Altering of the Mind

As I have stated in previous posts I take medication and the list presently is:

An anti-depressant: Tofranil (btw, over the course of 20 years I have been on every anti-depressant that is presently manufactured; I find that I respond only to tricyclic anti-depressants as opposed to SSRI's which provide no relief at all).

An ADHD medication: Adderal (feeling no great benefit from it, at least at the present dosage).

An anti-psychotic (however in my case is just to help me be more calm since I don't hear voices in my head. The only voice I hear is my own and that does enough damage): Risperdal.

Sometimes I do seriously wonder about the effectiveness of these medicines. Case in point: my doctor gave me new prescriptions about 2 or 3 weeks ago for the medications so that when they run out I can get more; I already lost them. I lose everything. I never can really keep myself organized yet the ADHD medication is supposed to help me focus my thoughts and be able to concentrate. I would have to say (with just a touch of sarcasm) it's doing a bang up job! The worst part is, I can't help how I am. I already can imagine from most readers who do not suffer from disorganization that their response would be, "You can help it. You just have to be organized." My response is, "So can a cancer patient just use his mind to make his cancer go away? If they can, my God you discovered the cure to cancer!" I do believe that things can and are accomplished by setting one's mind to the task at hand. There are of course exceptions to the rule, as there are always exceptions to every rule. I have set my mind to winning the lottery and I have yet to win. Just because one set's their mind to something doesn't always mean it will happen. It's a start but it's not a guarantee. There are no guarantees in life except one: one day your life will end. That is the only thing you can guarantee on.

I have a fear of failure combined with a fear of success. This revelation came to me over the holiday week-end. I spend most of my time analyzing my life (past, present, and future. Yes, I already picture what my future is, and it is not pretty) and all the many millions of mistakes I have made and mistakes that were made for me by God or I suppose fate, as it were. I should give a shout out of thanks to God for given me depression, lack of self confidence, etc. (touch of sarcasm again). I mean after all without the ailments I might have actually been a success and where would that have gotten me (even more sarcasm)? Having a fear of success mixed with a fear of failure kind of "locks up" my mind like the way a computer locks up when too many programs are working at the same time. After all the brain is an extremely sophisticated computer. I believe in time, man- kind will create artificial intelligence although I see it as a potential for disaster. Anytime man tries to play God, big mistake (which is what brought us killer bees). It will still happen. It's inevitable, like the invention of nuclear weapons. The same goes for cloning humans.

As I see it, mankind tends to learn things the hardway. It's human nature, we all learn by mistakes. When mankind does eventually invent artificial intelligence and clones humans, they will turn on us and there will probably be a war of some kind. The reason for this is because of control. How do you control something that you create that has intelligence? You could limit it's free will, but not with a human being. Also with technology there are always gliches that crop up. So even if you create an artificially intelligent machine, most likely it will still want control of itself and, to be honest, it has a right to. Anything with intelligence has a right to freedom and self guidance. That is why slavery was abolished (at least in civilized nations). To enslave an intelligent being, albeit artificially intelligent being, would still be wrong.

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The Way I See Things (Tainted As It May Be)

As I work in the corporate environment, I see even more clearly how the system works and how blindly everyone becomes just a cog in this huge machine. If I didn't feel so sorry for myself perhaps I might feel sorry for everyone else. The system I speak of, of course, is the system of rules and requirements. As if life isn't hard enough, we (the world) make it even harder. How sad that businesses and corporations blindly follow these rules. It is assumed that if one has a degree, then one must have intelligence, and conversely, if one does not have a degree then one is a complete moron. I've known people with degrees who weren't very smart and people without degrees who were very smart. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, does not have a degree and I would assume he is still very smart. Granted, alot (if not all) of his success was luck, essentially he was at the right place at the right time. The same thing applies to the guys who created the successful search engine Google. Many would most likely disagree with me, but to prove my point, suppose Bill Gates was born 10 years earlier than the year he was born or, for that matter, say he was born 10 years later than his actual birth year. If he was born just one or two years off than his actual birth year, most likely we would be sitting here using an Apple instead of PC's or maybe still using typewriters. If the guys who created Google didn't meet each other, then most likely no one would have any clue as to what "googling" is. It's all in the timing. Bill Gates met with the right people at the right time when the world was ready for personal computers. Sure there were companies who laughed at the very notion of personal computers. The guys who created Apple were laughed at by companies such as Hewlett-Packard which ironically is now a computer giant. If any of them tried their ideas in the 1950's, it obviously wouldn't have worked because technology wasn't at that stage. Does luck play a part in their success? Yes, of course it does. It plays a part in everyone's success. If you had the right parents, the time you were born in, and certain factors going on in the world. It all plays a part in the success of an individual.

Thanks largely to the movie The Da Vinci Code (which is mostly fictional hypothesis), we have all heard the latest uproar over artist Leonardo Da Vinci. Not many are aware that Da Vinci was also an inventor and even came up with the idea for the helicopter. Very few of his inventions were feasible during his lifetime, but had he been alive in the 20th Century, think of the possiblities. Da Vinci was still successful because he was able to fall back on his other abilities, i.e. his ability to paint. He was lucky he had that ability. It's all luck. He could've just as easily not had much skill at painting or maybe not wanted to even be an artist. I'm sure there must have been other skilled painters in his day, so he was also lucky enough to be recognized for his skill. It all comes down to luck. Some might say there is no such thing as luck yet I wonder how could that be when luck is all around us. I'm sure many of us see teenagers driving BMW's or Mercedes' that their parents bought for them. They certainly couldn't have earned it. They were lucky enough to be born into the right family. Of course many of them take it for granted and turn out to be spoiled little as*holes (and I'm sure even they would agree with me. People know when they have earned something and when it was just handed to them on a silver platter). My warning to rich kids who have everything handed to them by their parents: whatever you do don't take it for granted and don't think you are better than others. No matter how you look at it, everyone is on the same playing field. You can't take your parents' money with you when you die. We are all mortal beings and everything we have from our material possessions to our life itself, can and will eventually be taken from us by our own mortality. That is a fact. I can say with absolute certainty that everyone reading this (if anyone is) will die, eventually that is (and no, I'm not a psychic).

So where does being a rich as*hole really get you? It doesn't change the fact that you are still going to die, have to face your creator (that is, if you believe there is a creator) and be judged for your actions on earth. Believe it or not, I am not some devout religious person warning people of their sinful nature. I have done my fair share of sinning, I'm certainly not a saint. I was raised Roman Catholic but don't agree with the Church on many points. However, I do believe that there is a higher power who I refer to as God that everyone, including myself, will have to answer to when the time comes. I also think that the world can be a better place if people would just try to do so. Everyone doesn't have to like everyone, but is it really so hard for people to be kind to one another? Of course, being thankful for what you have and being respectful of others doesn't change the fact you will eventually die, but you can go to your grave with the feeling that IF (because after all, anything is possible in the Universe) you are going to be judged in the next life by how you behaved in this life, at least you can say you tried to be a nice person. From time to time people might not be nice to one another after all no one is perfect; people do make mistakes. The important thing is: to try to make the world better, not just think of yourself.

Sometimes I think people feel there is something wrong with sympathy or compassion for others. That it is sappy or unmanly, and I know where this mindset starts: at home AND in school. Kids learn it from their parents or it's because of how they are treated at home so the kids then develop low self esteem and then go off to school. While at school SOME of these kids with the low self esteem decide that being mean to other kids makes them feel better, even if just for a short while. The schools reinforce this anti-social behavior by generally do nothing about it (until of course a child comes to school with a gun because he can't take the cruelty anymore and either kills him or herself OR kills others and then him or herself). It's really the oddest thing. We would never condone this kind of behavior in the workplace (harassment, catcalls, insults, etc.) because of possible lawsuits yet we allow it to occur in school so it makes it difficult for the students who really want to be there to learn? Yeah, this makes a lot of sense. I say if there are kids in school causing trouble and who don't want to be there to learn, then let them go. Society does not need them. Goodbye and good riddance. Why should they ruin it for the kids who care about their own future, and who just want to do well in school? That's my question: why? Just let the as*hole kids go. Let them try to make it without school and if they end up dead on the streets, well it's their own fault, but don't let them control the kids who WANT to learn. It is not right. If the troublemaking children want to remain complete morons (probably due to their parents being brother and sister) then I say why force them to be in school? If their parents object then tell them, "Too bad. Your kid is an as*hole. He better learn to behave and treat others with respect. If he can't he doesn't belong here. He doesn't belong in society. You should have taught him better manners. Simple as that". School should not only teach math, english, etc. but teach the brain-dead kids how to treat others respectfully and to deal with their low self esteem in a non-anti social manner.

The reason schools have become so powerless (and only recently regained more power since the occurance of horrible shooting incidents) is because of the fear of law suits. Also because the schools really couldn't care less. It was always considered a normal part of growing up. "Kids are going to be cruel to one another". Wrong! Kids are only cruel to one another because no one is there telling them that what they are doing will not be tolerated. Kick the troublemakers out of school and let them see how far they get without school. It is always the as*hole kids that have to learn the hard way. In a way, corporal punishment should be brought back to shcools. If a kid gets smacked in the face for being disrespectful, he or she has a tendency to then show more respect. To monitor teachers and students behavior, classrooms would be under constant surveillence and all video recorded. If parents won't teach their kids proper respect for others, then the schools have no choice but to. Parents need to learn the hard way as well as kids. Teach your kid to respect others or there will be serious consquences. Kids today (and for a long time now) think they know everything. I find it amazing because I never was this way, even when I was young. I never thought I knew everything and, furthermore, I never wanted to bother anyone. I never understand why anyone would want to be other than that. I still find it so strange (and sick). I think that many adults need to be taught lessons in respect for others as well. Especially Internet users. How common it is these days to find people who want to be rude and obnoxious because they disagree with someone else's point of view or just for the sake of being so. It's like people have lost their ability of self control.

This is often the case with incidents of road rage. What would cause a normal law abiding person will turn into a homicidal maniac just over something like someone forgetting to put their turn signal on when changing lanes? Where did sanity go? A person

forgets to put their signal on when getting in front of someone else, so rational thinking dictates to shoot that person or to drive in front of them and slam on the brakes so they smash into the back of the car? People are so quick to temper and rage, and to taking things out on other people who have absolutely nothing to do with the REAL reason they are so angry. Everyone loses their temper with other drivers. People are human and humans have emotions. However, people on the road or on the Internet are letting their anger get the best of them way too often. Case in point: from time to time I use the monster.com Vent! forum to do just that, vent. That is it's name and purpose. When I was unemployed and having the hardest time finding work, Lord knows I needed to vent. I needed to vent somewhere where it felt pretty safe (couldn't afford a therapist, remember: no job, no benefits. Ain't it a great society we made for ourselves?). I kept my venting clean and I also use two different screen names (for a certain reason). It never ceases to amaze me how other users take such offense to the fact that someone needs to vent or what someone wants to vent about (and yet that is what the Vent! forum is for).

Although freedom of speech allows for someone to voice an opposing opinion, if someone isn't doing anything wrong in the first place then why would a forum user get offended by someone using the forum in the manner it was intended? Once again, it's a situation where someone can not control their impulsive actions (and no surprise that they are out of work. This person even admitted they have anger issues and their former co-workers thought they were an as*hole, so there you go). If only people would just think before they react or just try to act in a mature fashion. Realize that it is ok to offer sympathy, compassion, understanding, and care to someone else.

Maybe it is just too much to ask, yet these are the very elements that make us human.
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Learning the Hard Way

As I stated in my previous posts, my brother tends to have fits of uncontrollable rage. I wish I knew what triggers these fits. He has attacked me many, many times through the years, with the most recent attack on me in 1999. I know that with me his anger stems from jealousy (I hate to brag but I am much more physically attactive than him and I have a nicer personality) but he has lost his temper and gotten violent with others, sometimes even erupting at his workplace. As far as work goes for my brother he primarily does bluecollar work. He never went to college, but he did try community college for one day. Not much of a try but he did try. When he was tested he didn't score high enough in math so he was told he had to take a remedial math course.

I'll never forget that day. My father and I went to pick him up at the school and he seemed visibly upset. My father asked him in a nice way if something was wrong and, with much annoyance in his voice, my brother started relating to us about his low test score, the remedial math class that he has no choice in taking, and how he doesn't want to take it (I really don't understand why he would get so upset. After all Einstein didn't do that well in math either). So my father tried to keep him calm but my brother didn't want to hear it and when we were back behind the school, BaBoom! my brother lost it! His books and papers went flying in the air. I started picking up my brother's papers while my dad tried to console my brother as he was crying and carrying on over basically nothing. To see an 18 year old behave this way was quite disturbing but I wasn't surprised. I knew that when he got upset, the possibility for him to explode is quite certain. Even as my father talked to him, I grew very anxious. My brother always produced anxiety in me when he would get upset over something. Back then I even feared (call it paranoia perhaps) that one day he might just get a gun and kill all of us. I didn't know what to think. I don't feel that way now since I have seen some changes (minor changes, but none the less they are still changes).

As of August of 2005, my brother disappointed me once again. Last year in April my mother tried to commit suicide by overdosing, but then she had second thoughts, I guess, and called 911. She was taken to the local hospital and kept till she discharged herself. While there they took her off all her medicine and didn't put her back on anything. My mother suffers from a schizoaffective disorder. She tends to hear voices in her head and starts acting really strange. Not to mention she gets really nasty with people and, the only way to describe it, she starts acting like an as*hole. She will insult you and try to start an argument. She doesn't know what she is doing but it is very annoying (I grew up with the behavior) and can make people very angry. Not to mention very frustrated. My dad would try so hard to get her to sign herself into a mental hospital but she resisted, saying that there is nothing wrong with her. That it is the doctors and my father that have something wrong with them. This continued on and off for a few decades. There were times when she was just downright mean to all of us for no reason. I dreaded when she started to act odd because this meant that she was about to begin another "episode", and I really started to hate her. However, it wasn't her that I hated when she was like this, it was the illness that I hated.

This latest time, my brother was on his own in handling the situation since I live 1500 miles away and I didn't envy him at all. I doubted he was mature enough to handle the situation there; my gut telling me that something is going to go horribly wrong. My gut was unfortunately correct. I could tell just speaking to my mom on the phone that her behavior was irratic. Why her doctor didn't have her on any medicine I will never understand. Perhaps she was able to "fool" him. I found my moms strange behavior to be quite evident, and I don't even have a pHd in psychiatry. I would also talk to my brother on the phone to see how he was holding up and he would tell me of mom's odd behavior. He told me she was having conversations with no one else in the room and later on he told me that she also said things that insulted him. The mean behavior had begun but I was not aware of it at the time. I could tell that my brother was having difficulty handling her odd behavior. The thing about my brother is that he lacks patience and sympathy for others. It's almost like he doesn't see her as being ill but that this is her true nature, insults and all. I don't know why he would relate to her this way but he did. Everything she did and said just ate away at him. Plus on top of everything else, my aunt (my mom's sister) and her daughter (my cousin) would call my brother to tell him how strange my mom is acting. Later on he told me that they didn't even bother to ask how he was doing. Although my brother tends to put his own needs first before anyone elses, I think that my aunt and cousins should have showed at least a little concern for him (it's still not an excuse for what eventually happened).

I guess my brother felt under pressure from my aunt and my cousin calling to report my mother's odd behavior. I would too if I had to deal with that and come home to a crazy person everyday. I would also be depressed as well. The difference is, I would talk out my feelings with someone and seek out help. My brother tends to keep everything inside and blow things out of proporsion. He often lacks common sense. For example, if my mother isn't preparing dinner for him because she doesn't want to do it, then he can make something himself or just go somewhere and buy something. Instead he takes it to heart and it tends to get him angry. To be honest, a man his age shouldn't be relying on his mother to make his meals and do things for him. He is a big boy now. At some point in August of last year things just boiled over and my brother exploded again. He lost his cool over something my mother said and he attacked her. From what I can gather, these were th events leading up to the assault: my brother was on the phone talking to a pharmacist trying to find out the price of my mom's medicine (which she either wasn't really taking or wasn't working) and my mom was being very argumentative which is a common symptom of mental illness. She apparently didn't want to pay the price quoted over the phone so my brother grew increasingly frustrated with her. It was not at this point when he lost his cool but either later that day or the next day when she said something to him that set him off. It still is not exactly clear to me what it was that set him off but I do know that he was in the living room doing what he always does, reading the newspaper (one of his favorite activities). As she was walking down the hallway with her back to him she said something to him whereupon he leaped up out of the chair yelling, "I can't take it anymore"! He then ran down the hall and hit my mom from behind. She fell to the floor and he started punching her uncontrollably as a child might do. She yelled out, "You're going to kill me"! and it was at that point he stopped his assault. He then asked her if he could get her an ice pack but she said, "The Hell with you" and ran to a neighbor's house for help. The police were also called and I am assuming he was arrested. My mother also has a restraining order against him and he is not allowed to go home. Eventually my brother had to appear in court.

He called me after afterwards. He was staying in a motel in a town nearby till he could find a place to rent. I could tell he was upset and sad about what he did but at the same time he would say that he is the victim, not my mom. Even I can not believe he would say something like that. My brother doesn't even realize how lucky he was that he didn't end up in jail but I told him that he could have ended up there. My mom could have pressed charges. She had a bump on her head and two black eyes. I decided that I would go home to visit her for Christmas (2005). Unbeknownst to her, I also was also planning to get her into a mental hospital because I could tell from our conversations on the phone that she was not well (apparently her stupid doctor thought she was fine). I had no idea how exactly I was going to do this but I guess I thought I would figure something out once I got home. Once I got home I could see she was a mess. She would talk a mile a minute and change conversational topics before I could get 3 words out. She was manic. She had always been an expert at baking cookies but the Christmas cookies she made this time were all misshapen and a little burnt (on a side note, I still ate them because I love chocolate chip. I didn't get sick so I guess no poison in them).

The big question was how was I going to get her to admit herself into the hospital? As it were a stroke of luck came my way. Christmas Eve she stayed up all night and claimed she had diarrhea. Early Christmas morning she started knocking franticly on my bedroom door. She said that I need to take her to the emergency room since she was up all night with diarrhea. She was afraid of getting dehydrated. I didn't even shower and I knew this was the opportunity I was waiting for. After the emergency room doctor and nurse spoke with her (and both of whom my mom was very rude to), an emergency room nurse brought her to a room while I stayed behind to have a little chat with the doc. I explained the whole situation to the emergency room doctor and she said that a counselor will come talk with my mom to evaluate her. At my request, they also would make sure my mom isn't aware that it was I who asked for my mom to be psychologically evaluated (my mom tends to harbor resentment against anyone who has here sent to the hospital, even after she gets better). I also asked to speak to the counselor first so I can explain what has been happening. A number of hours later, the counselor spoke to me and then went to evaluate my mother. After about 10 or 15 minutes only, the counselor came back over to me to say that she can see that my mother is mentally ill and is going to have the hospital psychiatrist have a chat with her. The psychiatrist evaluated her as well and determined that she needs to be hospitalized in a mental hospital, just as I suspected. I was so relieved. She was going to finally get the proper help she should have gotten earlier that year. I visited my mom before I had to return to my home state since my vacation time was ending. I also kept in touch with her nurse so I could be informed of her progress.

As for my brother, he was ordered by the court to go to therapy for his anger and I felt it was about freaking time. How many years I had to endure his violent attacks and insults. I feel he should also be on medication. My parents didn't think much of my opinion that there was something seriously wrong with my brother, but my mom learned the hard way unfortunately. After my mom was released and determined to be well again by the mental hospital, I called her and she did seem better. She also apologized to me and said that she should have listened to my warnings about my brother's anger.

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