In response to receiving a self-help quote from a friend.
The problem is, it's all so unnecessary. I felt so liberated when I was off of Effexor 1 just a month ago. Then I had a really bad day and I went back on the drug. But had laughing gas or coca or opium been available to me (and not outlawed based on fearmongering) I would have gotten thru that patch and continued drug-free.
So, I appreciate all the advice of the Brene Browns of the world, but for me they are what the poet Shelley called "frail spells" when confronting the problems of depression and antidepressants 2.
In fact, I would claim that the entire self-help field is a product of the Drug War because it outlaws everything that works, psychologically speaking. Self-help authors are then reduced to the expedient of describing how a sane person would behave, in the hopes that their readers will be able to translate those words into feelings. This can help, but from my impatient point of view, such help is a "frail spell" - and irritating, too, because almost none of these authors realize - let alone point out - that we have outlawed all the drugs (extant and potential) that could help us achieve these goals, something that their Christian Science biases seem to reject up front.
Meanwhile materialist researchers completely ignore the power of psychological common sense. They do not care that laughing gas 3 would make me laugh -- they do not care that coca would lift me up -- they do not care that opium would give me pleasant dreams. They see no benefits in those things. They are, in fact, blind to everything that would truly help me, as they search under their microscopes for a "real" cure -- which is just a metaphysical search for a sort of holy grail of materialist morality. This understanding of the world has been cemented into the American mind by the sheer money that it has generated for the medical industry, and so it's hard to get a fair hearing, because almost everyone involved owes their very career to the materialist mindset.
Marcus Aurelius had plenty of great things to say about living successfully with oneself -- and it's comforting to read them, something that I did on a daily basis for years. However, he was a big fan of opium , too, and I dare say I might have written some such soothing thoughts were I able to indulge on occasion in that drug, which, despite drug-war dogma, CAN be used safely -- and I believe should be a legal alternative to daily antidepressant use. It would not just be the opium that would help me - but the looking forward to nightly use, as the drinker looks forward to their beer. It's the therapeutic power of anticipation, something that materialist science does not seem to recognize. I see no moral difference between daily opium 4 use and daily antidepressant use - and in fact the former is time-honored while the latter is a modern invention based on the materialist dogma of targeted neurochemical intervention.
In a sane world that recognizes psychological common sense, a vast array of psychoactive drugs could be used strategically on an as-needed basis, such that dependence would not be acquired, unless actually desired.
If the previous paragraphs sound absurd, it is only because Americans (and the world) have accepted a bunch of lies and assumptions as facts thanks to Drug War propaganda - above all, the propaganda of censorship, thanks to which we are not allowed to read or see anything that shows "drugs" in a good light.
But I very much appreciate your concern. Thanks!
I think you raise a good point about lowering one's expectations, however. One does not have to change the world but to simply do their part and should try to be satisfied with that. My part, as I see it, is to try to spread the word about the poisonous tendrils of the Drug War, which has destroyed the 4th amendment, outlawed free speech about drugs, and suppressed religions based on spiritual states. I do this by writing essays and by sending snail mail correspondence to the movers-and-shakers in the psychiatric, philosophical and psychological realms, in the hope of having someone at last say, "Aha!"
One of the reasons the Drug War is tolerated is because the victims suffer in silence, countless millions around the world living with unnecessary grief and pain because politicians have conspired with materialists to outlaw a whole pharmacy's worth of psychoactive drugs in advance, a totally anti-scientific and inhumane situation.
This is why we would rather have a depressed person commit suicide than to use "drugs" -- because drugs, after all, are not dealing with the "real" problem. The patient may SAY that drugs make them feel good, but we need microscopes to find out if they REALLY feel good.
All drugs have positive uses. It's absurd to prohibit using them because one demographic might misuse them.
Drug warriors do not want to end "addiction": it's their golden goose. They use the threat of addiction to scare us into giving up our democratic freedoms, like that once supplied by the 4th amendment.
I'm going to get on the grade-school circuit, telling kids to say no to horses.
"You think you can handle horses, kids? That's what Christopher Reeves thought. The fact is, NOBODY can handle horses!!!"
A Pennsylvanian politician now wants the US Army to "fight fentanyl." The guy is anthropomorphizing a damn drug! No wonder pols don't want to spend money on education, because any educated country would laugh a superstitious guy like that right out of public office.
Drug Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It outlaws our right to take care of our own health.
"When two men who have been in an aggressive mood toward each other take part in the ritual, one is able to say to the other, 'Come, let us drink, for there is something between us.' " re: the Mayan use of the balche drink in Encyc of Psych Plants, by Ratsch & Hofmann
Two weeks ago, a guy told me that most psychiatrists believe ECT is great. I thought he was joking! I've since come to realize that he was telling the truth: that is just how screwed up the healthcare system is today thanks to drug war ideology and purblind materialism.
We need to stop using the fact that people like opiates as an excuse to launch a crackdown on inner cities. We need to re-legalize popular meds, teach safe use, and come up with common sense ways to combat addictions by using drugs to fight drugs.
Laughing gas is the substance that gave William James his philosophy of reality. He concluded from its use that what we perceive is just a fraction of reality writ large. Yet his alma mater (Harvard) does not even MENTION laughing gas in their bio of the man.
This is why we would rather have a depressed person commit suicide than to use "drugs" -- because drugs, after all, are not dealing with the "real" problem. The patient may SAY that drugs make them feel good, but we need microscopes to find out if they REALLY feel good.
