Into the Void

The Zucchini Patch » A Slave to Cigarettes

Jessica of The Zucchini Patch wants to quit smoking. This is my comment. It deals mostly with the money aspect of smoking. They don’t talk about that much in the anti-smoking ads. They talk about cancer only in very vague terms. They show little pictures of the particulate matter that coats the lungs. They don’t talk so much about the reality of drowning in your own putrefying lungs.

Oddly enough, they also don’t talk about the 20% of women with lung cancer who never smoked at all. The politics of the anti-tobacco movement is another story for another day.

Wow. I remember in 1979 saying I’d quit when cigarettes reached 75¢ a pack.

Let’s see…
$3.50/pack × 2 packs/day × 365days/year?
Thats over $2500 a year!

So your first year’s savings are the down payment on a new subcompact car. Each monthly savings after that is the car payment.

Not sure how much daycare costs. Save your savings in a college fund for Marco. In 15 years at 9% interest, the long-term average growth for the stock market, you’d have $65,536.67. (Don’t worry, he’ll get loans and grants for the rest of the cost.)

Or how about taking a week-long yoga retreat at the Omega Institute? Mmmmmmm… :-)

A trip to Paris even with the abysmal exchange rate!

20 steak dinners. Real, digestible steak, not the USDA Choice shoeleather they sell at the supermarket. If you don’t eat meat, give the steak to the dog and enjoy a decadent dessert, a mango souffle perhaps. Heck, fly me up there and I’ll eat your steak. I’m not proud.

See, this is what the cigarette habit is denying you.

I’m having a brain bubble over where you live. I’ll do the tax numbers based on my locale. Federal tax on cigarettes is 39¢ a pack so I’d pay around $280 a year. I wonder whether I can deduct that on my income tax? If Congress manages to raise the tax to $1 a pack (to fund children’s health insurance, they claim) then I’d be paying $730 a year. Hey, it’s “for the chillrun.” My state cigarette tax is $1.35 per pack, for a whopping $980 or so per year. My state income tax is less than that!

Does it seem to you that if the government actually banned cigarettes they’d be losing a big source of income? Hmmmm… almosts makes you want to think. ;-)

Ok, now for the real problem with quitting smoking. Nicotine is a powerful anxiolytic and antidepressant. When you quit, you’re not only back to your pre-smoking anxiety levels, but you also have a rebound effect. The HedWeb Good Drug Guide has a lot of excellent information on brain chemical tweaks in general, and nicotine in particular. Here’s a good place to start:
Biopsychiatry.com:: Antidepressants : Nicotine

Both major depression and depressive symptoms are associated with a high rate of nicotine dependence, and a history of major depression has an adverse impact on smoking cessation.

In other words, when you quit smoking it will feel as if you’ve quit psych meds cold turkey. Have you ever made that mistake?

So please don’t beat yourself up if it takes several tries for you to quit. It’s not a moral failing, it is brain chemicals. I’d wait until after the stressful holidays to quit.

I could go into the nuts-and-bolts of how I finally quit in 1986 or so - lots of crying, mostly - but there is plenty of good information available on the web. Email me if you want to hear about it. :-)

The long awaited Manic-Depressive Illness: Bipolar Disorders and Recurrent Depression, Second Edition, by Frederick K. Goodwin and Kay Redfield Jamison is finally in stores.

Hopefully you have the first edition. It is *the* reference book for bipolar disorder. Over the years many of the hypotheses set forth in the first edition have been proven out. It’s all there. Phototherapy, circadian rhythms, bipolar creativity. The effects of lithium on the suicide rate. Why we must avoid unopposed antidepressants. And that’s what I saw just riffling the pages! I can’t wait to sit down and read the medical roadmap that Drs. Goodwin and Jamison set out for the next 15 years.

A sample chapter is available for download from the Oxford University Press.

If you apply for the Amazon.com Visa when you make the purchase you can get a hefty rebate. Yippee!

Technorati: antidepressants lithium bipolar+disorder manic+depression circadian+rhythms Depression Kay+Redfield+Jamison Manic+Depressive+Illness Phototherapy suicide

I’ve been thinking about parasites.

Not the “earworm” sort of thing where you hear a bit of a song and can’t get it out of your head for the rest of the day. Not even the everyday suck-on-your-intestines nasties. I’m thinking about the kind of parasites that get into your mind and control your thoughts and actions.

For the record, I know *of* these parasites but I’m looking up the names online as I go along. Damn it, Jim, I’m an engineer not a biologist.

The sensitive and the squeamish may want to stop reading this now.

Really.

Ok, now that we’ve shaken off the fleas…

There’s a parasite that infects rodents, Toxoplasm gondii. It makes them all hyper and weird and THAT makes them easier for cats to catch. Where it
gets interesting is that the life cycle of this parasite requires that it pass through the stomach and intestinal tract of… wait for it… a cat! How convenient!

I have occasionally wondered whether the active phase of the infestation makes humans more attractive to cats. Something like 40% of the population has antibodies to T. gondii. Maybe “the rat race” isn’t so far off, eh?

The psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey - whose sister is or was schizophrenic and is probably somewhat affected himself - is promoting the paranoid delusion that cat shit causes schizophrenia. He always hated the family pets, so when his sister got sick he blamed Fluffy. This, my friends, is a major researcher into bipolar disorder at the prestigious Stanley Foundation. We are SO f*cked.

Oh. In other countries with the same rate of antibodies to T. gondii in the population, there is less schizophrenia and the prognosis is better. Personally I think schizophrenia is a product of industrialization and I wish Dr. Torrey would quit wasting valuable time digging in the cat box.

There are many other parasites that affect the behavior of the host. Three
more follow:

Sacculina infects crabs. If by “infects” you mean “castrates and takes over the mind and body.” This is the stuff of nightmares. Succulina injects itself into a crack in the exoskeleton and quickly grows out through the entire nervous system. Crabs that are infected can’t breed, can’t regenerate limbs, and spend the rest of their lives doing nothing but feeding and caring for the parasite. They even stroke and clean the monster, which in the female crab lives in the compartment where she usually holds her unhatched eggs.

Can you imagine having some THING living inside you, changing your brain so that the thing becomes the focus of your entire life? This is the stuff of nightmares.

The lancet fluke has a fairly complicated life cycle, but the interesting part is where it infects an ant. An infected ant acts like a regular ant by day, but at night she climbs up a blade of grass and waits at the top. The next stage of the parasite’s life cycle is to become a liver fluke in a cow. How better to be eaten by a cow than to have your host sit on the top of a blade of grass at dawn!

Another fluke infects fish - the young flukes migrate to the fish’s brain and crowd around it like pigs at a trough. Fish who are infected periodically stop what they’re doing and flail about at the surface of the water. Shorebirds find the flailing fish easy to catch, and yep, the birds are part of the life cycle too. The parasites boost the bird population by making more food available, but the fact that they kill their fish hosts puts limits on how much of the fish population can be infested. Again, a very convenient situation.

Hopefully you all are getting where I’m going with this - that parasites can make you do things you might not have done if it didn’t benefit the parasite. A parasite that flat out ate us alive would be found and eradicated like the screwfly was. Most of them are merely a nuisance.

Humans are, for the most part, repulsed by parasites. I’m sure there are some parasites somewhere that are status symbols, but I sure can’t think of
any. Usually we want to avoid parasites if we can, and expel or exterminate them when we can’t.

It would be more adaptive if the parasite made humans enjoy being infested. I’ve read sci-fi stories about this sort of thing, and I remember at least one Star Trek episode where the infested feel **enriched** by the parasite and are absolutely delighted to forcefully spread it to others.

If you believe the writer William S. Bourroughs, language itself is a virus. Certainly memes, often called “mind viruses,” have some quality that helps them spread. Does anyone remember Laurie Anderson’s “Language is a Virus” from the “Home of the Brave” video?

Oh, he did a really nice book about the co-evolution of cats and people called “The Cat Inside” or something similar. I highly recommend it for the cat-infested.

Next section of this article will be on how *ideas* influence our thinking and behavior in the same way that parasites do.

Technorati: parasites medicine medical mind schizophreniam T+gondii cat+shit William+S+Bourroughs memes

Rivers Source Botanicals Retail/Wholesale

As a psychiatric patient^w^w shaman wannabe^w^w armchair anthropologist, I am very interested in the varieties of religious experience, to steal a title from psychologist William James. More precisely, I’m interested in different paths to epiphany just as much as I am interested in the content of the epiphanies. The content, you see, is determined by your cultural expectations. (Boring.) The fact that we are wired for bliss amazes me.

But I’m totally off-topic here, aren’t I?

I wanted to put in a plug for Rivers Source Botanicals. They have an excellent selection of heritage plants and seeds to help you create that special healing garden.

The flower pictured here is St. John’s Wort, a plant that is still used medicinally in Europe to treat depression. We can get it in health food stores, but your doctor isn’t likely to prescribe it. RSB often has SJW seeds in stock, along with echinacea, several types of cactus, and many beautiful flowers that you aren’t likely to find in the Home Despot. The prices are astonishingly low, too.

I order some heritage seeds from RSB just about every year. I highly recommend them for all your ethnobotanical needs.

Technorati: ethnobotanical shaman cactus St+Johns+Wort religious+experience William+James

I have been thinking about about the environmental and medical effects of nano-pollution. Nanotechnology is a catch-all phrase that describes microscopic man-made objects. These come in many shapes and sizes - soccer-ball-shaped cages made of 60 carbon atoms, nanotubes the thickness of a hair, among others.

These objects persist in the environment after they’ve been used and disposed of. There has been little, if any, investigation into the effects of exposure to environmental nanotechnology.

Nanotechnological pollution is on the horizon. Fortunately, at least one group is looking into it. The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) is trying to put together a multi-disciplinary collaborative network to establish guidelines for safely handling nano-materials.

We don’t have very long to get the guidelines and some procedures in place. An emerging illness called Morgellons Disease is quite possibly the earliest indication of what we can all expect from nano-pollution.

“Morgellons disease” is the name given to a cluster of symptoms that includes skin lesions, often with small fibers in the lesion. Fascinating stuff. Right now the medical profession is pooh-poohing it as a symptom of mental illness - Delusional Parasitosis. The folks at the Morgellons Research Foundation have posted as much information as is available on their web site.

The medical profession as a whole is particularly unscientific when it comes to identifying and treating new illnesses. Have you noticed? You can buy a lot of time if you pass the patient off to a psychiatrist.

It is possibile that some, if not all, cases of Morgellons are the result of exposure to tiny bits of nano-technology. These objects may lodge almost invisibly in the skin, causing unexplained lesions. Larger nanotubes or groups of smaller ones may appear to be fibers. According to a recent article in Popular Science, many of these objects are so small that when inhaled they can be carried directly into the brain using the same pathways as smells do.

Reading the Morgellons information reminded me of the few times I’ve come in direct contact with fiberglass insulation. You can’t see it, but it is painful and itchy. What if the fibers were microscopic? Would they still cause discomfort? I don’t know.

The dangers of asbestos were ignored for decades while thousands of workers died of the lung cancer it is now known to cause. I hope we don’t repeat the story with BuckyBalls.


Technorati: Morgellons+Disease nano-technology nano-tubes nano-pollution asbestos nanotube+modeler buckminsterfullerene buckyballs

A little dark humor from Tom’s Jokes Collection.

Technorati: dark+humor suicide+hotline suicide

Someone asked what is the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist. There are other helping professionals too. They have different levels of education and licensing, and in bipolar disorder it’s important to make sure you get the right one.

Psychiatrists are real medical doctors who specialize in diagnosing and treating mental disorders. After getting a real medical degree they went back and took more courses, then did their internship in psychiatry - well, some are only “board certified,” meaning that they took the exams after the fact. Look at the diplomas. Psychiatrists are the only mental health care professionals who can prescribe drugs *in most states.* They are - and there’s no question here - the only people who are qualified to distinguish between organic disease and mental disorders.
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=5107

A psychologist has a PhD, also called a doctorate, in the study of psychology. It is very important to remember that even though you call the psychologist “Doctor” he or she is NOT a medical doctor. He probably did an internship in which he did quick evaluations as to mental status. And he’s not qualified to dispense medications because he doesn’t have to have even basic medical training. He isn’t even qualified to put a bandaid on a boo-boo. He certainly isn’t qualified to diagnose physical illnesses - bipolar disorder is associated with brain chemicals, and that’s a medical issue. He is required to send you to a psychiatrist for that. NOT to a nurse practitioner or even a GP. A psychologist is versed in sociology and culture, and their job is to help you gain insight into the experiences that made you whow you are. This is called psychoanalysis or depth therapy. And of course to *adjust* to your circumstances in life.
http://www.apa.org/about/

A psychotherapist is a person who tries to do the same things that the psychologists do. Obviously psychologists and psychiatrists do short-term psychotherapy. Some psychotherapists, however, hold a Master’s Degree in something else. Social workers - MSWs - are trained to hook people up with the right resources, but they often get involved in helping people identify and solve their problems. EdD’s - doctors of Education - again, not medical doctors or even psychologists - often perform psychotherapy. Caveat Emptor: if someone is going to do psychotherapy on you, make sure they’ve gone through it themselves. And make sure they’ve gone through it successfully. Oh, and try to get one from your culture so that they don’t try to cure you of your race or religion. If a psychotherapist other than your own psychiatrist starts giving you a hard time about your meds, think about switching one or the other. Psychotherapists, I like to say, are the gatekeepers of Consensus Reality.

A therapist is a person who helps you make changes in your life - but you have to want to change. :-) They aren’t qualified to do depth psychotherapy and may rely on doubtful modalities - you know, pop psychology out of the latest book by the latest guru.
http://helpyourselftherapy.com/topics/th_job.html

A counselor helps clients solve problems in specific areas - marriage, career, that sort of thing. Most of the time they have Master’s degrees, in some states they don’t have to.
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos067.htm

I hope this motivates you to check the credentials of your mental health professionals. It is absolutely essential to do so if you want to heal rather than spend the rest of your life helpless and hopeless.

Technorati: difference+between+psychologist+and+psychiatrist psychiatrist psychologist therapist depth+psychotherapy social+worker incompetent+idiots counselor

Any day that starts with an email from someone named “Bad Alice” simply has to be a great day!

Bad Alice is the acoustic duo formed by Suzy Johnston (author of The Naked Bird Watcher - the positive account of developing and learning to manage a serious psychiatric disorder that included depression, psychosis and self-harm)

Leslie interjects: The other half of the duo is Lindsay Robertson. So far as I can tell, she is horribly normal except when she gets a hold of a box of crayons.

The CD by Bad Alice is now available.

Titled ‘Walk in my Shoes’ it is a further positive and reflective message on mental illness, self-harm and the issues that face the young of today.

The CD is available on the Bad Alice website where individual tracks can also be downloaded. http://www.badalicemusic.com

The hope is that the music will help people to feel less isolated and offer reassurance that they can get through this. It is also meant to raise further awareness, understanding and - hey - people might even like the songs!

Cheers,

Bad Alice
http://www.badalicemusic.com/
http://www.thecairn.com/

Excellent CD. It’s only number two in my 6-disc changer, but Bad Alice would have to play tuned chain saws to get ahead of Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters - classic Jazz Fusion c. 1972.

I hope to get to Scotland on my next trip to Liverpool. If luck is with me, Bad Alice will have a gig when I’m there.

Suzy’s mum Jean is a great mum, I’m told, and a very cool lady. She even wrote her own book, To Walk on Eggshells, about her experiences helping her daughter navigate the dire straits of the mental health system in the UK. Family involvement is a big positive in handling bipolar disorder effectively.

The CD costs £6.50 postpaid in the UK. Not sure about the rest of the world, but it’s also available as mp3s. Buy it with PayPal and download it on the spot.

Technorati: bad+alice suzy+johnston indie depression psychosis self+harm The+Naked+Bird+Watcher mp3

SanDisk Takes Action Against Alzheimers

For some reason, Sandisk believes that selling special purple flash memory will fix Alzheimers. I have no idea why I think this is funny. I fully expect to spend the last few years of my life not remembering from moment to moment what I am doing. Oh, look, a plate of half-eaten something I don’t know the name of… should I eat it? Shudder.

They’re going to find out that Alzheimers is caused by a low-fat diet. Those plaques? They land in the empty spaces left behind when the brain - which is largely fat - melts away.

Sandisk was one of the major backers of the Secure Digital card format. I recommend the product highly, no matter what color it is.

Technorati: memory Alzheimers

It’s here, The Bipolar Planet® - Mobile Edition.

Since I got a data plan with the new cell phone I’m doing a lot more web browsing. My last cell phone had wireless so I didn’t bother with the data plan. Hmmm, it had a touchscreen too, and Windows Pocket PC rather than Windows Mobile phone edition. And was the size of a brick instead of the size of a candy bar.

Think about it: there are **scads** of middle-aged women driving around with handhelds looking to steal your bandwidth. Some of them want your files, too. Lock that wireless router, folks, especially if you share the C: drive on your home network.

Anyway, I’ve been spending more time on the mobile web and, well, sometimes you just have to say WTF. I got a .mobi domain and am distilling the entire planet into it. Sort of.

I’ll be adding content over the next couple of weeks. I’m evaluating chat sites now. This one looks ok.

Bipolar Planet® Chat
Chat with bipolars from around the world right from your mobile phone. This site is public and unmoderated. For more privacy, sign up for the email list instead.

In the name of the Turtle…

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