Category Archives: Opinion

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World—Never Mind, It’s Just Me

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I didn’t want my next journal entry to be a rant, I really didn’t. Hell, I’m excited because I have some really cool entries lined up for the near future (i.e., I’ve been writing a lot and am eager to show off). 

I’m pissed because I am sick of reading people disrespecting psychology and psychiatry. The psycho-haters are an interesting and very diverse group. On one side, Tom Cruise and his fellow [tax-fraud, cult-like organization with a litigious history that is prompting me not to name them] rails about them, the religious right-wing suggests praying, and liberal potheads like Bill Maher (whom I strongly dislike because he is exactly the kind of latte-sipping, white-wine-sniffing, New York Times-reading, elitist snob who looks down his nose at the middle-class and makes it hard to sell progressive reform) claim that all doctors are out to get you. 

There are concerns, to be sure. I think some doctors are too quick to prescribe some of this medication, and I don’t think they have educated themselves enough about their side effects. In my humble, never-took-a-biology-class-past-tenth-grade opinion, if your patient is complaining about Prozac deadening his libido, the answer is not a prescription for Viagra. Yes, the FDA is a political organization that was, at one time, run by world-renowned agricultural biologist and chemist, Donald Rumsfeld, but it’s not all bad. 

However, the kneejerk, lefty claim about meds (Holier-than-thou doctors and big pharma want to control you and profit off your misery! OMG!) is too similar to the right-wing reaction to global warming and evolution (Holier-than-thou scientists and big government want to control you and profit off your misery! OMG!). Scientists and doctors went to school for years and years to become scientists. You just read an article on the Internet. Science fucks up, but they will admit if they get something wrong. Don’t pretend they don’t. 

Let’s try to be a little more realistic: For the most part, these drugs work. I said for the most part. And that’s what’s so damned difficult to comprehend about it. It’s all guesswork and trial-and-error (and yes, Mr. Maher, doctors do admit that it’s guesswork), and it takes a long time and a lot of effort on the part of doctor and patient to make it work. 

There. Is. No. Simple Cure. 

That in itself is frustrating, because I would like more than anything to take a pill or be hypnotized or something just to get rid of it. Full disclosure: I am mentally ill. It’s a pretty minor illness in comparison, even to some of my friends. Since I was a teenager, I’ve been depressed and riddled with crippling anxiety. I tried everything I could find to take the edge off, including cigarettes, illegal drugs, alcohol, poetry, really bad poetry, cognitive-behavioral therapy, heavy metal, support groups, medication, parties, exercise, rock concerts, EMDR, and journaling. All of it worked, and at the same time, none of it did. 

In one case, I found the perfect drug cocktail that made me less stressed out and less sad. And I had to stop taking one of the drugs because it had a side-effect I couldn’t live with. Now I’m trying a combination of a powerful anti-anxiety med, therapy, exercise, and writing. In a few months, this might not be working. It drives my wife crazy, and it drives me crazy. We both just want me to be better, and we’re sick of having to be vigilante for the rest of our lives. 

There is no one solution for any one person. Diet and exercise alone will not fix your depression. You can’t think it better. Anti-depressants will not make it all go away. 

What doesn’t work is telling myself (often at the urging of others) is that it’s all in my head. That my anxiety is shyness or stage fright or what have you. That the depressed are a bunch of whiners. That big agriculture and fast-food chains and TV have all poisoned our minds, and that’s the drugs are only there to make us sheep who will blindly follow The Man’s orders. The truth that lives in these statements makes them hurt, but these statements aren’t the whole truth. In short, It’s complicated! 

Rant over. 

To go boldly…

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A few years ago, I got into a heated debate with a Bush and war-supporting friend regarding the wisdom of invading Iraq. The argument was one of those in which one side refused even to listen to the other side. At one point, during a discussion of Bush’s personality, it was brought up by me that the conversation was odd, given our Star Trek preferences. We had both been members of the Star Trek fanclubs in our misguided youths, and he has made it clear to all who will listen (which really isn’t that many in the first place) that he is a Picard, Next Generation fan, whereas I am a Kirk supporter. What’s strange about this should be obvious to anyone who’s familiar with the two different captains.  

Picard, played with dignity by fine Shakespearean actor, Patrick Stewart, is simply a post-Vietnam diplomat. He consults his crew and Starfleet about any decisions he makes, follows the Prime Directive to the decimal point, only engages in violence when absolutely necessary, and can speak fluent Klingon. 

Kirk, played with a smirk by the walking punchline, William Shatner, is a warrior. he makes brash, unilateral decisions, acknowledges the Prime Directive as that rule he’s going to break in just a second, engages in violence whenever the opportunity presents itself, and only speaks one sentence of Klingon, which translates into “Kiss my ass.” 

You see where I’m going with this. Putting aside the question of Kirk’s libido, which was positively Clintonian, there are deeper similarities to the forty-second and forty-third presidents. For example, who better to portray cold, unfeeling Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld than Kirk’s science officer, Mr. Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy; and who else in Star Trek history, other than DeForest Kelley’s Dr. McCoy, could you picture whipping around and telling a fellow member to go fuck himself, like our current vice president? Likewise, is there an awkward, dull, humorless Second-in-Command who is more like Al Gore than Picard’s Number One, William T. Riker, portrayed with remarkable height by Jonathan Frakes? 

I was in a quandary, as was my debate partner. Was there one point either of us could make about our Trek of choice that would make our respective philosophies more than just lip service? Excepting, of course, the fact that Star Trek is merely fiction.  

Years later, it hit me. Despite all the connections I could draw between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Bush, there was one distinction that sums up just about everything I find wrong with the latter: James T. Kirk would never send anyone into a dangerous situation that he, himself, would not charge into. It’s that simple.  

Now I feel vindicated. It’s a shame I don’t talk to that debate partner anymore. Though I know him, and he would spend hours trying to spin Bush’s draft-dodging ways into gold (or, more likely, he would point out Clinton’s draft-dodging), because admitting he is wrong is something Picard would do, but not my dear friend. 

“He Had a Gunshot Womb.”

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It’s been nearly thirty months since it was declared “Mission Accomplished,” and over two thousand American soldiers have died in Iraq. Accurate numbers on the deaths of American civilians and American wounded are not forthcoming, nor are numbers for Iraqis, whether they be soldier or civilian, dead or injured. 

Today, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has left the press blue-balled again regarding indictments, but it’s clear he’s looking into the “Niger Yellowcake” memo—the one that many US Senators and Representatives claim made them decide, almost unanimously, to give the president war powers. 

Today, my baby sister, whose first word I still remember, whose diaper bag I carried, and who has gotten me as drunk—if not more so—than a bunch of twenty-and-thirty-something bar veterans in New York City, woke up in the deserts of Kuwait, fixing vehicles that are scheduled to drive through hostile anti-American towns without sufficient armor. 

Today, some young man who was born and raised under a brutal regime is going to wake up in a town surrounded by barbed wire, with no running water, being pulled out of his car by his liberators, who will wave guns at him and demand that he do things in a tongue he doesn’t understand. 

Today, some patriotic kid from a Jesus-fearing state in the middle of his country will find himself in a strange village halfway across the world from his mother, deciding whether or not to shoot the person in the car before him, with no way of knowing if it’s someone minding his own business, or someone who’s going to kill or maim him with plastic explosives hidden in the trunk.  

Today, I attended a candlelight vigil, along with one hundred and fifty other Bloomingtonians, honoring all we’ve lost since March of 2003 and earlier. 

War blows. 

So, all my regular readers (both of you), I need you to do me a favor and pray to whatever gods or goddesses you speak to, or meditate if you are your own God or Goddess, for some sanity. 

I’m feeling sad, as if you couldn’t tell.