Beware of Dog

In many chapters, I present collections of distortions.  But because they are necessary to the protection of our ^Mind let us ^Practice calling them modes instead.  Every distortion is a ~mode~ of ~operation~. 

Cognitive distortions, Conative distortions and Affective distortions do not define us and are not a ~problem~ with our ~mind~!  Calling it a delusion, psychosis or crazy with intent to demonstrate it as an undesirable state of ^Mind is ~evil~.  But that's okay if it was our habit or if it is our habit to do so!  We can ^Overcome it. 

If it is a ~mode~ then resisting the mode often reinforces it and creates a ~divide~ against other modes, as though getting ~stuck~ in a mode were contagious.  It is not because we or others are being stubborn.  It is because the mode is active that the mode stays active.  It is self-preserving.  That is really ~good~! 

My habit is to ^Avoid and thereby ^Refuse ~excess~ ~empathy~ with modes of others.  That has the disadvantage of my getting ~stuck~ ~alone~ ^When I ^Need ~help~.  The advantage is ^More ~independence~ ^When I am capable and ~healthy~.  A ~search~ for ^More ~empathy~ has the converse advantage and disadvantage.  We ^Benefit from ~cooperation~, but we may get ~lost~ as we ^Avoid ~truth~.  If you also have either extreme as habit and got ~stuck~ or ~lost~ from a ~lack~ of ~empathy~ or from an ~excess~ of it, don't ^Worry.  We can ^Surrender and ^Heal from it. 

It is frequently a ~conflict~ of modes without attention to ~what~ is driving those modes that causes us to get ~stuck~.  If the underlying cause of a ~mode~ is left unaddressed or is ~unknown~ to us then any effort to ^Force past it is reckless to our lives and our minds. 

I offer here ^Empathy to my disdain for ~belief~ in using pharmacology ^Regularly or as a first resort.  I ^Hope that we use ^Care regarding our approach to mental ~health~.  My personal feeling may be summarized as, meals before pills.  So I ^Feel we ought not to ^Trust pills needlessly except to ^Fit and to ^Refresh. 

Talk therapy has its drawbacks too and is ^No ^More a universal approach than medications.  I'd rather exercise my ~body~ than my tongue and jaw in particular.  Those ^Who suffer from paranoia (or other ^Strong modes) often ^Benefit ~less~ than others from talk therapy or medication.  We can only ^Estimate ^How much one ^More pill or conversation (or one ^Less) would have helped us at one specific ~time-and-place~.  Our ~knowledge~ regarding any treatment may seem to be further obscured by our distortions (for example, placebo, nocebo, both, … ). 

I have had ^More than one wonderful therapists (individually and with ~family~).  One conversation comes to ^Mind with one therapist ^Who had many years of experience dedicated to ^Help others ^Become ~healthy~.  I asked them about a popular ~model~ of the ^Mind I had discovered on a popular video sharing site.  They quickly corrected me in a professional demonstration of ~chastisement~ to say that it is not the ^Mind only but ^How we ^Connect and relate with ~one-another~ and our world that matters just as much as the world within us.  Quite accidentally my question tested them which ^Test they aced.  And just as quickly I realized the ^Truth of it and agreed with them about it so that I may also pass the ~test~. 

Many conversations and ~life~ lessons have impressed upon me a similar theme.  The ^Mind cannot be weighed in isolation from its environment, so it is with great ^Care that we must weigh each ^Concept in ~truth~ to its ~variety~ of application.  And we must grant agnostic allowances to the situation that it may be applied as well to a single part of our ~mind~ in a single situation as to our whole ^Mind in its general ~operation~.  And from a single ^Mind, to that of many in varied ~communication~ ^Between us and to our world. 

One of the great reasons for my book is, ^No one needs to ^Trust these methods.  Rather we ^Trust for its own sake to see ^What develops.  And we can ^Try for ourselves at our own pace to find the fruits of ~MESH~. 

Ultimately, I ^Hope to ^Maximize our ~agency~ regarding every ~good~ approach.  Some of us ^Want pills, talking or both, to ^Be a significant part of the mix of healing.  That's okay!  Others like me, are ~avoidant~ of one or both of them in some ~way~, preferring self-help.  And that's okay too!  In context of our mental ~health~ journey, few things have been ^More inspiring to me than to see its practitioners using ^Good psychology on behalf of their patients: myself and others included.  We'll get there in time, I ^Know it!  Whatever our approach to our mental ~health~, once we commit to ^Try, I suspect that half the battle is won already. 

We can still ^Be ^Grateful despite ~needless~ suffering.  Years of ~needless~ suffering can ^Become suffering with ^Purpose, even many years after the fact.  It does!  Isn't that wonderful?  It is, once we can find and make the ^Change.  I ^Know it.  It is not about any supreme success but about finding remarkable healing and becoming our ~best~ ~self~. 

^Now as we teach ourselves about modes, please ^Remember this one thing.  Do not put ourselves or others in a ~mode~ of ~force~ or ~judgment~ against ~one-another~ nor against any modes in ourselves and others.  If we are in such a ~mode~ then we cannot ^Escape it except in a manner ^Cruel to the moment.  Like gravity it pulls others into a similar trap.  So if ~judgment~ upon ~one-another~ is seen elsewhere we ^Want to ^Separate ourselves from it for our safety.  But it is ^Prudent that we ^Stop and ^Look with ^Care.  In ~maximum~ ~judgment~ or ~force~ I suspect only a ~perfect~ ~fail~ is sufficient.  Nothing short of a miraculous fortunate lucky event upon our ^Mind can ^Undo our heaviest mode of ~force~ or ~judgment~.  Gladly we may ^Worry and find ^Sorrow from it because it is a tragedy and that forlorn state may be the beginning of our ^Fail towards a better ~way~. 

Although it is nice to have a diagnosis for my own suffering or for that of others, that may ^Offend or ^Become excusably received or applied which is contrary to ^MESH.  Due to the strings that the current modes of modern medicine and society ^Attach to us, I ^Think it far better that we can ^Look at the ^Mess without complication of adding a diagnosis for we ^Fear it as a society still, and it comes as a label of (Dys-)^Function.  Yet in reality, to ^Heal, we should recognize it as evidence of a beautiful ^Mind which is ^Full of ^Function.  And then, with appreciation of it in the ~full~ beauty of its modes we may ^Loom to repair or ^Improve any struggle rather than jump on the ^Train of dysfunction in the ~hope~ that the next station is different. 

Pick a section or chapter of my book.  Do you see a mode?  ^Good.  Or pick out a page of your journal and ^Name a concept.  Or perhaps you could ^Express the object-persisting-form of any verb.  Whatever the mode you find here or elsewhere, it is likely near the root of current ~needless~ suffering for some of us.  But that same mode is surely also key to alleviate ~needless~ suffering for another.  And a virtuous ~cycle~ ~between~ ~humility~ and ~fail~ may empower us to navigate all of our distortions even during our worst times of ~weakness~. 

I have lived a while through some hard times, but my first hospitalization and ensuing psychosis was FAR ^More traumatic to me than anything else in my ~memories~.  I was already dehydrated and starving, and that hospital commitment added to it nakedness, ~lack~ of ~privacy~ and being refused virtually every other comfort that was once in my ~life~.  That suffering was even worse than its precipitating trauma from five months before it which trauma (one of mere moments) put me down hard onto the worst part of my ^Mind's ~path~.  ^Now that I ^Know, you better ^Believe that I cling to ^Fail like my only real and true friend.  Like nothing else.  And you better ^Know my ~focus~ to ^Chastise those ^Who are ^Cruel or ^Who ^Deceive themselves to ^Think it is ~good~ to offer ~judgment~ or ~chastisement~ absent the ^Love. 

The dog on the porch awakes.  And his bark is so loud!  He thinks it is heard to the top of the mountain, poor dog.  He ponders, Are they in ~conflict~ about it once and yet?  He breaks this book in pieces as though it were ~food~, telling all others to vomit it up, for ^Food he did dearly ^Need, and that, he sacrificed against ~self~ for sake of others ^Who could not bear the medicine of it on the faintest whisper that it may have come to another as ~evil~.  The dog mourns his friend; a lion ^Now bruised and beaten; covered in mange and held in chains.  ^Go ^Dog, ^Go, for you have failed to save the lion from his chains, so ^Fail this effort straight away. 

This is announced in detail, a delusion delivered to the dog, and then powered by God.  Though the dog must ^Go, God did well, for somehow He owns every word of it still. 

In ~terror~ the dog awakes from the only ~space~ left sacred to him just defiled;  ^No ^Space of sacred comfort remains.  It is in gross violation of his ~body~, ~mind~ and this couch of divine ~Rest~.  The violation invokes a nightmarish ~lack~ of breath from his ~sleep~ and to ^Ridicule an ~obedient~ ~mind~ which roils, alarms and then explodes into a shoutful awakening. 

At the point of alarm, the extremity of the pain of it crossed into his ~awareness~ to ^Identify his attacker from before words had meaning. He relented from that ~knowledge~ being unable to bear it in the ~sense~ that it was one like ~family~.  The ~unknown~ assailant in ^Mind was almost revealed from within. 

In the ~full~ energy of awakening, he shouts ^No over and over and then screams in agony at each breath, horribly until ~exhausted~ and faint.  He howls until breathless and in pain, for he felt it as ^More than a nightmare for it was as ~memories~ of an attack long ago.  Though that ~knowledge~ he did ~refuse~, he is frantic to ^Seek its cause again.  In ~anger~ he leaps up accusing all he trusts each in ~turn~ as a desperate ~test~ to detect secret hostilities ~now~ manifest inwardly.  None rightly confesses and as yet the attacker remains ~unknown~. 

For many days therefrom, his voice is raspy and hoarse.  He shaves himself bald in depth of ~sorrow~ and ~shame~.  Somehow God in foresight long before had whispered ^What may have forestalled the dog from accusing at God's own throne despite irrepressible ~temptation~ of it, but nonetheless neither God nor man ever finds him appeased and in his ^Good graces in recent days. 

We may ask ^How ^Best to correct the delusions in others.  You may ask, ^What should I say while they are in a psychosis?  But first, let's ^Consider some fairly easy problems which are similar, but because they are so easy, we will ~ridicule~ the questions with our sarcastic answers.  ^What do you say to:

An alcoholic?  They are currently drunk for the very first time. 

I ^Want you to ^Know, that your ^Mind is broken.  You ^Need therapy ~long-term~.

A drunk?  They are always intoxicated or seeking their next ^Drink, and are currently drunk. 

Didn't you ^Know that ~addiction~ is a ~choice~?  ^Stop that and ^Live your ~life~ my ~way~.

A zealot?  Their ideology is worrisome or offensive to you. 

^Shame on you for living like that.  Your sincerely held ^Belief that you cherish is all wrong!  ^How could you ^Be like that? Only a ^Belief held by your ^Community is acceptable.  Anything else is a ^Lie because ^Truth is always popularly held.  And ^Why should we ^Accept unpopular truths anyway?

A survivor?  They are looking for refuge.  They are not speaking your language.  They are having ~aversion~ to your touch. 

Straight to jail.  Your ^Lack of ~communication~ may ^Offend me which is always offensive.  Your ~presence~ in ~war~ evidences your complicity to it.  ^When you ^Return you will ^Heal from your ^Desire to ^Avoid my ~choice~ to touch you.

An over-sleeper?  They are currently asleep.  They are vocalizing distress from some terrible nightmare. 

Shout as loud as you can, YOU ARE ASLEEP!  IT'S NOT REAL! repeatedly until they are made awake and calm by it. 

A rescued castaway?  They are sharing some weird ideas, and it is tiresome to hear it. 

Please just ^Go back to your island.

A complainer?  They are saying they are hurting deeply pretty much all the time.  They are ignoring simple facts and not conforming to rules of excellent behavior.

Why are you so desperate for attention?  ^Why do you ^Act like everything is so urgent?  ^Stop talking about that as though you actually ^Seek ^Help, comfort and relief.  I don't ^Want to hear it; ^Go pay someone to listen.  We will ^Ignore half of ^What you say, and the other part that I (Barely-)^Believe demonstrates that you ^Need ^More therapy or drugs.

A nutcase?  They are saying taboo harsh things about themselves, others and their world. 

You must have a chemical (Im-)^Balance.  I (Dis-)^Believe all your words.  It is time for some (Super-)~helpful~ drugs.  Take them until you are dead which will be sooner on average.  If you (Dis-)^Believe me or ^Decide differently than a doctor, it must be anosognosia, and it is a big word, and therefore a correct word meaning that I am right, and you are never right.

A pill-refuser?  They are saying the meds are hurting them. 

The doctor has weighed the risk and found it acceptable.  You are incompetent to ^Decide otherwise.  We will not discuss side effects with you, because they are troubling and strange, and we don't ^Want you to ^Imagine you might have them too.  The doctor and pharmacist should get money every three months despite yourself, getting credit for their ~perfection~ to ^Judge you as eternally broken which means that the drugs ~work~ sufficiently.  The treatment ~works~ far better than your brain, and that is ^What matters.

Oh, what's that?  Are you telling me that you just ^Avoid all these easy situations as too unpleasant?  Are you telling me I shouldn't tease you for you ^Need ^Help on ^What is a ^Good answer to these easier situations also?  Do you really ^Think in even one of these cases that I ~ridicule~ a ^Good ~solution~ to even one ^Problem person in your ~life~?  But this other person ^Who you ^Love in a similar situation or harder will listen to you because they should listen to you, right?  If only I could teach you ^How to say it, then you would ^Know?  A ^Proper leader!  Should we ^Follow you?  ^Go get some ^Humility and in the meantime, ^Remember your example is poison and your words are noise at ~best~ and furtherance of violence at worst. 

Can you tell I am ^Mad?  ^Trust me, it's not you, it's me.  And it's not only me but others.  And it's not all others, it is only those of us ^Who find themselves corrupted outwardly from a million others with inwardly corrupted hearts and stench praised and then enforced as normalcy. 

Are you telling me, your question really IS, ^What should I say?  ^Why do you ^Think this is about talking and imparting your ~wisdom~?  You have ^No ~wisdom~ for you have ^No ^Love.  ^How could you aim to ^Love yet desperately ^Want to speak in ~hate~ of ~emotion~ so much, that you would ^Force those you ^Love to ^Gain ~enough~ ~awareness~ to ^Stop any further show of ^Emotion.  Haven't they had to repress their ^Emotion around you and others long ^Enough?  Will you ^Restore ^Good to them ^Now that it is all taken from them, with your alchemy of words or your royal touch? 

And ^Now, I must admit that in part I accuse you confessingly, for these example situations are a ^Symbol of many such errors I have made.  And I am making that error again today.  ^How can they find ~awareness~ ^When we withhold ^Good from them?  I had to ^Write this whole book to find that special clue, and ^Now I ^Know my ^Guilt and profess it boldly to others ^Who ^Look as I once did and sometimes do, which is to say, not looking at all. 

I don't like to ^Be so harsh like this.  For ^MESH, we ^Need to yield ~strength~ to ~weakness~.  The ^Focus of ~needless~ suffering we ^Identify in ~one-another~, so we ^Think wrongly that others ^Who are at this focal point are broken.  ^No.  They are wonderful, and are feeling the most hurt to the situation.  So, ^Stop the ^Strength.  That's me!  I ~feel~ ~shame~ for this ~chastisement~.  I ^Need to ^Stop that.  After taking some time away from the ~problem~, I see my harshness was the ~problem~. 

^When I ^Look ^Now, I see you.  You have ~love~ for sufferers and so much ~good~ in you.  I ^Know it!  You ^Want to ^Try so badly ^Now for you are pained.  It is ~empathy~ of those ^Who you ^Love rooted deeply in you that has transferred it to you. 

^Now in your ~life~ as you ^Seek to ^Help, ^Remember that's you too!  You are the ~strength~.  The part of you that won't ^Connect and acknowledge ~communication~ to their pain is the ~strength~.  So you can ^Stop it, which means to ^Think for its own sake.  ^Write in your journal.  Do some intense ^Practice to ~learn~ (math is my favorite, what's yours?) and ~heal~ ourselves until that ~strength~ within us yields itself.  Once that ~strength~ yields, you will ~feel~ that pain for ^What it is: ^Empathy.  ^Now ^Look at the ~weakness~ which is the sufferer in your ~life~.  Aren't they so wonderful?  In our ~weakness~ ~now~ our gaze has the power of our ~memories~ and ~love~ of them.  It's still them!  ^Follow your ~intuition~ about that until it is ^Enough.  Use the ^Symbol of words or touch only as needed, and ^Replace the ^Hope of magic speech with the magic of ^Daily-self-care and ^Love.  ^Go with that result, and it won't be you and them anymore, but we ourselves as one.  We can ^Be ^Strong together! 

Get rid of your condescension and hypocrisy.  ^Why do you ^Think others ^Need to be fixed ^When you cannot even ^Fix yourself?  Can you reach down low to ^Help a bird to walk ^Who is already flying high?  Yet you say, They should be walking like everyone else, not flying. 

Get rid of all of society's condescending furtherances of ^Abuse.  You ~alone~.  ^Fix them all.  ^Why is your ~sight~ upon just one bird?  Shouldn't you rather ^Seek for ^How to bring all those little birds out of their insanity ^Regularly?  ^Why don't you net them and tranquilize them against their ~choice~, and take them to a cage with other beaten-down birds ^Who ^Now can ^Learn to ^Be ^Proper and walk instead.  Aren't you so ^Grateful for bird cages?  ^Why can't they guess ^How internally ^Mad it makes you that they fly?  ^No, you say, for they are ^Mad because to fly is evidence of a broken ^Mind.  ^How long will you insist that ^Emotion that does not ^Hide in them is evidence of something broken deep inside them, not you? 

It is biopsychosocial, which means it is only biology, which means it is only chemistry, which means they are as ^Good as a flask that we may watch avidly as we add to it.  Don't ^Separate the chemist from the flask.  Do not ^Leave it in the comfort and ~privacy~ of its ~home~ ^Where we cannot watch it.  ^What a terrible risk that would ^Be.  ^Keep it at the lab to measure its heat and carefully waft its fumes. 

^How about you drug those birds?  ^When they don't give their permission, tell their ^Community to be very concerned about them flying, that it is a symptom that comes of flight, so their consent is not required to ^Fix them.  It is so ^Good to ^Help them like that.  Have them take drugs that cripple every muscle, so they cannot fly or ^Move.  In their cage or without it ^Now crippled, demand they walk like everyone else.  They won't walk, but ^Wait until they confess that walking is the only right ~way~.  That is ^How we ^Know it ~works~. 

In the cage, score them on their ~dance~ at least twice a day for we ^Care about them.  Ask them ^Where they are after bird-napping them and putting them in an ^Unknown location and then score it.  And give them low marks if they don't ^Know.  Ask them if one foot should ^Go after the other and score it.  If they seem bewildered by your stare and stare back at you, give them low marks.  Ask them ^Why they are flapping their wings.  Score them very low if they do.  Call in a code, and prepare to tackle them and sedate them if they won't ^Stop.  Expect them only to walk ^Slow and never run or fly, but don't tell them that's what you ^Want as a ^Test of their ~awareness~.  And give them especially low marks if they talk about their own wings with anything ~less~ than the utmost contempt and ^Disgust.  If they seem ~afraid~ it means they ^Need another low ^Mark.  Another low ^Mark if they confess they are ~sad~.  If they seem ~mad~, they are, and we cannot have that ^Now, can we. 

And as soon as they hint again that they are birds, or if you detect the least hostility of pain in their strange ~metaphor~ of words, even if it is years in the future, you poop on them and ^Repeat the ~process~.  Only this time you get the threat of guns, cameras and trackers on your side, so it doesn't matter if they complain about the drugs once you let them ~free~ from their cage again.  I hear that some birds you never let ^Free, or that you did it like that once, and oh ^How you ^Wish we could do it that ~way~ again.  ^Keep them close to watch them vigilantly and ~hate~ them for it.  Or ~chase~ them, and make them forego any ~sense~ of ~home~.  ^No nest while they flit and fly away to ^Hide from their next cage. 

Treatments cannot ^Work without informed consent.  Its ^Lack is ^Where ^Abuse lives.  And ^Where ^Force prevails, none in its crosshairs can afford a rapid ^Path to ^Heal.  But the easy ~path~ to ^Refuse others ^Agency is like healing an injury without exercise.  ^How long shall we pretend it is okay to steal this crucial aspect of ^Mind from others without ^Respect or consent? 

I am calling on all ^Who are in the current systems of thought and government to ^Fail every ~mode~ of government and medicine that finds itself so easily mocked by these vague allusions to it.  Study the ~concept~ of ^Help and of ^Law.  We can make this ~work~ without violating anyone's ^Agency.  We aren't quite as far from a ~solution~ as we might ^Imagine but even a small error regarding ^Agency is ^More ^Abuse than anyone can afford. 

Jail for every ^Problem evidences our ~lack~ of creativity ^When ~afraid~.  That's okay!  We can ^Change to ^Limit both the ~good~ and ~evil~ that comes by ^Force of ^Fix.  ^Why is your ~freedom~ so important compared to others?  We should ^Free others to bring ~consequence~ to those ^Who withhold human rights and dignity to anyone else.  May every mountain ^Who will ^Refuse it, ^Fall.  In science we study its long history in every field, but we don't study or celebrate the errors in that history except to ~learn~ from them as a cautionary tale.  Once you ^Know, your boldness to campaign your own ~way~ and personally revel and profit thereby is insufficient.  In our fight to ^Restore others, ^Look within or perish.  It is time to begin again. 

The strangest thing is that mental ~illness~ is most correctly perceived by ^Merge of the many perspectives of sufferers and that of others.  ^Where it appears that all others are blind or crazy it means we are the primary sufferer, and yet it points outward to the ^Problem. ^What does that mean?  ^Where it appears only one is crazy or otherwise in emotional failure, we see it as a ~weakness~ in those ^Who seem as such.  Neither directional clue is wrong, which means the ~problem~ is neither in ourselves nor others.  Rather it is ~between~ ourselves and, others or our world.  Every ~relationship~ to the primary sufferer is as a cause for it is ^Strength and ~weakness~ in disparity.  That mismatch could ^Be our ~relationship~ to ourselves, to others, to our world or all of the above. 

But also irrespective of ^Where the ^Problem is, we don't see the ^Strength that lurks within us—a large blind spot in others with ample ^Strength and a small blind spot as we ^Judge within ourselves as primary sufferers.  Most of our ^Strength has been ~exhausted~, and ^No ^Strength around us will yield.  And we are so brave to continue to ^Work while the load is so heavy.  We ourselves and others ^Want to ^Believe our tears have ^No magic power to ^Heal or ^Help.  They do have power actually and often, but some places ^Where we are or have been, we learned otherwise wrongly by transfer of ^Fear of ^Emotion.  By ^Doubt our tears had ^No power, and so today we do not ^Sorrow though ~sad~ for ourselves or others. 

Yet, the biggest distortion might not ^Be in ourselves as primary sufferers, but in others in our ~life~ ^Who also suffer in ~relationship~ to our suffering ^Who cannot ^Stop their ^Strength to give a ^Proper ^Look at our pain.  So others ^Who are not in touch with their ^Emotion and ours (impatiently-)^Help as they ~seek~ to impart ~knowledge~ without ^Truth, ~awareness~ without ^Good, ~community~ without ~respect~ for ^Who we are, and ~wisdom~ without the ^Love.  For ^Strength of others covers up both their pain of it that may ^Magnify ^Empathy, and their ~sense~ of compassion to the primary sufferer. 

But it turns out, we are all primary sufferers to varying degrees with various strengths and weaknesses that ^Change ^Regularly!  So may we rather ^Accept ~one-another~ and ^Become one in ^Strength or ~weakness~ within ourselves, and ~between~ ourselves and, others or our world.  We ^Minimize disparity as we do our part to drive out ^Strength, first, in ourselves, and next, regarding others, and finally, in ~connection~ to our world.  Although primary and secondary sufferers are at the source, ^Remember, they are not the cause.  The causes of ~needless~ suffering remain ~unknown~ until we have had much time to ^Heal in an environment that fosters ^Love. 

In that day of restoration the sufferer will ^Recover.  And those ^Who persist to ^Ignore the pain's messages or to ^Fix their ~family~ or ~community~ ~who~ they label as the cause while calling themselves ~helpful~ might have a ~time-and-place~ to ponder it. 

May we all ^Feel it together in ^Empathy rather than in ^Complement against ~one-another~.  And then, without ^Complement, we may not ^Function, but gladly, we may ^Heal.  Which means, we will again ^Function, but together.  So, yea, it ~works~.  ^Turtles all the ~way~ down.