It’s the same Door, but we’re making more changes this month.  Why don’t you walk through it again with me?

You’ve changed your diet.  You’ve changed your lifestyle.  You’ve changed your habits.  Maybe you’ve even changed your clothing selections.  Your life is still a mess. So what’s left?

Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to change your friends.  I’m sure you have some good ones, maybe even great ones… but what about that one (or more) that always leaves you feeling worse than before you met with him/her?

There are many kinds of toxic friendships.  Here are nine basic types:

The User:  This person only has friends as long as he/she can use them for some purpose or goal of his/her own.

The Betrayer:  Nothing hurts more than a friend who breaks your trust.

The Controller:  This person is a friend as long as she/he is in control. They want you to think that they are “helping” you, but refuse that help or break that control and find out what toxic friendship really means.

The Judge:  Judgming and criticizing, this person can erode your self-esteem. The judge is a fault finder. You can rarely do anything completely right with this person.

The Promise Breaker:  This person rarely does what s/he says s/he will do. If you have a date, they are often a no-show.

The Gossip:  Remember, if they will gossip to you about others, they will gossip about you to others.  This is actually a subset of “The Betrayer”.

The Self-Centered Person:  This person can’t think of you and your needs, they are too busy thinking of themselves.

The Competitor:  This person has to do everything better than you (or anyone else) or die trying.  Although some competitiveness is normal in friendships, too much competition makes a toxic friend.

The Leaner: This includes all the very needy friends who cling and may be at your doorstep every day. He/she usually wants all of your time and jealousy often enters the picture in this friendship.  (Another form of “The Controller”, but they just don’t see it that way…)

Is your friendship toxic?  Here are some questions you can ask yourself:

How do I feel after spending time with my friend? Sad, angry, depressed, drained, stressed out, pissed off, etc.

Is there reciprocity in the friendship?

Is there truth and honesty in my friendship?

Is there a mutual respect for one another?

Is my friend loyal to me and I to her?

Can I freely express my true feelings about the friendship?

Does my friend criticize and belittle me?

Does my friend abuse the friendship and take advantage of me?

Do I feel like I always get the short end of the stick?

Do I ever have to ask myself the question, “Why do I allow him/her to treat me this way?”

Do I have uncomfortable/negative feelings about my friend and his/her behavior?

Why do I continue to put up with my friend’s selfishness?

Does my friend consistently lie to me, do I trust my friend, is he/she loyal to me?

There are, of course, many more questions you could ask, but this covers a lot of the territory.

So what can you do about a toxic friendship?  Doing nothing continues the drain on your energy resources.  Talking about it can result in a huge outburst, but usually results in your feeling better at least about yourself, and could start a healing process in your friend.  But don’t expect it to get better soon, and it could be worse for a while.

Toxic friendships are abuse.  Don’t sugar-coat it, there is nothing else you can call them.  The longer you allow yourself to be abused, the more of your personal power you are giving both the friend and the relationship itself, and the less you have for yourself.  A friendship is between two equals.  Anything else does not truly constitute a friendship.

You can repair your friendships, but only as equals.  Nothing else counts as a true “fix”.  Sorry to lay it on the line like that, but there it is.  Taking control of your friendships (not your friends) is a positive move for both of you, and you should do so in the most loving way possible, without becoming toxic yourself.

“One of the characteristics of a toxic friendship is that the good friend feels she can’t extricate herself from the relationship,” says Charles Figley, PhD, professor and director of the Psychological Stress Research Program at Florida State University. “Whether it’s on the phone, in person, or from the friendship entirely, you feel like you are trapped, you’re being taken advantage of and you can’t resolve the problem one way or another.”

Whether the feeling of entrapment has to do with history — you’ve been friends with the person since a young age, like Roberts — or you feel she has no one else to turn to and you need to stand by her through thick or thin, you need to take action to help your friend, and yourself.

Recognize the toxicity. “The first step is to recognize that the person is toxic,” Figley tells WebMD, “or at least that the relationship is toxic. They might not be a toxic friend to others but they are to you.”

Take responsibility. By continuing a toxic friendship, you’re allowing your friend to hurt you, but you’re also hurting yourself. “You have to take some degree of responsibility for the situation,” says Figley, a spokesman for the American Psychological Association. “It’s a pleaser personality — you want people to like you, you want to get along, and it’s hard to say no. But you can pay the price in one way by having toxic friends.” So even though we want to help our friends and have them rely on us in troubling times, take responsibility for toxic friendships and how they make you feel.

Talk to your nontoxic friends. “Talk to other people who may not have a vested interest in your toxic friendship,” says Figley. “People who can give you an objective opinion regarding whether the friendship is salvageable and whether you can manage the toxic friend to neutralize the toxicity, or if you need to end the relationship.”

Suggest professional help. A toxic friend might need professional help at some point to help her get her career, emotions, or family back on track. How do you approach such a touchy subject? If you point out to your friend how she is treating you and ask her to stop, and she continues to do it, you need to take it to the next level.  Say to her, ‘I know you are a good person, but maybe you want to seek help.’ (Of course, this includes talking to your, or her, High Priestess or other Elders, assuming they are not part of the toxic friendship.)  But keep in mind that if it has gone to that level, and a friendship is that toxic, it’s going to be destroyed at some point anyway. Better you make an effort to help your friend address her issues.

End the friendship. “It’s difficult to end a friendship,” says Figley. “Breaking up with anyone, whether it’s a spouse, love relationship, or a friend, is not fun. It’s even more important in this kind of context. In contrast to a love relationship in which you recognize you aren’t compatible, this type of relationships is hurting you.”
Third-Party Toxic

It’s bad enough when a person has to deal with a toxic friend firsthand but when the toxicity is impacting not you personally, but someone you love, like a spouse or a friend, it can be even harder. How do you handle it? As much as you want to jump in and help, sometimes patience is key.

“The person who is affected by the toxic friend has to approach you,” says Figley. “Then, you have every right to provide your observations. But you need to be honest, be objective, avoid criticism, and listen more than you talk. And the worst thing you can do is put down the toxic friend.”

Negativity, explains Figley, will have your loved one defending their toxic friend. The focus should be on how you perceive the situation is impacting your loved one, and how you can help.

As you can see, dealing with toxic friendships is a major part of your life, and a major project in reclaiming your energy.

As Ferron says in one of her songs, “When you can run with the river, why run with the river rat?”

OK, take a deep breath, think about what you need to do (or don’t need to do, and really relax).  And please meet me back here next month, for another walk through the Door.

Hugs,

Moss

Sources: Cyberparent.com, toxicfriendships.org, CBS News article about WebMD, AssociatedContent.com, and the song “Indian Dreams” by Ferron

Thank you for joining me in another walk through the Door.  Going through it can and has been exciting over the years… but there will always be those times when walking anywhere will be a matter of just plugging along.

We may call this “boredom”.  We may use choicer terms, such as “perseverance,” “dragging along,” or “the blahs”.  Nonetheless, no matter what we do with our lives, there are times when we don’t feel the magick.  Many of us with diagnoses tend to fixate on these times, to where it may seem as though all the time is this way.  But we know that is not the case.

We can’t have excitement 24/7.  We just can’t.  We need down time, time to relax, time to recuperate.  If we see this as a negative, it is easy to fixate on it, and to scream that it’s over.  Many of us choose these times to contemplate suicide, especially if we have had a lot of these times lately.

I give to you the Magick Words which will get you through these times.  As nobody has the same preferences of language, I’ll say them several different ways, and you can choose one.

It’s OK, I need some time off.

I’m just resting.

I can get through this. It’s easy.

This, too, shall pass.

It’s true.  Just as no bad time lasts forever, and no good time lasts forever, no boring time lasts forever.  It just feels like it while it’s happening.

But what can you do to get through it?

Ah, come on, you know the answer.  You’ve done it lots of times.  Read something.  Take a nap.  Put on some music.  Call a friend.  Get on the Internet.  Go for a walk, or a drive.  Anything to fill the time.

You might also find this is a perfect time for meditating.  OMMmmmmmmmmm can fill lots of time.  My problem is, this is almost always the last thing I think of at these times – and probably the best thing I could do.

Do you feel isolated from everything?  Get in touch with everything!  The only way to get in touch with everything all at once is meditation.  Yeah, I’m preaching to myself again; isn’t that the best way to motivate myself?

And if all else fails, you could always write me.  Chances are, it will get to me right when I need someone to talk to.  A quick email to zaivalananda@gmail.com will likely get you a quick email in return, and possibly a friend – for now, or for life, that’s up to you.

What else can you do?  What gets you through these periods?  Actions, thoughts, meditations, anything.  Tell me about it.

And next month we can walk through this door.  Together.

Hugs,

Moss

…and written over the Door are the words:  Choice.  Hope.  Empowerment.  Environment.  Spirituality. This is the door we walk through together this month.

I spent two weeks in school this month (January 2009).  The class was called Peer Employment Training, and the end result was to be a certificate as a Peer Support Specialist, making the twenty of us in the class eligible for employment in the fields of mental health and substance abuse.

The twenty of us walked in with our Superman capes and bulletproof Spandex, waiting to be empowered to lift and carry all our charges into a new world.  We were very disappointed, but in a joyful way.

In just the first hour of the class, we were taught how to take off our capes and fit them for each and every person we were (will be) assigned to, and teach them how to learn to use it themselves.  Instead of Advocacy, we were trained in how to make each person we serve into their own expert, empowering them to take control of their own case and not live down to their labels.

You know how psychiatry has been these past 40 years.  You walk into the doctor’s office, you tell him what’s wrong, and he doesn’t hear but a few key words of what you tell him.  He then uses those key words to decide upon a diagnosis, and that diagnosis tells him what drugs to prescribe you.  There is little or no talk therapy, and after being given a label, you are never treated as a full human being again.  They can take you to court and force you to take the medications, or force you to receive electro-convulsive therapy, or force you to go to and stay in a “hospital”, all in the name of Your Own Good, to keep you from Doing Harm To Yourself Or Others.

Voila, you are no longer a person.  You are a label, a diagnosis, a stigma.

I’ve been beating my own head against that barrier for most of my life.  I knew I was still a person.  I knew the drugs were hurting me.  Over five years ago, I told the doctors where to go, and they didn’t have enough on me to commit me somewhere.  In those five years (and in the two prior years), I learned how to take care of myself, how to get well, how to recover.  My recovery is not complete, but I am at least 80% better than I was under their “care”.

I walked into this class expecting to get more bruises on my head from beating against the same old wall… and they moved the wall!  They had even begun to dismantle it!  I grabbed my sledgehammer and did my own best Berlin imitation.

From the first, the word “recovery” was used.  We were told that we were people, not labels, and were not to be defined as less than human ever again.  We were told about our choices, and we learned that this new paradigm has already been in use in a few areas.  There is a new hospital about 40 miles west of Asheville which mimics another hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, where there are no physical restraints, there are no labels, and there are more peer support specialists than doctors.  The treatment area is called the “Living Room” and is furnished accordingly.  People are recovering, and are welcome to come and go as they choose, and are never ignored.

Wow.  Add another wow to that.  We learned about the CHEES Priniciple, which is:

CHOICE: One choice is no choice.  Mental health can be achieved through the use of drugs, supplements, talk therapy, meditation, acupuncture, chiropractic, traditional Chinese medicine, and many other routes, and withholding information on any of these is dishonoring the individual.

HOPE: You are never hopeless.  Sometimes you can feel so far down that you need someone to hold your hope for you until you can hold it yourself.  The twenty of us were trained to do just that.

EMPOWERMENT: You are the expert on your problems and your solutions.  We will help you find those sources, but you will lead us through that process.  We can give suggestions, but only with your permission and only after trying to get you to see what is already inside you.  We will listen to you; we will do our best to empower you to get your “treatment team” to listen to you.

ENVIRONMENT: You need to be in a place that suits you, not a “treatment center” and not on the streets.  You know what is best for you.  We will help you discover the options and find ways to get into what you need.

SPIRITUALITY: This was the big one. We are using the S-word again, and even the L-word (LOVE).  No more impersonal decisions made on your behalf.  Each of us has our own spirituality, and we peer support specialists are being trained to honor that.

Peer Support Specialists are experts, but it’s a different kind of expert:  We are experts in not being experts (and that takes a LOT of expertise!).  We are learning how to listen to you, how to lead you to listen to yourself.  We do not know what is Right For You – only you know that.

Are you beginning to see why I am so excited about this?  Are you beginning to have hope that the System will die and leave something better behind?  If not, I would be happy to hold that hope for you until you are ready.

To me, the things I learned in this class were more miraculous than if we ever were to elect a black President… oh, wait, we just did, didn’t we?  Damn.  Am I still in the same world I was last year?

I sure hope not.  I like the world I’m in now.  And if we work together, praise Goddess, we will all have something good to think back on.  Why wait for 2012?  The old world is ending now.  We can, we will create the new one together, in peace, love, and all those old sixties things (minus the drug busts).  Remember CHEES and all those bad memories will start to fade.

Let’s walk through another Door together… next month.

I get the feeling I’ve been through this Door before, but let’s do it again…  I know Candlemas (or Imbolc, Oimelg, or what have you) isn’t until next month, but our Gracious Editors have asked us to write our Imbolc articles for this month… soooo….

Most of the year, we Labelled Persons feel we are burning our candles at both ends.  In February, we get to burn them all out, get new candles, and start over.  In essence, Candlemas is the Pagan version of Mardi Gras.  We should learn to have fun at it, like the Cajuns, Brazilians, and others around the world do.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  (attributed to Albert Einstein)

Hey, I’m crazy.  I know it.  I try to be the best crazy I can be (as opposed to the most crazy I can be).  It’s not easy, it’s not hard, it just is.

Hmmm, what did I do last year…  well, I did a one-hour recorded video interview about the homelessness issue on local public access television, which broadcast January 5 and several other times – unscheduled, like me, LOL — which led me to make 2008 the best year ever for the homeless of Asheville.  New programs, a new shelter, more volunteers.  Now if I could just get City Council to repeal some of the laws on the books which, essentially, make homelessness illegal without providing any relief for those who find themselves on the streets.

I won’t republish my entire Yule Letter here, sorry.  There would be no use writing this article if I was just going to republish things I had already written, now, would there?  But I had a lot of big things in 2008, making it a hard act to follow.  I’m still waiting to hear what my 4th Quarter Distribution for my work with Eternal Press will be, but that could be the springboard for 2009.

So what do you have planned?  Is this just going to be another year of surviving for you?  Are you going to accept depression, things beyond your control, same old boring stuff?  Well, if you’ve been reading The Door, you probably have lots of ideas for changing all that; if you haven’t, you can find the back issues in the archives and at my website, so go be positive and read what has been written.  Always good to get a plug in – and I’m always amazed when I re-read these articles how good they were.

Note: I’m usually down on myself, it’s an old habit I’m still working to change.  It amazes me no end when I do something well or write something good, and even more when I read it later and still find it exceptional.  One of the reasons for this amazement is that I tend to write these articles virtually out a mindset of stream-of-consciousness, and rarely work on them after finishing them.

Here’s a thought: perhaps one thing you could do is start writing things down, and then you could put them somewhere that you’ll find them in a year or six months, and see what you think of what you’ve written then.  If you still love it, polish it a bit and see if PaganPages, WitchVox or another online zine might be interested in publishing it.  You might get MY job.  I wouldn’t be mad, you’d be freeing my schedule up for something else.

Last month, we discussed the new “candles” we are sending to Washington in January.  If that was important to you, how much more important would it be to clean out your own house?  I don’t mean dusting and vacuuming (something I don’t do enough of).  I mean making changes.  Finding little things that you can feel good about, and adding them to your routine.  Just a bit at a time.  Only what you can do, not some ambitious program that you will back down from when it appears that you have over-reached.

Set large, sweeping goals.  Then find tiny steps to take to get there.  I know I have been working on my devotion to Deity in the past year.  You might understand that I have been working on learning and honoring various Hindu deities as I grow into my path.

I started out getting pictures from online searches. I printed them out and taped them to the wall.  I then started building a small altar, along the lines of the Wicca I knew but changing it, one thing at a time, to reflect the Hindu aspects of worship.  I then started waking up, and going to bed, with a prayer to the deity (I started with Ganesha, added in my beloved Ardhanarishwara, and then later Brahma-as-Guru).  Then I started chanting the mantra to Ganesha (Om gam Ganapatiyei Namah).  Later, I made it 5 times through the chant (Discordian that I am at the core).  Then added in the chant to Ardhanarishwara (Om Ardhanarishwara swarapaya Namah).  [I actually had to search the Web to find that one – which some of my friends have thanked me for).  And finally, the chant to Brahma-as-Guru (Om gurur sakshad paramBrahma tasmai Sri Grurama Namah).  (General translations available if asked.)

All of this took me 6 months to get going, get consistent with (I still mess up occasionally), and even get to say the chant (that last one took quite some time).  Eventually, I will use my mala (meditation beads) to do these chants – which will mean 108 repetitions.  Ooh, that will take a lot of work.

You don’t have to do the actions I did, but taking the same or similar steps to accomplish your goals is the point.  Baby steps.  I actually grouped a lot of my steps together above, so if the steps seem large that’s because they were.

Give Yourself A Break.  If you’re working too hard or too fast on something, you will “backslide” (to use a Methodist term).  This is not saying you are doing the wrong thing, just that you are going too fast or are expecting too much too soon.  Slow down.  Start over, or back up a few steps and resume from there.

Oh, gods, Anxiety.  If I don’t do things perfectly, I’m just not good enough.  Don’t go there.  “Fear is the mind-killer.” – Bene Gesserit saying.  Nobody is perfect, nothing you try to do will ever be perfect… but it doesn’t need to be.  It only has to be Good Enough.  That’s all.  And if you’re anything like me, you will need to set your standards a lot lower until you have “Good Enough” set where it is in reach of your everyday ability.

ALWAYS give yourself a break.  ALWAYS give yourself a pat on the back.  “Endorse for the effort, not the result.”  Endorsing yourself for every little step is like getting paid for every minute of work.  Do it.

This could be the year we learn a new way to burn our candles.  Maybe we can learn to burn them only at ONE end… or maybe we just use more artsy candles.  However you choose to do it, be inventive, creative, bold, and feisty!

Until next month and another walk through the Door…

Ah, my friends, the door once again beckons.  Let us push on.

“The bad news is, there is no key to happiness.  The good news is, the door was never locked.”

- Swami Beyondananda

Hope.  With it, we can do anything.  Without it, or with the perception of being without it, we feel lost, and many of us choose this time to attempt to “end it all”.  Sometimes we need attention, sometimes one of our friends catches us and kicks our ass and we get back to it.

There is hope around us.  For some of us, it may be the first time we have allowed ourselves to hope.  With every glimmer, there is a rock in our path.  Are we going to step over the rock, or are we going to howl about stepping on it and refuse to go further?

If there was ever a time for not just thinking outside the box but destroying the whole damned box, this is it.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called several times for the formation of a National Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment; MindFreedom International has now done so, only on an International level, and has even hired (the real) Patch Adams, M.D. (not Robin Williams) to run the organization.

Crazies like us power the imagination of the world, and we now have an umbrella organization to deliver that power.

Some of that power went into the recent US Presidential Elections.  While the results were, for most of us, highly encouraging, we have not yet seen the end of the dismal jimmies and control freaks.  The election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States is not even the end of racism in our country.  We all hope it is the death knell, but dying organisms stink a lot until you bury them.  (For those conservatives among you, this event is also not the end of  America… for those racists among you, get over yourselves.)

America has never dealt with its inherent racism.  It merely stitched the wound closed without treating it, leaving it to fester.  This election opened the wound — hopefully to clean it out and let it heal — but the deep infection is exposed, and it smells awful.  It is up to each of us to pray for real healing, rather than reseal the wound in its untreated condition.

I am reminded of something I learned while working in wastewater treatment in my youth.  Most treatment ponds tend to attract vegetation and other life.  Since the vegetation tends to grow roots through the sealing layer of the pond, they present a problem, in that the contents of the pond could infiltrate the local groundwater.  So for years, people in the business of wastewater treatment would poison these plants.  What they discovered was that dying plants suck up many times more oxygen than living ones, and most times the whole pond and all the life in it died from not having enough oxygen in the water to breathe.  A dead treatment pond provides no treatment, it just sits there smelling like something died (Can you say “anaerobic bacteria,” boys and girls?  Didn’t think so.).

Who in this world can inject life (air) into a conversation, into a whole paradigm, better than we?  Look for the humor in the situation, and whisper it to somebody.  Watch it catch fire.  Laugh it up, and be gentle with it.  Always remember that the only tested, proven way to dissolve hatred is laughter — good, rollicking, loving laughter, entirely empty of ridicule.  My battle cry is: “PUNS OVER PUTDOWNS”.  Rid yourselves of jokes AGAINST yourself and others — find something loving to laugh about.  Find the silly chink in the subject, and break out your prybars.  HATE STINKS.  That goes for hatred of yourself, hatred of the “other guy”, “other gender”, in fact, of anything “other”.  Whenever any one person is not equal, there is no such thing as equality.  THERE IS NO THEM, nobody here but US.  Go ye therefore and heal likewise.

We have been hospitalized, drugged, tortured, and stigmatized, but we find a way to keep going, even to laugh about it.  I don’t want anyone, ANYONE, treated the way I have been treated… it’s all wrong and it keeps us apart.  And there is SO MUCH we could do together.

I hope I’m preaching to the choir.  And I further hope the choir takes the word out into the world.

Come with me and join the Right-To-Laugh Party.

“Serious Crime: Sure, serious crime is up. But why not look on the bright side? Humorous crime is down.”
- Swami Beyondananda

Until next we walk through the Door together, Metaphors be with you!

Hugs

I tend to read my horoscope every week.  Not the silly one in the daily papers, but Rob Brezny’s Freewill Astrology. It’s amazing how close to home he hits, although I often get the idea he’s talking about what I just went through, not what I’m about to go through.  Here is the one for me (Sagittarius) for the week of October 15-22:

“Be humble for you are made of dung,” says a Serbian provers. “Be noble for you are made of stars.”  I expect that you’ll soon be getting vivid evidence of that truth, Sagittarius.  Your challenge will be to resist the temptation to believe that you’re more dung than stars, or more stars than dung.  that might be hard, given the fact that practically everyone around you believes they are one or the other.  But I promise you that you have the power to do it.  You can exude cheerful equanimity while dwelling right at the crux of the paradox.”

I really think that fits all the bipolars I know, not just the Sagittarians.  We are all too often being told that we are dung, and quite often feel ourselves among the stars, while in our humbler moments we are busy feeling like dung while others are trying to lift up our hearts.

I have often been told that “it isn’t what you know, it’s who you know.” If I had ever believed that, I wouldn’t have gotten half the opportunities I have.  In fact, I think it’s safe to say that a valid demonstration of what you know could easily lead to knowing somebody who can help you get somewhere.

Let me give an example or two from my own life.

Nine years ago, I volunteered to do whatever I could for the Western North Carolina AIDS Project.  (I hope most of you can see that there are very few, if any, items on the agenda for gays that are not identical to the items on the Pagans’ list, and I did this although I am not gay and do not have AIDS.)  After several months of working with individuals and doing mailings, I got the opportunity to take over working on their website.  I learned quite a few new things doing that, and it has helped me beyond measure in my later websites.

Six years ago I let a homeless couple use my couch for several months.  Sure, there were times I wanted the place to myself, but I like helping people.  The woman came up with an idea that, as far as I can find, had never been thought of – a membership organization for homeless people, especially the ones who are working to rise above homelessness.  I couldn’t see anywhere that would go that would be helpful, but I attended the meetings she arranged.  I then volunteered to write the website (from what I had learned at WNCAP).  We got a lot of good attention, and then she left town.  I couldn’t see keeping the organization going, but a couple people encouraged me to do so.  In January 2006 we got our first press (in December 2005 I scraped the money together for legal incorporation, and sent out a press release, which was ignored by all but one local paper).  Since then, some months we have had too much press to keep up with.  We got one large donation last summer, and while we spent it all we did quite a lot of good with it and got a lot more notice.  I have been President of the Asheville Homeless Network for over 3 years now, and can pretty much name the time and place for meetings with a number of City staff including the Police Chief and two City Councilpersons.  It took a long time, and there were times I was about to give up, but here we are.

Last Spring, I felt I wasn’t doing enough.  (Funny thing, one of my friends said I was doing more than any other TEN activists she knew, and I don’t particularly consider myself an activist.)  So I went to an orientation for volunteers for Habitat for Humanity, and found my services very much wanted for fixing bicycles that had been donated.  (I fix them, they sell them, and it makes money for their building projects.)  Since that time, I have gotten a new recliner for $34 (which they delivered for free, since I was a volunteer), a dresser for $12, and just last week a 21-speed mountain bike for $8 that would have cost at least $350 new.  That is only a small part of what I have gained from this experience, but I think you can see the benefit.

In terms of getting to know the right people, I have long had a personal ad on NoLongerLonely.com (a totally free site for people with mental health diagnoses to meet others without the stigma of your diagnosis holding you back or being hidden.)  One woman I had some conversations with added me to her MySpace Friends, and we talked, without any intent of a relationship forming, for quite some time.  In March, she announced that she had purchased a struggling publisher of e, Eternal Press, and was looking for editors and copyeditors.  I was hired in April as Administrative Editor.  My June quarter royalties were a whole $4.01… my September royalties were over $50 and our sales climbed 384%.  I have very high hopes for December and beyond.  If I hadn’t stuck my neck out on a dating site, I plainly would not have even known about the opportunity, let along gotten the job.

Those are a few of the highlights of my last 10 years in Asheville, NC.  Each step has made me feel better about myself and given me something to do other than sit at home and live off my SSDI Disability check.  I really think Uncle Sam has gotten his money’s worth out of me.  (If you want to see a list of ALL the things I do, which is extensive enough that I have an anxiety attack every time I look at it to update it, send me an email.)

In the past year, my parents have twice told me they were proud of me.  When they said that in January, it was the first time I have ever heard it (to the best of my memory).  If you don’t think that feels good, then you’re not a bipolar Pagan with hardworking, mainstream Christian parents and there’s nothing I can say.  My father now regularly reads all my blogs and articles and asks my progress in some of the other things I’m doing.

OK.  This is me.  It took a lot of growth, prayer, and magick to get here.  You’re Pagan, you have all the tools I do.  If you’re also a Diagnosed, Labelled Individual as I am, you have the same (approximately) challenges as I do.  All it takes is to find your friends, and find a niche that might help them (no matter how long it takes to develop).  Maybe find two or three or four such niches (Multi-Level Marketers call this “multiple streams of income”), but don’t even do more than you can and be ready and able to cut back when you don’t have the same energy.  Keep a plan of what things are easiest to cut back, what things mean the most to you, and what friends and other support systems you have in place.

Then keep doing what you’re doing.  It took 3 years for Asheville Homeless Network to get the least amount of media attention; by the end of 4 we had more media attention than we could keep up with.  But even that was at the end of years of learning and developing and struggle.

Please feel free to contact me, for ideas, support, or just to let me know how you’re doing (or how I am).  And we can walk together to the next Door.  Talk to you next month.

Hugs,
Moss

Last month we talked about action.  In this month’s walk through the Door, we are walking to our campsite, blowing up our air mattress, and climbing into our sleeping bags, in the company of our Family.

There are two things to remember about community action – 1. Always work FOR something, and 2. never do more than you can, which includes resting up.  If you have pagan Family or good friends to rest up with, you get a double recharge over doing it alone.

I’m writing this on a tiny Netbook in my tent.  My closest friend is getting handfasted tomorrow, and I’m “best man”.  The Drum Circle is sounding great; our best drummer, Greyfix, is back after a long absence.  The crickets and tree frogs are adding their music.  There are probably over 100 people here, it’s Friday night, and more are coming in tomorrow.  I’ve given-and-gotten more good hugs in the past 8 hours than in the previous 5 months.  (I haven’t been to a Gathering since Litha.)

Each time I come to a Gathering, my Family comments on how much better (more well) I look than when they last saw me, which is needed feedback; each time I return, my local friends comment on how much more relaxed and recharged I seem.  It’s a great cycle to have going.  I think I’ve mentioned before how this Family has stood by me through times when it was all I could do to lay in my tent and whimper.  By contrast, I am now working two of my own non-profits, putting in time on a third, writing several websites, doing this article, and working professionally as an editor.  This is not being said to puff myself up, but to show you how much improvement is possible, to give you hope in dealing with your own recovery if it is needed.  It was not a rapid recovery – I came to SerpentStone in 1996 after years of mixed rejection and acceptance elsewhere.

There are lots of good Families out there, and lots of local and regional Pagan Festivals.  I recommend finding the “family” gatherings over the “whoopie Wicca” festivals, but that is my choice.  (There is a lower chance of long-term rejection among people who want to be together, rather than those who are looking for a good time.)

Every step along then path was magick.  The magick involved asking for help, finding it, and accepting it.  Wanting to change is the first step, being willing to change comes next, and then accepting the opportunities to change,,, and accepting the length of time it takes to walk the path.  I found my Family 12 years ago; found the people who wanted to start the ALT-therapies4bipolar Yahoogroup 7 years ago; started taking some supplements 6 years ago… and got totally off psych drugs November 5, 2003, almost 5 years ago.  Each step was an act of magick, each step required some amount of faith on my part, and I was not taking these steps alone… but having Family would not have helped a bit if I were not willing to take the risks, to do the magick.

It wasn’t a straight path lined with constant successes; probably far more failures than successes.  I took offense many times when none was intended, and gave offense often when that was not my intention.  Most of the time I was sure nobody could screw up as badly as I was doing… (Ever feel like that?  Then you’re probably bipolar.)  Some people helped me feel like that, but it’s not like I needed a lot of help.  But I knew I didn’t want to feel that way, and kept trying to do better.

There were a lot of setbacks.  I didn’t give up, but I sure took some long breaks before getting my resolve up to try again.  It will likely be just about as hard for you.  (I truly hope some of my readers are ahead of me, and can pat themselves on the back for doing it better than I did.)  “Try, fail.  Try, fail.  Try, succeed.” – A. Low, M.D.

“She changes everything She touches, and everything She touches changes.”  Nobody has the power to prevent Goddess from helping you, and even the power you have to keep Her from helping you is limited.  As the Hindu teachings state, Grace (Anugraha) is unlimited and always available; the only thing you need do is believe yourself worthy of asking for it – and then ask.

I’m aware that perhaps not everyone’s path involves totally discontinuing psych drugs, but be aware that it can be not only possible but quite safe, with help and support.  Part of that support will come straight from Goddess, but it won’t happen if your love of yourself does not eventually catch up with your love of Goddess.  Don’t be hard on yourself along the way, but give yourself a huge pat on the back for each step you take, no matter how small you think it was.  Every step adds up.

And soon you will join me walking through yet another Door:  The door to freedom and mental health.  I will see you next month.

Come with me in our fourth monthly walk through the Door.

Look up the words, "paganism", "ritual" and "mental illness" (or "mental health"), and you will find a vast number of websites and articles. Look them up together, however, and you will start seeing stuff about "satanic ritual abuse", "obsessive-compulsive rituals", and a number of other dark issues.

Let me state categorically that there either is no such thing as "satanic ritual abuse" or it is so rare that the police cannot find anything. The people who are running workshops on the subject are simply in it for the money, whether they call themselves "seminar presenters", "ministers", or whatever. (If you doubt this, you can contact Kerr Cuhulain of "Officers of Avalon" for details. This organization can be reached through http://witchvox.com if you can’t find another way.)

Other "rituals" regarding "mental illness" seem to be in the area of frequent washing of hands, eating so many bites at each meal, talking to your "voices" (a feature which current study seems to show is promising in helping the problem), and so on.

But we’re Pagans. Whether you call yourself Wiccan, Dianic, eclectic, or whatever, we still mostly come from the same Western culture, but often act as though we are from a different culture (or time or place). As Pagans, we feel we have a connection to God/Goddess that involves more than simple lip service. We know that we are responsible for our actions, which is often in conflict with what our doctors tell us. We talk to Goddess, to ourselves, to our Guides, to our Inner Child, about our healing. And we expect results, as we enjoy the love of our Deities and guides.

We do rituals. Simple, complex, poetic, plain, wordy… rituals. This month we will discuss and create rituals to deal with our mental health issues.

Why rituals? Because we are Pagans, because our Inner Child controls our emotions along with the rest of our Magick, because it gives us a frame for our day that is easier to catalog the rest of our day with… because we celebrate Life in all its aspects, including the parts of ourselves we may yet to become comfortable with.

Why write simple rituals? Because we don’t need to spend 2 hours (or 20) each day doing ritual. Because if it’s too difficult, you will read it and say, "That’s nice, I don’t have time for that." Or you will dismiss it as not being part of your Tradition. Or maybe you are just looking for a reason to not do ritual, or to not take care of yourself. We all do these things. Many of us with mental health issues, especially Pagans, are still building our self-esteem from near-zero levels. Do something simple, see how much it helps, and you can choose to keep doing the same thing or come up with your own personal modifications.

A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value, which is prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. … In any case, an essential feature of a ritual is that the actions and their symbolism are not arbitrarily chosen by the performers, nor dictated by logic or necessity, but are, at least in part, prescribed and imposed upon the performers by some external source."

(from Wikipedia)

Some external source. Or, in the case of obsessive-compulsives or schizophrenics, some internal source which is not connected to their own reason. The best way to end a useless, thoughtless, uncontrollable ritual is to construct a useful, thoughtful one. Let’s do that.

Morning and Evening Rituals

In the morning walk outside and stand facing East. Call the Watchtowers, invite God and Goddess to be with you. Let your arms hang at your sides. This starts to let your mind feel the Earth. Let your fingers feel the power of the Earth come up through them. When you feel the power start to enter your hands gently rotate them. Let the power flow into your whole body. To finish raise your hands above your head to release any extra energy. Thank the God and Goddess.



In the evening just before bed walk outside. Face the moon. Invite God and Goddess to be with you. Raise your arms up to the Moon (if the Moon is not evident, face West). Relax your mind until you feel the light of the Moon come into your heart. Lower your arms and let the excess energy fall back to the earth. Thank the Goddess and the God. Dismiss the Watchtowers.

You have now put a simple, effective beginning and ending to your day, which will frame all your actions between those two events. It will keep you mindful of your own choice to allow yourself the full range of human emotions and actions. You will be mindful throughout the day of the love of Goddess and God, Earth and Moon, and Guardians throughout the day, which in turn will inform your actions and choices. Any time you find yourself leaving this position of balance, you can do a simple grounding ritual and work your way back to center. Be mindful of the fact that this ritual keeps the Guardians with you throughout the day.

You will find that taking a few simple actions like these will make the rest of the day go more smoothly, and your actions and choices will reduce the amount and time of the work you have to do.

The two rituals above were written by Caamora, a dear friend of mine who lives in the Western US. In fact, this whole article was written as a result of my calling her and saying, "I have no idea what I’m going to write about this month; do you?" and her response, "Why not write about rituals for mental health?" Feel free to modify them for your own needs.

I am also begging any of you to write me and give me ideas for future articles, or perhaps to tell me what you have gotten out of the articles I’ve written. Write me at zaivalananda@gmail.com.

I’ll join you next month for another stroll.

Thank you for welcoming me back for another walk through the Door.

Our next question is, what is the relationship between "madness" and Paganism? Quite simply, the answer appears to be that the special gifts which others view as "madness" and those which others view as "psychic abilities" appear to come from the same place – our Inner Child. Do you hear "voices"? They could be your spirit guides, or bad experiences with your family "environment" repeating themselves as though the person who first said those things was saying it right now.

The following is an extract from website information on "The Icarus Project" (The Icarus Project – HIGHLY recommended):

Dangerous Gifts

Despite the risks, we recognize the intertwined threads of madness and creativity as potential tools of inspiration and hope in this repressed and damaged society.

What if madness in society is an ecological response to the monocropping of our minds, and it has the potential to push the sensitive, creative, spiritual people at the fringes to become healers and leaders and turn the whole system upside down? At the very least, history bears witness to the fact that “mental illness” is far more common in populations of artists, writers, and musicians than it is in society at large. The Icarus Project is home to a truly talented and unique bunch of creators and visionaries whose sensitivities allow them access to all kinds of worlds; this section is designed to house art and writing that reflect and explore the brilliance we hold inside.

Visions & Super-Powers


Mystics & Shamans

It’s striking how much overlap there is between the tendencies and behaviors our society attributes to the "seriously mentally ill" and the tendencies and behaviors that shamanic and mystical cultures view as prerequisite for someone to take on visionary roles. This section explores the ways that sensitivity and altered states of consciousness can grant us access to radically different understandings of reality, sometimes putting us in touch tremendous powers of healing and connecting us to a sense of the mysteries much greater than ourselves.

Dreams

Dreams are full of clues if we allow ourselves to see them. All masked in layers of metaphor and symbol. They can be a whole other set of maps, maps to the underground unconscious each of us carries around with us. Sometimes dreams can even let us know where we are and where we might be going… If you’d like to contribute to this section or help get it off the ground, e-mail scatter@theicarusproject.net.

X-Ray Visions

It is a common experience among people struggling with "mental disorders" to see things that the people around them don’t see. While medical authorities usually write off people’s visions as mere delusions and recommend higher levels of medication, quite often the things we see and hear are evidence of a heightened sensitivity and of the thin skin that comes with madness. Our porous nature allows us to have an intimate relationship with parts of the world other people will only ever read about. Like all the classic superheroes, our superpowers are dangerous gifts that intensify the struggle of our lives. But they are superpowers, and we can learn to use them." (end of quote)

Does anything sound familiar here? Icarus Project has taken the lead in demystifying "mental illness", changing the terminology from "sick", "brain disorder", etc., to "Dangerous Gifts".

We all have dangerous gifts. Even the most benign healing powers may do harm, or you may need to do harm in order to heal (i.e., killing cancer cells, psychically "cutting tissue", etc.).

It is these same gifts which made us feel "outcasts" in our parents’ religion, uncomfortable no matter which church we attended, and caused us to keep searching until either we found Goddess or She found us. It is these same gifts that our religion (with a good teacher or lots of good books) trains us to use, "always harming none." It is these same gifts that are written about in all the Pagan literature, and "The Old Laws" are full of references.

It would be easy to write all Pagans off as "mentally ill". The truth of the matter is that, under current psychiatric definitions, every man, woman and child in the U.S. could fall under some psychiatric diagnosis – or several, or different ones depending on the diagnosing physician. This is not to say that Pagans are "crazy", or any crazier than the rest of the country (or the doctors themselves). Our difference is our strength, the welcome the Lady extends to us, the acceptance (however slowly) of those gifts and the desire to do good with them, the desire to grow those gifts and powers.

It would not do anyone any good to recite the stories of the people who have come to me about going to a "Pagan teacher" and being told that s/he refused to teach them because of their "illness". What will do good is to recognize all our potentials, the safe and the dangerous, and be willing to teach what we know or have experienced.

I hope you remember my earlier belief statement: "God/dess is Love. Love unites; Judgment divides." Turning a potential student away because you are uncomfortable with them, or afraid of them or their "illness", or because of something in their past (especially if they have worked hard to get beyond it) is an admission of your weakness, not that of your potential student. Embrace your Dangerous Gifts as your Lady embraces you.

"Mental illness" is a combination of factors – abuse, poor nutrition, bad experiences, bad drugs, and lazy doctors appear to be the main ones at the time I write this. People with multiple personalities probably developed them to keep their "center" "safe" while their body was being abused by someone. I do not believe that it makes them unacceptable as a Priest or Priestess. I hope I’m not alone in this belief.

Back to the nutritional angle, I wrote last month about the lack of certain essential fats missing from the typical American diet. There are other deficiencies noted throughout the country, and I’m going to discuss a few of them here.

First, mineral deficiencies. Doctors try to tell us of the dangers of excessive mineral intake, but they rarely tell us the rest of the truth. All minerals have an essential level, a therapeutic level, and a toxic level. I don’t care if you’re discussing radium, oxygen, or calcium, the above is a true statement. For some of those minerals, the essential level may be miniscule; for others it is quite large. The typical American diet does not come close to providing essential levels of magnesium, potassium, or other minerals, while it exceeds the levels for sodium, chlorine, and a few others.

Magnesium appears to have a large role in the treatment of "mental illness", particularly stress, anxiety, and panic responses. The amount of magnesium your body needs can range to as high as 3 grams per day or higher; most diets include between 300 and 800 milligrams. The problem with supplementing magnesium is that many forms, in adequate quantities, cause periastalsis (diarrhea, which ends as soon as the excess magnesium is flushed from the system). This is both a plus and a minus, as magnesium sulfate (Epsom salts) has been used for generations as a laxative.

The problem is, what form are you taking? Magnesium can be supplemented as oxide, sulfate, carbonate, or even orotate. The trick is to get the magnesium out of your bowel and into the rest of your cells. One common supplement that has been found to aid in this process is malic acid.

The other trick is to use as many of the possible sources as possible – magnesium sulfate is most likely to cause periastalsis, oxide and orotate least likely, but if you balance them you can avoid it entirely. (At least one supplement company sells a "Magnesium Complex" supplement.)

Also, supplementation of magnesium at high levels will throw your calcium level out of balance; always take additional calcium when you’re taking extra magnesium. For a variety of reasons, I do not recommend mixed calcium-magnesium supplements.

A much-overlooked mineral is lithium, except when you have been diagnosed as "bipolar" or "manic-depressive", in which case your doctor prescribes a common – but very toxic – form of lithium, lithium carbonate. In a combined medical-geological survey in the 1950s, it was noted that some areas with lower rates of "mental illness" than other areas had measurable amounts of lithium in their drinking water.

The only organ in your body which appears to need lithium is your brain. Lithium carbonate is dangerous in that it does not easily pass the elemental lithium past the "Blood/Brain Barrier" (I know it sounds silly, but look it up, they really do use this term). The solution, in the mind of medical science, is to flood your body with enough lithium carbonate to get enough lithium to your brain. The negative of this is that your other organs do not need lithium, and this causes many "side-effects" including eventual kidney failure.

The natural solution is to take lithium orotate (lithium chelated with orotic acid, a natural amino acid). Lithium orotate contains a very small amount of lithium, and the orotic acid carrier has been shown in many studies to pass essentially all the lithium through the Blood/Brain Barrier. (Years ago I was taking 1800-2100 mg of lithium carbonate daily, giving me from 756 to 882 mg/day of elemental lithium. I currently take 360 mg of lithium orotate, supplying less than 15 mg/day of elemental lithium.)

I asked my doctor about taking lithium orotate. She stated plainly, "I know nothing about it. I’m not going to talk about that." What is interesting is that she annotated my patient file with the words, "Advised pt. strongly against it." Unless you have an exceptional psychiatrist or doctor, you will likely get the same result.

Excessive lithium intake also tends to degrade or damage your thyroid gland. Lithium orotate has shown (in a few cases, all anecdotal to date) that it does not cause that harm, indeed, in one case the person’s thyroid (having been damaged by intake of lithium carbonate) improved and her doctor cut her Synthroid dosage in half.

For information on this and other natural therapies, especially for bipolar and depression, please visit my website .

That should be enough to hold you until next month. Question, read, study, talk to others. In particular, I have gotten a lot of support from the Bi-polar_pagans Yahoogroup people.