This is how I see it. You don't have to look at it this way. It started for me with whooping cough at age 2. The only way to survive it was to die psychologically. If I fought it and kept coughing I would have died. So I gave in and passed out unconscious so I might live. So I died over and over to live. It became a terrifying theme of my young life. Later at age 10 I got childhood epilepsy likely caused at least partly by whooping cough and once again I died to live about once every 6 months at night when I was asleep from age 10 until age 15 when it finally stopped for good.
However, the PTSD, (mild version)(Post traumatic stress disorder) caused in my life from first whooping cough and then childhood epilepsy likely is similar to rape victims. Only with whooping cough and childhood epilepsy there is no one to blame. But the traumatic after effects are about the same.
When Mom passed on almost a month ago now I was relieved for her because she hasn't known who she is or who I am for about 2 years now. However, for me, the birth to 21 year old inside me feels pretty lost but the 21 to 60 year old inside me is okay--sort of. Both Mom and Dad are gone now(Dad in 1985 when I was 37 and he 69). Now I'm 60 only 9 years away from when my own father died. So I don't know if I'll check out when my own Dad did or live to 100. It's hard to say these days. I hear a Great Grandfather of mine lived to 105, so anything is possible.
I was trying to explain to a grief therapist that my wife and I have been seeing about once a month since her Mom died in 1999 how I see life psychologically. I embrace death, at least psychologically because it was how I survived whooping cough and epilepsy when so many others died. It also, I think ties into the worldwide terminal macho and sacrificing oneself for the greater good like many soldiers do. More young men died my age(born 1948) in the Viet Nam War than any other. I always knew I would have easily gone and died there while saving my buddies' lives. That's why my Dad made sure I didn't go. He knew I was always a daredevil and embraced death too. This kind of fearless bravado runs in my family. My father told me that one time his father took on 13 men in a fight and won. That's not my style, though. By the time I was born intelligence was more important than getting yourself killed. I'm thankful for that. However, before my time I knew many men's lives ended over stupid things. Some mens lives still end over stupid things. And it's only by grace that I'm still alive too. And I'm not ashamed to admit it.
Psychologically, it works something like this. Many men run from some kinds of danger. For a man, the single most dangerous thing on earth is a woman. However, I have always run toward women and they toward me with both good and bad results obviously over the years. However, many men I have known have mostly run from women except for maybe the right one. However, because I have always been a little narcisistic in that when I got over being afraid of women falling in love with me at about age 15, I started to find when I had reached age 21 that if a woman was interested or in love with me, generally I was happy to be with her to if she was single because if she was in love with me that was good enough for me. I always needed to be worshipped because I was an only child and my mother and grandmother sort of made me their life's ambition. This made me revere women. I was kind of horrified today when I realized why I revere women. It came because I felt so victimized by whooping cough and epilepsy that I identified with how victimized women had been for thousands of years. This makes sense when you understand that I was 15 in 1963 before women had all the rights they do today. They could vote but the birth control pill which completely changed all the rules only became available to all in 1960. So it wasn't until 1969 or later when women started to really get some rights to their bodies and their lives.
So I have always loved women and they have always loved me. Their mothers also liked me because I was always a gentleman and took an interest in their psychological needs too, because of my close relationship with my mother and Grandmother. I was close to my Dad's Mom too but she lived several thousand miles away so I didn't see her much after I was 4 years old.
So, starting especially in my 20s after relationships usually were sexual as well, women became a way to embrace death. For in death comes life. But when life becomes too solid I get scared because since all is in cycles death will come and bite us next in the butt. So I find it is better to embrace death on your own terms before you physically are dead from it all.
So, the death I'm talking about is psychological, or metaphorical, but it is no less real than physical death. Psychological death and physical death are often intertwined. In fact, the 100,000 year old charactor found in male and female forms in all tribes on earth, the shaman or medicine man or woman is often defined as: one who has psychologically died but whose body still remains on earth.
So, when I studied Cultural Anthropology and really understood this one concept I realized I was a natural shaman and valuable to all beings because I naturally transit the worlds both of the living and the dead. This might freak you out but that is not my intention. I find the world of the dead much easier to cope with than the land of the living most of the time.
For example, I have watched many friends and relatives when they first die having a hard time navigating and figuring things out for the first few months on the other side after passing on. But usually after 3 to 6 months they get pretty good at the whole thing.
It is a lot like watching someone who has never used a computer teach themselves how to use it. At first they are swearing but after a while they really enjoy themselves. Many people just newly on the other side are like this.
Some refuse to believe they are dead and it is important for family and friends to pray for this type of person so angels can come and move them to a better, happier dimension. Others lived on the other side while alive, like ministers, priests, some therapists and healers etc. and usually have no trouble much except missing friends and relatives when they get to the other side. It all depends on the experiences and skills on has here first on earth before they pass on.
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