Psychic Friends Network

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic# 

Certain generations develop a type of "groupthink" that transcends their immediate presence, to become indicative of a much deeper action taking place than that which it would openly appear to be. Because me and my classmates were forced into extraordinarily difficult life situations coupled with extreme stress, we had to communicate without exposing it to the very people supposed to protect us, our parents, who would retaliate any action they could perceive or stump as a threat while in their delusional states. I know it's as intense as it reads.

I have never (NEVER) met a GenX'er who was not physically, emotionally, mentally, and sometimes sexually, abused to the extreme. Under our parents bigger and often stronger hands, we had to make quick life-changing decisions "on the fly", though it is not something we wish to replicate in any other generation. Sanity and hindsight will do that to you. It left us to contemplate just what the fuck went wrong with the sick people around us, when we had the time and space to do so, which, for me and my friends, meant our successful escape to an away college, as a time period of such happiness and fulfillment that it ever marked in severe contrast those later times when we felt just as unfulfilled as we had during our entrapped childhoods.

We had been tasked, as children and teens, to heal every serious adult woe that existed including, but not limited to: alcoholism and addiction, sexual dysfunction, homosexuality, their media-touted "mid-life crisis", adultery, divorce, joblessness and homelessness, extreme over- and under-spending, bad healthcare systems and the medicated side effects of their genetic disorders like madness and dementia combined with schizophrenia and a bevy of scientifically complex mood/identity/personality disorders with a lack of available and appropriate treatments that threatened immediate bankruptcies, foreclosures, and debt, along with not-so-handy alternatives like debtor prisons and/or incarcerations (or foster care) through corruptly inept social services and justice departments. Like, everything that the world has to offer us as severely marginalized individuals.

As a really small generation, we found that our dire circumstances necessitated an unforeseen sophistication to our brief interactions, squeezed as we were by our parent's (and/or grandparents) acute paranoia, which meant that all of our household communiques were strictly monitored for any signs of advanced thought or problem-solving abilities that would conflict with an illness that took on biblical proportions, in direct contrast to our religious ethics. We were "wrong" for simply existing in the covering chaos that evil thrives in, susceptible as our families were to it, in their sicknesses. We became adept at "reading" our emotions well with just a glance or a look, which often only increased the paranoia of the less adept around us.

Survivors of bipolar families like ours often describe in alarming detail (to them, not us) the "rock-and-a-hard-place" space that the severely mentally ill impose on the people around them, as a boxed-in corner where you can either choose death or their abuse. I'm not kidding or using an arty metaphor, either. We had death-defying car rides with stoned drunks as children trapped in their back seats, or rocky water rides down spring-filled rivers that became ego-driven contests with parents hellbent on destruction in the face of our greater gifts that were designed for service but refused through wanton pride.

It's a hard thing to prove as a child, and even harder to describe without the evidence that our families would just as wantonly destroy, in fear of prosecution or exposure. That's how entrenched their untreated sickness became. They'd rather die or kill us, or at the very least hurt us badly, than admit to any wrong-doing or making of mistakes. It was an incredibly selfish and spoiled thing to do, and I remain aghast at my parent's immaturity, as I am in awe of our relative composure in the face of their extreme carelessness. I've been told that I am extremely "lucky" to be alive, but I know it's not luck. It's me, and my extraordinary band of "freaks" that you call "superheroes" or "X-Men", if and when the mood or the money strikes you. Try living it.

Hot Shots

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin

Years ago I saw a television story about a storefront in San Francisco that catered to the heroin addicts in their neighborhood. It's a brilliant idea. On the street level are partially walled stalls to give addicts some privacy, while allowing a rotating healthcare worker to check-in with their patients by simply walking past every so often. If they felt someone was in trouble, there's a nurse on staff to give them a life-saving shot that prevents an overdose.

After their patients became comfortable with that level of transparency, they could tour the upper floors of the building with staffers to see their in-care services, like their rehab program and transitional housing. After I saw it, I thought to myself: why aren't we replicating this program in every major city across America? It just made so much sense to me that I knew it was the answer we've been seeking as a society.

And so, it was with great happiness and a shock of recognition that I saw on the local news this week that our fair city here in New York plans to introduce a similar street-front model catering to heroin addiction. Why not? We already have rehab, detox, and disability. Why not spare families and their addicted family members from dying by a bad shot misapplied? This way, we can save a lot of people living on both sides of addiction. It's the way out for you, friends. Take it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervised_injection_site 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_reduction

Take back the world

As we speak, we the faithful are working towards the most peaceful and effective way to ease the world of this madness that has affected our brothers and sisters for centuries: the wars, the famines, the hunger, the starvation, all the death and violence, the mutilations and torture, the withholding of resources...all of it.

Because all of it comes from the same dark, hateful, insidious place: the heart of darkness at our very centers, the beast that beats within all of our breasts, a beast we must willingly confront (and best), if we are to win this last final battle of good over evil, here on earth.

Think I'm exaggerating? I'm willing to bet by now, my many followers, that you don't. I call them just as I see them, and as it happens out in the world. Hang on, and pray for the light that heals you. You are not alone. You were never alone.

Today, I commit myself to taking back the world from madness. Today, we begin anew the fight against the evil that lurks within ourselves, and then.....we turn it outward in a warm embrace. 

Read what we are doing here in my small town, and take it. This is the way out, for us all. This is the way back. This is the way home. And it is just how I designed it to be. Amen to you.

 See you on the U.S.S. Enterprise, my friends.

http://bit.ly/1C2Rrnf

"Smokey"

Years ago I smoked cigarettes, which is hard for many people (including me) to fathom. Why?! Truth be told, I was a horrible smoker, which was why I began in the first place: I'm not a binge drinker like many of the kids I grew up with. "Smokey" was actually another one of the nicknames created by my "bestie", like "Uker". I'd puke if I drank too much, you know, because too much alcohol makes you sick. 

And so I compensated for not having an alcohol addiction by using cigarettes to calm my stomach from an excess of beer drinking, something college kids ruthlessly monitored me over (like my normal sleep patterns and continued persistent refusals to party overmuch), to keep their own massive consumptions obscured. I knew it, just like I knew my Dad smoked, as did a few of my grandparents, in response to life stress and their own addictive patterns. 

Like many Gen X'ers, I found myself wrecked by the consequences of other peoples' blatant disregard for my health, well-being, and safety. After years of being bored and sickened by someone else's stupid habit, I finally broke the cycle of abuse for me by quitting smoking cold turkey, because I had several bouts of DVT, related to knee surgery. 

I knew I was never an addict by the time I tried to use the lowest dose of nicotine patches available, because I had to leave my art director's job mid-day from a sick stomach; the severe nausea healthy people have in response to the harsh chemical cocktail designed to addict that's in cigarettes. For me, the cycle has forever been broken by my iron will, though the mentally ill receptionist at that former job, who compulsively gossiped as a political weapon (which I successfully used against her), merely changed the tone of her attack from noting my smoking habit to any other thing she felt she could get away with. 

Today I ask you to break the bad habits imposed upon you by others (those that were created in response to repeated personal attacks), by getting clean and healthy, like our fabulous health official Dr. Mary Bassett; herself an educated healer and fellow New Yorker, also caught in the twin traps of getting by on nothing, while fighting a corruptly biased system. Today we declare our collective good health, for all the peoples of the world still fighting oppression. I got your back, girl. 

May G-d bless you and keep you safe, 

in these final days of hope and light.

Quitting Smoking:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/about/commish-bio.shtml

https://a816-nycquits.nyc.gov/pages/homepage.aspx

The Tobacco Industry:

http://www.thestreet.com/topic/25884/top-rated-equity-tobacco.html 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3490543/ 

A series of black and white self-portraits I made for (and sent to) my old college boyfriend, who needed support during his time at McGill University while I worked three jobs at RISD, which he blamed me for. He retaliated by transferring out of Oneonta before me during my last semester there, supposedly because I "insisted" on "wasting my time" at art school. Amen to you who are my similarly afflicted.

1-866-NYC-QUITS (1-866-697-8487) 

http://www.nysmokefree.com/ 

Stop, Anellotech.

http://www.freshair.org/

Today as I sit at the local library on a public-access computer, the front doors are open to catch some of the cool afternoon breezes, to the sounds of schoolchildren having an outdoor playday with teacher-supervised games and sports, right across the street in the town park. 

I want to keep it that way, and I can't do that if we allow a highly-toxic petrochemical refining plant to take up residence on what was formerly Lederle's site, and then Pfizer's, pharmaceutical companies both: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Cyanamid and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer. 

They'd been having secret town meetings and court appearances in Rockland. We have a "Master Chemist" and a "Master Litigator" on the case, but I want more. Concerned moms are also appreciated.

I want it gone forever, and so I ask you to willingly join me in this. Afterwards, we can collectively heave a huge sigh of relief, breathing in the fresh clean air for a battle well-fought and hard won that is the refuge for the righteous and the just.

Freedom from corruption...that's what we want. Join us. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1595952577299501/

Update: http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/orangetown/2016/01/14/anellotech-cancels-controversial-pearl-river-vent-pipe/78787388/

Crazy Ass Sugar High

Time to "power up" with cereal crack!

Lately I've been buying cereal when it's on sale, because I'm on a tight budget. I haven't eaten it regularly for many, many years, not even during my broke college days, because it was way more expensive than other simple foods, like eggs, bread, cheese, butter, and milk. 
But recently I've been buying a small box when it's on sale for $1.99, and it contains ingredients I can easily pronounce. So, I've been sitting at a table in the morning, looking at a box decorated for kid's, while I eat from a bowl filled with milk and cereal, just like in childhood.

Of course I noticed right away the wild colors, designs, and graphics. It's hard not to, and that's the point. Art for children, as it relates to impulse buys in a grocery store by the continued, tearful haranguing at a harried parent by an impatient, cranky toddler, has to be as instantly addictive as its' highly sugared contents. Marketing to children despite their best interests is a hard dance at that, too.

Cigarette manufacturers learned the hard way: Joe Camel was rendered too kid-friendly, as was the brightly colored promotional material posted child high at stores, to catch their lowered eye heights and attention spans. I recently interacted with a very young couple's child, and as I watched her bounce frenetically from thing to another without absorbing any of it, I knew her diet was part of the problem.

This is your kids' brain on legal drugs. Enjoy!

And so it was: a few days later, another neighbor, who acts as a sometimes surrogate parent and free babysitter, came over to tell me that the little girl was being weaned off sugar because of her hyperactivity, which was obvious to observe. She was running at full, frenetic speed well after 9:30 p.m. at night, a time period when I would have been so sleepy as a kid, I would not have been able to keep my eyes open, even if I wanted to. She was that wound up.

We know now that the highly processed and refined sugars add to an enormous list of health problems for people, but here's the missing part of the puzzle that's more hidden and actively suppressed by food and beverage companies through their lobbyists in Washington, the ones who cater to, and pay off, FDA officials: a growing link between certain foods and their negative impact upon our brains, (which are part of our bodies), and if not addressed quickly, develop into long-term (and incurable) mental illness. That hyperactive douche bag sales rep who pounds coffee crack all day from the nearest chain store, regularly snapping out inappropriately at meetings and passive-aggressively via email? He was the crazy kid next door who tried to bite you on the arm all the time, now grown up and working in your office. Stay safe.

http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/sugar-addiction-health-illness-0122135 

http://www.transparencynow.com/mental-illness-overview.htm

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/12/22/How-Eating-Sugar-Can-Cause-Mental-Illness.aspx

www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA351136/Combating-Cravings.html

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/addiction-medical-and-mental-health-perspective

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/salt-sugar-and-fat-could-you-be-addicted

Mental Illness: Now Appearing Near You

I've touched on the subjects of sociology and psychology before but not at length, though it's greatly affected me through exposure to individuals not in full possession of their faculties. When I watch the news, it occurs to me that I'm not alone in this experience throughout the world, as behavior that starts in the home and ends in a disastrous collision of the private with the public. Like many people, I struggled with whistle-blowing on sick people versus my safety, resulting in the loss of home, health, and income; choices many of us face at home and at work every single day. I've worked with people so sick, they rocked back-and-forth in their chairs all day while at work, muttering curse words over and over again, or whispering threats at employees without any consequences at all. True: the world is unsafe, life is hard, and I accept that. Nothing new to this working class girl.

A cursory list of the latest headlines speaks to the major health care crisis in our country, as a plague that tells its tale in psychosis and gun violence. The "Virgin Killer" in California, who legally bought three separate handguns, posted sick rants detailing his future crimes on YouTube before he committed them. He manifested such extremely violent tendencies that his aunt called the police to alert them about his obvious status as a walking time bomb (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/california-killings-elliot-rodger-was-described-as-polite-and-courteous-during-welfare-check-by-police-9432530.html), but nothing happened. Unfortunately, someone has to break the law before legal action takes place, and an intelligent criminal knows exactly where the dividing lines are, much better than you and l. That's their big advantage in the world: shock and awe, for the dual purposes of hurt and destruction. Ask anyone who's been harassed, stalked, or threatened, and they'll tell you a similar story, to the ongoing frustration of law enforcement officers and psychiatric health care workers, and that's just the beginning.

There's a recent spate of murders in NYC, again, perpetrated by an individual so unfit for a place in our society, that his parole officer told anyone who would listen in authority that he would murder someone soon, and then he did (http://nypost.com/2014/06/06/parole-officer-warned-cops-brooklyn-ripper-was-dangerous/). Need more examples? No problem. I got that: the school shooting in Oregon (http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/11/justice/oregon-high-school-shooting/), the psychologist with security clearance who calmly let himself onto an army base to commit what he felt was a "revenge" murder (http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/03/us/fort-hood-shooting/), not to mention the massacres in Colorado, now infamous.

What is it? Where does it come from? Just like conversations about global warming and starving children in Africa, the answer is as old as slavery and murder: because it's a part of human nature. But, how did it get this bad? I have a theory that I'm road-testing, which is quickly gaining support. The answer is this: a greater dissolution between public and private in "The Age of Transparency", because there's less room to hide, and for healthy people like myself, that is a very good thing indeed. What was once hidden at home, like a body surreptitiously buried in the backyard at midnight, way out in the country, with no proof of wrongdoing, has now gone public. Ed Gein lived in a place so rural, he could get away with it. Jeffrey Dahmer preyed on homosexual men, a group that traditionally had very little public support or empathy. "Jack the Ripper" likewise preyed on another famously disenfranchised group, the street-walking prostitute, often a societal target for psychotic rage and murderous intent.

Now that today's individual is much more savvy about the early signs of illness (thanks to the widespread access of such information), those of us who grew up in homes of the sick are often forced into the roles of psychiatrist and law enforcer unwillingly, and that is extremely threatening to someone who seeks to hide their paranoid psychosis with violent tendencies. Children and teens who witness this behavior routinely are groomed to accept abuse as acceptable, as they're gradually conditioned to it (along with the rationale for it) through complicity, similar in method to a pedophile or addict. Who are we to give voice to a major worldwide health crisis? We're nobodies, and that's exactly what someone who is desperate to exploit us counts on, though those rules are changing, too. The kids who are artists, thinkers, and makers are no longer the "kooky" black sheep in their respective families, as "The Digital Age" and the "Design Intelligence" movement now lead the world. 

Hmm...who then to disenfranchise, isolate, and victimize? It's become harder to do so, and so the disordered responded by setting up their family members through constant vicious attacks in secret, sabotaging them until they appear to be the opposite of what's true in public, because that's what bad parents do. I saw a story in that vein just yesterday: a girl was raped, then her crazy parents pushed her into the media spotlight to get attention for themselves, and then they forced her to take to "the low road" through deliberately enforced impoverishment to survive, after they cut her off financially. The result? 

A teenage pregnancy and a convict "baby-daddy", gaining plenty of evidence to do her in and discredit her point of view. In order to survive adverse conditions, it's not uncommon among whistle-blowers in the home to be singled out as a primary target for family scapegoating. After all, what can a dependent teenager really do in retaliation? They held all the cards, along with the money and their seemingly suburban perfection, except the facts didn't exactly pan out. Their daughter tested "positive" for drugs while living in their home, and now, safely on her own as a working single mother, she's clean, even with random drug tests, which she volunteered to do: http://www.drphil.com/shows/show/2136.

I saw an episode of "Judge Judy" that was so bad, the bailiff had to warn the defendant by looming over him physically until he was subdued enough to speak somewhat coherently, bringing no defense to the table or excuse for his poor behavior whatsoever, in a brazen show of delusional cockiness that grows worse and worse every day. Another man on the show, in a separate case, lashed out at the judge in a way I'd never seen before. When she pointed out that his crazy behavior was the result of his mental state and medication, he shot back at her (in full view of the public, on t.v.): "You, too! You need medication, too!", and I actually gasped. Another woman was so unmanageable, her entire case was dismissed, because the judge repeatedly told her to be quiet and, red-eyed with rage, she declared defiantly "I will not!". The mentally ill no longer respond to authority figures, public shaming, financial consequences, or the law.

It's become harder for sick people to find targets for their aggression, easy as it is for us to openly view their sick behavior and then testify about it; witness any reality t.v. show nowadays about dating, drinking, and mental illness. They've been forced into the public arena to act out their rage, because our private spaces have become safer from a growing movement of support and education, thanks to the brave people who are willing to speak out, even to their detriment. And therein the problem also lies—because even obvious outward manifestations are not enough to get someone help anymore, like I observed at any one of my office gigs. A sick guy I worked nearby had ranted all day long to himslef at his computer (OCD), within clear earshot of the entire office space, visibly twitching, talking, cursing, and starting from his chair compulsively, something I often see in other public places like subways and libraries. 

Where once a family could exert financial and social pressure upon a disordered person, forcing them to conform, the economy changed to our detriment. Now, the sick have power and money, which is more easily done with a damaged morality (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/donald-sterlings-mental-health-figures-clippers-sale-report-n118176). What do you do when those in power are mentally unfit to serve our best interests? My generation, Generation X, was painted as "slacker" because as a population group, we were blocked from implementing change by those same corrupt Baby Boomers who have/had numbers on their side, but just like in life, our time has finally come. In the process we became leaders, as we waited until a new population could respond to our ways of thinking, like Gen Y and Millennials have shown through their abilities to adapt to technology and respond to change, embracing a world vision that's greener, safer, saner, and healthier, not because it benefits them immediately, but because it's the right thing to do.

The answer is dual-fold, combined with better healthcare laws and stricter gun laws. There's absolutely no good reason that a college student like "The Virgin Killer" should legally possess three guns for his "self defense". It's absurdly irrational, these old laws made to please unsafe extremists, and it will change. Healthcare must follow suit. Without better mental healthcare reforms in place, all we can do is cry out yet another warning at our own expense, bankrupting our lives in the process, because self-sacrifice is what a honorable person does while actively seeking change, waiting for the tides to turn. And the tides, ushered along by global warming, are turning. 

Welcome to "The New World Order". We've had enough. No longer will the sane cower in fear at the hands of tyranny, because this world operates on one very powerful principle that was previously hidden in the dark, nursed in secret, now reaching its final, unhealthy conclusion as an end to it all, and that is this: transparency.  
What a beautiful world it will be.