Watch “Creative Wellness: Art IS Therapy” on YouTube

On August 23, 2018August 23, 2018 By dancingpalmtreesIn Uncategorized

Do More than just Thank a Veteran for his or her service. Actually provide Veterans with practical assistance which does more than empty Thanks.

Sp4 Deborah Palmer

U.S. ARMY, November 1977 to November 1981

Women Veterans are often left out of the loop. We are forgotten.

Housing, transportation, food, tangible help no more empty Thank yous. Don’t be critical of people choices without knowing their options.

I’m Still Here

On February 27, 2014February 27, 2014 By dancingpalmtreesIn 50+, Acceptance, Alice's Restaurant, Catherine Townsend-Lyon, Character, DeBorah, Mable Elizabeth Palmer, Mable Palmer, Pharmacia Cornucopia, Pusherman, rabbit hole, Shinnyo-en Buddhism, Spirituality, Stigmata, Suffering, Suicide, The Walking Dead, Understanding, White Rabbit3 Comments

I’m Still Here…………

http://youtu.be/BbhEo-4_ETc

Today I am 55 years old. It is a Blessing to be this age. I have depression, anxiety and panic attacks. I’m also a domestic violence and sexual abuse survivor. I’m the person sitting next to you on the bus, subway, at work and in church. No I don’t want pity just acceptance. Recently I had a conversation on my Facebook page regarding mental illness. It was good sharing with my FB buddy who works in the mental illness field about the obstacles and hurdles faced not only by the mentally ill but their families. The government just seems to put more roadblocks in our way so we wind up taking many detours towards a place called Wellness. My mother Mable Elizabeth Palmer lived most of adult life as a functioning schizophrenic. There is a serious lack of support services for the mentally ill thus we read of all these horror stories in the newspapers but for the most part many mentally ill folks carry on with their daily lives. Despite all that I’ve been through as a child and again as an adult I’m happy to be alive.

Sometimes when I tell my story people who have these “happy lives” meaning a satisfying long term marriage, house in New Burbia, kids, grand-kids, successful careers feel sorry for me, pity or think I’m a walking tragedy living a substandard life. Not true! I live in full life in spite of my numerous desert and valley experiences. Perhaps an even fuller more substantive life than those who eat from silver platters. Mine is not a half-life of only the sunny side of the street but a full life that includes the alleys, back-roads, ghettos, and dimly lit streets populated with voices yearning to be head. I like it that way.

Nothing to be sorry about. Despite all the things my parents went through, especially my Mom’s battles with her demons, she was also an alcoholic, overall I had a good childhood. We have a choice to dwell on the sad past or the fond happy times of the past. I think about the good things. The fun stuff our family did when I was growing up. Of course now being an adult I have a different perspective. I was not so accepting myself when I was younger but age, maturity, experience and time changed my viewpoints.

It’s the government and people’s approach to mental illness that needs to be healed. It should not be a stigma. I readily admit to my struggles with depression, anxiety and panic attacks. That’s my life. It is not a tragedy.The tragedy is other peoples reactions and perceptions of mental illness. My Mom was a good wife and mother. I served my country in the Army, earned my BA in English, held down jobs all my life, went to church, now a full participant in Shinnyo-en Buddhism etc… It would be good if people with mental illness were more accepted. If there was more help for those of us suffering. If people would stop trying to impose their expectations on me of what happiness means. Everybody has a past. Everyone has a story. Life goes on. I’m just happy to be alive. Pitiful prayers, slapping oil on my head, telling me the latest New Age positive thinking strategy 12 Steps to Happiness, and sad sack face looks going tsk, tsk, tsk are an insult to my intelligence as a human being. It is what it is. Raw, exposed and uncut.

I have health insurance so I do have the option of returning to those mind-numbing anti-depressant drugs I took after my mother’s death but I choose not too. I choose the full gamut and range of my emotions and feelings as opposed to being a drug induced zombie. During the high points in life I love my odd slightly off center sense of humor. The times when I’m at my lowest are the times when I’m most creative. I’m a better writer, a better photographer because I know what it is like to live life in the margins, the outskirts of society, to be a misfit and an outcast. I’m drawn to people living alternative lives. That’s why I love Street Photography. I don’t want what’s staged, posed or set-up. I want real. The nitty gritty. The down and dirty. The quirky and unusual. If life was meant to be perfect happiness or total sadness the books of Job and the Song of Solomon would not be in the Holy Bible.

What would the world look like if gave a helping hand to the Mentally Ill by supporting organizations like NAMI, prosecuting men who abuse their wives and girlfriends and pulling the collars off ministers who are rapists. What if we weren’t treated like modern day lepers? Instead of further victimizing people living with mental illness write to your Congresspersons and Senators to create laws that will enable us to receive the treatment and support systems we so desperately need.

No I don’t need to be “healed” but our society does.

Big Pharma — I’m Your Pusherman

On April 5, 2013December 28, 2014 By dancingpalmtreesIn Black Orpheus, Curtis Mayfield, Death, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, Grim Reaper, Jelly Beans, Pusherman, Spirituality, Visions14 Comments

I’m Your Pusherman

Curtis Mayfield

http://youtu.be/hCDAfa-NI-M

Yes I was a functional addict. A junkie in clean fashionable clothes, who lived in a nice apartment, drove a cute little Honda Civic, had a great job, that friendly voice who stopped to chat with you in the grocery store, had a handsome boyfriend, highly intelligent, living the good life or so it seemed. I was that one who could excel at work, attend professional and social events, school and sit next to your in the church pew on Sunday without nary a soul able to realize or see through my mask. A sanctioned addict because doctors gave me pills legally. But gradually cracks began to appear in my facade. A thousand little band-aids could not cover and certainly not heal my sick soul. It took coming face to face with my cousin who uses “illegal” drugs, drugs that the Rockefeller laws that could have you spending a long term visit at Bedford Correctional facility; to shake me up, empower me and force me to take a good long look at myself. Addiction is death. First it becomes a living death then finally once the body is broken and beaten drugs drags that empty shell into the grave. Death no longer carries a sickle in his skeletal hand but a bag of pills. Red ones, blue ones, green ones, all beckon you like Easter basket jelly beans. You think you’re chasing him to the false paradise of the next high but as in the movie Black Orpheus the Grim Reaper is in pursuit of you, mind, body, soul & spirit. And believe me the next opportunity to get high is always around the corner. Like the lyrics in the Beatles song, “I Get High with a little Help from My Friends.” Everybody is an aspiring junkie.

However I’ve managed to stay away from Ambien for over a month. I can’t say I’ll never fall off the wagon but my desire to live, progress, and do better is stronger. I know I have an addictive personality. My mother was an alcoholic. The overuse and misuse of alcohol was her only means of silencing the voices inside her head that came from having schizophrenia. Often addictions are passed from one generation to the next. Cravings to dull the pain are sadistic taskmasters driving the addict into a narcotic haze.

Addiction is often triggered by a traumatic life event such as sexual abuse, domestic violence or the death of a close family member. At first the addict thinks they can control the drugs but after a while the drugs begin to control them. Drugs are the new age demons that bid you escape your pain and heartache within the thrill of the next high. However within the last 20 years or so with the advent, promotion and marketing of anti-depressants, anxiety medications, pain pills and sleep aids Big Pharma is now the largest, strongest and most powerful legally sanctioned drug dealer in the United States. In hindsight it is interesting to note that within the last 5 years or so nearly all the anti-depressants I took from 1999 to 2007 have been shown to cause panic attacks and suicidal thoughts. Below are two blog posts about how I fell into the Rabbit Hole and the appeal of altered states to an addictive personality. Breaking free was and is very difficult because certain types of medications allow you to function normally at school, church or work yet enjoy those other dimensions or astral planes that exist in all our brains.