I’ll Cry Tomorrow

Self-Trust, Inner Guide, the Knowing Voice Within, Strong Internal Core, Ignoring the Experts; These appear to be the latest Buzzwords in the ever present Self-Help craze that has been going on since the 1970s.

Well I beg to differ. I know I’m about to stir up a Hornet’s Nest but that’s what writers do, create controversy, ignite debate and hopefully make readers think. Much to the consternation of the New Age Gurus yes there are wrong choices and bad decisions.

I’ve learned to run major decisions by trusted friends and professionals. Got tired of making bad decisions which backfired on me. You need a few good friends as sounding boards because most of us cannot be objective regarding our problems, thus wrong choices. You need someone or several somebodies to hold you accountable, slap you upside the head and say, “Get with the Program before you Kill Yourself!!”

Friends, ministers, pastors, some co-workers and close family can give objective advice. Sometimes we are way too caught up in our emotions to make correct or wise choices. That guy may be so in love with yet who is violent and abusive is the wrong man. Time to take off the Romantic Blinders and see him as others view him. A violent, abusive, evil tempered jerk. Poor financial choices. Buying a home, car or some other big ticket item could be a very bad choice if you don’t have enough income to cover the outgo.

People have lost homes, jobs, their families and even their lives behind bad choices. The lesson is learned too late for correction. It’s like being a little bit pregnant. No such thing. As humans we are influenced by our fickle emotions, family backgrounds, how we were raised, and society’s expectations. We can’t see the forest for the trees.

For years I was a prescription drug addict. Though the doctors who liberally dispersed the pills are somewhat to blame the lion’s share of the blame is on me because I made the choice to keep taking them nearly to the point of death. Now that I’m in my mid-50s and living a cleaner life, yes my “Internal Core” has improved but it is still not as strong as it should be. Also I still must live with the consequences of previous dumb stupid decisions. Yes I’ve lived through being evicted from my apartment in Queens, been in and out of various hospital emergency rooms, I have a terrible credit rating, plus certain health issues that I’ll be battling the rest of my life. My Inner Guide was a damn fool and an idiot. No I should have gotten professional help. I put my trust in people who I thought loved me and who I assumed would help me. I made choices out of fear and poor health and an addled mind. Finally after seven years of struggle I’m beginning to see daylight. I know my limitations.

I also know that at any point I could backslide but I believe I’ve finally reached the point where I no longer want to live in the Valley. I want a Mountaintop experience. Trust me when I say this wisdom and insight I now possess has only come with fighting depression, fear, panic attacks, and anxieties. Once you hit bottom and you’re tired of living there you’ll find a way to go up. I learned to stop make excuses for my bad behavior, stand up for my rights as a middle-aged Black Woman living in a racist, sexist, ageist society, stopped dating men who don’t respect me, my dreams or goals and who really mean me no good, junked all the pills except for my high blood pressure medication, eat right, exercise and renew my faith. I’m now an active member of the New York Shinnyo-en Buddhist community. Through Buddhism I’ve become a stronger Christian. Truly I’ve begun to understand what it means to work out your Soul’s Salvation. The means of escape you seek is only a delusion. Life is meant to be faced head on. This life is only yours to live. No one can live it for you. Now I’m on a better pathway because I have a clearer more focused mind. I still have some setbacks but my life has improved 95% in the last two years.

Moving Forward.

Please check out the link for a Bio on the actress Susan Hayward star of the movie I’ll Cry Tomorrow. Susan Hayward a BadAss Brooklyn Beauty who even with her cracks, fissures and faults didn’t take shit from anybody. Susan Hayward’s story resonates with me. We are both Fiery, Hotheaded Strong Willed Redheads. Hers was natural. Mine is from a bottle. I Love actresses from the 30s, 40s, and 50s because they overcame so much and were some of the best actresses ever to grace the stage and films. Exotic Beauty, Fame and fortune do not always bring happiness, sometimes just a new set of demons to conquer. Ms. Hayward’s pain made her a better actress because she approached each role from her gut. My pain has made me a better writer. Like her there were times when I did not want to live. I wanted to leave this earth because the pain was too great to bear, yet God sent someone my way to save me and make me realize the foolishness of my actions.

I suffer no fools and I pull no punches. Shipwrecked. Lost. Perhaps. But learning to rely on G.P.S. ~ God’s Positioning System. Shattered Portraits, we picked up the shards, put them in the kiln to create an entire new piece of pottery changed but not consumed by fire.

Like her I struggled with substance abuse. Mine was prescription meds, hers alcohol. Like her I’ve had many failed romances. But through it all we Strong No Nonsense Women prevail, persevere and triumph over defeat. As the title of Susan Hayward’s movie states, “I’ll Cry Tomorrow.”

Ready for my Second Act.

http://youtu.be/jh_Q9BOVUyo

Fort Tipii

On November 2, 2013November 2, 2013 By dancingpalmtreesIn Abuse, Ambien, Bimbo, Body Snatchers, cacophony, Catharsis, Craving, Creativity, Death, deception, Deliverance, Delusions, Dissonance, Dreams, Explore, Fallen Angels, Fantasy, Fears, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, grief, Grim Reaper, Hades, Hallucinations, hell, Hive, horror, Hotel California, Hypnos, Innovation, Inquisitive, Insomnia, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Koyaanisqatsi, Limbo, Loss, Lost Souls, Malevolent, Manufacturered Reality, Mark of Cain, Memory, Midnight Marauder, Mind Altering Substances, Morpheus, Nature, Nightmares, Nirvana, Orpheus, Paradise, Phantaso, Pharmacia Cornucopia, profane, Protean, Purgatory, rabbit hole, Red Woods, Redemption, Refuge, Rejection, Rescue, Ritual, River Styx, Sacred, Sages, Sanctuary, Scars, Skeptic, Slugfests, sorrow, soul, Spirit, Spirituality, Squatters, Suffering, Surrealism, Thánatos, Uncategorized, Visions, White Rabbit, Wicked2 Comments

Fort Tipii

I couldn’t build a proper tree house. Too high up and anyway I’m afraid of heights, so instead I built this little fort of sorts as a place to gather my thoughts after a hectic day. Made my best efforts with whatever materials the forest floor offered up as building materials. There were enough twigs and branches to construct more ground level tree houses or make my current enclosure larger but I chose to save some for kindling for warmth against the chill night air and the rest I kept stacked as a type of cord-wood in a womb like nook Mother Nature had carved into a tree that had been struck by lightening. Eventually I decided to construct another Tipii twig abode to store my few belongings I had gradually began to sneak away from The Family Residence.

These Tree/Tepee/Tipii/Twig aka T3 structures became my holy sanctuaries and safe havens I return to again and again to re-connect with Mother Earth and nature. Too small to stand upright clicking my heels together three times was not an option so I was forced to remain seated. With some degree of discomfort I could lay down in a fetal position while I imagined myself re-entering an alternate womb to be reborn into better circumstances. Mine were a tepee shelters without the buffalo skin covering all exposed bones and framework.

Sometimes I’d hug my knees and rhythmically rock back and forth while repeating what I thought were calming mantras, occasionally wishing that the earth would open up and swallow me whole transporting me some place free from pain, misery and cruelty. Like a shaman I chanted using my homemade rituals attempting to silence the drumbeat of voices incessantly chattering inside my head versus the declarations of the Family. They created a dissonance tear in the time frame continuum of my thoughts.

You see our house, The Family Home if you could call it that is a ramshackle structure; a hodgepodge mixture of stone, wood and stucco additions and afterthoughts as different parts of the building were constructed at different times upon the whims the directors and caretakers.

The Family’s house sits on an oddly place piece of land, our house gives way to forest which in turn after several miles gives way to craggy, rocky shores of a steep cliff, where if one sits perfectly still you can hear the violent waves crashing against rough jagged rock formations that looked as though they were designed by the devil himself. It is said that in olden times there used to be many shipwrecks where sailors were either impaled on the razor sharp Stalagmites. Sometimes you can even hear the shrieks, moans, cries and groans of the unfortunate wretches mixed in with the howling winds. The few who weren’t dashed to pieces by the razor sharp jagged rock formations tried to climb up to safety but were thwarted by the steep incline.

So I periodically retreated to my exoskeleton asylums as a sentry medium between earth and sky. I can never turn my mind off completely but within my secret hiding place the voices were kept to a low roar and bid to change direction and pace.

The last straw that broke the camels back came when my moronic addled brained cell-mate Pearl kept throwing her nasty, dirty towels, underwear and flip-flops over to my side of the room. When I returned from the canteen or our common dining area there were moldy wet towels plastered to the floor like throw rugs that accosted the dividing line between our two living areas. Pearl was known as the filthiest female in our wing tossing food and drink to and fro fully expecting that a squad of personal maids and sweepers were following in her wake. One night after I returned from my many woodland sojourns I decided that I had, had enough and soaked all her grimy towels in gasoline and lighter fluid obtained from an unlocked supply closet near the motor pool. Pearl had a tendency to drink like sailor on shore leave and sleep just as soundly so she never had an inkling as I piled the towels around her bed, built a kindling fort for good measure and added effect, led a fuse from a doorway to an open window, climbed out and lit said fuse.

The Kindling delivered me from The Family’s vocalizations. I tried to warn them before. I tried to silence the voices through escape, but it was not working so I had to try another plan. The crackles and pops of my campfire seem to be in sync with the screams and cries for rescue from the patients locked inside their rooms but eventually those voices will die out also, and then sleep. Blessed sleep.

Love,

Cassandra Verity

My Secret Hiding Place

On November 2, 2013February 15, 2015 By dancingpalmtreesIn Ambien, Battle, cacophony, Catharsis, Chia, Delusions, Dissonance, Dreams, Evil, Expectations, Fallen Angels, Fantasy, Fears, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, Grim Reaper, Hades, Hallucinations, Hotel California, Hypnos, Insomnia, Instability, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Koyaanisqatsi, Kudzu, Lighthouse, Limbo, Lost Souls, Malevolent, Manufacturered Reality, Mark of Cain, Memory, Midnight Marauder, Monday Meme, Morpheus, Nightmares, Nirvana, Orpheus, Paradise, Phantaso, profane, Protean, Purgatory, rabbit hole, Redemption, Refuge, Rejection, Rescue, Ritual, River Styx, Sacred, Sanctuary, Scars, Shawn Bird, sorrow, soul, Spirit, Spirituality, Squatters, Stigmata, Suffering, Surrealism, Thánatos, Vision, Visions, Walking Wounded, Wicked3 Comments

My Secret Hiding Place

I couldn’t build a tree house. Too high up and anyway I’m afraid of heights, so instead I built this little fort of sorts as a place to gather my thoughts after a hectic day. Made my best efforts with whatever materials the forest floor offered up as building materials. There were enough twigs and branches to construct more ground level tree houses or make my current enclosure larger but I chose to save some for kindling for warmth against the chill night air and the rest I kept stacked as a type of cord-wood not too far away.

It has become my sanctuary and safe haven I return to again and again to re-connect with Mother Earth and nature. Too small to stand upright clicking my heels together three times was not an option so I was forced to remain seated. With some degree of discomfort I could lay down in a fetal position while I imagined myself re-entering an alternate womb to be reborn into better circumstances. Mine was a tepee without the buffalo skin covering all bones and framework.

Sometimes I’d hug my knees and rhythmically rock back and forth while repeating what I thought were calming mantras, occasionally wishing that the earth would open up and swallow me whole transporting me some place free from pain, misery and cruelty. Like a shaman I chanted using my homemade rituals attempting to silence the drumbeat of squatter voices incessantly chattering inside my head versus the declarations of the Family. They created a dissonance within the time frame continuum of my thoughts.

You see our house, if you could call that ramshackle structure; a hodgepodge mixture of stone, wood and stucco addendum and afterthoughts as different parts of the building were constructed at different times upon the whims the directors and caretakers.

I was forced to share this mishmash cottage with twelve other inmates, bordered on this expanse of woods providing me a refuge from leaky roofs, busted walls, peeling wallpaper, lukewarm baths, moldy musty scented showers, not to mention all the yelling, screaming, arguments, fights and constant disagreements of a house too small to accommodate the number of people residing within its creaky ramparts. The Family nicknamed it the Hotel California. You know the place where you check in but never check out. The nails across chalkboard voices of The Family were constant knife thrusts to my brain making daily life a constant battle that did not end even has the diurnal gave up residence to the nocturnal for they all snored, wheezed and gasped through the night abyss. The Family’s house sits on an oddly place piece of land, our house gives way to forest which in turn after several miles gives way to craggy, rocky shores of a steep cliff, where if one sits perfectly still you can hear the violent waves crashing against rough jagged rock formations that looked as though they were designed by the devil himself. It is said that in olden times there used to be many shipwrecks where sailors were either impaled on the razor sharp Stalagmites. Sometimes you can even hear the shrieks, moans, cries and groans of the unfortunate wretches mixed in with the howling winds.

So I periodically retreated to my exoskeleton asylum as a sentry medium between earth and sky. I can never turn my mind off completely but within my secret hiding place the voices were kept to a low roar and bid to change direction and pace.

While pyrotechnics roared and exploded beyond the glen my dream state thoughts went to Calista and Cassandra those Kudzu Chia matronly tumbleweeds who wreck havoc and chaos wherever they spore and spawn and their equally troublesome and problematic one-legged Siamese twin cousins Morton and Milton.

Love,

Cassandra

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.

Pharmacia Cornucopia

Holmesian Psychology Behind the Rabbit Hole

Pharmacia Cornucopia

On February 25, 2012December 29, 2014 By dancingpalmtreesIn Alice's Restaurant, Ambien, cacophony, Delusions, despair, Dissonance, Dreams, Fears, Grace Slick, grief, Hallucinations, Insomnia, Instability, Loss, Love, Mind Altering Substances, Nightmares, Pharmacia Cornucopia, rabbit hole, Sacred, Scars, soul, Spirit, Spirituality, Suffering, Visions, White Rabbit2 Comments

Pharmacia Cornucopia

Alice’s Restaurant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjKF7aQthcQ&feature=colike

Like the words of the famous song Alice’s Restaurant today’s prescription drug addict “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant”. Why risk getting arrested and possibly spending any time in jail when you can go to a variety of doctors and easily get prescriptions for Xanax, Celexa, Zyprexa, Ambien, Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Paxil, Oxycotin, etc….. After all it’s legal.

Go Ask Alice

White Rabbit ☮ Jefferson Airplane ♥ 1967

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsvILKyxfsU&feature=colike

Thanks to our pill cure obsessed society along with the greed of Big Pharma who consistently bribes most physicians to distribute their pills like they were M&Ms in the Candy Shop to unsuspecting patients who need relief from pain, anxiety and depression. Very few people are suffering from psychosis which most of the aforementioned drugs are designed to treat.

How do I know this? I am a recovering prescription drug addict. Shocked? Surprised? Never would have suspected someone like me right? A church goer, Bible student, Cum Laude College graduate, hard worker, one who has always been able to hold down a job and be success in the workplace. Well now you know. I’ve come out from behind my mask. The mask I’ve been hiding behind since 1999 the year after my Mom Mable Palmer passed away. Nineteen Ninety Nine was the pivotal year when I made my descent down the rabbit hole of grief, depression, anxiety and pressure to get past the pain of my parents deaths which occurred within three years of each other. I had to keep the charade going. I could never reveal to anyone how really devastated I was by their untimely loss.

Nineteen Ninety Nine was the year I started seeing a psychiatrist. It started off well enough. At least I thought so in my troubled mind. She had me watch a video on mental illness, specifically bi-polar disorder, asked me a few questions then sent me into a journey and eventually a slide into the land of Happy Pills. What I probably most needed was a mild sedative and extensive talk therapy but no I received Celexa and eventually was promoted to stronger more debilitating prescription drugs.

Mind you because at the time I had a good job and good health insurance there was no problem in me obtaining in number or manner of pills to satisfy my growing reliance on these medications. In fact my doctor enabled me by reaching into one of her office drawers and dispensing free pills she had obtained from the many pharmaceutical agents who visited her offices, and most likely plied her with dinners, trips, etc…. if she would promote their “medications”.

What Dr. Pill Happy failed to ask me was if anyone in my family specifically my parents had any addictions. If she had asked me that I would have told her my mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was an alcoholic most of her adult life. But then again who knows, given the fact that the Big Pharma Drug Pushers were greasing her palms she would have ignored the obvious connection between my behavior and my mother’s and continued adult candy. Then again I can’t just blame this doctor, most doctors just indiscriminately dispense mind altering pills with little regard as to whether this will cause adverse reactions’ in their patients. I also blame myself. I wanted the pain to go away. I wanted to be ten feet tall all the time.

The only thing that stopped my downward slide was I lost my job in 2006 and my health benefits in 2007. Suddenly I had to confront the ugliness in my life and everything I hated about me. I couldn’t hide anymore. Not that I didn’t try. By 2008 I had a new job with its own particular stresses and pressures.

To bring this saga up to date within the last few years I’ve developed severe back, knee and foot pain. My current profession requires me to be on my feet over eight hours a day and the natural ravages of age and time have taken their toll on the lower half of my body. Many times the pain was so bad I couldn’t get out of bed to accomplish simple housework much less stand on my feet for eight hours. Not only was I taking medicine to combat pain I also had to take sleeping pills so I could at least get enough rest to deal with the daily challenges of the workplace. I was going to different doctors getting various prescriptions for physical pain. I took all my prescriptions’ to the same pharmacy. It would seem a large chain pharmacy would see that the combination of drugs I was taking would cause certain negative interactions within my body. They didn’t. At least once or twice within the last four years I nearly lost my life.

Finally I told myself I must climb out of the rabbit hole. I might be ten feet tall outside but inside I felt only two inches tall. I hurt not only physically but emotionally and mentally. The poison that I tried to suppress inside began to seep out. I knew I couldn’t hide behind the mask anymore. My problems lay not just with my parents’ deaths but with sexual abuse I suffered from the time I was 19 up to and including all the sexually abusive relationships I had been in until I was 48. Now I’m in the process of confronting my fears. This is not an easy journey. I’m in my 50s now. Life has definitely changed and not always for the better but change is the only constant in life. I’ve had to make many adjustments and accept my physical limitations. I may fall off the wagon during my journey but nobody’s perfect. But whether or not I have the mercy and compassion of people is neither here nor there. Most of all I have God’s mercy. I have God’s compassion because He knows what I’m going through. God has not judged me for mood swings or depression. This is an illness and I know when I get too tired to go on anymore God in His infinite mercy and wisdom will take me Home to Paradise.

I also knew I had to write this piece clean and sober. My Valentine’s Day piece was written while I was spaced out on Ambien. Strangely this piece was very well received. I mean I got a lot of great feedback from LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter fans. At the same time all the adulation was scary because I knew I could continue as a functioning drug addict or I could make a clean break. As a chronic insomniac Ambien is a very difficult drug to break free from. Taken in its proper dosage you sleep. However take two pills instead of one your body sleeps but your subconscious is still awake, still able to function. In a psychedelic way Ambien has an effect of enhancing talents already residing within you but at the same time with the capacity to kill you. Obviously I don’t want to die but I do want to obliterate the emotional and psychological pain that threatens to rip apart my very soul. But the realization comes that pain can never be totally erased only dealt with on day by day basis. Small doses of healing dispensed over time.

No matter what I have fulfilled my purpose in life because I share this story with others, not for you to understand me but to at least have understanding and empathy others struggling along the rocky path of prescription addiction.

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