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.

Go back

Your message has been sent

Absolution From a Broken Spirit

On February 4, 2012 By dancingpalmtreesIn Bridge, cacophony, despair, Dissonance, Dreams, Fears, Insomnia, Jesus, Loss, Love, Sacred, Scars, sorrow, soul, Stigmata, Suffering

Love is building the bridge between others in our lives. Putting our
arms around a loved ones broken dreams, broken spirits and telling them
it’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to embrace
the pain both physical and emotional. I’m cut. I’m weak. I’m bleeding
but I’m still me.

See my scars of battle? Will you rub salt in my
wounds or will you apply the balm of Gilead all the while being
nonjudgmental and carry me to the house of the good Samaritan.

Love me in my disconnect, guilt and shame. Love me in my bi-polar faith. Love me
in all my imperfections.

All I ask is compassion in my moments of fragility and to be allowed
to cry. I love you still the same. God still loves you. God does not
require to name & claim, proclaim and affirm, blab it and grab it,
scream or yell, or beat down Heaven’s door, he only requires that you
go through while he is holding your hand.

He will hold your hand through the tempest, the fire, from this broken
shattered life into the next world. My child find rest from this veil
of tears. Well Done thou good and faithful servant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CrHpq9c1G8&feature=colike

Go back

Your message has been sent

Forgiveness of a Mother’s Love

On September 9, 2011November 23, 2018 By dancingpalmtreesIn Mable Palmer, Mother, Uncategorized

: My Mom, Mable Elizabeth Palmer

Forgiveness of a Mother’s Love

A Mother’s Love reaches across hills, valleys, rivers and streams.

Across the eons of time and universe to hear her child’s cry for help.

I knelt at her feet, my head in her lap. The lap containing the womb of the Goddess who gave me life.

Her arms bridge the gap between this life and the next. My face cupped in her hands of redemption seeking salvation.

An outpouring of forgiveness sweeps over me like standing under a waterfall with waves of compassion and love overflowing the empty spaces in my life.

Today’s Forgiving Fridays: A Big Lesson on How to Let Go

A Mother’s Love is all encompassing, all faithful, all trusting. Hope against hope. Faith against faith. Reaching across the void separating us, pulling me close to her breasts, within her very being, enveloping me in undying love.

Dedicated to the memory of my Mom,

Mable Elizabeth Palmer, May 2, 1930 – August 2, 1998

Go back

Your message has been sent

A Call to Witness — Suffering in the Midst of Healing

On August 28, 2011August 29, 2011 By dancingpalmtreesIn Angel, Jesus, King James Version Bible, Sacred, soul, Spirit, Spirituality, Suffering, Visions, Wisdom

A Call to Witness

A Call to Witness is a ministry God revealed to me recently in the midst of my trials and tribulations. It is not geared to any one denomination or belief system but to all who hear the voice of God and desire to become closer to the Lord. In fact and in practice God has called me to reach out to those rejected or alienated by the church. A call to society’s unwanted. We’ve all missed the mark and come short of the glory of God. I help you access some of His Earthly Glory. I seek not religion but a common ground amongst all the world’s races, nationalities, faiths, ethnic groups whose foundation is God.

Suffering in the midst of healing

Job 19:25-27

New King James Version (NKJV)

²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth;

²⁶ And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God,

²⁷ Whom I shall see for myself,
And my eyes shall behold, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!

I Know my Redeemer Lives – Nicole C. Mullen

http://youtu.be/ATBLXyJxyTI

The first part of this teaching is dedicated to a close and dear friend at work whose son has been in the hospital for the last few months fighting for his life. The young man has also been diagnosed with MS. When my friend first told me his son was in a coma and on breathing apparatus my response to him was I will pray and if you need me no matter what time day or night call me. I also emailed him resources from the MS Society. Time passed and nearly our entire workplace banded together in prayer for our supervisor’s son. This young fellow is only in his 20s and the pride and joy of his father. Our supervisor is kind, gentle, fair, faithful and loving Christian man. Of course he was devastated that his boy was so ill. We his friends held him up in prayer, encouragement and support as Moses arms were held up in battle against the enemy.

God had already told me that the young man would live and not die. One day my buddy called me over to his desk and told me his son had opened his eyes. We rejoiced right there at the desk. But the fight is not yet over. The young man is awake, can recognize and grasp his Dad’s hands but cannot yet speak. So now our collective prayer is that the young man will regain his power of speech.

After I emailed my friend resources on the MS Society, I gave more thought as to why God allows sickness and death. John 11:4 was part of the answer:

When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Jesus was referring to Lazarus.

Also I thought of John 9: 1-5

John 9

A Man Born Blind Receives Sight
¹ Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. ² And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
³ Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. ⁴ must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. ⁵ As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Sickness, disability and even death revealed God’s mercy and compassion as we triumph over them. Sometimes we receive miraculous healing; sometimes we learn to live with a condition other times the Lord takes us or our Loved ones home to be with Him. His power is made manifest in the strength of the human spirit.

Healing is a process.

2 Kings 4:8-37

New International Version (NIV)

The Shunammite’s Son Restored to Life

2 Kings 4:8-37

The record of the daughter of Jairus is a combination of miracles of Jesus in the Gospels (Mark 5:21–43, Matthew 9:18–26, Luke 8:40–56).

The story immediately follows the exorcism at Gerasa. Jairus, a patron of the synagogue, asks Jesus to heal his dying daughter. However, according to Matthew, his daughter is already dead, not dying. As they travel to Jairus’s house, a sick woman in the crowd touches Jesus’ cloak and is healed of her sickness. This is called the miracle of Christ healing the bleeding woman.

Meanwhile the daughter dies, but Jesus continues to the house and brings her back to life, or in his own words, awakens her. In Mark’s account, the Aramaic phrase “Talitha Koum” (transliterated into Greek as ταλιθα κουμ and meaning, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”) is attributed to Jesus.

John 5:4-8

New International Version (NIV)

⁵ One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

I find it interesting that Jesus asked this man, Do you want to be healed? Seems like an odd question since Jesus already knew his condition. Was Jesus questioning the man’s faith? No I don’t believe so because the man had a portion of faith to be close to where the angel troubled the waters. More than likely the man suffered from paralysis and needed friends to assist him. Jesus chose that particular man because he lacked a support system. He needed a friend. Jesus ever merciful and compassionate became that friend. No more did the man have to hope each time that he saw the angel that the people surrounding him would carry him to the troubled water.

Jesus became the Bridge Over Troubled Water. Jesus the conduit between the sickness and the cure. Jesus the Bridge over Troubled Water who lay down his life for us. Our companion in suffering, death and resurrection.

Go back