Jesus! and the Benzo Wean

The Annunciation

Fra Angelico

Florence, Italy

I've never gotten any comfort from praying to any of the gods, including Jesus. Oh, I take that back. There was a time when I got down regularly on my knees in the middle of the night and plead for mercy. And, yes, I'm aware that faith has little to do with appeals and entreaties being granted or denied. I was raised a Catholic, loved the saints as some little girls love horses. I saw dancing spots in church multiple times, was just about to faint before boredom crept in. I read Simone Weil in college. How many of ye with little faith or a lot of it have read her? I saw the world in a grain of sand or something like that one night about six weeks into my first year in college, lost myself in eternity and bliss, and no, I didn't do drugs. I had a near Stendhal Syndrome-like reaction to the frescoes at San Marco in Florence, Italy, including the several Annunciations of Fra Angelico. That being said, I'm not so much an unbeliever as someone who doesn't believe. In that way.

All of this is to say that I sat by Sophie on her bed tonight and looked out the window as the sun went down. It's day fourteen of a benzo wean, and things are hard. Not as hard as they were in the past, before the cannabis, but they're still hard. Sophie is drooling a lot, and she doesn't want to eat very much. When she does eat, she chews so slowly, if at all, that I feel a frisson of fear that she's developing another round of ESES (and because I don't want to exacerbate this fear, I'm not going to type it as you can do a search on the internets or this old blog and find out plenty). Then I decide that it's the benzo wean, and I feel rage. I've read all the bad things happening to good people stuff, God is beside you, with you, around you, within you. If prayer is breath, the in and the out can tamp down rage, but it's my experience that Jesus doesn't come and take it. So, ye of faith, I don't feel like a good person when I feed Sophie during these times. She holds food in her mouth and slowly, agonizingly moves it around. She lets it fall out. I have to pour liquid down her throat. I am impatient and maybe even mean in my thoughts. There's despair and ruination, and I'm certain Sophie knows this. Maybe not certain, but there's that air that I'm breathing out. It can't be good for her.

Mercy.







Here are the symptoms of withdrawal of benzodiazepines that I took from the website of the NYU Comprehensive Medical Center last night:

An important concern when people with epilepsy take clobazam or other benzodiazepines is the risk of “withdrawal seizures” or increased, repetitive or more severe seizures if the medicine is reduced or stopped. Withdrawal symptoms usually begin upon stopping the medicine and can last for up to 8 to 10 days. Early symptoms might be agitation, anxiety, restlessness or even fast heart rate, though seizures might begin immediately as well. The longer the person has been taking clobazam and the higher the dose, the greater the tolerance and therefore the higher the risk of withdrawal seizures. Even small, gradual dose reductions can temporarily increase seizure activity, but your doctor may suggest these changes since the long-term decrease in effects like drowsiness and depression often makes this worthwhile.

Besides increased seizure activity, other symptoms of withdrawal include:

• drowsiness
• dizziness
• poor coordination
• drooling
• restlessness, aggression, anxiety or agitation

Tell your doctor if you notice any of these symptoms when your dosage is being reduced.

Are there long-term side effects of taking clobazam ?

Clobazam and other benzodiazepines are the medicines that are most likely to cause psychological dependence. When someone takes a benzodiazepine at a certain dosage for more than 2 to 4 weeks, the body (or specifically, the brain's receptors for the neurotransmitter GABA) becomes accustomed to it. Then if a dose is missed or reduced, a withdrawal process starts, characterized by:

• anxiety
• increased heart rate
• tremor
• generally feeling unwell

Taking another pill relieves all of these symptoms, confirming the person's belief that he or she "needs" the medication. This is a very dangerous cycle, since long-term use can cause long-lasting changes in the brain's GABA receptors that lead to significant problems such as impaired cognition, decreased motivation, and depression. In this setting, rapid dose reduction can cause severe symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, and illness, as well as seizures.

In many of these cases, very gradual reduction of the benzodiazepine (often over many months or years) can lead to a dramatic improvement in attention, concentration, memory, and mood without worsening the seizures, insomnia, or anxiety for which the medication was originally prescribed. This gradual reduction must be performed under the guidance of a doctor.

- See more at: http://epilepsy.med.nyu.edu/treatment/medications/clobazam#sthash.MEK6WErd.dpuf

Easter, Anthem, Manna from Heaven and Paradox

what I imagine Anthem Blue Cross headquarters to look like

Are you sitting down?

I received the following notice in my inbox this morning:

Your rates may be reduced and you could get a refund.

We have reached agreements with the California Department of Managed Healthcare and the California Department of Insurance to lower our average Individual rates. This agreement does not impact our California HIPAA and Conversion plans and policies

That means your rates may be coming down soon! We are currently recalculating the change to your medical premium and potential refund. We expect to have the new rates finished, filed and updated in our May billing cycle. This information will be provided to you soon.

If you cancelled your coverage after receiving the notice of your rate change, you will be given the chance to reactivate your Individual health benefit plan.

We value your membership. More information will be mailed to you in the coming weeks.

I was just thinking that since I left the Catholic Church, celebrating Easter seems hollow and a bit depressing. I haven't quite figured out how to celebrate its message of love renouncing death, but perhaps this email from Anthem holds the answer -- either that or bunnies really do hop around with baskets of colored eggs and chocolates.

If you love, love the moon

William Blake

I'm not sure how to absorb all the news these days or even attempt to. As I scrolled through it this morning, I couldn't help but lightly press my finger on the touch screen to read more of Pope Benedict's resignation plans. There's something so glamorous about something happening only once in 800 years. The first pope to resign was Marcellinus in 304. He was deposed after complying with a Roman emperor's order to offer sacrifice to pagan gods. Benedict IX sold his papacy in 1045 and resigned. Celestine V was evidently overwhelmed by the job and resigned after five months in 1294, and Gregory XII stepped down in 1415 to help end a church schism. My finger traced the tiny screen of my phone, scrolling down and I wondered idly (with irony) whether yesterday's news of Los Angeles Cardinal Mahoney's diverted cemetery funds was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back for the spiritual leader of a billion of the planet's people. I imagined a courier running on the cobblestones of the Vatican, down the ornate hallways, through the room where man's finger touches God's and into the Pope's private quarters with the news. Maybe he just couldn't take it anymore.

Why are there so many phrases that use camels to impart wisdom? It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, is a Biblical phrase. Trust in God but tie your camel tight is a Persian proverb, and my favorite might be the Egyptian If you love, love the moon. If you steal, steal a camel. 

I lifted my finger from the screen and closed my eyes. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

There are three things on my mind this morning. One is the Super Bowl. I hate football and have no interest in beast-like men who earn millions of dollars smashing into each other so hard that a good percentage of them get dementia before their time, although I did enjoy the Volkswagon commercial that Angella posted on her blog.

The second thing is the headlines in The Los Angeles Times and probably a gazillion other papers, recounting the misdeeds (that everyone knew about) of Cardinal Mahoney, the blood-curdling details of his craven cover-up of pedophile priests under his watch. I went on the site bishop-accountibility-org which documents the abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church and scrolled through the 260 priests that were either accused, convicted or otherwise investigated in Los Angeles alone over the last thirty or so years and just sat there, my mouth open. Evidently, the current archbishop of Los Angeles made the unprecedented move yesterday of publicly shaming the Cardinal, although Mahoney was not stripped of his duties as a priest. The whole thing boggles the mind and shrinks the soul, and I sound righteous but every single person who sits in a Catholic church pew this beautiful sunny morning in Los Angeles is complicit if they don't demand that Mahoney be censured and stripped of performing his sacred duties. Someone on my Facebook page wrote a literal treatise comparing today's football game and why he's watching it despite neither team being his with his love of and proud membership in the Catholic Church. He wrote about Mahoney and he wrote about forgiveness and right about then, I deleted him from my page.

The third thing I'm thinking about is the Japanese action of hara-kiri, a kind of ritualized suicide practiced by defeated samurai and meant as atonement. My memories of  hara-kiri are from my childhood and sort of cartoon-like -- the grossly shamed Japanese guy takes a knife and plunges it into his stomach and then pushes it upward toward the heart and then pulls it out as he dies. That business executives did it as late as 1999, carrying on a tradition that hearkens back to the 12th century, just makes the head spin. Evidently, killing oneself in such a brutal manner also demonstrated enormous psychological courage and was a way of winning back some honor even in defeat. Cardinal Mahoney and the countless other heads of church, including Pope Benedict and the supposedly saint-like John Paul, have not an ounce of psychological courage or integrity. I imagine forgiveness comes, first, inside one's heart where divine Love resides. Those men who protected their own and continue to do so at the expense of children whose lives have been irrevocably damaged, haven't even the decency to divest themselves of their power as priests and live quiet lives of atonement. Cardinal Mahoney will sit in his red, red robes and pointy hat in Rome with the other Cardinals, good Catholics will shake their heads and continue to drop donations into the basket passed by earnest parishioners, perhaps a little shakier in their beliefs but telling themselves that the traditions of the glorious Church to which they belong trump the most heinous acts of their leaders.

Poetry, Absolution and the Disgraced Cardinal Mahoney

The Chinese word for poetry is made up of two characters: word and temple. That's what I'm thinking about as I sift through my poetry books, looking for something to memorize, to think about, to ring a bell, because before this, before the sifting, I had read of Cardinal Mahoney, the repugnant former archbishop of the Roman Catholic diocese in Los Angeles, the powerful Cardinal who shuffled the priests around, the priests who had preyed on the flock. The Cardinal, whose morality is less than the bird's, whose scarlet plumage (those robes! those ridiculous hats!) served as a cloak for hubris and his flock (those that weren't raped or sodomized, those that didn't retreat from his Church) bowing and apologizing, his and their words weak, as ineffectual as the index cards he professed to carry around with him (index cards!), the names of those he'd wronged on the faint blue lines, at his craven lips as he fingered his rosary beads in prayer.

I have no idea what the Chinese characters mean that symbolize absolution (above), but should there be absolution for this man and for those who defend him, still (both literally and figuratively?). He lives comfortably, somewhere, here in Los Angeles, for all we know cloaked in scarlet, fingering those index cards of names, surrounded by sycophants who live and work and breathe to protect him.

Cardinal Mahoney, Olvera Street April, 2007**

His Prayer for Absolution

For those my unbaptized rhymes,

Writ in my wild unhallowed times,

For every sentence, clause, and word,

That's not inlaid with Thee, my Lord,

Forgive me, God, and blot each line

Out of my book, that is not Thine.

But if, 'mongst all, Thou find'st here one

Worthy thy benediction,

That one of all the rest shall be

The glory of my work, and me.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

**I took that photo many years ago when I brought my children downtown to see the Blessing of the Animals. It nearly makes me sick right now, to have been so close to such a terrible, terrible man.

God-talk and other matters

I've written over and over here about my religious or spiritual beliefs, how I've largely discarded the Catholic faith of my childhood and delved more seriously and intently into Buddhism and the more mystical sides of Christianity. If you were to ask me what I believe and whether I believe in God, I might say very inadequately that I perceive God to be Love and that this Love infuses everything and everyone in the universe, that there is no end to this Love and that life is eternal, that we are all connected to one another and to all things animate and inanimate.

World without end, amen.

I have also mentioned here that god-talk makes me squirmy and that evangelism and fundamentalism -- any kind -- makes me nearly nauseous, and that when I begin to read it, I stop. When I hear it, I can quite effectively put on a bland face, shut down my mind and go elsewhere -- the poetry of Emily Dickinson, perhaps, or the lyrics of a Bob Dylan song. I recently became uncomfortable when I read a blog of someone who lives in Newtown who called for more God in schools, so uncomfortable that I removed the blog from my blogroll and decided that I couldn't read it anymore, couldn't stomach it, really. I don't know what the deep psychological underpinnings of this discomfort might be, but the older I get the more I yearn for light, for the lightness that comes with authenticity, and the older I get the more confident I feel in recognizing this authenticity. Sometimes reading and listening to god-talk is like drowning in a murky river, slick weed tendrils wrapped around you, errant branches scraping your flesh, the light above only occasionally piercing through.

A bit of that light pierced through today when I read a blog post of an 86-year old man, a retired minister and father of another friend of mine. The title of his blog is Singing the Hymns and I am grateful for this authentic blessing and so look forward to reading more of this man's thoughts and words.

For all the wavering Catholics out there,

tawk amongst yourselves:



Now, for the rest of us, what next?

An Intelligence Debate

I've made no bones about my dwindling faith in the Catholic Church (note that it's not a dwindling faith but a dwindling faith in the Catholic Church). I'd say it's taking years of mulling over conflicting emotions and deep bred to the bone traditions, and I'm not finished, yet. When I watch things like this, though, I shudder in recognition and perhaps even a bit of the nausea that the existentialists wrote about so many years ago.


The Intelligence² Debate - Stephen Fry (Unedited) by Xrunner17

Re-post, two years later

I posted this a couple of years ago and titled it "What I Want to Say to the Health Insurance Industry and Those Who Fought Against Healthcare Reform" -- well, here we are and here I still am, fighting the powers-that-be with that medication business I told you about a few days ago. I can only imagine what crap the Supreme Court is listening to at this moment. Yeah, we had healthcare reform and yeah, I still support it, but yeah, it didn't go far enough and yeah, the Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to get the whole thing repealed and then they claim they're going to start over which sounds to me like they prefer the status quo which would include placating the Catholic bishops and all that folderall about religious freedom and let the markets go free, which means the insurance companies which, similar to the Catholic Church, have a history of if not literally, then figuratively raping -- well, maybe I better just shut up and roll over, here on the first day of spring.

It's Time for Another Round of -- Part 5,652

Yes, I know there are many of you that are going to click off right about now, because you just don't like the controversial stuff, the ugly stuff, the politics. But I know there are many more of you that enjoy the dialogue and the conflict, the choir and the perverse, so I'm just going to continue until it's time for me to click off and do something constructive, like the laundry and the bed-making and the calling the insurance company.

Today I read that Mitt Romney spent $18.7 million dollars on his campaign last month. Okay. It's said that his money-making machine is drying up, and he might have to delve into his personal fortune (which is, I believe numbered in the billions, but correct me if I'm wrong) to keep going. Okay. I'm going out on a limb here and stating that I'm perfectly aware that this sort of obscene money is being spent and raised by the Democrats, too. Okay?


That's why when I read about the State of California and other states round the nation cutting programs for the disabled because there's no money, I smell bullshit. And when people argue about welfare queens and corruption and complain that food stamp collectors are just lazy and have enough money for manicures and pedicures and flat-screen televisions -- well -- I smell bullshit. And when people dismiss all of it and say that the government is bad and all politicians lack integrity and in so doing (dismissing all of it) absolve themselves of fighting for what they know is right, well -- I smell bullshit. And when the Catholics, the Orthodox Jews, the evangelical Christians and the Mormons claim their religious liberty and freedom is being threatened and trampled upon because the government of the United States, (of the people and for the people), insists that women's preventive health and  reproductive freedom is paramount over the insurance industry, I smell bullshit. I'll go out on another limb and say to these religious people, Are you out of your minds? Is your faith in God  and your Church so fragile that you feel under siege when you can't shove your beliefs down every throat?


I might be stupid (I did receive a C in Economics 101 in college, but damn, that was a boring class), but there's money enough in this country to keep caring for the disabled and the elderly, to keep educating the children and young adults and to ensure that every person has a flat-screen television. Just kidding on the last one -- I'm not sure anyone is reading this, by now.

Here's a great video of John Stewart's I Smell Bullshit:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Now I'm off to do my chores and refill my aerosol can with some sort of air freshener.

I was raised a Roman Catholic,

via flickrhivemind

but every year that goes by, every day perhaps, I grow further and further away from those roots. Today I read that the Pope of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI, has declared to nearly 180 diplomats from various countries that pride of place goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman, and then this is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of  humanity itself. As you might guess, this was the Pope's statement against gay marriage.

Gay marriage is a threat to humanity itself, he said.

I want to type that again for all of us Catholics, perhaps in a bigger type.

Gay marriage is a threat to humanity itself.

Here's my question -- and this is directed at those of you who still call yourself Catholic -- how do you not struggle being a part of a Church whose leader makes statements like these, a Church whose official dogma condemns a significant number of people to a position other than human? I have heard all the explanations of reveling in the beautiful traditions of the Catholic faith, of the spirituality that lies at the core, of the profound communities that center around the faith. I recognize and respect those explanations but really, really wonder if that's enough. I don't think it is enough. Of course, if you truly believe that homosexuality sets a person apart from the rest of humanity and that the very existence of the homosexual is a threat to humanity itself, then I understand but don't necessarily respect your position as Catholic. You clearly don't need to answer my question. 

But if you struggle with this or have reached a place of peace and acceptance about this, please let me know.

I am no longer a Roman Catholic, and I struggle to understand how anyone who believes in the sanctity of humanity, in love, in the primacy of the divine in all of us would remain one.

Sunshine, Dry Air, Baseball, Pedophiles and Boy Scouts

It's a beautiful day in southern California, albeit a bit on the scary-dry side and we're headed east and north to a baseball game in the deep, dark valley. I've got on a tee-shirt and jeans and will bring along an umbrella to shield my lily-white skin from the wicked rays of autumn. I opened the newspaper this morning casually, like I said yesterday I generally only scan the headlines and then politely fold it back up and place it on a stool for The Husband to peruse when he comes home from the Mistress -- but this morning's headlines screamed, atrociously, to me BOY SCOUTS FAILED TO REPORT ABUSER so I placed my coffee cup down and unfolded the paper and my heart quickened and my stomach sickened. It would seem that back in the dark days of the seventies and eighties, many boys were abused sexually by Boy Scout leaders and the organization didn't report these known incidences to the police but removed them from their positions with kind letters, assuring them, the pedophiles, that their positions in the community would not be ruined or embarrassed or whatever else. The said pedophile then skipped off to Canada and proceeded to do exactly the same thing and the Canadian scouts overlooked it as well.

Well, damn.

Whether this is going to mimic the Catholic Church pedophile scandals remains to be seen, but as the mother of a Cub Scout, I'm sick about it.

Reader, what would you do?

Thinking about

1. this:

I will not tell families that have children with disabilities that they have to fend for themselves.

Barack Obama

March 13, 2011

because it's about time and because it renews my hope that Obama and our country will do the right thing and because I was losing hope if not completely than nearly completely, particularly in regard to Obama. And I'm perfectly aware that this is entirely dependent on endless negotiations that will perhaps be fruitless, but I'm hoping it's not all talk --

2. and this:

the person on my Facebook page who brought up the birther -- what do I call it? -- shitstorm as a response to the above quote that I'd posted, stating that Obama has spent millions of dollars on lawyers to hide his birth certificate instead of giving it to organizations that help children with disabilities. I'm not going to think about it for too long, except in the context of how insensitive and ignorant the comment was and how it underlies a greater ignorance in our country and perhaps our world and how grateful I am to have the opportunity, the education, the smarts and the sensitivity to dispel ignorance about disability in general.

2. and this:

If you ban it, they will read it. That seems to be true thus far in the case of Sr. Elizabeth Johnson’s 2007 book Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God, which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops suggested should be banned from Catholic schools in a statement on March 24.

Read more HERE.


3. and the blog NERD BOYFRIEND because it's not all about strife and conflict