Comments for HOWL: displaced beat's cyber cry

Comment on Misery loves company by Mitch

Mitch — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:50:17 +0000

I live a bipolar woman who has been rejected from all of her family since diagnosed. Most of her family has since died. Her grandon she and her ex raised took sides with her ex and has denounced her because of her mood swings. I am all she has left but she leaves me out of her life because her depression is so severe to the on going divorce that she doesn’t want it to effect me. Which I might add involves enough money to keep her going. She has been disabled from this disorder for over 15 years and cannot work. She is very intelligent but the depression keeps her from functioning even daily activities. She complains she has no purpose on this earth. Says she has no friends and all she has is me. I deal with this on a daily basis. Her mood swings directed at me. Her depression and lack of motivation to do anything about anything. Her bed is her home. I know there are other bipolars as listed above that have made some steps to beat this disease but her medicatiions are not enough during these hard times. I sometimes feel like giving up on this relationship but I have read so much about this disorder that I am giving it the time i think it deserves. I hope after her divorce is final and she gets her settlement she will be happier but right now I am believing this won’t come true. Until then I will give her all the support I can. Thank, post back.

Comment on particles and waves – a paradox? by warrior2ra

warrior2ra — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:58:00 +0000

I really appreciate your thoughts. I have read some of your other posts and really enjoyed the topics you write about. Keep up your writing as I know that I’ll subscribe to your blog.

Comment on Ghosts in my photograph by How I Lost Thirty Pounds in Thirty Days

How I Lost Thirty Pounds in Thirty Days — Mon, 04 May 2009 07:31:03 +0000

Hi, interesting post. I have been wondering about this topic,so thanks for sharing. I will certainly be subscribing to your site.

Comment on Ghosts in my photograph by Jack Thompson

Jack Thompson — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 23:44:10 +0000

Show me a real photograph of yourself. Make it the worst you have.
If you have real feminine depth and beauty it will shine through
. . . and I will call you Nokomis. I think its there. Don’t worry about me as an internet nutball. I am seventy-four, a father and grandfather and poetaster. Married fifty years to a wonderful wife.
I missed Sylvia Plath in her day which was also my day. How I love
to see the ways she fixed her hair, her one-piece bathing suits and
cashmere sweaters. Here is a question. Could I have loved her gently, faithfully and enough to save her from herself?
Jack

Comment on Ghosts in my photograph by Bipolar Disorder » Blog Archive » Ghosts in my photograph « HOWL: displaced beat’s cyber cry

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:32:14 +0000

[...] See original here: Ghosts in my photograph « HOWL: displaced beat’s cyber cry [...]

Comment on Ghosts in my photograph by pavocavalry

pavocavalry — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:05:43 +0000

never came across such profound ideas.i am grateful to you for making me learn better things in life.God Bless You.

Comment on Misery loves company by live tv

live tv — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:20:59 +0000

wow.. that’s a great post, i was looking for this, thank you for the information

Comment on craving by conway23

conway23 — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:41:27 +0000

You certainly have a gift for expressing what’s going on inside you. I can relate to your post on many levels, I too was raised in a Catholic family and have experienced depression and loads of self destructive behavior in my past. I was also a great reader of the beats, particularly of Jack Kerouac and Ginsberg. I imagine that the challenges you are facing with an eating disorder, RA, depression etc., must be a real cross, and it’s good you’re using the resources available to you.

It was through the beats that I became interested in Buddhism – I’m not sure if that was your introduction – I sat regularly at a Zen center in Long Beach and met very sincere, caring people. I was very interested in the idea of becoming unattached to my mind and its thoughts. Although it was a spiritual as well as an intellectual search, it was also a way of trying to heal pain, anxiety, anger and sadness within me that just wouldn’t let up, even after I married a wonderful woman. In addition to Zazen, my search included novel writing, psychedelic drug experimentation, New Age dabbling, therapist visits, radical politics, Prozac, traveling abroad and vegetarianism (briefly), yet noting seemed to work. I often turned back to works by Jack Kerouac or Gary Snyder to see why things never did work out for me – why the idea of a void, was well, just an empty void.

In the end, to my utter surprise (and lots of initial resistance) I slowly found myself returning to the Catholic Church, where I found an intellectual, cosmological and spiritual reality that slowly healed my pain, my marriage and my relationship to the past. It has also made me realize that for the goodness of the beat writers, their rejection of any idea of objective morality, wasn’t intellectually sound or workable in my own life. Jack Kerouac, as you surely know, was raised Catholic in Massachusetts, and I wonder if his life might not have ended so tragically if he’d stuck with the faith of his upbringing.

You talk about craving. And I understand the Buddhist idea that this craving is just a thought – don’t attach to it – and you’ll be fine. But what if your heart is craving something it was designed to crave? You’re right that Madison Avenue takes advantages of our cravings, by offering us junk food for the soul. But what if there was something or someone (real nutrition so to speak) you could give your hear to satisfy your craving. This is where Buddhism doesn’t quite deliver for me.

I wish you all the best in your healing process; your search for the truth is commendable and worthy of great respect. On your journey, please don’t rule out Catholicism. In its 2,000 years of experience with the human condition, it has learned a few things about human suffering. Even just sitting in the empty pews of a Catholic Church on a lonely fall afternoon does such great wonders for the soul!

God bless you!
Rob