Eye day 3
Okay.. so day 2 went by without much complaint. Several drops through the day, no bike (other than to/from the bus stop in the morning), and a long boring day at work. I would have enjoyed a nice day at the park, but my eyes were still light sensitive, and there was no way I would have been able to play volleyball or “home run derby”. that being said…it was a good day. I stayed up way later than I should have…watching movies and playing coputer games.. enjoying the fact that I could see with some reasonable amount of clarity.
Two nights of sleeping soundly with my goggles not falling of or into my eye, it has been nice. Unfortunately, the contacct that my doc gave me was not meant to stay in apparently, as i woke up this moring feeling the excruciating pain of having something in my eye. I should have listened and taken it out…but he said that only if it was bothering me. So far its been out for about 3 hours and it’s starting to feel better. The wind from the fansin the house (at work) are drying the eye out, so I have to keep it lubricated. I’ll go back to drops every two hours (of the steroid), which I started reducing to 3 hours last night, since I’d gone a whole day w/o pain.
I ust wish I could see something other than a blur right now. I felt a little sea sick from not wearing the lense, as a result of the astigmatism and blurring. It’s amazing how the brain accomodates for the eyes… I still don’t get it, but as long as my doctor understands, I’m satisfied.
The healing process seems to be going well. I’m not rubbing, although I really want to rub my left eye, which has been getting sympathy pains or something. I’m doing my best to not, Friday I had to because something was in there and it would not come out with drops.
the only other side effect of this is that my right eye has been leaking like a runny faucet and I can’t wash the dry tears and drops from my eye, because iI’ not supposed to use tap water. Yesterday I cleaned it with contact solution… but that didn’t seem to help much.
Just a few more weeks. No inversions but all other yoga poses are ok. No sparring or contact sports…and no swimming. Tuesday I’ll try to go for a modearate bike ride, to the post office or something.
Peace Corps
After several months (almost a year) of contemplating and reviewing the peae corps, I finally submitted my application a few weeks ago. After some complications with getting information to the PC, getting my finger prints, getting my references, and what not… i had my interview today (the process took about 3 weeks from my application date).
the interview was about an hour long, mostly going over what I had already talked about in my application: experiences, significant leadership roles exp, living alone vs. community/housemate/roommate, being a guest of another culture, and what not. Some wfelt challenging, but I think i did very well, especially since she said:
“We have one spot left for next summer that I think you’d be perfect for, how would you feel about doing work with at-risk youth in Eastern Europe?” The spot is from next June for 27 months. How about that, I have a guaranteed job for 27 months with the government with pid time, and full medical coverage, and some very nice benefits. There is also a $6000 stipend post completion and they would pay for some of my student loans, if they were Perkins… too bad, eh?
anyway, My next step is to “hurry up and wait” for my background check. They will also mail me a package explaining the program expectations more in depth and giving me some documents to complete prior to my official offer. This is mostly medical documents, screening, etc. they want to mke sure they’re not going to send someone to an “infectuous” country who may be susseptible to whatever.
Wish me luck and I’ll post more info as i have it.
Intacs Day 1
yesterday I had Intacs put ito my eyes. For those who don’t know what this is.. .go to www.nkcf.org. There’s some minimal information describing Keratoconus (the ey dieseasee i have prompting the mplants), and various treatments for KC.
anyway, yesterday went pretty smooth. 30 min suregery to cut open the eye and slid in the small plastic devices into my eyes. I was given several drops o nump the eye, and lube the eye, and some other things (infection, etc). i was also given a valium, but was able to take another if needed. i used a lot of meditation and deep breathing. It was more disorienting than painful oruncomfortable. I went home and my eye was a little red, when i got home I was able to see a little more clearly (w/ a 10power lense) and the redness wetnt down. I watched a couple movies cleaned the house and went to bed.
Today I woke up around 5am (about 4 hours earlier than I nromally wake up) feeling this excruciating pain in my eye. i realized that the goggles that they had given me to cover my eye while sleeping had slid off my face oand onto my eye. . who knows how long it was rubbign the eye.
When I rode to the doctor (big mistake, but I felt like I had no other option… although I could have called my dad who was off today…fuck!) I got to the docs office and felt miserable. my sinus’ were running amuck all day, the eye drops were draining into my sunus giving me that soapy/medicine flavor… woohoo.
When I finally saw the doc, they did an eye exam and seemed to be positive. The doc told me that with the power 10 lense, my vision was at about a 13 diopter (normal vision is 0, most people with mild myopia or near sigtedness havea -3 and my normal vision w/o lenses or intacs is a -19 in that eye. Today it was -13..which is GOOD! He siad that that may continue to change as the eye heals and the lenses take. There is some mild “road rash” on the eye either from the surgery or from rubbing my eye overnight. He said more drops of the steroid, continue lubricating drops and keep them cool to help w/ the pain. he also gave me IB for the eye. and a patch that I tape over my eye at night. at least fora couple days.
I rode again to wokr because my eye felt good (of course… it was numb from more drops… duh). By the time I got to work, my eyes were killing me from the light, and from the exposure to the air. I’ve been sitting here in the dark hating the bright computer screen!
it’s feeling a little better, I’ve been dropping every two hours and it’s been doing well. I think I said that though.
Well, I will continue to write about my experience as the days go by. follow up apt #2 is on Tuesday.
Form and Formlessness
In the Contemplative Studies, we examine the practice of emptiness. How I interpret this is how we can let go of attachments, expectations and habitual patterns in order to experience something as it is in the moment. The importance of this in psychology is leting go of past experiences with the client, with someone similar to the client or something completely unrelated to the client so that each day, each interaction is fresh and new. This way the clinician can work with the positive and negatives as they occur and not anticiapte some reaction.
In Chess, it’s all about the pattern, the recognition, to dominate the game.
How does one then work with emptiness while still maintaining enough structure to be effective? Does it depend on the environment, the people within the environment or the relationship between a clinician and client?
Working at a juvenile residential treatment center (rtc for short), they needed a tight container, firm structure and a lot of discipline. The clients also needed a gentle hand as well, and more encouragement than discouragement. Possitive affirmation than negative. That’s something I struggle with a lot…I could pin it on various things, but that’s not important. What is important is the recognition that positive affirmation is something that is difficult for me, like a foreign language. I can be gentle, soothing, helpful, and I can be disciplined…but rewarding positive things feels like a challenge. This is especially true when I don’t feel supported by the team I am on.
I currently work at a transitional living program, usually referred to as a halfway house. We work mostly with clients who struggle with addictions. In many cases, we can recognize addictive patterns in even the most stubborn clients (stubborn in the sense that they don’t “see” their own addictive behaviors). This can probably produce some shame in our clients, pointing them out as flawed or somehow deffective. Treating addiction as an illness seems wrong in some respects; it’s like many mental disorders in that it cannot be cured, but requires ongoing awareness and attention; it requires ongoing treatment.
However, I have strayed from my course. I was talking about form and formlessness, how to bring emptiness into an environment that should have structure. In essence, there is the container. That could be the house, the program, the schedule, whatever. That is the form, the pattern, that hold the main focus and attention for the participants and the program. In that, there can be some flexibility, however to have a successful “container,” a safe program where many aspects of these men’s development can come to fruition, it requires a solid program; a solid foundation.
I don’t see that here. My boss has stated many times that she likes flexibility and organic interactions, but there’s also a matter of safety. The guys feel unsafe, and to be honest, sometimes I feel unsafe being one of the mentors who does hold a tight program. We’ve mentioned tightening up…god knows that it may be necessary this time of year. In the past month, we have had over 8 participants relapse, some of whom are no longer in the program due to multiple relapses.
This program also doesn’t have a significantly high success rate, if success is determined by the number of participants who maintain sobriety after completing the program. Over the past six months, we have had approximately 25% of our “graduating” participants maintain sobriety for longer than a month after completing the program. As time goes one, that number is further reduced.
So what are we doing here? How are we modeling success in this program? How do we continue doing what we do, knowing that in many cases, we are failing. Not only are we failing a significant amount of time, but we are also charging an exhorbitant amount of money for this program.
I realize that I could continue on, and on, and on…. and I don’t really have a point. I’m struggling with my work and looking for guidance. I can’t find it at the supervision meetings i attend. i haven’t found it from my boss, who hardly responds to my correspondences. All I have is my own thoughts, reflections and memories… (yes, a poor representation of Jung’s Memory, Dreams and Reflections).
Commentary on the commentary on Dave Cullen’s “The Depressive and the Psychopath”
Both of these articles provide excellent descriptions of what the DSM classifies as psycho- and socio-pathic personalities. The first article attempts to provide an explanation as to why the shooting happened. Written on the fifth anniversary of the shooting, it attempts to explain a shooting that was already explained by the people who committed the act, “Isn’t it fun to get the respect that we’re going to deserve?”
Ultimately, they wanted their fifteen minutes of fame. They were well aware that society was going to tear their actions apart and talk about them for years to come. They wanted to be the next Unibomber. They wanted to be better than the Unibomber, as was stated in their personal testimonies as well as the initial article.
The fact that these articles define and then disagree about the psychological diagnoses of Klebold and Harris is tantamount to their claims to “plague the survivors for years to come.” Or whatever they said.
Reading these two articles rekindled two of my displeasures: the media and clinical diagnosis.
The first is easy to describe. The media, especially the news sources: newspapers, tv broadcasts, and lately the internet broadcasts, encourages deviant behaviors. They glorify these actions as newsworthy, and rewarding as important. How often do you see information about every day heroes such as the police, firefighters, nurses, doctors, teachers, etc who save people on a daily basis. These people put themselves out for society to insult them, demean them, provoke them, or whatever, until their services are needed. At that time, society kisses ass and the transgressions are forgiven. Working in addictions counseling, I see it every day! Fuck you fuck you fuck you. Oh, I need something, you’re great. (behind your back) Fuck you! fuck you fuck you! I swear, if the media were to portray at least 10% more positive information about cops, they wouldn’t get half as much shit for making mistakes. If the media were to report 10% less information about killings and murders and what not, people would be 50% less likely to commit them, especially to be recognized! The other thing that pissed me off about the media, esp during Columbine was the fact that as people were running out of the school, teenagers and teachers who were going through the shock of what was happening at the school, the reporters were in their faces, cameras blazing asking what was going on? Was anyone hurt? Who was doing this? What’s your name? Fuck the media! Fuck their inquisitive nature! Fuck their desire to screw with people’s lives. If they’re not reporting on a murder, they’re in the celebrities lives fucking with them and their families; they’re ruining marriages, breaking up families, and encouraging murder, rape, drugs, etc!
The other piece that pisses me off is diagnosis. As these two articles demonstrate, clinical diagnosis is a hit or miss matter of opinion and interpretation. Where one person’s psychopath is another’s sociopath, or narcissist, or whatever! But if you look at the target audiences of the two articles…one can understand the difference in distinction. Yes, the author of the commentary is upset that her work went unrecognized. Good! Fuck you! You’re trying to make yourself popular by idolizing a negative situation! I dare you to write an article about a Narcissist who makes something of their life! Someone who takes their perceived negative qualities and does something positive with themselves. Someone who encourages the good things in life, who inspires hope and creativity. Someone such as John Nash, who conquered the challenges of schizophrenia and became a Nobel Prize nominee and/or winner.
The DSM is a guide, not a bible. What is written is not law, but suggestion. It is designed for interpretation and assisting in treatment. It functions to support the therapist in her or his work with a client. It is not designed to explain or pigeon hole people into groups and categories. For the initial article to claim “this is why they did what they did” is inherently wrong! Columbine didn’t happen because Harris was a psychopath. It happened for various reasons, and it happened because it did!
Now, because of it, and because of our reaction to it’s occurrence, our children are forced to undergo searches, go through metal detectors. People aren’t allowed to visit their alma mater without a verifiable reason and purpose. Harris and Klebold are dead. People are going to research them, and someone may eventually try to copy their actions. We can hope not, or hope that we are better prepared next time. However, studies show that homes with guns are more likely to have accident-related deaths. Anyone can say it’s because people are stupid. This is true… people are stupid. But so is our society. we make assumptions and judgments because of accents, color of someone’s skin and clothes they wear, etc. We are no different than we were 50 years ago; or 100 years ago. We are still fighting a war of oppression and hatred. We are fighting a war of fear and anger. We are refusing to see the beauty in all of the things around us. This causes us to suffer, to be in pain, and to want to bring pain to other people.
Thank you for reading.
Cullen, D (2004, April 20). “The depressive and the psychopath: At last we know why the Columbine killers did it.” Slate.msn.com accessed on 4/7/2009, 3:07am at http://www.slate.com/id/2099203/
Immelman, A (2004, July 30). “Commentary on Dave Cullen’s “The depressive and the psychopath”. Unit for the study in personality and politics accessed on 4/7/2009, 3:07am at http://www.csbsju.edu/uspp/Criminal-Profiling/Columbine_Commentary-Cullen.html
Lamb, W. (2009). The hour I first believed: A novel. New York: HarperCollins.
