This bend within an already bent thread caused me to put down my screen
(aka computer in this case) and pick up the lingering paper Sunday NYT
Book Review section I'd been hoarding (at the risk of it becoming
fire-starter when I wasn't looking). The cover is a Surrealist
drawing, nominally of a human hand with a pen, but both distorted and
illuminated with many of the tropes of psychedelic imagery. I've been
eyeing Michael Pollan's new(ish) book, "How to Change your Mind" for
some time, but just haven't gotten a round tuit yet. Back to back,
reflecting the cover imagery and title "Altered States" are two
articles, the first by Michael Pollan trying to describe his approach
and methodology for writing his book, and the second by Jonathan
Lethem's "Fiction's Fake New Drugs", a reflection on a dozen or so fake
drugs conjured by fiction writers, including catchy names like
"infirmall" and "forgettal", the latter being from his own Neo-Noir
detective novel of over 20 years ago: "Guns and Occasional Music".
I did watch Homecoming, and Marcus' analysis is pretty close to my own.
His comments reminded me of Jiddu Krishnamurti's use of the Paper
Metaphor for the soul. "The soul is a like a piece of paper, each
experience we have is like a fold, and the self is the collection of
creases left behind." The point of trying to help people "forget"
past traumas (as with PTSD) would seem to be about trying to avoid an
obsessive refolding and refolding along the same crease, risking an
eventual tear in the soul.
I've helped to walk two old men to their death's by Alzheimer's (one my
father, the other my ex-father-in-law). I've been in the general
presence of a number of other's whose life-path seems to end in a
wandering down that same path. As Glen points out, some Alzheimer's
victims seem to go to anger while others seem to go to a mild
passivity. What I was given to understand is that Alzheimer's takes
away inhibitions first (or at least early) and those who might have
managed their anger through repression through their lives, might be the
ones who became angry without the inhibitory functions intact. I've
also watched the Alzheimer's afflicted improve in their physical health
or at least slow the degradation of it as their inhibitions decreased.
It seems that for many, in spite of apparent agitation in some, there is
a reduction of stress... as they lose their will, their acceptance (in
some sense) goes up?
I also agree with Glen's opinion that to the extent that an individual
is created by her context, that the decision on how to "treat" (or not)
these kinds of disorders is intrinsically a collective decision...
whether it is a spouse or child participating in the debate and
decision, or the insurance company or the medical specialists involved
determining acceptable courses of action, or the larger culture
supporting or inhibiting various courses of action. I was relieved of
a tension I couldn't name when I first encountered the term
"Neurodiverse" as an antidote to "Antisocial" or "Dysfunctional"...
It didn't eliminate the utility of the other two terms, but did whittle
away at what sometimes seems to be a universal diagnosis of one or the
other.
Just over a year ago, I lost someone close to me to suicide after having
coped with the consequences of a serious brain injury over the course of
30 years. I only knew him with the brain injury. That in itself had
long healed or at least scarred over, but the treatment including
electroshock, the stigma, and the self-image fallout of the injury was
what defined him most completely. You could say that in many ways he
*was* his brain injury (or more to the point, his ECTs, his decades of
medication, his self-medication through alcohol, etc.).
The mind, the self, consciousness, it's a tricky thing!
- Steve
I agree. It reminds me of a conversation I was just having with a friend who
floated the idea that Alzheimer's, in stripping away many of our mental
functions, could be considered at least partly a good thing. My response was
that for all the Alzheimer's patients I've had the opportunity to know (a
handful personally, maybe 10 peripherally), it's been horrible to every one of
them. Subsequent conversations with Renee' revealed that her colleagues bin
them into 2 groups, the happy ones and the angry ones. So, perhaps the former
are just fine with losing all those functions, maybe freeing them up to exist
in a happy, simpler state.
The same would be true of any (treatable) condition, including PTSD.
Ultimately, the decision to interfere/manipulate one's trajectory through the
world depends on one's conservatism and openness to new experiences. But a
fundamental flaw in individualist thought is that the decision lies solely with
that one person. Because people are at least partly socially constructed (I am
who I am because of the roles I play in society.), such decisions are made by
the whole system. And if a PTSD sufferer has become dysfunctional in his
social fabric, then that fabric makes the decision whether to treat/manipulate
his trajectory.
More complicated conditions might be narcissism, bipolar disorder, or
Asperger's where the person is quixotic but not (really) dysfunctional and has
grown into that person *with* that condition over a long haul (as opposed to a
more acute event). In those situations, I'd lean more toward your latter
dilemma between continuing to hone the one personality or explore some
alternatives.
On 1/1/19 6:46 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
The premise of the series is that a drug + counseling is used to mitigate PTSD
symptoms, but in fact it ends-up deleting recent memories and was intended to
make soldiers able to continue service.
One might argue that accumulation of emotional trauma is part of one's
personality, and relieving it destroys part of a person. One might also argue
that to have just one personality, developing on a contiguous timeline, is a
sort of arbitrary confinement -- like living in a freezer that just keeps
getting colder.
I don't know what the actual risks are of MDMA. Alcohol's side effects, in
terms of impairment of judgement, are already pretty dangerous.
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