tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144125975481832582024-03-13T20:27:22.455-07:00Ethical ExplorationLooking at ethical issues and dilemas all around us..........
This Blog is dedicated to my beloved grandmother, Mary Broom, an extraordinary person from the most extraordinary family.Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-65150380214147813312015-03-17T14:14:00.001-07:002015-03-18T05:05:39.971-07:00
So, I am so incensed about various issues this week that I don't know where to start. Shall we preamble? I want to get back to discussing things in more detail, but let me get some things off my chest to begin with......<br />
<br />
I have been pursuing my family tree again. I am stuck with my three x great grandfather who, despite saying in each of the censuses that he was born in a particular place in 1806,remains without the attribution of a baptism. In the end, the problem may boil down to one of non-conformist records being secreted away somewhere where no one can see them. This problem confounds many an ardent family tree researcher, an impenetrable barrier to generations past. But why isn't it law to deposit these records in an archive somewhere? As things stand, records can be kept out of public view or knowledge; kept by chapels who regard documents as their own property to be kept away from us and, ultimately, lost to family history forever. (I know one such person who keeps chapel records from a deconsecrated chapel in his attic where they moulder until the day he dies when who knows what will happen to them? )It really is a scandal isn't it... and typical of the church in all its facets. Somehow the folks, who over the centuries have been born and lived and died in attendance of a religious institution, who have genuflected to it and feared it,who are the cannon-fodder, as it were, who perpetuate the institution, its life-blood and succour to its ministry, become in their death the property of the chapel, to be chained to oblivion if the chapel so chooses. Yet they are OUR relatives. Our antecedents have given them life and they have given us ours, but we have no rights when it comes to honouring them through family research. They are locked away.<br />
<br />
We talked in another blog about the Church of England burying the dead according to a hierarchy: those with headstones have their grave-plot recorded , those without are not documented. That represents just how much we church goers over the centuries mean to them... The church is there for THEM, not for us, we are simply there to serve the continuity that the church requires and when they are done with us, they don't give a damn who is buried in their churchyards. It's that simple.Genes versus memes. Flesh and blood coming out second best to religious doctrine.<br />
<br />
So what else am I concerned about this week? Well, how about the government's Prevent Strategy? I'll come back to this, but suffice it to say that I am incredulous at the sheer idiocy of the whole shambles. Let's apply a bit of logic: Prevent is supposed to deter disaffected youth from drifting into terrorism and reclaim those who have strayed, back onto the straight and narrow of good old British values! What a laugh! If we are so upright, why on earth are young Muslims such easy prey to radicalisation? And didn't the Iraq war have something to do with it? But we are assuming that our government is capable of thinking aren't we? Or did we know that they don't know a thing about basic psychology? Look, you have a young person who has been radicalised and you want to purge his or her mind of it. With me so far? So to de-radicalise them you have to talk to them, right? You have to find out what they think and why they think it in order to challenge them? But here's the rub: THEY can't talk to you because what they are thinking is imprisonable! ...There was a young man on the radio a few days ago who had been released from prison on licence. He was put on a Prevent program. If he had revealed what he was really thinking he would have been sent back to prison!So he kept his thoughts to himself.Now, did Prevent, therefore, his inner-most thoughts not evinced, believe that this young man had been deradicalised?! Are we to take it, then, that secret thoughts make us innocent and spoken thoughts make us guilty? Is this really the criterion whereby to judge? (It reminds me of government plans to render some mental patients guilty of crimes before they are committed and , of course, is the reason why imprisonment without trial becomes morally defensible....) So look, in this sorry little story you can see one of the many problems inherent in deeming a thought to be equivalent to an action. Let's get back to this soon.....
<br />
Next blog:Misattribution of intention.Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-1717627621077660812015-03-06T14:13:00.001-08:002015-03-06T14:13:37.754-08:00Why Improve Oursleves?4I was lucky enough to catch Rosa Monckton`s documentary "Tormented Lives" last night on BBC 2. I was really struck by Rosa`s compassion and her disposition to relate to people in an accepting and non-judgemental way and I really hope that this documentary`s powerful expression changes things for people. <br />
<br />
Of course, I have talked about why we need to bully others, both as individuals and as a society, in my blogs many times, covering the abuse of women, the elderly and children. We saw in the program how bullies, very much in their raw, animal state, victimise those who are obviously weak. I have explored previously why certain people, or groups, are picked on, by whom and for what motive. I am not going to go over that ground here because this blog takes a slightly different angle in regard to my previous blogs entitled "Why Improve Ourselves?" <br />
<br />
Though I understand bullying and victimisation from both first-hand experience and careful observation of life around me, I am always shocked to see the affects of it. Of course, bullying in schools is no better for the attention it receives and with time-old opportunities to bully the sick and the elderly, nothing changes very much. Why would it? Unfortunately, there is a societal need for it as well as the systems to enable it and systems to protect the perpetrators. We are all complicit in this.. My blogs "Teachers who Bully" show how a closed system like a classroom, for example, is a training ground for what we see in our wider society in the adult world. <br />
<br />
Anyway, back to this blog: it struck me during Rosa`s program that our society's ubiquitous tolerance for bullying begins with small behavioural lapses that seem so ordinary and innocuous. And we let them go. Behaviour in schools is appalling.Children in mainstream education aren`t taught how to behave in a polite respectful manner and where they slide, are not pulled up for it. There is no one to care about such basics as saying please and thank you, or holding a door open for someone.Still less for a child calling another child a hurtful name. Indeed, as I discussed way back, the bullied child is more likely to be treated as a misfit, a psychological problem, than the bullies, proving that as a society we in fact SUPPORT bullying. <br />
<br />
So what`s this got to do with the behaviour of the bullies in Rosa`s program? Simple, the behaviour of Rosa`s victimisers has slid way beyond the omission of a please and thank you.They have spent years in an environment that, frankly, allows them to vent their animal drives however they want to. Basically, it`s animal expression. <br />
<br />
So you have to catch all aspects of behaviour early, in primary school. In my view the threshold cannot be drawn at bullying, it has to be a threshold that desires basics, as part of a process to de-animalise our behaviour from the very small issues upwards.To do this you can`t just take out certain behaviours you don`t want, 5 or 10 or 15 years too late, you have to cultivate a nature that cleaves to higher values of respect and courtesy, and a desire for approbation. What does "desire for approbation" mean? Well, it means you have to CREATE children who wish to please and wish to be helpful. But look, input has to match output, which it certainly does not in mainstream education.You just can`t get the sort of kids you want in society by telling them what to do: you have to example it! That means that classrooms should not reflect the animal nature of the outside world, survival of the fittest, children should never fall victim to group runtifictation at school, none should be left behind educationally, none should be sent to the educational psychologist when they are bullied.... I could go on. The point in the obverse is that, of course, one, just ONE example of how society operates, the classroom, demonstrates to all the children in the school that THIS is how society works. Are we then so surprised that they go out and overtly copy what is being exampled from the day that they start mixing with other kids and adults outside the family? <br />
<br />
I think that we should always try to improve ourselves, to escape our animal nature as much as we can and Rosa`s bullies show us that. If small things were important I think that all of us could enjoy better lives, but we really have to wake up to things that are almost invisible to our rightfulness-radar.What we don`t apprehend is just off the screen, I`m afraid, causally. Rosa`s bullies have been taught, by example. The animal behaviour they exhibit carries with it the fire of resentment born out of received disrespect and projected failure that keeps them fuelled up. <br />
<br />
If we expand this logic we can see that all behaviors are important and significant and we see that any improvement is worth it in any area or with any issue. But, but, but, we must try to see that OUR societal framework <b>engenders</b> the bullying we disapprove of in others. Not just that some kids are disadvantaged -by the animal function of a classroom or by the social, financial or educational status of their parents, but that our whole system is riddled with our animal needs to compete and gain position over others. If we look at what really happens in schools, the survival of the fittest at work right in front of our eyes, we can see that Rosa`s bullies learned their behaviour from everything we show them: certainly from the way schools make a percentage of children fail, the use of psychiatric labels given to various misfits,etc. <br />
<br />
Take a look around you... <br />
<br />
<br />
Of course, raising ourselves above our animal state, our animal soul, is one of the main themes of one of the primary texts of chassidic Judaism, the Tanya, by<br />
Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi. In my discussions I am going to come back to religion in this context.Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-22714016444066818872015-02-17T13:31:00.000-08:002015-02-18T03:46:13.462-08:00
Hi, I haven't been writing on my blog for some time, partly because my mum died a really horrendous death at the hands of various professionals, and because I have tried all this time to get my voice heard above the deafening silence that pervades the corridors of complaint. I have fruitlessly pursued all avenues available to me and have had no success whatsoever. Quite the contrary: my attempts to gain some sort of retrospective justice for my mum has hit brick walls all around, with everyone from the police to the CQC and on to the Ombudsman. What a big surprise that is.<br />
<br />
<br />
I have also been threatened to keep quiet, been obstructed by the issue of missing medical notes and had to hold onto my sense of rightfulness in the face of manifold lies from professionals. Absolutely no one in the Health Service, the Care Home where I put my mum for a second medical opinion when her own GP just shut down on her, or the police have had the decency or the courage to stand up and help me. Yes, I have had local politicians trying to help and various friends supporting me, but, you've guessed it, they have absolutely no power to exert over a system that slams down the shutters to protect neglect and abuse. Another huge surprise, yes?<br />
<br />
<br />
Well, towards the end of my mum's life, I put her into respite care to get her access to another doctor.... or to <b>try </b>to do that, it might be more accurate to say. At that point all hell broke loose. I did not imagine that mum could be neglected and abused in just a few days in a Care Home with me going in there twice a day. But the level of abuse, neglect and medical negligence was astonishing. They accelerated her death and had her screaming to get away from them. They left her soaking in her bed,they fed her solid food which she couldn't swallow, they took four days to get a doctor to see her at all, inspite of her being delirious, but worst of all..... no, no, it's not the worst of it, I'll come to that later, the second worst thing of all was that they left her for a week with no medical treatment for what was an obvious UTI...... My mum. My lovely, innocent, adorable, naive, beautiful mum. My mum who had never, NEVER, done anything wrong in her whole life, ended up a completely powerless victim to professionals in her own home and then sustained massive abuse when I tried to get her help in respite care. And no one cares that she died a death in hell because of them. No one is interested.You see,no one wants to hurt professionals. It's a "given". The doors are shut.. and the only recourse open to me now is to go on TV. Imagine that. The only justice you can get in this shameful country is to go on television and tell the truth.<br />
<br />
<br />
Lets talk soon, but please remember that there are many people here involved in this case, who did this to me and my mum, who don't want the truth to be told. Did you ever think that a cover-up requires collusion from professionals? You're right.... It is not JUST the perpetrators who are guilty in cases like this; it is the whole system that does everything it can, including threatening people like us, so that the truth gets hidden. Whenever you hear that something is supposedly being done to stop the cover-up-culture, don't believe it; it goes against human nature and basic group psychology to expect that abuse and neglect will be revealed and dealt with. Believe me. I know.Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-171817161424632552012-01-10T05:19:00.000-08:002015-03-07T14:38:40.408-08:00When you Complain.......We are always encouraged to complain to the NHS when things go wrong and yet so often a complaint results in reprisals. Why is this? And why is there denial about this very common psychological phenomenon? After all, we are always a little wary of complaining incase there is a comeback.So often we have ourselves, and have had direct experience of others, been victims of the very fact that we have decided to make a complaint. The organisation S.I.N. notice that following medical damage, prejudicial things are often written in the patients Notes that are aimed at discrediting the patient who makes a complaint. <br />
<br />
<br />
Lets take a look at this:<br />
<br />
Last summer I had to make several complaints against nurses coming to my home to perform a medical procedure on my mother each day. When I found that they were causing problems because they were making mistakes in the performance of this procedure, they became more difficult, more antagonistic towards me and bullying. I had to take to watching them perform the procedure each day to make sure that they didn't make mistakes and damage my mother further. They didn't like this. Boy oh boy, they didn't like this one bit. At this time they "decide" to pay me back. Lies, especially secret lies, are their weapon.( All to be revealed later.) <br />
<br />
Now, very basic psychology tells us that if we upset people they wont like us for it...... and the fact that these nurses are "professionals" does not mean that they somehow don't react according to their animal instincts. What professionals will be inclined to do is to protect each other by demonising the outsider,in this case, me. The group, like a pack of animals, grows closer in mutual support, they make up fantasies about someone who is a threat to them, and whip up their demonisation to the extent that they convince themselves that it is true.. This demonisation is not always conscious, of course, as we have examined before,rather the very fact that it is a group of people in an animal drive means that they cannot see what they are doing, they are unaware of their own psychological impetus.<br />
<br />
I once tried to tell folks in Home Education to be careful not to upset people from the local authority who insist upon coming into their homes to inspect the children. Unfortunately, I did not take my own advice! The fact is,once you upset someone, anyone, who comes into your home, who has group power to hurt you if they so wish, you can expect that you are in potentially big trouble: wounded animals hurt back.<br />
<br />
The other thing to mention is that as a sole carer I was vulnerable anyway. Had I had family to support me, then there would have have been more of a balance, one group against another. As things were, there was just me and my vulnerable mother up against the "wounded animal syndrome" the nurses were possessed of. No match. A dying woman and a carer dead on her feet. Easy victims. Any individual or group will weigh up instinctively whether they have an opponent to fear or not. The group of nurses knew that they were safe.. and able to abuse a lone, exhausted carer and an old woman with cancer.<br />
<br />
The denouement was indeed catastrophic. Both myself and my dear mother ended up being complete victims of the group of nurses. They came after our blood. <br />
I will be back to tell you about this at a later date, but in the meantime, please be careful if you have professionals in your home who could hurt you. Use a dictaphone, have witnesses when you deal with these people and, if like me you have to complain, make sure you are well protected with evidence against them. There is nothing that they wont do to hurt you if you are vulnerable. Lying is the least they will do. Believe me, they will turn the tables on you if they get a chance. Just as in the case of Home Education, nurses in your home can look to find things they can use to lie about you, to incriminate you, distort their assessments of care or medical problems, anything, or by any means, they can and will feed their wounded animal syndrome... And guess what? Because they come in pairs and are part of a group, they have a witness and YOU DON'T. Take care. Please remember that they can hurt you and you cannot access the law to protect yourself or your loved one against a professional group like this.<br />
<br />
Oh, and victims of Care Homes beware, it is NOT against the law to neglect an elderly person in a Care Home. That's why it is called "neglect", it is a euphemism for "abuse" and as such is deemed to be passive and therefore innocent. More on this later too..... Did you ever wonder why it is that Care Home staff go on abusing the elderly? Well, here's your answer: it is not a crime to neglect someone, under the law it is a non-deliberate, passive, an unconscious act. You wont sleep easy to read this, folks, but Care Home staff continue to abuse old people.... and will go on doing so....... because they have nothing to fear in the way of punishment.Please join me trying to get the law changed; it is the only way of stopping the abuse of our old folks.Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-50586264695222922502011-09-28T13:43:00.000-07:002011-09-29T13:52:12.818-07:00Will my mum come back to me?I have been in hell this week.The oxymoron of pure hell.<br />
<br />
My mum has continued to be demented with the inability to find words to speak, uttering gibberish, being discoordinated, weak, and agitated since last week.<br />
<br />
As you know, she came off the pain patches last Thursday night after being rendered mentally and physically incapable.<br />
<br />
The doctors and nurses have been desperately searching for reasons for the change in her condition... Well, reasons that don't blame the opiate drugs, of course. The main idea has been that she is dehydrated ! They have tried hard to fix, and have endorsed, this idea. The fact that she has a furry tongue tells them that she is dehydrated because a person can get candida when dehydrated! Of course, this notion excludes the fact that she drinks a lot of fluids and has had a furry tongue for some years. Hmmmmmmmm....... But they have to exclude the truth because then they'd have to look at the drug being to blame.<br />
<br />
The other brilliant idea to explain what the drugs did to my mum has been that the cancer has affected her brain. Okay, right, let's have a laugh at this one as well by way of observing, following their logic, that the cancer has to have invaded her brain and taken away her faculties at exactly the same time as she took the first opiate!!!!Why? because she was absolutely mentally acute before she took the drug. Are you falling off your chair and splitting your sides? Well, I would be too if it weren't so serious.But it's okay, because to laugh is the way to survive and I want you to read this, laugh, learn and protect yourselves.<br />
<br />
Of course, the first resort of a doctor in this kind of situation is to try to get out of his guilt, absolve the drug, and most doctors will do this at the expense of their patients. Human nature at work.<br />
<br />
Okay, so what's the update? Look, I have to confess, I lost faith in the fact that my observations, being true and accurate, would result in my mum regaining her faculties, but slowly, last weekend her speech became less slurred, less forced and desperate,like a person straining out their last hopeless voice. I never believed the nurses, I was not that delusional even if I was despairing. In fact, the more they tried to prove their ridiculous ideas, the more I knew that they were just looking for something to disavail themselves of guilt, but it was hard to hang onto reality because I was afraid that my mum was dying and she would never regain her faculties. This state of mind is what rote practitioners give you with their negativity, their misguided diagnoses and their one track minds.<br />
<br />
So where are we at? Today is Wednesday. I have had a hell of a few days... but slowly my mum began to make more sense today, answer me. Her walking is not quite so insane as it was. The agitation is less. .....<br />
<br />
When I wrote before I didn't mention agitation did I? But last weekend I telephoned the hospice to ask if her symptoms could be agitation due to withdrawal from the drugs. "No", they said, because when you take opiates for pain they get taken up by the pain and don't become addictive. Oh, really?come on! So once again it can't be the drug and I am meant to believe them and NOT what I am observing with my own eyes? Madness. Look, let's get a grip: my mum has been clueless for a week, retarded, and she has suffered acute withdrawal after only a short time on these horrendous drugs. Fact. Full stop.<br />
<br />
Tonight, at long last, she is regaining some of her senses. She spooned her oatibix herself with strength and good motor control and she has answered me coherently.It's a bit variable yet, but we'll see.<br />
<br />
What is the wider lesson to learn from this? Well, never give up, for a start. Always trust your own observations and know that people you see in a bad state in the hospice or hospital may well be incoherent and incapable BECAUSE of the medication they are on. But nobody realises this fact. Only someone who knows how the person is usually knows that it is the drug changing the person, so please fight like hell for the ones you love.Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-41340372785668977802011-09-26T02:41:00.000-07:002015-03-07T14:33:06.975-08:00The Chemical Cosh in Elderly Care...Since being given a drug called oramorph for lower back pain my mother has lost her faculties. She took one dose, then co-codamol was tried with the same result and finally pain patches, all opiate based medication. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. So we wondered why old people are sleeping all the time in old folks homes? We thought that it was because they were old and that is the way old people are? Did we? Are we that stupid? What a joke. Incidentally, my mum had pain not related to the cancer and was rendered so insensible by the drugs that she fell over and bruised her breast bone and needed PAIN KILLERS for it.<br />
<br />
After taking these drugs my mum has lost her faculties, her speech became extremely impaired and she became discoordinated.I thought she had had a stroke, it was that bad. Of course the medics say that it's the cancer getting worse, but then they always say these things to get the drugs off the hook. I know. I saw what happened. She is usually a very mentally acute person and was so the whole day before she began the oramorph.The oramorph changed that. On these coshes my poor mum was desperate because she couldn't wake up, frantic, frightened.It rendered her senseless.<br />
<br />
Then I started to make enquiries.... The hospice are quite happy with the patient being turned into a vegetable as long as the pain is stopped! They don't offer any other pain relief like acupuncture or hypnosis ! I wonder why. <br />
<br />
Hold on, I am coming back shortly. I will tell you IF my mum recovers her faculties or not. She is now off the medication.<br />
<br />
Okay, a mini update for you: my mum has been off the medication since last Thursday. Her speech is a little better and I think her walking is too. The G.P. has said that it can take a week for the medication to leave the body, so a few more days yet before I find out the terrible truth: is my mum coming back to me with her usual acuity?<br />
<br />
N.B. Carers please look at this site: <a href="http://www.carersconnectint.com">www.carersconnectint.com</a>Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-81602114093330580702011-09-21T10:48:00.000-07:002015-03-07T14:31:21.706-08:00And to Hell with the Carer.And to hell with the Carer.<br />
<br />
I have a problem with chemical perfume. Shower gel, hair spray, washing powder perfume. Well, I'm not the only one! Trouble is, the nurses who come in to see my mother every day are drenched in it. I have tried to reason with them,but these products seem to be something that we all have to tolerate, if we don't, it infringes their human rights! For me though, these chemicals effect me badly, giving me neurological symptoms. On one occasion, however, the intensity of the smell affected my mum's breathing and gave her a headache. I phoned the hospital and left a pretty irate message. I also telephoned the Royal College of Nurses to ask about policy or guidelines around this issue. They thought that the nurses should respect me in my home, but said that there have no authority to stop them wearing this stuff. BUT IT'S CHEMICALS. It's funny, the contradiction that nurses who are meant to look after peoples' health are actually wearing multiple products that contain chemicals, is to me, beyond belief.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, so they are obdurate... and I have had many altercations with them. The fact that they are making people ill escapes them. So how on earth did it become acceptable for these products to be on the market? In my view they as much of a problem as cigarette smoke and, okay, so there are people like me who are very sensitive to products with strong smells, but I wonder about the long term health impact on even healthy people. The manufacturers are completely unregulated. No one knows whether these chemicals damage everyone and yet folks actually buy things like air fresheners to "freshen" their homes with a "nice smell" that is actually a potentially harmful chemical.If you are breathing it in, you are swallowing it as well. <br />
<br />
Back to me..So if these nurses make me ill every day with their selfish use of these products, what happens to me as a carer? Well, to hell with me, is the attitude. And to hell with my mum. It is truly extraordinary that they would rather have my mum in a hospice ( and yes, they threatened that), a heart breaking scenario for her, than just simply refraining from spraying their hair or whatever they do. Doesn't it seem extraordinary that a matter of health is subordinate to the right of nurses to wear harmful personal products? Wouldn't you think that health would come first?<br />
<br />
Please get back if you have problems to relay as a carer in general or if you have chemical sensitivity.<br />
<br />
Very Best Wishes to you..........<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ourlittleplace.com/mcs.html">http://www.ourlittleplace.com/mcs.html<br />
</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ourlittleplace.com/chemicals.html">http://www.ourlittleplace.com/chemicals.html</a><br />
<a href="http://www.ourlittleplace.com/fragfree.html">http://www.ourlittleplace.com/fragfree.html<br />
</a><br />
<a href="http://www.carersconnectint.com">www.carersconnectint.com</a>Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-62763562133814527222011-09-17T06:58:00.000-07:002015-03-07T14:26:50.168-08:00Elderly abuse in the NHS, 3I didn't know whether to tell my mum that she had been excluded from a test to determine eligibility for a drug. Should she know that her autonomy had been walked all over? Would it make her give up on her life? In the end I told her yesterday. I thought it might give her back her fighting spirit. <br />
<br />
She didn't know that there had been a test that she had been denied.Inspite of going to the meeting (alone) with the oncologist where the "whole picture" was discussed, she had no idea that there was a drug she might have had to hold back the cancer. Doesn't this prove the point? That no one, let alone someone elderly, can assimilate, or question, information of this gravity in an appointment when alone, and that it is imperative not to go to these appointments unsupported. But,as we know, the appointment wasn't to discuss <b>all</b> her options, it was to persuade her to do what the doctor wanted her to do. I suppose it is more accurate to say "what the whole clinical team wanted for her" since all the staff were involved in taking away not only her autonomy, but her right to information as well.<br />
<br />
The whole clinical team? So here we have the discrepancy of the team deciding to opt my mum out of treatment and the S.H.O. telling me that she had/ or would have the test. Strange. The S.H.O. was not telling the truth.... and yet the SHO would have been part of the team. So at what point did they decide to make decisions FOR my mum and exclude tests from her secretly? The answer is I don't know. Why should we be told, we are only the relative and the patient with no rights at all.<br />
<br />
The new consultant is reviewing my mum's medical notes and will come to a decision. I fancy that the decision will be the same one that was made before, don't you? Doctors stick together. It is almost impossible to get a truly honest second opinion because doctors support each other.<br />
<br />
Look, I'm coming back when I find out yet another forgone conclusion. I will let you know.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, please never trust an SHO., it could be a matter of life or death. Speak ONLY to the Consultant and if you can, get copies of the notes every week. If you have the notes in your possession they cannot come back and alter the notes should something go wrong with your loved ones treatment.<br />
<br />
Best to all........Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-88882556899083068482011-09-15T02:40:00.000-07:002015-03-07T14:24:19.391-08:00Royal United Hospital, Bath, named and shamed..Thursday, 15th September.<br />
I put in my complaint to the hospital last week. That stirred it up. The cancer manager phoned me yesterday with assurances that they always make the patient part of the decision making process, that my mum hasn't been shut out of treatment because of money and they do care ! I also spoke to a Lung Nurse Specialist yesterday. I demanded that they confirm that the test for a cell marker had not been done and that therefore they had never intended to offer my mum treatment (really patient-centred). I suppose I hoped that maybe they had done it, at least DONE the test, and then got my mum on her own to convince her not to have treatment. Hmmmmmm, I'm not sure that that is a lesser evil.<br />
Anyhow, so the nurse specialist actually managed to phone me this morning. What a lovely start to the day. And, yes, it's true, they NEVER did the test. They never intended to offer my lovely old mum a choice as to whether she had treatment because they never did the test for the cell marker. Whoa. Of course, elderly abuse is rife in hospitals and care homes in the U.K., but I thought I was on top of it. Like I said in my previous blog, I thought that having a relative watching and checking whatever they did would prevent my mum being a victim to them. And I have let her down, using all my strength and resources, I have still let her down.<br />
<br />
So did I try to chase up this test? Yes, with everything I had, against the barrier of misinformation, elusive staff, personal stress and upset, yes I did try. They sometimes said that it had been done, sometimes that it would be done,that they would let me know. Then the person I spoke to went off for a few days, the S.H.O. changed and I couldn't hunt them down. Of course, simultaneously there were the other issues of my mum's distress, not getting things to eat, forgotten medication, etc., and I couldn't cope with it all.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, they are well and truly stitched up. We can have another consultant,isn't that kind of them? The only problem is that the new consultant won't be able to give an independent opinion, they said. Or did I hear that right.<br />
<br />
Got to go now... I demanded they do the test, by the way. I wonder if they will oblige? Maybe they'll refuse on the grounds that it's too late now to offer my mum treatment even if there was a cell marker?Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-77693440238294569482011-09-07T11:38:00.000-07:002015-03-07T03:25:34.115-08:00Elderly abuse in the N.H.S., Royal United Hospital, Bath.My mother has recently been diagnosed with lung cancer. Of course, when someone is innocent of self-caused lung cancer, one has to say in one breath, "My mother has recently been diagnosed with lung cancer-but-she-never-smoked-or-went-to-pubs-or-clubs." The reason for this is stigma: it's a dirty illness that carries the stigma of being consequent upon the insane self-indulgence of smoking.<br />
<br />
(This blog takes us right back to the issue of the pervasive discrimination against the elderly and doesn't cover the ins and outs of smoking.)<br />
<br />
<br />
Okay, so what am I up in arms about this time? Well, from the time my mother was admitted to the local hospital with symptoms thought to be a worsening of her heart failure, there have been a catalogue of errors, malpractice events, disrespect and blunderings. Good old N.H.S. !!!!! Just like you see in the media! ....And we really thought that medical abuse of the elderly happened in isolated pockets where there were serious breakdowns of management. Or did we? I, for one, see the exposure of abuse of the vulnerable in recent years in our hospitals and Care Homes as the tip of the iceberg. By the nature of things most cases will be ignored, suppressed and protected by the "group". The fact that SOME are leaking out, tells us that the real number of cases inhabit the system pervasively. Why? Because it is a basic psychological fact that where there are vulnerable people to abuse, abuse will take place. A system of protection can never be robust enough because group dynamics always dictate that any group will protect itself and its members from discovery. <br />
<br />
Why "psychological fact"? Well, the need to have dominance over others is part of our biological nature and with some people this need is not civilised,they therefore take their chance to hurt people who are in a vulnerable state. Please see earlier blogs where I explain this in full.<br />
<br />
So how did my mother's experience correspond to what we hear in the media? Well, there was the matter of staff not noticing that my mum had trouble swallowing. They sort of knew this as evidenced by her feeling nauseous, but kind of switched off to it. The problem was only addressed when I frightened the hell out of the staff with direct reference to the matter being revealed to the local press! What was my mum eating each day?My mum was having one soup a day. The one meal that menued soup was dinner (6pm), so she had nothing for breakfast or lunch or supper because there was no soup on offer.<br />
<br />
And what else? Hmmmmmmmmm......... Well, when she was first admitted around 3.00 a.m. she had severe breathing difficulties requiring a drain to be inserted into her right lung. She was writhing in desperation to get air, an oxygen mask made no difference whatsoever. So they drained the lung, right? Wrong. They left her in hell for more than 7 hours because they could not, ostensibly, put in a drain at night due to there not being necessary support staff. What?you may ask. A city hospital with no support staff at night? !!!!!!!!!! Are we going mad? So what would happen if there was an RTA and the casualty had a collapsed lung? They'd let him die for want of support staff? Or could this be a matter of hierarchy of need? Pardon me for being cynical, but could it be that the plight of an elderly woman, suffering complete hell, was not so urgent or important as an RTA victim, not so conspicuous, not so motivating? Well, I think so. Suffering,and compassion for that suffering, didn't actually amount to much when it came to someone elderly. It's the same old story.<br />
<br />
And there's more? Yes, there is so much more.... What about them forgetting to give medication? They didn't do that as well did they? <br />
You've got it! You must have experience of the good old NHS as well! Yes, my mum had to remind them to give her her medication. She's very compos mentis you see and noticed their every error. One day they forgot to give her an injection that is given to prevent patients having a stroke. She was still reminding them at midnight that day. The next day she told them again. They checked in the Notes and found no tick for the injection! What a surprise! I looked at the Notes around lunch time and was told that although there was no tick, they probably had given her the drug !!!! I told them that they had not. Forgetting to give medication was quite routine.<br />
<br />
Not another problem? Well,this is the biggest problem so far so please stay with me..... S.H.Os., Junior doctors, are a real problem. They have neither the experience nor the authority to say what they say. Countless times I asked if my mum could have cancer treatment and I was told that she would have a say in whatever treatment she had or didn't have. "Yes", they said, she would have a say in her treatment. She could possibly have a drug to hold back the cancer, and a test for a cell marker to determine if she might be eligible for that drug had been done and they would let us know. The next week I asked for the results of the test and was told it hadn't been done yet. They would test the fluid from her lung to find the marker. Hmmmmmmmmm. So the following week I asked again. Still no test. My mum was then discharged and we were supposed to go for a appointment with the consultant in a few weeks. As it happened my mum was readmitted prior to this appointment because her breathing had worsened again (sticking the lung to the chest wall hadn't worked).<br />
<br />
Now for the shocker: The day before the appointment in outpatients, I asked the SHO if my mum would have to go to the outpatient appointment in the morning. She answered that since my mum was now an inpatient, all outpatient appointments would be cancelled automatically. Are you sure? I said. Yes, she said , the consultant would make a visit to her on the ward instead. So the next day I arrived on the ward at lunch time to see my mother JUST IN TIME TO SEE THAT MY MUM HAD JUST RETURNED from her outpatient appointment where she had been taken ALONE without family or friend to be with her. And guess what? The consultant had persuaded her not to have treatment. Fait accompli. They never NEVER intended to do a biopsy to test for a marker and, ALONE, my mum was steered away from treatment. Now, okay, not having treatment may have been the best thing and we may have come to that conclusion ourselves, but she was never going to be allowed to make a decision herself, she was never respected enough as AN ADULT to be allowed to ponder the facts and decide for herself and in the end it was not even thought to be necessary for her to have family backup in her first oncology appointment.I wonder why? And all the misinformation given to me by the SHOs, all the falsehoods, all the false hopes, now became crystal clear as meanderings that were never intended to offer my mum treatment for her cancer. Never. They had never done a biopsy and never intended to do so. She had been opted out of treatment as if she was a non-person, way back.<br />
<br />
My advise to you would be to NEVER TRUST AN S.H.O., they are nothing more than children way out of their depth, imparting information that they are unsure of and taking no responsibility for what they say or their actions.<br />
<br />
What else do we learn from this experience? Well, we can see that, as in the case of my mum, having a relative observing "the goings on" at the hospital is a sure way of an elderly person being protected. Conversely,it is also transparently obvious that old folks who are away from the protective gaze of relatives are likely to be abused. Certainly, my mother would have been in a very bad state had she not had me to look after her.<br />
<br />
So how on earth could we stop this abuse? I think that the public should have a role in this: members of the public should have random access to hospitals and care homes. It's the only way.Please let me know what you think.......<br />
All the Best to you..<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.carersconnectint.com">www.carersconnectint.com</a>Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-79695416266169912192011-07-28T15:39:00.000-07:002015-02-18T03:54:05.226-08:00Asking for help.........Okay, so like me you may end up going to someone for help. My man turned out to be in a church. Of church-going people you should be extremely careful. There are good people in churches, of course, but many folks who gravitate to God's service are really up to no good. Look, how many people who actually bully their wives or children have you come across in a church, desperate to prove to themselves and others that they are good people?<br />
<br />
Just take a look at basic examples of the way bullies function: My father was a sadistic bully. Bad enough to shock Childline when I called years later as an adult. And what did he do to make sure no one found out what he was really like? He was as nice and kind as it was possible to be to people outside the home. Outside the home! Clever. So people thought he was a nice man. In fact he was so good at this game of deception, that he lied about me and my mum, and his many friends he'd sucked up to over the years believed him. So, what do you gain from this example? Simple, you learn that sometimes the person who offers you the most kindness, who promotes himself as a super-good person, may well be a secret bully.The motivation behind a person's kindness is the key here.<br />
<br />
In my recent encounter, my "kind, saintly, helper" even tried to offer me the miracle of money ! Yes, even that old seduction! To be honest, I did think it a bit odd, and I didn't think it was really going to happen, but it's tempting to think that the offer is genuine. Down the line he decided that God didn't want him to help me with money at all because God wanted him to help a bigger cause than just little me! .... What does this remind you of? Well, this is a classic way to break someones self esteem. Tempt them with the notion of being lucky, then give the good luck to someone else. Someone who does this sort of thing will have been doing it most of their lives. It is what is called "learned behaviour". They don't know or understand WHY they are doing it, it is just part of their makeup, part of their domination of people.<br />
<br />
Coming back sooooooooooooon.Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-73940498972145063942011-06-24T01:27:00.000-07:002011-06-24T01:30:58.222-07:00Asthma medication: Intal Spincaps.Hi Everybody!<br />
<br />
Just beginning a blog about my asthma medication!<br />
<br />
I have been using Intal Spincaps for more than 40 years.They are fantastic. I have never had an asthma attack and I just use one capsule at night at most. BUT THEY ARE BEING DISCONTINUED. I have tried the alternative in a "puffer" inhaler which made me very asthmatic, getting worse and worse, and eventually, when I got some more spincaps, it took 8 months for my lungs to recover.I also tried all sorts of inhalers which didn't work. The reason I am great with hardly any asthma problems at all is because I am on Intal Spincaps.Other medications turn me into a struggling asthmatic. Bad bad bad............<br />
<br />
<br />
Please post if you want them to keep making the spincaps....<br />
<br />
Best Wishes to all,Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-6832262892027438572011-06-24T01:20:00.000-07:002015-03-07T03:14:36.846-08:00When we ask for help.....I have been in personal turmoil recently and, even knowing the psychology of vulnerability, I did ask for help! My mum has been ill and, true to human nature, this has made me vulnerable to mental abuse. So what's new?<br />
<br />
I should read my own blog!<br />
<br />
<br />
This blog explores what happens when we become needy. What happens to us, and what happens when we ask for help from another person.<br />
<br />
We have long explored why it is that people who have needs are easy victims: the sick, children, women, the mentally ill. <br />
<br />
<br />
Okay, so if we ask someone close to us, someone trusted, there is less chance of being on the receiving end of power-play, but not always. Another safeguard is the fact that with people close to us there is a RELATIONSHIP, a mutuality. An emotional bond, a history of two-way kindness and respect is more likely to be present and this balances the potential power of both parties. <br />
<br />
The problem arises when we ask people who would take advantage of our neediness, the sort of people who need or enjoy power over someone else. Of course this disposition may be unconscious, but folks who take advantage of others in this way will have a diminished sense of what they are doing. They need to have diminished conscience BECAUSE it enables them to behave in the way they do. So, look, if you approach someone you don't know, say in a church or in many cases a professional of some sort, the fact that they are immediately put in a position of power by the <b>very</b> <b>fact </b> of you needing them, will open the door to you being mentally abused. <br />
<br />
So what is it that the giver wants from you? Givers, those offering kindness or good deeds, usually want something. Sounds odd? Well, it's true. Often these people have a <b>need</b> to offer kindness. It helps them in their lives. Makes them feel better and often counteracts something bad they have done or are doing to others. Okay, so there are SOME people who are genuinely nice people, but not all. If you ask for help from someone, look out for signs that they might be the sort that might abuse you. Think. Think about what they tell you and what their motivation might be. Are you going to be used to serve some purpose for THEM.<br />
<br />
Like I said at the start of this blog, I have recently asked for help from someone. I felt overwhelmed and was searching for someone to turn to. I saw some signs..... The man was gender-bigoted from the outset. He had a desperate need to do good deeds. These good deeds he needed to be as big, egotistically big,as possible and he had ideas that were indicative of power and control. SO why did I proceed? I think, like all of us when we are needy, that my distress was bigger than my common sense.<br />
<br />
<br />
I'm coming back soon to explore this further...Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-11616856100919613662010-11-09T03:10:00.000-08:002015-03-06T14:22:59.929-08:00Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, hand in hand."Abandon yourself all ye who enter here!" <br />
<br />
This is what you do when you give yourself into the hands of psychotherapy. It reminds me of an abdication: you do it voluntarily but there are forces beyond your control that push you into that seat! <br />
<br />
Of course, unless you are very unlucky, you don`t put yourself into the "hands", literally, of a psychotherapist! Rather you allow yourself to be formed and moulded by the imagination of your therapist. Yes, I chose that word carefully, so I`ll repeat it: IMAGINATION. The therapist you see doesn`t KNOW what your dreams mean, he doesn`t KNOW what things, even if there are exogenous causes, are making you depressed or anxious, he just decides these things himself based upon whatever training he has received and/or where his own personal psychological makeup leads him. In other words, you`ve got, it`s subjective. <br />
<br />
Let me come out of the woodwork and disclose that in the past I have been the victim of a psychotherapist and have thought long and hard about what he did, why he did it and HOW he was able to do this. I have also taken great care not to colour my view solely on my own experiences; I have watched how the pattern is repeated on others. <br />
Of course, I was a victim when I went to him, that helps! You can`t lay onto someone your ideas about them ..unless they are vulnerable in the first place. Of course not. This fits the classic victim model. After years of mental abuse, complete destruction of my self and my self-esteem, I reclaimed my real identity. It is with this experience ..and witnessing the abuse of others, that I have come to an understanding of the truth about psychotherapy. <br />
<br />
Look, what does having someone in a weak, vulnerable, dependent state remind you of? Have you got it? Yes, it`s the parent-child relationship. A therapist is always the parent and you are the child. As such he directs and controls and creates you; he attributes your actions, or misattributes them as HE wishes. When he learns things about you, he makes decisions about why you are this way or what you do to cause others to treat you the way they do. But this is what he is meant to do isn`t it? He is sure to be correct isn`t he? Well, no, he is shaping you according to his needs, his ego, HIS psychology. What he decides may have little to do with you at all. And what is more, because you are his dependent child, you absorb and incorporate what he persuades you is really you. <br />
<br />
But don`t therapists have supervision? Yes, they do, of course, but you have to bear this in mind: the therapist relays what he thinks is going on with you, to his supervisor. The supervisor gets it second hand, doctored, misattributed, twisted, so his views are based upon what he hears about you from your "parent". Then you have both of them on an ego trip together, upholding each other, giving each other`s position support. The supervisor will see things as changed by the therapist`s subjectivity and his psychological past, then he will change things according to his relationship with the therapist and his own psychological history.You have become something that is not you.Okay, so you follow me so far? The very practice of psychotherapy is a very power-centred adult activity in which most professionals, unconsciously, collude. <br />
<br />
At its most abusive, a therapist will MAKE you, by one method or another, believe that you are what he thinks you are. He will even cause you to fit his view of you. He may even think that he is helping you, making you face your guilt, revealing your past, but actually, he is wanting to fit you into his psychological past. It`s an unconscious need he has. He might twist things, unknowingly, so that you fit the characteristics of his mother, but this time he is in the driving seat. Or you become his father, his father in a place where <b>he</b> can win. There are numerous permutations of the identity you might become in relation to him and there is no way, supervision or not, he will be aware of what he is doing. <br />
<br />
The frightening thing about this is that no one in the system will be aware that his "professional" view is subjective, dressed up as it is with "professional" credibility and receiving as it does, gratis, the respect of colleagues. <br />
<br />
Like psychiatry, psychotherapy it not at all interested in the real reasons why you are depressed. Isn`t it strange? Neither "professions" are remotely interested in research that might show depression or psychosis to be physical health conditions. They are interested in fitting your depression to a non-testable cause that, coincidentally, either requires psychotherapy or medication. Really the two professions are hand-in-hand, one mopping up the money that the other doesn`t, one controlling and abusing you in one way, the other in a different way. Whenever did you go to a psychiatrist or be referred to a psychotherapist, after a thorough medical? Did anyone find out if your hormones are balanced or that you have a gut dysbiosis that releases toxins into your bloodstream, before you were given medication or before you signed over enormous fees to your therapist? Or course not. The two professions would not do things that would deprive themselves of their livelihood or their credibility.It`s not just about money, either, it`s about their group needs. The belief that people`s brain chemistry is awry, or that their childhood makes them depressed, serves the theories that hold these groups together, creates a constant service of clients and makes sure that society has a hierarchical structure based upon the professional, in a parental role, and his underling, the patient or client. <br />
<br />
We all know people who are apparently depressed because of events in their lives, who take up one or other of these self-suppressing "solutions". But have you noticed the flaw in the argument? Many people who have terrible childhoods, don`t end up depressed ! So WHAT really is the common-denominator, then? If it isn`t your brain chemistry, you`ll need psychotherapy? No, I don`t think so, do you? It might be that your gut is making you depressed.... and you can fix that all on your little own without a mental health label or handing over your precious self.<br />
<br />
Please join me soooooooooooooooon. I want to talk about why the M.E. Association might not want research into antibiotic damage to the gut.<br />
<br />
Very Best Wishes from me to you... Think for yourself, you`re worth it!Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-85181628058489074112010-10-25T03:01:00.000-07:002010-10-29T13:18:17.107-07:00Why Improve Ourselves? 3I was lucky enough to catch Rosa Monckton`s documentary "Tormented Lives" last night on BBC 2. I was really struck by Rosa`s compassion and her disposition to relate to people in an accepting and non-judgmental way and I really hope that this documentary`s powerful expression changes things for people. <br />
<br />
Of course I have talked about why we need to bully others, both as individuals and as a society, in my blogs many times, covering the abuse of women, the elderly and children. We saw in the program how bullies, very much in their raw, animal state, victimise those who are obviously weak. I have explored previously why certain people, or groups, are picked on, by whom and for what motive. I am not going to go over that here because this blog takes a slightly different angle in regard to my previous blogs entitled "Why Improve Ourselves?". <br />
<br />
Though I understand bullying and victimisation from both first-hand experience and careful observation of life around me, I am always shocked to see the affects of it. Of course, bullying in schools is no better for the attention it receives and with time -old opportunities to bully the sick and the elderly, nothing changes very much. Why would it? Unfortunately, there is societal need for it as well as the systems to enable it and protect the perpetrators. We are all complicit in this.. My blogs "Teachers who Bully" show how a closed system like a classroom, for example, is a training ground for what we see in our wider society in the adult world. <br />
<br />
Anyway, back to this blog: it struck me during Rosa`s program that our society's ubiquitous tolerance for bullying begins with small behavioural lapses that seem so ordinary and innocuous. And we let them go. Behaviour in schools is appalling. Children in mainstream education aren`t taught how to behave in a polite respectful manner and where they slide are not pulled up for it. There is no one to care about such basics as saying "please" and "thank you", or holding a door open for someone.Still less for a child calling another child a hurtful name. Indeed, as I discussed way back, the bullied child is more likely to be treated as a misfit, a psychological problem, than the bullies, proving that as a society we in fact SUPPORT bullying. <br />
<br />
So what`s this got to do with the behaviour of the bullies in Rosa`s program? Simple, the behaviour of Rosa`s victimisers has slid way beyond the omission of a "please" and "thank you".They have spent years in an environment that, frankly, allows them to vent their animal drives however they want to. Basically, it`s animal expression. <br />
<br />
So you have to catch all aspects of behaviour early, in primary school. In my view the threshold cannot be drawn at bullying, it has to be a threshold that desires basics, as part of a process to de-animalise our behaviour from very small issues upwards. To do this you can`t just take out certain behaviours you don`t want, 5 or 10 or 15 years too late, you have to cultivate a nature that cleaves to higher values of respect and courtesy, and a desire for approbation.<br />
<br />
What does "desire for approbation" mean? Well, it means you have to CREATE children who wish to please and wish to be helpful. But look, input has to match output, which it certainly does not in mainstream education. You just can`t get the sort of kids you want in society by telling them what to do: you have to example it! That means that classrooms should not reflect the animal nature of the outside world, survival of the fittest, children should never fall victim to group runtification(*see footnote) at school, none should be left behind educationally, none should be sent to the educational psychologist when they are bullied.... I could go on. The point in the obverse is that, of course, one, just ONE example of how society operates, the classroom, demonstrates to all the children in the school that THIS is how society works. Are we then so surprised that they go out and overtly copy what is being exampled from the day that they start mixing with other kids and adults outside the family? <br />
<br />
I think that we should always try to improve ourselves, to escape our animal nature as much as we can and Rosa`s bullies show us that. If small things were important I think that all of us could enjoy better lives, but we really have to wake up to things that are almost invisible to our rightfulness-radar. What we don`t apprehend is just off the screen, I`m afraid, causally.The bullies in Rosa`s documentary have been taught by example.... and the animal behaviour they exhibit carries with it the fire of resentment born out of received disrespect and projected failure that keeps them fuelled up. <br />
<br />
If we expand this logic we can see that all behaviors are important and significant and we see that any improvement is worth it in any area or with any issue. But, but, but, we must try to see that OUR societal framework engenders the bullying we disapprove of in others. Not just that some kids are disadvantaged -by the animal function of a classroom or by the social, financial or educational status of their parents, but that our whole system is riddled with our animal needs to compete and gain position over others. If we look at what really happens in schools, the survival of the fittest at work right in front of our eyes, we can see that Rosa`s bullies learned their behaviour from everything we show them: certainly from the way schools make a percentage of children fail, the use of psychiatric labels given to various misfits,etc. <br />
<br />
Take a look around you...Then take a closer look. <br />
<br />
<br />
Of course, raising ourselves above our animal state, our animal soul, is one of the main themes of one of the primary texts of chassidic Judaism, the Tanya, by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi. In my discussions I am going to come back to religion in this context a bit later on. Hope you will join me.<br />
<br />
Very Best Wishes from me to you.......<br />
<br />
<br />
*Runtification: my word for the process in our society for creating runts.Runts in this context are failures and rejects,people pushed to the margins of our "civilised" western culture.Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-81717503799057131812010-10-03T02:41:00.000-07:002015-03-06T14:05:04.582-08:00The Murder of God: Is it Moral?Hello! Hope you are doing great!<br />
<br />
Okay, so let`s make a start on the next big subject.....<br />
<br />
I saw recently that Humanists are titling a lecture, "The God Virus". This prompted me to think about whether it is right to try to destroy God simply because you yourself don`t believe in "him". <i>(Okay, okay, we`ll come back to the philosophy later! I can hear you saying, how can you murder God anyway?")<br />
</i> <br />
<br />
When someone uses such emotive and pejorative language they are telling us that they mean to convince us of THEIR VIEW, that God is indeed the equivalent of a virus. Using the word "virus" cashes in on fears we already have about viruses. Combining it with "God" causes us to, they hope, associate the two things as one. It`s a psychological tactic that plays a trick on the mind. If used often enough, it is a tactic that implants into our thinking the notion of God as something bad.<br />
<br />
Of course, there are many words and names and places that are inexorably linked to something bad. We cannot hear the name "Adolf" without thinking of concentration camps, or "Cambodia" without thinking of Pol Pot. We can all test this out for ourselves.... Based upon the knowledge that names associated with certain heinous crimes stick fast in the human mind, a mind that stores information (a glossary for the primal brain) to warn us of danger, we can see the value to humanists of demonising God on this way: if they get enough exposure they will surely infect us all with the idea that God is a virus and that we are all "carriers", spreading infection to those around us. It`s the same memetic technique that turned Germans against Jews! and it works. Memes kill. Big time. Bang up to date (whoops! perhaps I`ll delete the word bang!) we have seen how governments have successfully demonised Muslims! (Did you know that you were being infected with ideas to <b>MAKE</b> you fear Muslims? That you have been manipulated as a pawn in a wider group/animal drive?)<br />
<br />
Of course, we don`t realise it, but we all get "infected" with ideas all the time. Memes are far better at perpetuating themselves than our DNA! The question is, though, whether a group concerned with intellectual freedom is right to endeavour to take away the freedom of others to believe in whatever or whomsoever they wish to believe... and, I suppose, whether this takes the form of mere "persuasion" or whether it is,or will become, more than this. (We`ll look at this in the future......)<br />
<br />
<br />
But why do they want to do it? Well, believe of not, it is all to do with freeing everybody from the indoctrination that religion brings.They don`t want children to be brought up on any religious narrative because this prevents a child from seeing the "truth" about the world around us. The only truth is science. The one truth. Bit like "the one God" !!!!! <br />
<br />
Look, let me come clean here: I am not batting for God or willing to do any God-bashing, this blog is about the rights and wrongs of trying to dictate what others may or not believe, not to uphold one side or the other. My blog title "The Murder of God: Is it Moral?" is a parrying gesture to show my readers that anyone can use emotive language to manipulate someone else`s ideas.<br />
<br />
And isn`t this where Humanism is going wrong? Anyone could believe something.. and believe that others <b>should</b> believe the same thing ..and then set about a crusade to achieve it ! Why is this any different from the germ of totalitarianism? In my view, the humanist belief that religion is invalid because it does not check with the reality of science, is a similar position to that held by many a Christian through the ages who would kill to prevent anyone else from having another view-point. And isn`t this the exact same animal/group motivation that is displayed in the thrust of, "The God Virus". Isn`t it just exactly the same thing coming from the opposite camp!<br />
<br />
I`ve not finished on this subject by a long way ! Please join me later!<br />
<br />
Very Best Wishes from me to you!Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-92109795876241445802010-09-30T13:11:00.001-07:002015-03-06T13:54:26.831-08:00Gift from the Dead 3What is "eternal love" anyway? I think it`s all about sensitivity. Perhaps we can see that sensitivity IS eternal love, carrying as it does a fine atunement to the things around us, carrying a sensitivity from one generation to another, carrying caring to people and things alike. Of course, we acquire sensitivity as a learned behaviour. It`s more likely that sensitive parents will produce sensitive children, just as with any other attribute. This we pass on in turn to our children. A thoughtfulness, considerateness, a quality of empathy and respect we engender in others and they become the eternal chain.<br />
<br />
What happens generally, though, in the cut and thrust of life, is that we select those people or things to care about most and ignore most of those folks around us who are needy: we shut them out if they aren`t directly part of lives. We compartmentalise those we care about and those we don`t. We tell ourselves that there is only so much we can cope with and we can`t include the old lady next door because we are already overloaded. <br />
<br />
<br />
The reason why we make a hierarchy of people we care about and people we dismiss, is that we feel obliged to those with whom we have an emotional exchange, a connection. We ourselves benefit from the exchange, mutual support, a unity, a belonging, and for these reasons we do a deal of reciprocity.<br />
<br />
It is much more difficult to jettison someone who levers our guilt, someone with whom we have some kind of bond, than it is to shut out someone who has no power to come back at us. With people who can pull on our guilt for things they need from us, we are hooked into them emotionally. I was saying way back in my blog "Socially Acceptable Forms of Abuse", that parents with diminished levels of guilt can treat their children however they want to because children have a lesser power to hold parents responsible for their actions.Okay, so kids can try to pull the guilt-strings, but they cannot by means of relationship restrain parents morally....they just have a bit more of a chance than dead people!<br />
<br />
However, generally speaking, the more sensitivity, engendering guilt, a person has, the more they can be prevailed upon to act in a way that bends to the needs of others. It is a higher state indeed when someone is sensitive to the needs of others regardless of whether the other party has leverage or not. The more we are able to do things selflessly, the higher is our attainment. Attending to our loved ones who have passed away is a high and noble act because they have no recourse to us for our inadequacies in not looking after their burial place. Dead people have no fight-back. Because they haven`t, our attendance demands our highest sensitivity and awareness, more so than the old lady next door. We have to be super-sensitive and selfless when we decide to hear and fulfil a call to honour our deceased and this tunes us up to the highest awareness that impacts on our lives in other areas.<br />
<br />
Dead people have no fight-back. It`s true. They are more defenceless than the elderly or the mentally ill, and that`s really saying something. I note how as status diminishes.... one`s ability to speak up for oneself, one`s social position..... the less rights we have.This tells us that our rights are subject to our ability as animals to compete with the other animals around us. The elderly find that they lose their rights as they become more infirm, the mentally ill lose theirs when they are considered insane. How much more so, then, if you cannot speak at all because you are dead! This sounds silly, I expect, but I actually make a profound point here: why should burial sites be abused and neglected just because there is no one with the rightfulness to stick up for something (or somebody) so defenceless.<br />
<br />
So, anyway, what do we get from looking after our family graves? Well, we get the knock-on benefits that any positive action brings us. It doesn`t matter that this particular action is not directed at the living, it still has the same affect. We raise up the quality of our output into the world and enhance our ability to care about ourselves, our nearest and dearest and our living world. Does this sound a bit "preachy"?.......... Let me show you what happened in my case: I went to a graveyard, sparked my concern for these past, and some very very past, relatives and found several of our lost family. Because of my actions these people have been gifted love and family and belonging and in their turn have raised their own energy. I am sure that I am a much happier and fulfilled and positive person, a million fold, than before I began my quest. And this is what I mean, you always get back blessing by the bucket load when you output like this ! Why don`t you try it!Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-32692148816451405152010-09-24T01:36:00.000-07:002015-03-06T13:59:45.917-08:00Gift From the Dead 2Hello ! Nice to see you!<br />
<br />
So, where was I? Went off on a rant for a while there! ..........Ah, yes, I was wanting to tell you about what happened when I was making enquiries at the first church about the whereabouts of my great grandfather`s grave.............. "Don`t you have relatives in the village?", she said. I said that we hadn`t had relatives there for donkeys years. But she told me the names of the people and I immediately knew who they were, long since thought to be dead!! I felt... and still do, very upset and like I'd had a miracle at the same time. We had found living people directly from these enquiries about dead people! "Back from the past!" I feel I want to say "never was a visit to a graveyard so propitious!" We have since found, spurred on by this one momentous find, another long-lost close relative and I find myself wondering whether it is not just a coincidence that this has happened.......Not quite on the divine intention level, but somehow intrinsic to caring, the ubiquitous reward for positive output.<br />
<br />
<br />
Graveyards are thought of as places of closure, not places of openings, yet it was a simple desire to honour my deceased relatives that brought me rich fruits in my life. I have a philosophy that "output", positive output, of course, brings us good things. It`s not just a single action, it`s to do with quantity and consistency and quality. If you go on doing doing doing some of these things will produce good things for you. These good things don`t always come back directly, but somehow, maybe it`s just positive energy, the more output we propel the more potential we give ourselves. The quality of the output is important, I think, the more well-intentioned, happy, confident, the better "results". When we reap life`s bonuses the religiously ingrained amongst us might think "God made me lucky", but whatever you believe, certainly output opens the gates to good fortune. <br />
<br />
It is a tragic paradox that when we are depressed we do not have the ability to output the energy that will make changes in our lives and give us the return energy we so much need. On a very cynical note, I am driven to say that it is strange that "God" gives less to folks who are depressed than he does to those who thrive.... I wonder why this could be? Animal hierachy? People who are "down" deserve less? At least, one would have to say that if you can`t muster yourself to emit a positive energy, you block off God`s nature to help you! Reminds me of the old body-blow, "God helps those who help themselves" !!!!!!! And yet, hmmmmmmm, if we thought of our image of God, not as the religious construction that he is, but as light and positivity, good-energy and higher emotions, the fact that we snooker ourselves when we are depressed makes a lot of sense.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, so let`s get back on track.....So caring about those at rest in the earth is at the top end of quality output? Why? We don`t know if they know we are doing it, we don`t know if they are grateful or have pleasure in heaven from seeing us bring our love to them, so why would I equate visiting a graveyard with taking your neighbour a bowl of fruit or giving someone a lift to Sainsbury`s? Hmmmmmmm...., it`s a profoundly sticky question. Is it something to do with eternal love?<br />
<br />
I am continuing with this very soooooooooon. Hope to see you here!<br />
<br />
Oh, and I`ll let you into a little secret ! After this blog the topic is<br />
"Murder of God: is it moral?" Humanism wants God finished off. I want to talk about it. Will you help me out?Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-86848332327465105612010-09-18T17:07:00.000-07:002015-03-01T12:50:35.053-08:00A Gift from the Dead.Hello ! I`m glad you`re here !<br />
<br />
I am starting this blog not knowing where my thoughts will lead me. I have an idea to talk about graves and graveyards and to think about why we should honour our deceased loved ones. Let`s see where we get to................<br />
<br />
<br />
A cousin of mine recently was doing some work on the family tree. This stirred up a lot of things and I ended up going to a churchyard to put flowers on the grave of my great grandfather and great grandmother. There was no headstone and so I tried to ascertain the exact location of the grave from the Church Warden. Sadly there were only incomplete records: those with headstones were recorded, those without were not.<br />
<br />
I found this very upsetting, not least that a church would have such little respect or caring for our loved ones that they would not keep proper records, yet more upsetting still that graves would have status if those who were buried had position or money enough to afford a headstone.<br />
<br />
I immediately thought about hierarchy in the church, G`d and clergy, landed gentry and peasants, all assuming their place within the social scheme of things.. and, of course, the most lowly having unmarked graves. I thought how significant it is that the church reflects social division and has supported it through the centuries, whatever its religious posture might be. Even whether one`s burial spot is recorded, boils down to hierarchy ! <br />
<br />
When I question whether this is typical of the Church of England throughout the country, I am told that it is.<br />
<br />
I was minded to try to put flowers on the grave of my great greats as well....(It`s funny how our actions so readily expose the wrongs around us!) My grandmother talked of them such a lot and they had been long-since neglected. So I approached a second church to try to see a grave plan here as well !(Glutton for punishment!) My second attempt was worse, this time even devoid of kindness, for I encountered at this church an, how shall I put it?..... an indifference that was plain obstructive. Yes, they had many of my ancestors buried on this plot of land and they didn`t give a TOSS about them or me or the churches` responsibilities.Not a toss. We might have been talking about carcasses from an abattoir for all the value my enquiry had! <i>(Please see my blog "Animals, Why Should we Care?" for more examination of how we compartmentalise our consciences.)<br />
<br />
</i>I find this quite extraordinary, don`t you? Perhaps you`ll even say, typical of the church, I don`t know. Vicars in the past lived with these people, baptised them, married them, and in the end buried them.. and dumped them in the ground without a care for the recording of their resting place. Do I hear a, "perhaps the records have been lost?" OK., let`s be kind, they forgot to write down where the poor people are buried or they accidentally lost all these records all over England.... and now they say "sorry", like the Pope and everybody else these days. Does this wash with you? Well, it doesn`t with me. There is just something revealing about a church that is comfortable with operating on the basis of hierarchy, isn`t there?<br />
<br />
How could they EVER have lived with people and cared so little? Could it be that the church was something for THEM, yet pretended to be "for the people"? Personally, I have a very low opinion of the church for just this reason: it`s all about them. <br />
<br />
<br />
But why isn`t this all over the headlines? I suppose when immediate family have departed this life no-one much cares anymore. No-one fights for them; they are too busy fighting for their own lives, families, jobs, money. What does it say about us, though, that we bury our dead with flowing tears and then cease to care so many years down the line? And what does it do to us as human beings to leave our loved ones behind in a churchyard where there is no-one to protect their resting place or their memory? I`d really like to think next time about what we gain by honouring our dead and why I think we should care with an energy we`d usually apply to our lives and the living.<br />
<br />
<br />
This thrilling blog continues next time when I reveal, wow this is so much like Hollywood movies, I reveal what I gained from a graveyard... Tune in next time!Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-76959344830098983412010-08-18T11:49:00.000-07:002015-02-28T12:36:16.537-08:00Psychiatry in Medical Damage.Hello Everyone !<br />
<br />
Hope you are feeling great !<br />
<br />
I want to begin to talk about antibiotic damage in this blog. It`s a huge subject, but let`s make a start with the help of W.D.D.T.Y., What Doctors Don`t Tell You. And, please, if you HAVE to take an antibiotic, always take a probiotic at the same time, optimally at a time that is furthest away from when you take your antibiotic, during your course, and for a few weeks after you finish. <a href="http://www.wddty.com/">www.wddty.com/<br />
</a><br />
<br />
My mother has just had to take an antibiotic for a localised infection and on top of my concerns about her taking an antibiotic, let alone a broad spectrum antibiotic, I knew that her already having a candida overgrowth puts her at greater risk.<br />
<br />
The medical profession wont test what sort of infection you have in order to treat it, they use a generalised hit or miss approach and usually a "broad spectrum" antibiotic.(A friend of mine was subjected to this mindless pot-shot-with-different-antibiotics strategy even in Harley Street !) The problem with broad spectrums is that they knock out your healthy gut flora at the same time. It is absolutely imperative, therefore, that you top up your gut flora to prevent your gut being taken over by bad flora when you come off the antibiotic. It is tragic indeed that doctors STILL do not tell patients to do this. One wonders just how many cases of M.E./ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome would have been averted had doctors given this very simple advise. As we all know, so many cases of M.E. begin after taking an antibiotic... and with research desperately trying to steer everyone away from attributing antibiotic gut damage to the cause of a huge number of cases, we must try to spread the word in order to TRY to protect people.<br />
<br />
I want, also, in this blog to take a preliminary look at the role of psychiatry in covering up medical damage. I was reminded of its role in such cases last week when my mother told me that my grandfather had been given an antibiotic in the late 1960s which caused hallucinations. I had been completely unaware of this episode in our lives as I had been a young child at the time. My grandfather was hospitalised in a psychiatric hospital for a few weeks and was given Phenobarbitone as a remedy. Interesting, so a psychiatric drug was used to clean up the mess! Well, what a big surprise !!<br />
<br />
I think, though, that the close connexion between psychiatry and medical damage is more systemic than we imagine... Certainly, I think that the history of M.E. as a illness, carrying as it does attributions of "psychological causes", only confirms my belief that M.E. is largely an iatrogenic condition. Even today when there has been some presented "proof" that M.E. is a physical illness, psychiatry still has a foot in the door, indeed many "treatments" for ME are based upon the idea that this is a psychological illness. <b>Many people with ME, especially women, are still abused by doctors </b> who have a distinct and psychologically transparent need to hurt their patients by blaming THEM for being ill....(and, yes, women are still being given psychiatric labels in the 21st century for physical illness).<br />
<br />
Now, using only very basic psychological understanding, we know that when someone in this kind of situation, here a doctor, tries to blame the victim it is because they <b>know they are guilty</b> (I have discussed in other blogs that this is not necessarily conscious, and indeed, why it is not). Guilt-shifting behaviour.......and pushing people into psychiatry is part of that..... TELLS us that doctors know that they have something to hide. It is in fact the <b>very involvement of psychiatry </b>that signals to us that something very dubious is afoot.Patients with illnesses where doctors don`t have guilt knocking at their conscience, will not generally be sent to a psychiatrist or be accused of being lazy!<br />
<br />
Of course, conditions such as A.D.H.D. also have the classic hallmark of guilt-shifting. A physical illness that manifests after vaccination, that demonstrates clearly as a gut disorder, yet is an illness that is the province of psychiatry, tells us that guilt avoidance is at work on a very large scale.<br />
<br />
It is strange indeed that despite research showing, too, that depression is widely a gut disorder, doctors are hell-bent upon treating it as a psychiatric condition. One doesn`t have to ask why this would be, actually, because it is clear that if other causes were acknowledged for so called "mental illness", psychiatry and all its drugs would lose billions. Incentive enough to perpetuate the myth of mental illness? I think so. It is in this way, where vested interest, guilt avoidance and financial concerns, can be seen to underlie the very diagnoses we take for granted. <b>We assume that ALL diagnoses are underpinned with scientific research that is real and objective and altruistic, don`t we?</b> I certainly did in my healthy and naive younger days.... But just this little dip into the subject shows us that scientific research is propelled by vested interest and that attributed causes of illness can be subjective. I have said many times that there is in research such a thing as "unwanted results", data that is unacceptable. Maybe you can`t believe that this could be true? Well, simply ask yourself if research that proved that allergies, from asthma to food intolerance, were caused by vaccinations, would this research be permitted? <br />
<br />
The truth about antibiotics is slowly coming out, drip by drip, and not in the far distant future the whole truth will out. <br />
<br />
If you have allergies, your kids have A.D.H.D. or A.S.D., if you have depression or any mental illness, please check this out, below:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.gaps.me/?page_id=20 ">www.gaps.me/?page_id=20 <br />
</a><a href="http://community.wddty.com/blogs/adverse_reactions/ - Cached">community.wddty.com/blogs/adverse_reactions/ - Cached<br />
</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Please also take a look at the group S.C.D.UK on Yahoo <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SCDUK ">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SCDUK </a>S.C.D. is a diet used to heal the gut. It has helped many, many people with M.E./F.M.S., depression, and specific gut illness such as Crohns.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/ ">www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/ </a><br />
<br />
Gut and Psychology Syndrome is THE primary resource. It explains the how, what, where and why the gut is behind many illnesses. Please do take a look: <br />
<a href="http://www.gutandpsychologysyndrome.com">www.gutandpsychologysyndrome.com</a>Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-23382055717093872922010-08-14T04:45:00.000-07:002015-02-28T11:50:55.666-08:00Teachers who Bully (4)So why did the female teachers in my Primary School stand by and do nothing?<br />
<br />
We can example this to try to understand why people in all sorts of situations allow bullying. I think the fact that in this case they were women probably bears testimony to the era, yet still today are women disempowered in relation to men even though women have claimed respect in the intervening decades. But, in a sense, as we have discussed often in this blog, it is not so much "who", a woman or whomsoever, finds themselves subordinate in any given situation, it is simply the imbalance of power. I suppose it does a disservice to victims if I say that victims allow themselves to be bullied, but really in stark reality it is weakness that gives a green light to bullies. This is why children are in this position by default with adults, as are the elderly. But of course the fact that one is a timorous individual or non-confrontational, should not legitimise bullying behaviour, yet bullies, by their nature, are not going to restrain themselves on account of the virtues of others around them. Certainly not ! Bullies are <b>parasitic</b> upon weakness.<br />
<br />
So, let`s go back to our two female teachers who egregiously let a sadist victimise two children of about 7 or 8 years old. ..... Well, to begin with, one of them was the man`s wife, so let`s take a look at her: as his wife she would have needs to try to maintain a good relationship with her husband. Her vested interest in her marriage would certainly take primacy over the protection of two children. How could she rail against him publicly? Undoubtedly his wrath would be vented upon her, either at that point, or in private. It may have caused a marriage breakup or at least strife for many days. Personally I would think, his wife being a mild little person, that she would be living her life with this man as someone she had to comply with,his being the Headmaster compounded this.<br />
And of the other woman? Well, she had children in the school as well as having a good job near to home. I would imagine that to make a stand upon a matter such as this would have lead to her dismissal, personal upset and inconvenience. Given this, I would say that her intervention would be "impossible".<br />
<br />
So these two individuals, in passive complicity with this bully, had more at stake personally than would rouse them to defend two small, terrified children. Doesn`t this perfectly explain how it is that we all can have such fears that we can become accomplices to the bullies around us? The pay-back is just too serious for us, so we let things go whilst knowing that what we see is immoral. I have certainly done this myself, though I`ll let myself off the hook in regard to not protesting at injustices in my school days !<br />
"Good people stand by and do nothing." Well, of course this is not always the case, but it is often of personal risk to help a victim, and good people tend to have less courage because they are much less "in the animal" than the people they are up against. Often, good people have a more dominant sensitive side, are not so confrontational or aggressive, and find animal competitiveness unsavory.<br />
<br />
What do we do then, when we know that we have turned a blind eye to something like this? I don`t know how these two women tried to square it with their consciences because I have never talked to them about it.(Suffice it to say that this incident, cited, was one of a catalogue of abuses...) I can only shrewdly surmise that the compartmental conscience would kick in with excuses such as "we were powerless to stop it", or maybe blaming the children,"if they had been honest and had confessed, this would not have happened", or a classic guilt avoidance would be to tell yourself that it wasn`t really as bad as you thought at the time ! Any or all of these things would enable these two teachers to continue their lives without conscience, the crime paling in their minds with every year that passed.<br />
<br />
Of course, when people do make a stand, with any moral imperative, there has to be real courage. I am lucky (wow! what a thing to say!) that my father was a serious and sadistic bully and my mother a meek and well mannered person. Lucky?????? Am I mad, you might be thinking!!! No I am not mad, I can reassure you, it`s just that given that all of my childhood is unchangeable, I feel so privileged that I can analyse the crime scene (my home) of my father`s bullying, knowing all the background affecting the game-play. Just as I can understand as a witness the animal behaviours in my Primary School. <br />
<br />
<br />
I`m coming back to this. Please chip in if you feel inclined !!! Let me know if you know of instances of bullying and where you have assessed the vested interest of people to not help the victim..."Protect those more powerful than you for your own sake" is the animal game.<br />
<br />
<i>Please see back to my other blogs titled: "Classrooms: Survival of the Fittest. "</i>Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-82264821200531970172010-07-27T03:07:00.000-07:002015-02-28T11:45:05.074-08:00Teachers who Bully (3)In contrast to, me my sister was a whiz at maths. Not sure why, but she seemed to "get" all the little bits that defeated my sense of logic ! Maybe she just picked up little subtleties that escaped me or maybe she just accepted the rules as presented and didn't question them, I don`t know.<br />
There were several children from middle class homes who were in the top half dozen in all subjects in this class a few years below me. All through my sister`s primary education things went well, usually with her vying for top spot in the class against the odds determined by favouritism.<br />
Then something very strange happened: the Headmaster marked her way down for maths in her last report. When she arrived in secondary school she was in a C.S.E. set. Not only was this deeply upsetting to her to be down-graded and split from her friends, it was also a serious injustice because her maths was always more than excellent. Of course, no one questioned or challenged teachers in those days so nothing was done. My sister had to go through Secondary School in this set and received a CSE in maths. Since she wanted to be an architect or a surveyor this caused massive problems later on.<br />
<br />
This example is a classic in the annals of animal behaviour. My sister was deliberately disadvantaged by a man who clearly did not like us and who, as a bully, was able to hurt children in any way he wanted to off the bat of his paranoia. Of course other children were very badly disadvantaged by his displeasure at them too; me included ! The reason for exploring this though, is to demonstrate just how the jockeying of our animal drives plays out in a group environment like a Primary School.<br />
Whether a child wins or loses in school has little to do with their intelligence. When I arrived in Secondary School, a refugee from teacher bullying, a child made to fail, I would obviously fail in an even tougher animal environment. There would be no one to pick up the pieces, no one to restore my pride, self-esteem or love of learning. I absolutely loved history, music, reading, nature studies, well everything, actually, at the start of my learning, and left Primary School stupid and utterly defeated. The greater tragedy is that this is the sob story for a huge percentage of young children.<br />
<br />
But I promised to talk in this blog about why, in the face of my biggest scoff at class teaching and its population of non-specialist teachers, I am a supporter of Home Education. Surely, you might be thinking, the same problem would apply? Parents are non-specialists in many, if not most, of the subjects required in home learning.. so why should I accept this at home if I don`t accept it in schools? <br />
<br />
I think the simple explanation is that in a classroom a teacher cannot attend to detail, even if they wanted to. "Rote" is the hammer of necessity. At home, even if a parent is not the most understanding of maths, he/she can search-out why a child does not understand and learn more himself to enable greater understanding. The learning together process is the enabler. Further, a parent does not want his child to fail. This seems obvious doesn`t it, so why state it? Well, as we have said in this blog, a class teacher has inbuilt animal motivations,usually not conscious, let`s be a bit kinder and say that they show "expressions of their own psychological makeup" which impacts in different ways upon the children they teach<i>.(For example,the willingness of teachers to see children with so called A.D.H.D.as needing medication is a conformity to the larger animal pack`s need to label and "runtify"*,as I call it, children who are a problem to the healthy and successful larger social picture.Teachers accommodate and support doctors' needs to push these children onto medication because they instinctively want to support the medical profession. Please see my later blog, "Psychiatry in Medical Damage".)</i> They disable and disadvantage some, teachers-pet-ify and feed success to others. If your child, in a classroom environment, is the child the class teacher does not like or maybe your child doesn`t "get it" in the way I didn`t, he/she may be seriously disabled by the teacher. Parents who home educate their children are wanting to make learning enjoyable and to furnish all its joys and success. In a class situation it is not possible to give this to every child, both because of the numbers of children involved and group dynamics.<br />
<br />
Please join me again later.<br />
<br />
Some of my readers may have had experiences like these and I hope you will tell me about them......If you have been educationally damaged, please always remember that the class system is a master of imposed failure! Just because you have been made to fail does not mean that you are unintelligent. It is very hard to escape being made to be stupid, I know. That kind of imprinting is hard to shift. Maybe some of you have reached a point where you know that you are intelligent after all, maybe some have not realised this yet, but I think that <b>knowing</b> how classrooms function and <b>why</b> will help us to support ourselves.<br />
<br />
* <i>Runtify: this is my pejorative term for "natural selection".</i>Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-32171196625578906892010-07-24T12:41:00.001-07:002015-02-28T11:38:01.386-08:00Teachers Who Bully (2)So, my Primary School Headmaster was a big bully. This took many forms on different levels. He overtly bullied lower class children, sometimes he was bullying concerning their education too, as he was with me. <br />
<br />
I`ll outline what happened to me personally to enable some thought on this.. Well, I did not "get" sums at all. I tried very hard to arrive at the answers he wanted, yet failed even when I thought I had cracked how to do it. Failing led to ridicule, name calling and his vicious temper. I remember one day being kept behind after school because I could not understand fractions; he went on and on about cutting various slices of cake. I was too frightened to listen. I felt ashamed and humiliated and very disturbed by the implication of guilt levelled at me by being detained.<br />
But there is not just a random, temperamental need to bully in a person like this: a child like me unwittingly probed his deepest feelings of inadequacy and loss of control. Of course, someone who is not a specialist maths teacher will fatally flounder when they attempt to teach even primary school children in a class environment:they don`t understand the subject. I triggered the vulnerability of his mathematical stupidity and he saw me, little frightened me, as a threat. Indeed, he attributed my inabilities as defiance, a personal affront to him ! The compartmental conscience kicked in and he therefore "saw" me as the guilty party and himself as the "abused".<br />
<br />
A classic example was in class one day when I was giving the wrong answers to some basic sums to do with adding up apples, oranges, bananas,etc., pictures of which were up on the board... With mounting anger he was trying to force me to add up some apples and oranges. I sat there terrified and befuddled. How can you add up apples and oranges ? I thought. He was foaming again, "Answer meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee", he yelled. "Surely you can add up three oranges and two apples. What is the answer?" Thumping heart. Terrified. He wants the wrong answer, I thought. I can`t give the wrong answer because it`s wrong, so I`ll give the right answer. "Fruit juice", I said. Rage, white foam on his lips, shouting. I sat rigid. Somehow the ridiculous man didn`t know that he had asked me to define these items as "fruit" before I could add them up !!! Of course, as an adult, I knew this problem to be one of the "class paradox", but as a child I just knew that I could not do the sum.... Well, there were numerous examples of his having learned maths rote, with no understanding whatsoever......<br />
<br />
He would teach something as an unbreakable rule, like adding together and subtracting zero: 4 + 9 - 0 = 13. He would then be incredulous at a child`s stupidity when they did what they were told them to do in another situation: the unbreakable rule !!!!!! Thus, doing my best to do what he told me to do,as exampled in 4+9-0=13, I was certain that 0 x 4 = 0 and 4 x 0 = 4. If you have zero and you times it by four,I thought, you still have zero, because you had nothing in the first place, and if you have four apples and times them by zero, you still have four apples! It is THAT obvious he must be mad to tell me otherwise ! If you say that 4 x 0 = 0, what happened to the four apples you had ? Anyhow, so you get the idea :) <br />
<br />
I was frightened of maths forever because of him and switched off. Mind you, he made these absolute assertions in other areas, too ! One classic was, "there`s no such word as can`t " !!! Now, this was something I knew to be untrue ! I had seen "can`t" in lots of books and I now knew this man was stupid and a liar! <br />
<br />
This both illustrates how a teacher can damage someones learning potential with bullying, but also shows just how non-specialist teachers do incalculable damage to children in Primary School. Fact: unless you understand a subject fully, which this man patently did not, you cannot teach it to children except to the level of your own ignorance. It is a myth that children, being at such a low level of learning, don`t need specialist teachers. The contrary is true: if you don`t get teaching right at this early age, you can destroy a child's learning potential in this subject forever. <br />
<br />
In later years I saw just how true this is. In my direct experience as a specialist recorder teacher, I saw how the teaching of this instrument in class by teachers who are no more than dabblers, damaged the potential of so many children to play the instrument,advance as musicians, and to fulfil themselves. Why? Because incorrect articulation, breathing, hand positions were taught on a huge scale. And what is worse, this was thought to be OK, simply because they were little children and it didn't matter. I remember taking over at a Prep School and receiving more than 30 boys to teach individually. All had been disastrously taught and the mess had to be undone.....somehow!<br />
<br />
Well, it is as true for maths as it is for recorders. <br />
<br />
In general terms, though, damaging kids learning, setting them up to fail, making sure they go into the bottom set.... This is how groups reward the kids they want to be winners and <b>make fail the others</b>. It is not a mistake. It is all part of societies animal structure and is carried out as part of our natural instincts. My Primary Head liked parents who were "well to do", who flattered him, people more like him, he hated those who were lower class, whose children didn`t wear a uniform or were problematic.(He wanted the children he LIKED to do well.) So how did he make sure certain kids failed? Well, it`s simple, you are unkind to them, you shout, make them wrong, all the things you can to make them fail at their learning. Little of this is conscious, of course, we work on basic instincts, group animal motivations, and these behaviours we learn when we are children and grow up largely unaware of our motives. People of more awareness and sensitivity will be less likely to behave like this, many, though, are functioning, sadly, at a much lower level.<br />
<br />
So there is <b>actively</b> making kids fail with bullying and less directly with disapproval and criticism and not SHOWING them how things are done.<br />
<br />
<br />
So, why am I so passionate about Home Education if I so much disdain dilettantism in teaching?<br />
<br />
Please join me shortly.....Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-11801258406574815422010-07-18T09:38:00.000-07:002015-02-28T11:23:53.282-08:00Teachers who Bully.My Primary School Headmaster was a bully. He mostly bullied children of parents he didn`t like or children from poor families, considered at the time to be "lower class".<br />
<br />
Well, this is nothing unusual. It has always happened in schools and still happens today. In those days it was considered to be acceptable to use corporal punishment and "bullying" wasn`t a focus for human rights like it is today. Still, even in those days, there were really sadistic bullies in powerful positions who could virtually do what they liked in their schools with no fear of parents or police.(How things have changed! It used also to be the case that a call to the police for domestic violence would meet with a "it`s of no concern to us"! response !!! )<br />
<br />
<b>Where was Robert Donat?<br />
</b><br />
Well, I jest, but the movie "The Winslow Boy " made a huge impression upon me when I was a child. I was a sensitive child, deeply aware of injustice and deeply concerned for other children. Films like this gave me a sense of external justice, outside of myself, and demonstrated "right" in a way that helped me appraise any situation I was witness to. I have always carried this following example of my Headmaster`s cruelty and injustice with me, not just by the power of its cinematic imprint: it really shaped me as a person who would speak up for victims all of my life. The scene has never left me. It`s not just that I was powerless to stop it, but that I watched the interrogation of two children who were terrified, right up to the singularly sadistic conclusion of this bullies callous and demented vengeance and I will never forget that the women teachers stood by and did <b>nothing...</b> ( I hope to come back to why women, or anyone with lesser power, cannot raise their courage or awareness to intervene in this kind of situation.)<br />
<br />
What am I talking about?<br />
<br />
I was a child in a Church of England Primary School. The Headmaster was subject to rages against lower class children. One day he was at the front of the class with twins, furious, foaming at the mouth, accusing them of stealing a Mars Bar from the village shop. The shop keeper had seen one of them do it, but he did not know which one because they were twins. The Head went on and on at them, assailing them verbally, relentlessly, they would not say if they had taken it or which one of them did it. We all watched in horror. As their refusal to speak made him more angry, the stakes became higher and higher. They had disgraced the school. How dare they pull down the reputation of his school? He was foaming. I knew the signs: he had reached the same state of insanity when I couldn`t understand how to do fractions. Tension increased. I felt so sorry for the children.But I could not stop it. Two women teachers were turning a blind eye. Even if I could have done something, I would have been too scared to try. I wanted to.<br />
<br />
He then delivered the mind-numbing ultimatum: "confess which one of you did it or I will cane you both." Silence. Their little faces blank with fear. They said nothing. <br />
<br />
He ordered them into his office behind the classroom and caned them. We all heard it. I never forgot. And to me, it says everything about power and powerlessness. Everything about injustice. Everything about human nature and the ways of the world. <br />
<br />
Where was Robert Donat?<br />
<br />
I am coming back to this blog very soon to discuss the damage teachers..and especially bullying teachers... can do to children. If you would like to chip in with some comments, please do.Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214412597548183258.post-80524738792385501302010-07-12T12:41:00.000-07:002015-02-27T03:53:15.409-08:00Why Improve Ourselves (3) ?Hi Everyone! Nice to see you!<br />
<br />
What do you get if you are in a fidelitous relationship? Well, assuming that both parties don`t stray, the gains are trust and security and closeness along with knowledge of rightful conduct. We feel good about ourselves when we know that we are loved exclusively and when we know that we can trust that this has permanence. But fidelity alone doesn`t make for a good relationship. There isn`t much gain if the relationship is abusive or without mutuality in the first place, though loving someone whom you also know to be loyal to you is a tremendous bonus. <br />
<br />
Now, are these conclusions just moralising in disguise? I don`t think so. The point is to find out what we get from a position that could be seen as moral and right. However, let`s look at what happens when we don`t behave in this way at all, when one or both people in a relationship have intimate liaisons with others unbeknown to each other. <br />
<br />
Well, it`s a thrill for many to cheat and to try not to be caught. Most cheats have a great time hiding their behaviour and things only begin to unravel when they get caught. I see this behaviour as founded in the way a child begins to hide from their parent, seeking an identity of their own: the spouse or partner becomes the parent, in fact, and the straying adult seeks an affair as a sign of independence against the parent they still carry with them in their adult world.<br />
<br />
The main thing to realise is that once a person has had an affair, the pre-affair level of trust cannot be reclaimed. Cannot. Anything following is just a patch-up. Both parties suffer, one knows that they will not henceforth be trusted and the other feels pain at having been lied to and betrayed. To both the blemish is unrecoverable. There is a stain forever. The guilty party who has had the affair, feels guilt, of course, and venom from their partner, and the guilt they suffer compounds the problem, making it MORE likely that they will have another affair as they need to escape guilt and recriminations. I am tempted to say that the offending party needs to "start with a clean sheet" elsewhere!!! Well, let`s say that they need someone who views them in a positive light, which approval they now cannot get from their partner. With their partner enraged at them, they need someone with whom to seek solace and good regard! Indeed, the reaction of their partner can be cited as the cause of their straying behaviour.<br />
<br />
So a whole cycle of guilt and anger and revenge and embitterment is set up by one indiscretion. Promises of faithfulness now ensue... and the stakes are very high indeed. "If you do it again, I`ll leave you!" Mistrust is a corrupting enemy, causing loss of respect for the other person and loss of self-respect too. No one gains from feeling that they have to spy on their partner... and how do you love someone whom you disrespect enough to spy on them? Indeed the erring partner now becomes a child, to be watched, controlled and maligned and the other becomes the parent, with the moral high ground. We can see that a relationship can hardly be conducted in terms of parent-child and this, of course, is the central problem when breaches of trust occur.The parent role here destroys adult love because a parent-child relationship is one devoid of sexual love,being rooted in a nurturing inequality.. (It`s funny how we snap back into our relationship model, our parents, at every juncture!!!) And it is the quality of our parent's relationship with each other, and thence with us, that dictates our spousal behaviour. What a surprise !<br />
<br />
The difficulty with the fidelity issue is when one person in a partnership is "able to be" faithful and one is not. In open relationships too, satiety does not ultimately bring the gains that liberty might be seen to offer. Jealousy still pulls people apart, it eats away at consensual adultery and certainly does not earn the peace and security ostensibly bound up in "lets both be guilty". It really is just an attempt to make acceptable polygamous behaviour and, essentially, circumvent any guilt that might otherwise be felt. Hmmmmmmm..... Guilt avoidance yet again !<br />
<br />
<br />
Back soon....Eyehearerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16520794056580650401noreply@blogger.com0