Suicide -- Nature or Nurture?

Does suicide run in families?
Why might suicide run in families?

 

Some observers think that there may be a more accepting attitude in families where this has happened.Or that it is more tolerated as being something of a family trait.
This is what scientists call the 'nurture' effect. (Actually, I doubt scientists call it that among themselves, but it's the general population understanding of what scientists call it. They probably refer to it ad "Environmental Effects of X on Y")


There may be something to this. If the inevitability is accepted,does that make it acceptable?
If a child grows up being told how much he is just like the charming, entertaining Uncle Waldo -- such a card! -- will he grow up to be another Uncle Waldo?
What if, after the show is over and the lights have gone down, Uncle Waldo couldn't live with his image or his heartbreak -- if Uncle Waldo committed suicide, will Uncle Waldo's relative then get a free pass to do the unthinkable?

It may help the surviving family to think so. There may be an easing of grief and guilt by blaming it on family history.
Family history may be to blame that symptoms went unacknowledged.. The reason why no help was sought, because the story is more lively than the backstory. Because the entertainment has more 'body' than the ending.

But how much of that is Nature. Depression is a physically caused illness that affects the mind. Depression runs in families. So far as I know, specific genes have not been found, but there have been indications of gene markers, whatever they are.

I liken the nature of the disease depression to the disease diabetes.
If your family has a history of late 30/ early 40s young adults sinking into coma a coma, is it acceptable to shrug and say, "Oh well, he's just like Uncle Waldo"?
Of course not.
When the coma happens, or the despair -- it's time to look for medical answers. They do exist.
In the case of the diabetic, it's easily diagnosed and usually easily treated.
Depression is not as easy, but there are treatments and therapies. Just as the diabetic needs to adjust dosages and behaviors, so does the depressed patient.


But if the diagnosis and treatments can't be adjusted quickly enough, in either case, the  sufferer will die as a function of his disease.
Not because he is just like Uncle Waldo, but because he suffered from the same (genetically influenced) disease.

I suppose, like most things, it is a combination of the two effects. Not nature vs nurture, but nature&nurture. Plus individuality.

What I would like to do is to urge anyone with suicide as a family trend, is to learn and be alert to the signs of this disease (or any related illness). Don't watch and worry -- that would be enough to make a sane person crazy -- but be aware.

It's not just the family history -- it's the family future.

Meth Madness

Once again, the Authorities are going overboard. A recent news story reported the confiscation of meth making materials from a home with small children. No one was arrested, no one was charged (yet), and the report included the information that  no apparatus for making meth was found.
The news story concluded with a picture of the (presumed) confiscated goods. A plastic bucket with a brush, some plastic or rubber gloves, and a whole bunch of cleaning supplies.

My brother remarked that they wouldn't have confiscated anything for a box of Nyquil and a bottle of Drano. Maybe, maybe not. Small town police departments have a way of deciding guilt first, then looking for proof.

Anyway, anyone can have a lot of any or many things, depending on how or where and when they shop.
We get one check a month -- not welfare, if it matters to you. So, I try to buy everything I need, or may need, at one time. This includes 2 boxes of mucinex-d type medicines and 2 boxes of Alka Seltzer Plus. Both are dr reccommended for my husband, who has COPD. He can take the mucus tablets 4 times a day if needed, but 2 x seems to keep that problem at bay. The alka-seltzer plus helps, as well as helping with hydration. But that's relatively unimportant.

 I also buy Thera-flu and Benadryl and sometimes generic children's dimetapp.
Plus I buy toilet bowl cleaner and occasionally Drano.

I'm not making meth -- I'm budgeting.

Other budgeting strategies include buying in bulk, especially at shopping clubs. One of my niece-in-laws has been an intense couponer, which also can result in buying in bulk.

Is she making meth? Am I making meth?

No, but apparently, if the authorities come into my home, or hers, we run the risk of having our responsible spending confiscated and our names going into public record for suspicious activity. Because we shop smart.

Law makers are once again responding to lawbreakers by making it more difficult for the law abiding to just live their lives.

Perhaps the popular definition of insanity should be legislated, and then --THEN -- someone will have the legal right to say That Does NOT work.

Bull about bullying

It's wonderful (?) to see the advertising about stopping bullying. It really is.
It's just too damned bad none of them offer any advice worth the breath
Every one of them starts -- and usually ends -- with the words "Tell an adult"

Ha! Haha! Hahaha! Fill this page with a maniacal (as in maniac) laugh.

If telling an adult was a solution, bullying would have been stomped out a long time ago.

Adults want proof, and witnesses. Most bullying happens away from witnesses, on purpose.

Adults, especially within the school system, don't believe beat-up and defeated kids. They just don't. You have to be 'famous' or pretty or well-dressed to have any credibility in the eyes of the authority. And if you are the big star or the beautiful one, you could not possibly be the one doing the bullying.No athlete has ever thrown someone into the wall, no pretty girl with pretty clothes has ever dumped the books of the smart ones that are ordinary looking.

The anti-bullying campaign is a good thing. I'm not arguing with that. But there need to be new solutions.The current 'solutions' are what has allowed bullying to become as out of control as it is.

Tell an adult, yes. But tell an adult from somewhere else. If you are being bullied at Red School, go talk to someone at Green School. And then Blue School. You'll get the same no

"no proof, no witness" speeches, but an outside source is more likely to write a report, or make a phone call in a professional capacity. No pats on the shoulder and instant dismissal of the very notion.

And cyber-bullying? Well, if no excuses, no tolerance became the standard -- if ALL our children were held accountable for ALL their behavior -- if there were CONSEQUENCES -- there'd  be a lot less of that.

Parents and principals -- quit making excuses.
You are the guilty ones; you are too blame. Children are children, or at last start out that way. It is you who create the monsters by closing your eyes.

It is NOT the victims' job to prevent the crime. 

finding fairies

I began with the fractured memories a fractured strobe of a forgotten theme, but one with a title, a phrase that repeats in my mind: The Sinner Cannot Hold.

Over time, I begin to hold the images for a few seconds longer than the strobe flashes. A fountain. Three or four females. Compass points radiating from/relating to the fountain. Many background of red-and-black, projecting a feeling of menace; in contrast to the light and water and spray-rainbows of the women and the fountain

My dear heaven, is my mind, or my muse, heading me into some post-apocalyptic drama? That type of story is not quite my thing, but I'm always willing to learn as a writer. Also as a writer, one must go where one is led.

The women begin to come clearer. They seem to have finely spun wings, although their clothing is heavy and ragged.
They are looking for something, perhaps from the four corners of the world.

Then life gets in the way of the creative process -- or does it?

My granddaughter came for a week long visit. There's nothing new in that. She probably spends one week a month with us. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but that's the average.

This child has a creative imperative of her own. She draws. She sees colors with a depth and intensity that I can observe, but never see. I am in awe of her Great Ability. This three (then) year old child drawing faces on envelopes, calendar squares, and any other available scrap of paper is not so different from my own scrabbling to record a phrase -- such ad 'the sinner cannot hold' on any scrap available to me. It's not so different from a brief description of an image. Not so different from the need to put into words the Visions that Fill the Mind's Eye.

Her last few visits, she had drawn fairies. Tinkerbell is her main model, but she can and will discourse on the differences, although her vocabulary is mainly limited to color. But the different colors do different things.

During her most recent visit, she not only drew her multi colors of fairies, she had to hang them up. Not on the refrigerator. No, that wasn't where they belonged. They had to go on the walls around my bed. They had to be hanged in a precise array, in an exact order, and they had to stay there. A falling fairy was an urgent problem.

It was not until after she went home that I began to wonder. Fairies? Around my bed? The same bed where I dream of fairylike females as a bright spot of air and water as an oasis against a backdrop of dark and angry?

Am I incorporating her fairies into my musings? Is she seeing the fairies I am trying to place and put into words? Are there fairies around my bed that are unseen save by the unconscious mind of the dreamer and the innocent open mind of a child?

Is this an example of the Creative Synchronicity that sometimes happen, especially when there are great grave events in the outer, physical world?

What do you think?

Blame in Boston

Yesterday, someone or someones blew up the finish line at the Boston Marathon. People were hurt -- a former political in from Ohio was quoted as talking about arms and legs falling everywhere. An eight year old child was killed. The death count is probably not yet final, as the injured try to recover and some may not be able to withstand the shock.

Someone seems to have thought it would fun to blow up a garbage can. Maybe. At this time, that's the most consistent story I've heard of the actual bomb. I don't know if it's true.

I'm ashamed, though, of the immediate reaction of too many fellow Americans. The first impulse of those. The first thought of too many of us who could not be there "doing" is to decide which foreigners they should blame. Which Arabs.

Now, it is possible that this was Middle-eastern based. It seems unlikely to me. None of them have stepped up to brag about it. Of course, it's possible they feel it was a failure, as only three died, and there are talks of five or twelve other bombs planted everywhere around the city -- and a fire in a library that was NOT involved.

Let's not place blame until there's been time to look around.. Let the healing begin, let the families regroup, let the experts take a look before we even think of who we can blame. Let's have cause.

I do wish the media would back off. At this point, they are only spreading hysteria and possibly misinformation.
"new information" was just headlined, but the new information is yet another runner talking about he was just running long and heard an explosion and saw smoke. Umm-- sorry. The first thing known was there was an explosion and smoke. A new mouthpiece is not new information. Let's not confuse the two.

The Boston Marathon is a race. A race where endurance and completion of equal importance to winning, being first.
Let's use that objective and have that goal, in finding the perpetrators and punishing them. The first -- runner,or  thought is not always the finest

Welcome Warren

It's been a while. I apologize. One of the many new distractions was the birth of my grandson Warren Daniel Ruhstaller. He was born March 29. He's a tiny little fellow, especially since his mommy had got to be so huge in the last few weeks before his birth We were expecting at least a seven pounder instead of barely making five-and--half.

He looks just like Hailey, his big sister, did. My daughter says that she had the same baby twice. Looking at the pictures, if Hailey's picture wasn't in a beautiful multi-colorred dress, it would be hard to tell which child was which.

Rex hasn't seen him yet. We're hoping to get that organized, but timing  hasn't yet worked.  The baby has had dr appointments and wellness checks, Tam is trying to organize some type of support for her family while she's off work,   But new baby's are always a bit of a fuss, and always precious.
Now, days begin to settle back to normality.

Until the thunderstorms start rolling in.

Making Marriage and Family

Marriage today is a hot topic, with Supreme Court hearing different issues about marriage. Should same gender couples be allowed to marry? Should mixed race couples be allowed to marry? Should working class be allowed to marry out of their class.

More importantly, at least to me, is the question of whether individual sites or the nation as a whole determine who can marry whom. If your state has decided to accept it, can the Feds refuse?

 The truth is, they can. they made the decision to do so way back in the 1990s when the great US of A decided it no longer needed to recognize common law marriage, no matter what the states said. These marriages -- made in homes, not courts or churches,  made in private, not in public -- these marriages made after the effective date, are simply not recognized by the Federal government.

Also not new is the ability of one state to ignore a marriage legal in another state. Part of the Cultural Revolution was an attempt to consolidate divorce laws. Many people had to go and get their divorce in the state they were married in for the divorce to be legal. To this day, different states have different requirements to become divorced. Waiting period, legal separation, mediation, etc.

As you can see, the marriage question and Federal meddling is not a new issue.

Federal definition of a family is a newer consideration. In the olden days, families, even mixed and adoptive families, were a group of people who resided together in a private residence. 3 sisters could live together, or a sister, a son-in-law and an unrelated widow could be the Smiths or the Jones family. It wasn't a big deal to anyone -- until the government and the money-makers got involved. The insurance companies, who are my version of the Antichrist.
Once upon a time, an insurance company decided it didn't have to pay a survivorship policy to the unrelated widow who had "kept house" for decades.
Grief-stricken, old, possibly alone, and probably poor, she couldn't or didn't fight back.
Other avaricious industries took note, and began following that precedent. By the time someone was willing and able to fight, the precedent had become policy.

"Family" should be decided by proximal society, not by moneymakers.
"Family" should be defined by other family members, not those who don't know sense from cents.

Spring, oh Spring

where are you, Spring? The calendar says you are here, but a look out the window says it just isn't snow. I mean so.
Because it is snow. In places, it is a lot of snow.

I like snow. It has a way of prettying up a drab world, abd it spreads light in a dark season.  It isn't rain, and it isn't dull gray sky and it isn't soggy dripping, muddled brown trees. It' snow, and it's clean and bright.

But it isn't spring; it's not a usual part of Springtime.

Last year, we had no winter, practically. We had record-breaking, record setting high temperatures. Without a proper winter, we skipped from right into summer, skipping over spring.  Flowers and fruits rushed to cstch up, and cheated themselves of the leisurely growth that adds flavor and color to the fruits and flowers.

 The weather-wise, in February, began shaking their heads and murmurring about "a BIG one". It seems someone says that every year, but there's usually a truth beehind it. Weatherbalances itself, and if thete is a wild careen on one side of the scale, the reciprocating bounce can be vicious.

Last year, the year of no winter, was proof of that. No winter rushed into Early summer, witha twist.

Make that twister. s.

People I knew, places I've been were harmed by that rush into summer. (For me, no immediate family, but I shudder still at how close it was.) Many people lost homes and family when warm weather came too quickly.

I, like everyone else I know, am tired of winter. I'm ready for Spring.  I want the green and groeing season, sun on my face, earth on my hands, blooms before my eyes.
But if Mother Nature this year wants to bless us with snow -- if "the big one" this year will be the cold covering beyond its time -- that's okay with me.
Coast-tocoast winter suits me more than coast-to-coadt whirlwinds. And that's just fine with me.

Moving up -- or is it down?

 We are looking for an other home, my husband and I. Age and health are making it difficult to keep up things where we are now, and those same factors have us a little homesick for the 'good old days' that get gooder as we get older.

We would like to go back to Mt. Orab. That's where we lived the longest, and our daughter and her child(ren) are there. We've lost time with the little one, and with the new boy due to arrive any day now -- or April 1) we don't want to lose any more time.
Plus not really knowing how much time Rex has.

After Mt. Orab, we would like to go to Georgetown, Williamsburg, or Bethel. Georgetown because it is close to Mt. Orab, and also closer to Bethel, where we both have family, and Ripley where I do. Williamsburg for the same reasons. Bethel because it's home for us both' before there was an us.
Of course, any surrounding neighborhood will do as well.

What we can pay in rent will depend on what utilities and such we will have to pay for additionally.Neither he nor I can do yardwork, and we are hoping our stay at home daughter will move on and away. We want to be long term tenants.
-
We have looked into government housing, for the simple reason that I won't be evicted when he dies. But, government apartments, that Great Refuge ofWelfare Whores,serial petty criminals, Baby-Makers (for income) find themselves "Unable" to help hard working people who have always paid their rent.

But -- our credit report is bad. None of the bad is rent, utilities, or other (with one exception) housing costs.

Therefore, we must continue to pay our rent and utilities in a place we can no longer afford. We must strive to maintain a yard with equipment we can no longer maintain or replace. Or use, as far as that goes.

This is how the State of Ohio supports their now unemployed and unemployable working class of the last several decades.

March Madness

It's the media-popularized time of the year known as March Madness. Once again, despite war and accidents, despite car crashes and violent smashes, despite missing children and murdered mothers, despite life and death proceeding as always, the most important question on the public's mind is "How are your brackets?"  

Some media outlets are brave enough to query "What do you think of March Madness?" The only acceptable response is of course what great fun it is and how it is looked forward to since last April, I presume.

Oh, they will occasionally cite a negative response so that the rest of the world can chuckle and shake their head at whatever the poor sap is missing. 

March Madness used to be about cabin fever, when winter and being confined made us crazy to get out and just go outside and do anything. Or stay inside and commit murder. March madness was the grass growing and the sap flowing and life surging against the icy bonds.

This modern definition of the term is to stay sitting inside, huddled around (or worshipping at the feet of) an electronic device while watching others run and jump and play. The worshippers then scribble and draw patterns on paper. Sometimes this is for the privilege (?) of being right; often it is for the exchange of other pieces of paper, usually green.

March Madness indeed.

When the green is showing beneath sludge and snow, peeking out from odd corners,; 

when the sun pours gold upon all who venture out; when daylight outlasts the dark night' why does anyone WANT to remain huddled in allegiance to a radiant square? When the air is fresh and clean and by breathing in you can taste the tang of green-and-growing things, why does anyone want to remain in a place that reeks of months of confinement? When spring is in the air, it is madness indeed to remain in stasis.